Yes, this should probably be a daylog. But nobody reads daylogs, especially at the end of the day. Besides, you should always Pick your titles carefully, and, in the spirit of node titles that scream "Read me!" with all the subtlety of a Weekly World News headline, mouse castration was born. Let the downvoting begin.

Subtitle of the day: sabotage

Why? Well, I'll tell you...

So I worked a long day at my shitty job as usual. I work on the campus of a large university, where the best and brightest get edjamacated -no, that was not a spelling error, it was a wry social comment on the paradoxes of the public education (edjucashun) system- while I rot in hell, slapping out lousy, overpriced food and pretending to smile. This job is less than intellectually stimulating. So at the end of the day, I like to engage my brain in something other than stirring fifty gallon drums of unidentifiable goo.

This is where E2 comes in.

So I go to the public computer terminal, which is where I do most of my internet-based activities (read: checking e-mail, noding, surfing for porn- oops, I mean, catching up on current events). I plop myself down at a machine, and what do I discover? Some nerd up to no good has switched around all the keys. When I press "A," "Q" shows up. Lovely. So I haul ass to another terminal.

"This worksation has been locked. Please see your administrator for more information." Gimme a break. Fuck off, bucko. On to #3. I sit down, grab the mouse, move it around...nothing.

Abso-frickin-lutely nothing.

With a sigh that expresses all my gen-x ennui and a lingering fin-de-siecle malaise, I flip over the mouse. Jackpot. Some asshole has taken out the little ball-thingy. A quick glance around the room reveals that all the other mice are missing their balls, too. (snicker...)

Now, I've seen this happen before. Usually some geeky fraternity will make their pledges somehow fuck with the system, and I'm pretty sure that's what happened. But tell me, what the hell is a frat going to do with a bag full of mouse balls? (Insert your own frat-boy joke here.) (Nodeshell challenge: a bag full of mouse balls.) There's one other person in the room and he, seemingly undisturbed by the Freudian implications of his solution to the problem, has inserted his finger into the orifice on the bottom of the mouse and is manipulating the cursor that way. If he was a hottie, I'd be turned on, but he's not, so I'm just mildy disgusted.

Since I am fundamentally retarded when it comes to all things mechanical and compter related, I'm also left unconnected to E2 and to the audience that I know is just waiting to read this rant. So, long story short, I go find another terminal, one where the keyboard isn't dyslexic and where the mice are hung like horses, and I pound out this profanity-filled diatribe and stumbit it for your reading pleasure.

May you live happily ever after.

This node was brought to you by caffeine and stress; long may they reign as the gods of the middle class.