As an indication of the insecurities and rivalries amongst the developers at work, here's what the erstwhile VP of System Architecture sent in response to a library-building initiative undertaken by Eric, our most industrious web developer.

Please ignore all previous messages sent by Eric about standard libraries. We now have a committee in place to approve such asp standards. These libraries have not yet been approved.

Eric the web developer, without his new BMW.

Today was developer Dave's 25th birthday, so a group of fellow developers went out to lunch with him at an Italian place in the Gaslamp district.

Later in the day, a company tradition that had put to rest a little less than a year ago experienced something of a revival just in time for Dave's birthday. The tradition involves unexpectedly dumping all sorts of slime, muck, gunk and rotten food all over a person on his birthday. Poor Dave; my last birthday happened during the period when the tradition still lay dormant.

Dave just after a pleasant lunch at an Italian place in the Gaslamp District.

Dave after the traditional company celebration of his birthday this afternoon. Karin the over-involved membersupport queen is in the background, as is an unknown Oracle contractor.

It was my last workday of the 1900s, and I split as soon after 6pm as I could. Under the new QA rules, none of my three ripe web development projects could go live tonight anyway. Thankfully, there's now a 5pm cutoff on product releases.

Rory, our wandering friend from England, appeared on our doorstep at about 10:30 tonight, just after we'd gone to bed. He'll be here a few days as a stop on his route back into Mexico.

When I'm living comfortably, I usually wake up at about 10:30am Eastern Time every morning. I still do, but in California that's early enough to make it to work at an aggressive internet startup.