186,000 miles a second of atonement...

"Hello", I answer with a sheepish grin. I know who is on the other end of the line; my stalker from London. We'd organized the call the night before, but it's always a shock to have to open my eyes to try and find the phone.

Every morning God sends this massive wave (or particle field) of light through my window to destroy my eyes. Someone has apparantly ticked him off that I am a heathen and I deserve this kind of shoddy treatment. I shake my fist at the sky.

SFL answers back, in a teletubbie-like manner. "Huuulllloooo". He always says it like that. It makes me smile. I wonder if he says it that way to everyone, or if I'm just special. He proceeds to use words such as "trolleybus", "naff" and phrases like "you're such a wally".

We talk for another hour, until he realizes that it is 1am his time and that if he doesn't go to sleep soon he won't be able to get up in time for a possible porn flick set up; men delivering wares for the pending renovations of his bathroom. Not very romantic, I must admit, but it still works.

I try my best to keep him on the line, but I just can't win. SFL used to run like an energizer battery with only 2 hours sleep. I've tired him out with my incessant "shut up... I'm watching TV" talk. It's a shame that our time zones intersect around prime time, there is so much of (sitcom) life that I have missed out on. Where did Everyone Loves Raymond go? Are those new episodes of Frasier I see on Channel 9? Yes. Yes they are. And this one had Bebe in it, Frasier's evil agent. And Dr. Phil has made a guest appearance.

Anyhow, I have a another phone appointment is only so many hours, so I better get up and get ready for the day and get into the lab. So much time and so little to do. No, scrub that and reverse it. (And you'll have nothing because you scrubbed it. Sigh...)

William John.