I have a Wonder Woman mug at work. It’s my trademark mug and I love that mug. It feels right at home with all the other superhero stuff that adorns my office.

The nighttime cleaning crew have the habit of taking all dishes from offices, bringing them to the cafeteria to wash them, and then putting them away in the cafeteria cabinets. When this happens to my wonderful mug, someone invariably takes it in the morning for their coffee and brings it to their desk. Sometimes it disappears for days, and I always wonder whether I’ll ever see it again, if they’ll take it home, or break it. Deprived of my superpowers, I am haunted with horrible visions of who is drinking from my wonderful Wonder Woman mug, and what else they’re doing with it.

So, I left a post-it on the mug. Do not wash, it said.

The mug was washed.

I wrote another note, taped it to my desk, and put the mug on the note. Please do not remove this mug, it said.

The mug was removed.

I tried again, leaving dolls and CDs on top of the mug. All left intact the next day, minus mug.

Then this week, someone mentioned that they had heard a rumor that the cleaning crew is exclusively Spanish speaking. Desperate, I tested their theory with a last-ditch solution involving pictograms and a Babelfish translation:

And Eureka! The next morning, my mug awaited me, untouched, pristine and dirty. The sad saga of the wonderful Woman Woman mug is over, and never again shall I go without my superhero caffeine.

Watched the final episode ever of Six Feet Under last night. It’s worth watching the whole final season, nay, the whole series for that final episode. It’s so rare that television series end in a satisfying manner.

Watched the ending again this morning, and cried again. Beautiful.

I’ve just had my first fitness re-evaluation after one month with the trainer.

I’ve lost 7.5 pounds and 4% of fat composition.
Strength, always my strong suit, has gone from Good to Excellent (eg. from 22 pushups max to 35).
Flexibility, always my worst, has gone from Unrated (ie. so bad it’s not even on the scale) to Acceptable (ie. the worst thing on the scale).

Two more months to go, but the next evaluation is the day after E3. I doubt the results will be encouraging after a week of no sleep, no exercise, much indulgence and video games.

I am now starting on a new program, with a new trainer (my former one got promoted to a management position). I’ll keep you posted!

After four months of wedded bliss, my Windows XP PC decided this weekend it no longer recognized my iPod’s existence. In other words, I plug in the Shuffle, it charges, but iTunes keeps waiting for me to plug in an iPod, and I don’t see it as a removable disk in Explorer.

Shite. And I happen to have only 10 songs on it right now. I need that iPod to walk to work and back, to work out.

Go to Apple’s support web site, try everything there. No dice.

Call Apple service, and with them I try everything on the support site. No dice. The girl on the other end has a worryingly stumped tone to her voice. She says she’ll send me a procedure via e-mail, I should try it and get back to them if it doesn’t work.

I try it. It doesn’t work. I get back to them.

Of course I get a new representative, who tells me I’m not entitled to phone support, because I’ve had the iPod more than 90 days. I should go to their web site for support.

But I got service an hour ago! I say. “Well I do apologize for that, but” blah blah blah go to the web site.

I say I’ve been there, and the answers there don’t work. So what do I do for service now?

Buy the extended service coverage. How much? 59$ US. A new iPod Shuffle now costs 69$ US. F***ckers!

I decide to try to troubleshoot the issue myself. I find in online forums that a LOT of people have this issue, and try everything that is advised. Including restoring my computer to an earlier image and installing a brand new USB 2.0 card (80$ CAD). No joy.

Finally, I try the iPod on two other computers and get the same issue, so it’s the iPod. How can I possibly not get service for a defective unit when I’ve had it less than a year? Than six months, even?

I call Apple service again and simply say my iPod isn’t recognized by my computer any longer. To my surprise, the rep says they’ll send me a new one within two days. And this was only proposed to me on the third call, after (no exaggeration) about 7 hours of messing about, and 80$ for a USB card? This new one better work.

I’m in Chicago for a motion capture shoot. Despite a few heart attacks like the talent getting stuck at customs and two crewmembers missing their flight yesterday, we’re managing to have the time of our lives.

Chicago is a pretty city, especially if you’re looking in the right direction. I’ll have to be back for a closer look someday.