This is post 500. That's not 500 real posts, since the index covers all of the little pseudo-blogs that I've hacked up over the years for template tricks (my random-sorted blogroll and linkroll, the now-retired random subtitle and the 'moblog', etc.), but it's a bigger milestone than I'm likely to notice otherwise.

Thanks for reading.

In other news, I joined the EVE corporation that I've been hanging around with. They're a really nice bunch and have given me a wonderful welcome. Knowing that there are people to chat with, go on missions with and go mining with gives the game far more longevity as far as I'm concerned (let's face it, there's no way I was going mining on my own).

Been to the pub. Met up with some people I hadn't seen for a while and with whom I really shouldn't have lost contact. Must try harder this time.

Not a great week other than that. Last week I got a project that looked like a real opportunity to dip into a new discipline, flex some intellectual muscle and develop interesting and worthwhile solutions to challenging problems: what we're actually going to do the least-effort fix rather than looking for the best one. The other project I'm on is just generally driving me mad: I've been staring at it for so long (spending all of my time on it, despite a policy that under normal circumstances we'd only be on the main project for 80% of the work week) that I really can't see whether it actually meets the objectives.
Had a disappointing meeting with HR. I'll say more about it once it's resolved, with or without couching it in metaphor until nobody knows what I'm talking about.
I can't hear much on my right side apart from a painfully loud ringing. It's probably ear wax. Even if I did want to see a medical professional (which I don't, at all) I now don't have time before we go to visit my girlfriend's family. Some of them I have trouble understanding at the best of times (not to mention trouble being understood, and just generally a complete lack of common ground).
I anticipate no real rest over the long weekend, so I will likely be just as run down, frustrated and burnt out in time to be back at work again.

The nice little buttons that fold and unfold the sections in my sidebar float out of their bounds in Firefox now (not sure as of which version). I'm hoping that's a Firefox bug, since previously those were carefully configured to be standards-compliant and look right in Firefox, even though that made them float crazily in IE: if FF now does the same then something very crazy is going on.
I'll fix it another day: the script still works.

On the plus side, taking all the albums off my MP3 player and replacing them with a big selection of individually awesome tracks has really revitalised it. Well, I say all the albums: that phantom undeletable one is still there. Perhaps we'll have those in the car over the weekend.

Anyway, apologies for the dour post. I'm sure you all have your own gripes and I wish you all the best overcoming them.