Letterman

Be honest, how many of you are here tonight because you came to see the Star Wars trailer?
-- David Letterman, monologue, 11/23/98

Monday, November 23, 1998
One year ago: Upgrade

A year ago I installed IE4 on my home machine for the first time. I have a CD to install IE5 beta with, but I haven't got around to it yet. Shame on me! There are actually IE 5 features that I want to use in this journal, especially DHMTL Behaviors. Totally cool and easy to author, and the downlevel story is good, as they say: no browser sniffing needed!

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Tonight was the five-year anniversary prime time "spay-shul" for the Late Show with David Letterman. I've been a fan since his daytime show in the early eighties. I was able to watch it because I was a restaurant worker then, and I just barely got up in time to see it at ten in the morning. I've always liked his dry humor, and the "meta" angle he puts on everything.

So I was glad when I saw an item about the special posted to the TV discussion folder at work. It reminded me that I wanted to watch this! I even indulged myself further by watching Sondra Bullock be adorable as all get out in the first hour and a half of "While You were Sleeping," beforehand. I'd seen this in the theaters, but she's just so darn cute!

The anniversary show was just fine. I especially liked the "Dave talks to kids" stuff that they opened with. Even though I'd heard most of this before, I really hadn't seen much of it, because my usual method of enjoying the Late Show is via the TV sound on my radio, while I'm online or in bed. The faces and postures of the kids added a lot in this case.

I have to admit that I did doze off a bit during the musical guest medley. Thank heavens I woke up in time for the Calvert DeForest memorial ("I'm not dead, you bastard!"). But fatigue is the reason -- I'll come clean here -- that this entry is being written Tuesday morning rather than Monday evening as would be my usual custom.

I wonder if I love Dave because he expresses my dark, nasty side that I don't usually show!

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My manager told me today that I've been extended in my current assignment. That's good, of course! The bonus was that they did it for a year, so I don't have to worry about where I'll be working next until December of 1999! This is by far the longest I've been on a single team since I started contracting at Microsoft five and a half years ago. It shows the good side of working on a product where it's virtually certain that there will be a next version, rather than those "secret product" CD-ROMs, or websites that disappear or get transmogrified.