I am sitting in what has to be the most boring meeting ever conceived by man.

Born of the devil, bred to destroy, this meeting has set upon me like a deadly tsunami, enveloping me in the most horrid embodiment of ennui I’ve encountered in a long, long time.

Supposedly this is a planning meeting that is supposed to get the developers involved in setting up the schedule for the project I’m on. The idea is that if the developers are involved in the planning, they may be more likely to meet they dates they commit to.

That’s a lie.

In reality, this is an open forum for discussing anything that even peripherally relates to the project, all simultaneously, none of which impacts my portion of the project. A massive amount of discussion has gone on simply to determine “how do we call something ‘done?’” That was one of the multithreaded conversations flowing about the room, bombarding my senses.

There is no order, only chaos.

And I have to be honest: this thing was meant to engender a sense of ownership and commitment, but I’ve passed the point of caring. My 15 minute meeting attention span was over four hours and 45 minutes ago. There’s no sign of this stopping.

I’ve tried to actually get something done in here, but the ergonomics of working in a bad chair at a conference room table are beyond description. My back is killing me, my nerves are wracked, my concentration is totally shot. I can’t get anything done, but I can’t concentrate on anything going on here.

At this point all I can do is pray for death. If I had a secret agent suicide pill I’d use it. I can’t take this anymore. It’s killing me.

Just read an article over at harriyott.com: Looks like there are JavaScript functions built into IE that not only allow a site to set the contents of your clipboard but retrieve them as well.

IE users, try this one on for size (this only works with Internet Explorer, to my knowledge):

Update: Links disabled due to various permissions issues.

First, click this link to copy the phrase "My Dog Has Fleas" to your clipboard. Now open up a Notepad window (or whatever your favorite text editor is) and paste it in - sure enough, it adds info to your clipboard.

Now copy some arbitrary text to your clipboard. Doesn’t matter what it is - type something in that Notepad window, or highlight something on this page, and copy it. Now click this link to show your clipboard contents.

Pretty freaky, huh?

For the curious… the “insert data into clipboard” code is: window.clipboardData.setData('Text', 'My Dog Has Fleas');

…and the “retrieve data from clipboard” code is: window.clipboardData.getData('Text');

Jack Black can’t write.

I borrowed a couple of episodes of Tenacious D from a friend of mine to watch. He was telling me that it was hysterical. I was excited to check them out.

Hoo boy.

See, I love Jack Black. I think he’s hilarious in stuff I’ve seen him in. But this just wasn’t funny, and I can chalk it up to one of two things: Either he’s one of those people who is either “hot or not” (and I got two “not” episodes) or Jack Black can’t write.

The key here is that when I’ve seen him being funny, it’s him acting out someone else’s writing. The Tenacious D stuff is his. And it’s not funny. Or maybe I just “don’t get it.” There were a couple of funny parts, but by and large… well, let’s say I’m not going to run out and rent the DVDs any time soon.

I completed my headlight quest yesterday and as a final step took the newly purchased bulb to the local Oil Can Henry’s to get it put into the car. They did it last time, too, and cost me $10 for the job. I figure, it’s $10 worth of headache they’re saving me, and it’s worth every penny.

They serviced the car right there in the parking lot - I didn’t even have to drive into the garage. That said, it did take about half an hour to finish. (Which I expected; it’s a real pain to get into my headlights. You have to take, like, half the engine out to get there.)

When all was said and done, the guy went in to run my debit card and came back, saying all of the registers were being used and to just forget it - it was on the house. He just said, “Come in for your next oil change, eh?”

I actually felt bad - the guy had worked his ass off for that $10 and he didn’t even take it. He just wanted the repeat business for later.

That’s customer service. Sort of the way Les Schwab will fix flat tires for free. I’ll definitely be hitting Oil Can Henry’s in the future, and if you get the opportunity, I recommend it (at least, the one in Tanasbourne, Hillsboro, OR). They’re good people.

Three months ago I went on this ridiculous mission to replace my headlights. The driver’s side had gone out.

Well, it’s out again.

I considered that this is pretty quick to lose a headlight, but if you think of the law of averages, I gotta chalk this one up to bad luck. So, I’m after another new headlight. This time I won’t be replacing both, though.

That said, I’ve been to almost every auto parts store in the area and none of them have the kind of headlight I want in stock (Sylvania H1ST). I was going to go out searching some more today (the quest started last night) but the roads are all iced over, so I’m staying home, watching movies.

I will return to the quest on the morrow. And rest well knowing that I will prevail.