I wish I had something amazing to say, but right now all I am busy being a seething ball of hate. Testing. It's the last full day, nothing is working right, I've been on the same part of this test plan since lunch, and nobody cares because they're all in similar sorts of hell. I expect to be here until midnight. Hate hate hate hate hate. I want to scream so much my bones hurt.

And it's 8:30! I am somewhat more relaxed than I was earlier, as I've finished two test plans and am fiddling with a third. I might be able to finish it tonight, but I'm tired enough that I think I'll just go home and have dinner, and hug Jim, and probably go to sleep pretty early. I can't wait until this week is over... but really, today is the worst day. I ought to be able to finish the rest of my testing before I release tomorrow, and after that the rest of the week is bug verification and lots more releases. And integration testing, but that's much less annoying than what I've been doing.

I did have a good weekend, though. Friday was wasted playing MM6 until 4am (replaced 'MM6' with 'Dungeon Keeper' for Jim and this statement remains true), so there's not much to say about it. Saturday we went to the City and had dinner with Paul at a random Cuban place picked out of the Guardian. It was really good; I tried a fried plantain, which turned out to be rock-hard on the outside and soft on the inside, filled with sour-sweet ground beef that took my breath away. For the main course I had shredded steak fried in lemon and garlic, which turned out to be crispy and flavourful, with just a touch of the garlic balancing the sharpness of lemon. Yum. Paul and I both had caramel flan for dessert, very creamy and rich -- I actually couldn't finish mine.

After dinner we went to Aardvark Books, where I bought some random stuff, including Sappho translated by Paul Roche, a book of stories from the Ming dynasty, a weird novel set in Japan, a book on how the concept of 'girlhood' has changed since Victorian times due to menstruation happening at 12-13 instead of 15-16, and several other things I am forgetting to mention. I did not buy the used copies of Cetaganda and Brothers in Arms, and am now wishing I had -- but no, I was virtuous and restrained and only spent $30.

From the bookstore we went across the street to Just Desserts, where I had mocha buttercream cake -- not as good as the variant in Palo Alto (the buttercream was too gooey), but after my huge dinner I was happy to nibble at the cake and sip a beautifully coloured hibiscus tea which was too sour to drink much of but really very nice anyway. Much conversation ensued before we took Paul home and zoomed homewards ourselves.

I was going home, wasn't I? I'll tell you about Sunday tomorrow. As you may have deduced, I did survive my storytelling; so far the only visible impact on me is that I'm insanely jittery today. Not bad, given what I expected.