I think I need a vacation. I'm getting very violent with my phone at work. . . . . . . . . . . A lot of it has to do with my frustration at being unable to accomplish some personal goals. Networking more. Meeting people. Meeting that hot girl on the subway (more on that tomorrow). Having a life. Things that are being shoved to the side due to my ever increasing number of hours at work. 11 hours yesterday. 9.5 today. The reason I never went into graduate studies was because I didn't want to spend my life doing tedious crap for little pay for long hours. Now I'm doing personal tedious crap, for longer hours, for less, in a barely respectable job. Which, at the current rate, might not last too long either. Hmm, maybe buying that expensive new laptop and accessories wasn't such a hot idea. . . . . . . . . . . I'm falling behind my timetable for getting all the accessories and prepping my old and new laptops. Finally purchased Microsoft Money 2003 today. $20, plus $10 rebate. Spent the better part of the night turning off all the extra crap Microsoft insists each new generation should have. So I'll give it a go for a week, and if all goes well, it should be a seamless transition from accounting in the old laptop and accounting in the new laptop. The laptop bag, however, is still far behind. After work ran to not just one, but two Eddie Bauer stores. The one at 45th and 3rd Ave just ran out. The one at Broadway and Prince was totally useless. I wasn't in for more then 3 minutes when salesguy descended on me at the 45th St. store. He even went to the back to check if they were sold out. At Prince St., I could set myself on fire and still not get any help. Which is pretty ridiculous in a mostly empty store. If you are ever in the neighborhood, save yourself a lot of trouble and just skip that place. And their selection, oddly enough, sucks. And the bag is sold out online. I'll have to look at other options, which is gonna push back my plans to tote the new laptop to the library and do a full Windows/Toshiba/other software (Mozilla, OpenOffice, AdAware, etc.) updates/downloads. I used to really like Eddie Bauer stuff, I still tote around my 8 year old canvas briefcase, but the past four years have been utter crap. . . . . . . . . . . Back to the switch. D-Link at Best Buy is 29.99. Linksys at Best Buy or Circuit city is $39.99. Turns out I already had a spare cat 5 cable, so we're good there. Tomorrow I think I'll bite the bullet and get it.