A seething mass of turgid drama.

I trimmed my moustache/goatee, as I do every weekend. Except I forgot to put on the trimmer guide the first couple passes. So the far side of my moustache is trimmed almost to the skin. Oops.

It is not gone, not tremendously noticeable unless you look closely, and it will match the length of the rest probably by the end of the week. But I haz the stupid.

Our heavy KitchenAid fud processor is dead. I'm going to have to get a replacement.

It was a wedding present, so it's nearly 22 years old and it has has a fair amount of use over the years. However, the crucial part - the motor - is in (apparently) fine shape. It's just the main plastic bowl that has cracked around the base, so it leaks. That makes the whole thing unusable.

This is irritating - because KitchenAid retired this model some years back, I can't simply buy a replacement plastic bowl. Believe me, I've tried. Even replacement parts sites don't have it. I bought one that said it was "close enough to work" but that didn't actually turn out to be the case.

I lost my footing on the bus this morning. Embarrassingly, as the bus lurched to my stop and I was (carefully!) moving forward, my feet slipped out from under me and I fell on my butt. And then slid so I was almost entirely horizontal.

It looked far worse than it was - mostly my pride was hurt. (I think I tore a fingernail on the landing.) The problem seems to be that the treads on this pair of work shoes are completely worn flat on the heels, so I have no traction on a smooth wet surface. Since these shoes are in fine shape otherwise, I wonder if rubber can be resoled?

I set off the too-sensitive smoke alarm while making breakfast. The wife was already somewhat awake, but this is not a good way to complete the process. (I'm sure the upstairs neighbors heard it too.)

Then the bus alert said 20 minutes. I walked to the backup bus stop, only to watch the first bus arrive a couple minutes later.

Work stuff is problematic due to month-end processing problems.

I don't want a do-over. Can I just go home and back to bed?

I am in the office, but one of our crucial systems is down. It's not anything we control, so I'm metaphorically twiddling my thumbs.

Our house is getting painted today. We got more bids, but they all were in the same insane range. So we're only getting the front done - which is the absolute minimum we can get away with. If they're still painting tomorrow, I might come back into the office instead of working from home. I am looking forward to seeing the new bland tan color instead of the vaguely greenish-yellow though.

One of my pairs of jeans wore through, so I ordered a new pair. (I basically have to order - the style I like is not hip enough, apparently, for stores to carry. Last time I tried the too-hip salesmonkey sneered at me. But at least they still make it.)

It was supposed to be delivered last Thursday. It wasn't. Yesterday I got a notice it was finally out for delivery... and it never showed. Their tracking says they put it on our porch around 8 PM. Well, if they leaned it up against the gate then someone walked off with it before this morning. Or, they never actually delivered it.

Either way, I called today to complain and they're sending a replacement. Which of course will undoubtedly take another couple weeks. That's why every single other delivery is pushed through the gate if they can't be arsed to take the time to ring the doorbell!

I shop irregularly at our local high-end booze store. Mostly for champagne -- I like that I can ask their buyer "We bought Charles Heidseck for our wedding, but since they've priced themselves out of our range without improving quality, what similar but more reasonable premier cru do you suggest?" And generally get a good recommendation.

However, that's not an option right now. Unlike some of the larger chain stores (*cough Beverages & More cough*) they aren't open. But we are out of champagne and I wanted to restock before the holiday rush. So I bit the bullet with a customer service chat and ended up with a recommendation. I placed the order and it was ready for pickup in a couple days. So far, reasonable.

Then we went to pick it up. Their curbside pickup is... labyrinthine. It took a good 15 minutes. I am all for taking necessary and reasonable precautions, but.

I had planned on not coming into the office for the next few weeks. I'm not an essential worker, and with plague cases on the rise it seemed more prudent to just work from home. But the network outage of last week hadn't been resolved and it was apparently causing phone forwarding problems. So... back in today. I may not be an essential worker in the healthcare sense, but I'm the only partner who can easily/will go in to the SF office so when something has to be handled, I get the job.

I was able to resolve things with a quick call to my boss (to find out where the phone power box was). Yes, I turned the router off and on again. Followed by turning the phone box off and on again. And we're back.

People who say "trust the science" will often pooh-pooh it in other areas when it collides with their preconceptions.

Exhibit A: my statement that there is no scientific reason that bagels outside NY/NJ are inherently lower-quality. I've read the studies and my personal experiments agree - it's not the water or anything environmental. It's well-honed technique and a population willing to buy the good stuff. We don't have either one here and I have often acknowledged that. I wish we did as I miss a good pumpernickel bagel!

But NY transplants vehemently rush to their bagels' defense. One person even said "There may be no logical reason but I know they taste better." To which I responded "When you expect them to, they will. It would be interesting to try a blind test."

Apparently "Matrix 4" is shooting near my work. That's fine, except that they're doing night shoots too. "Low-flying helicopters emitted a deafening roar, hovering as low as 300 feet from the sidewalk beneath them, as explosions lit up the night sky. The sound of their blasts echoing between buildings could reportedly be heard from miles away."

I can confirm that I heard their roar a couple miles away between 2 and 3 AM. It was roughly four times louder than the adjacent freeway. Needless to say, I am exhausted this morning.