How did people survive before the internet?

This is a question that has been plaguing me all week. Our DSL went out last Thursday, and didn't return until yesterday, so I've had a week - a whole WEEK - with NO internet! Of course, everyone else in the office (all, you know, three of them) decided to work from home or at Borders or someplace else with wireless internet. So that left me, all alone, to sit here in the office and answer the phones. *sigh* On the upside, I got to read a lot, wrote out a bunch of Christmas cards, and taught myself spider solitaire. I managed to get up to 4 suits, which is a testament to how bored I was.

But now - joy of joys! - our internet is back. I think it's funny that one of my friends (who shall remain nameless) said to me, "Yeah, I thought maybe you got fired because you weren't online anymore." Yeah, thanks for the concern...

So... quite a busy time of year. The Governor had his Christmas party for the big donors on Wednesday night. I had to work the door, of course, and I must say that the highlight of my night was watching one of our donors walk face-first into a glass door. I mean, hard. Like, you could hear the thump in the next room. We were really tempted to go up to him later and look for a red mark on his forehead, because man... that had to hurt. But I must congratulate myself because, when I was introduced to him later in the evening, I did not laugh in his face. That took effort, people.

Last night I went out with Sheila to this networking thing she organized. It was a lot of fun. I was kinda like, "Ehhh, I don't know if I wanna go, I'm only gonna know one person...." but it turned out to be really great, and I met some cool people. I also tried bourbon for the first time. It was a free promotion (because, really, not the kind of thing I would pay for). My thoughts: "Blech." Glad it was free. I ended up giving it away to some guy. He may have thought I was hitting on him. It was unclear.

I'm so excited - my parents' friend works at the Wachovia Center, so he got us tickets to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra on Saturday. I love love love the Trans-Siberian Orchestra - if you've never heard of them, they're a rock orchestra that does mostly Christmas music, a mixture of original songs and funky arrangements of the traditional stuff. It's all worked into a story, so that it's almost like the soundtrack to a musical or something. Their first album, Christmas Eve and Other Stories, is still my favorite, but they now have three Christmas CDs and two (or soon to be two) non-Christmas ones. They do an annual holiday concert tour, and I've been wanting to go for years, so I finally get to see them, and we got special upgrades so we're gonna be in box seats, which is awesome. It's probably too late for the concert, but check out the music.