For the second time this year, workers digging new fiber trenches to AOL-West punctured a gas line - about 100 feet from where I'm sitting right now. Nobody has (yet) ordered an evacuation this time but they've barricaded the street a block away. I think I probably should go take a walk the other direction.

First day of summer in the new millenium and they have a beer bash at work. I've avoided several recently because they were to say the least boring. But free beer is free beer. So I went. They're celebrating the launch of Netscape 6.1 preview and giving away... squirt guns instead of the usual t-shirt. Blazing hot day, free alcohol, no shade, and everybody is armed with water projectiles with a dozen tubs of ice (water) strategically located (ostensibly to hold beer but that didn't last long). You can probably guess what happened next.

I had to note that you could tell the single folks from the married folks plain as the nose on your face. The single folks know how to play and I considered this an excellent screening opportunity. The married folks were all standing around giving disgruntled looks when an errant spray came their direction. The girls with no rings ended up soaked from head to toe. But they were dishing it out in equal measure. My favorite tactic was the 'slaughter at the watering hole'. Four or five people hunched around an ice tub refilling. They're all armed and are obviously players but temporarily unable to reciprocate. Easy targets. All in all it was the most fun event I've attended in five-point-five years at this place.