Here's wierd: This song. I haven't heard it for ages. In fact, it had nearly escaped my consciousness completely. Sinead O'Connor. Nothing Compares 2U. Then, this morning, on my way to work, while I'm surfing through the dial in search of something to listen to, it plays. (On 96.5 The Peak, no less. Yes, the same radio station that was supposably going to be bought out by the Spanish, but then just mysteriously switched formats, but remaining a very English-speaking station.)

...And yes, it has remained on my presets. Mostly because I haven't really found anything to replace it with. AND because they now actually play, of all unheard of things, MUSIC in the morning. Even if it's strange, and often sucky, music in the morning on the radio is a rare commodity around here. This is a rant I've actually been meaning to make for a while. Turn on just about any station that normally plays music between the hours of 6 and 9, and they'll be sitting there yakking their asses off. Of all the times of day I would rather NOT hear mindless chatter, it's in the early morning when I'm still grasping at consciousness.

KTCL was good with their hour long commercial free road trip, until -- last week, I think it was -- they moved all the commercials to coincide with my drive from here to work. So now they suck for mornings. Thanks a lot, fools.

So anyway, back on topic. This long forgotten Sinead O'Connor song starts playing. And I just spontaniously decide to crank it. Normally, morning is not the time for big cranking. It's the time for semi-soft, drifting back into a conscious mode volume. But today? No.

It's funny how songs you haven't heard for a long, long time sound just slightly different than you might remember them. The proportional intensity of instruments, the exact rhythm of the percussion, the vocal timbre. It all becomes somehow slightly distorted, rearranged a bit through the prism of long term memory.

Well, needless to say, that song came back to haunt my brain several times during the course of the day.

Then..... then...... then......

Then . . . . . As if that weren't enough, on the way home, on a completely different station, the very same song comes back again.

Needless to say, I cranked it again. Don't ask.

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I suppose my big news to report about work today is that I got to have the displeasure of fighting with^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H using a device generally referred to in hushed towns, and with varying measures of distain by real computer geeks. (Uh oh. I think I just insulted someone. Well at least the words "pointy hair" were not used this time. ;)

I, Bitscape, was pitted against^W^W^W (^W is faster, and takes up less space)... ahem, that's "used"... an evil entity who, for the duration of this rambling, shall be referred to only as "I". (I guess, by my convention, the use of a vowel would make it female. Oh well. So much for not being a misogynist.)

"I" was most uncooperative for the duration of the exchange. (From this point on, in the interests of avoiding ambiguities, Bitscape shall use the letter B to refer to himself, rather than the single vowel noun commonly used when addressing the first person.)

B clicked. B typed. B pounded on the table.

I refused to yield.

B cried to the skies, "Why? Oh Why, am I cursed with this plague?quot;

But still, I sat silently.

B called upon the aid of A expert (who was actually a self-proclaimed, "NOT an expert"), but still, despite A attempt to charm it, the unwieldly beast would not perform its task. (Or so it was theorized. The actual purpose of the exercise was to test the ability of another device to interact with I, but since I was being such a general, all-around pain in the ass, it was hard to tell whose fault it was.)

Some have said that creatures of I's species are "user friendly", or "easier to operate". B never believed them. Now, B is even more convinced of this.

Eventually, I departed from B's cube, never to be seen again. (Or... well, maybe that's wishful thinking.) Good riddance, evil I.

Thou mayest fill in the remaining syllable.