Purple got snagged by lb and Mr. Netflix for lunch today, since lb and Mr. Netflix were the only representatives of the department actually in the department for lunch. Thus it was that I did not see Purple in person until it was time to go home.

I managed to wait until we were outside to apologetically point out that I would be having a worse time than expected for the next couple weeks because I'd trained pretty hard on Bearded Purple, so Beardless Purple was essentially a stranger (with, for bonus points, a smile a hell of a lot like Figment's).

It's going to be a super weird couple weeks. I'm going to be double-taking a lot.

lb had immediately given him shit upon seeing it. Purple did mention his reason for doing it, and it's a reason I fully endorse beyond the "dude, it's ... your beard? and you're the boss of your beard?" position ... but dang, I still have a hard time recognizing him without it. Despite having known him for quite some time without it, I still learned his face with it due to his directory picture.

<lb> I think we should give him some beard products
<lb> beard products are a hint to beard harder

Got to chat with Darkside on Sunday. Yay! He expressed dubious growliness at the idea that the security guard would be providing advances while on duty, and made various terrible bee-related jokes given the setup of blowing the wasp at Purple. Since Darkside turns out to be one of my more clean-minded friends, this is particularly fun. (He's not actually clean-minded. This is just comparatively.)

I felt a switch in my head go click as I was talking to Purple on Thursday night. I don't know if it's a particularly decisive switch, but it's something different. So I wanted to at least write that down, to see where my brain went after.

One of the things that will eat my brain if I'm not careful, is that Darkside and Purple have the same given name. Darkside is the best $NAME most of the time, but Purple gets to be the best for little bits, about fifteen minutes at a time, generally connected to when he's said something that's a particularly heinous pun. So Darkside asked whether Purple was a good $NAME. "Yes," I said fondly. "Good. Tell him he get cookie." So I emailed Purple, giggling all the while.

Entirely coincidentally, when I came in to work today, there was a small tub of cookies on my desk. I recognized the container, and thanked my Overlady once I saw she was off the phone (much to the surreal confusion of the Hipster Researcher).

There's an ongoing situation at work which I've been keeping my eye on; that seems to be well on its way to resolution today.

Helpdesk shenanigans continue to shenan. I will offer this commentary. How much about email do you know?

Multipart email comes in more than one section. Often there are two sections: text/plain and text/html. The text/html section is the one with the fancy markup and clickable links. The text/plain section is for the benefit of mail readers who don't do all that newfangled stuff.

The text/plain section is supposed to have a copy of any URLs included in the text/html section. That's correct, helpdesk, you aren't generally able to click on them (aside from those plain text mail readers which recognize the http:// or https:// bit and do the smart thing). The expected use case for URLs in the text/plain section is for the user to copy them and paste them into her browser.

IF ALL YOU HAVE IS THE INCIDENT NUMBER, THAT DOES JACK-ALL WHEN PASTING INTO THE BROWSER.

My manager is always relieved to note when incidents involving me shouting at helpdesk conclude without me having actually sworn at helpdesk. After all, some people's capslock keys do occasionally get stuck.


The guys (well, R, and then the guys in #cupcake followed suit) decided that it was milkshake o'clock. So they (minus phone) congregated in front of my cube. Mr. Zune noticed the cookies on the collaboration table. Purple suggested that they had been made with poison. I said that I knew the provenance of the cookies, but cannily did not vouch for their safety. Mr. Zune decided against a cookie at that time. The conversation carried us a good portion of the way over to R's cube. She was missing, having gone upstairs to collect her non-broken new computer. (Purple: If I get punched for saying terrible things, I'm going to be pretty sore.) (Good luck that when the fist stays a foot away.)

My Overlady was visible in the secret milkshake dungeon; I invited her to join our party, but she was waiting on a teammate for coffee.

Among the random stories was that time when Mama's best friend was visiting, and the ladies were talking child rearing woes downstairs, while Tay and I played with her best friend's very small (well, five-ish) and autistic son upstairs.

Now, one of the features of the house was that it is mostly two big rooms -- at the time there was the big room downstairs, plus the bathroom and the pantry tucked behind the interior wall of the bathroom -- and then the upstairs, and at some point my little room off in the corner there. The acoustics were fabulous -- if it was said downstairs, it was clearly audible upstairs.

Tay and I, by unspoken agreement, had never mentioned this fact to our parents. Since generally they were the only ones talking quietly downstairs when we were upstairs, and we were rarely trying to be quiet downstairs while they were trying to sleep, they had never cottoned on.

Mama's best friend began to unload her heart about how very hard it was to have a shattering marriage and nearly sole responsibility for an autistic kid.

Tay and I looked at each other. The little guy might have all sorts of things going on, but we knew there was nothing wrong with his hearing, and it was obvious that he was hearing every word. I scrammed downstairs and urgently but quietly informed Mama and her best friend that due to this one weird trick with acoustics, every word they were saying was broadcast upstairs in full clarity. Where the little guy was.

This was news to Mama, and she clearly had many questions about what exactly we had heard over the years of her thinking she was having fully private conversations with FatherSir, but this was not the moment to air these questions. This was the moment to take the tea outside, where they could have a real private talk.

#cupcake is rowdy under the best of circumstances. I'm not sure what our teammate made of us. My Overlady is long accustomed to people around me being loud and weird.


Purple realized that he has not shaved in a while. I mentioned that his moustache was coming in nicely. He's not sure whether he'll be keeping it or not.

I learned a lot more about the various dynamics of Purple's HOA board than I was really intending to learn.

Purple got a cookie out of my little tub. I assured him that it was not poison. He cheerfully accepted the cookie, because he knows that if I've deemed a cookie not poison, it does not have lurking walnuts, which many otherwise sensible people like to put in chocolate chip cookies, rendering them inedible for those of us with walnut allergies.

I had been wrong by an hour about the closing time of Borderlands. Woops. Alas. No The Winter Long for me tonight. Alas. Purple was sympathetic.