I've spent all morning downloading applications of dubious utility to my company-owned Blackberry. The reason: the company has seen fit to start blocking all manner of websites AGAIN. They did this before, blocking nearly every site that one might find entertaining or distracting. But then they relaxed the restriction and allowed some site, like Gmail (though they blocked the gChat feature). Then a few months ago, restrictions seemed to really relax, and we had unfettered access to all but the most offensive and evil sites (ie, hotrepublicansex.com, etc.) But over the last few days, they have been systematically clamping down again. I have a theory that you can gauge how well a company is doing by how much leeway they allow their employees online. So I guess the company is hitting the skids again. Oh well.

I now have Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Flickr and the Opera Mini Browser installed. It's not as easy to use as their Web counterparts, but at least I don't have to feel marooned at the office. Honestly without these distractions (plus selected blogs), how could I be expected to survive a day at this Mediocrity Factory? Well, I could probably live without Twitter but maybe I'm just not following enough interesting people. Story of my life.

P.S. Don't forget! See SPIKE the Angora cat at the North Shore Adoption Van this SUNDAY in Park Slope, outside NYC Pet, 5th Ave @Union/President, Brooklyn.