...and for those of you who did check back on Friday, as requested - good for you! Your diligence has been noted. You will receive a Certificate of Due Diligence in the mail soon, with the words 'Due Diligence' written in large, bold letters, and a gold star as well. Yes.

Last week? Hectic. Busy. Tiring. From good fun to not a whole lot of fun in the span of two days.

This week? Pretty tough so far. It will get better. But it'll take a few days for things to settle down.

What else? I had one of Those Moments: I just read an article on CNN.com about how, supposedly, nuts are good for you, whilst eating nuts. There was perfect symmetry. I feel enlightened. Balance is achieved.

There's been some reader mail in the past week that I haven't gotten around to yet, but I will. I'm generally being berated for my negativity and bitterness, and that's a good thing. Otherwise I would've been very, very cross with all of you. And you wouldn't like me when I'm-- oh, whatever.

And in totally pointless and uninteresting news: I switched my cable-TV service to a digital cable-TV service on Saturday (oooh! aaah!), which means that I now have a funky new digital receiver thingy, slightly clearer picture (but more compression blockiness), and a couple of "new" TV channels (no one in their right mind would call CNN "new", but I didn't get it on the analogue service, so there you go). More gadgets to take up space under the telly, and that's never a bad thing. It came with a funky remote, but it's shiny, so there you go (huh?). The best thing is, whenever you switch to a channel, it'll tell you what you're watching (less thinking!), how long it's on for (less planning!), and what's up next (less chance I'll ever turn the damn thing off!). I actually don't watch a lot of TV - I get my shows on watch-whenever-I've-got-the-time VCD - but now it'll look cooler when I do watch TV. And, like I said, more gadgets! More on this amazing new possession when there's something to report...like, for example, does it toast bread? Probably. It probably does.

Adios. More later.  ¶ 16:44