Randomly, I jusr heard someone on the TV say "short lived" with a long i. Is that how you're supposed to say that??

I've heard it said both ways. Regionalism? Britishism?

Relatedly, our marketing team's phrase of the year is "lever of change," which I find myself pronouncing as LEE-ver even though in every other use of the word I would say LEH-ver.

If I can get my butt in gear, today will be spent hitting secondhand furniture stores, flea markets, and antique malls here and in Memphis looking for a banker's chair to replace my home office chair that when kerplooey. The plan is to then eat dinner at the Russian place I've been curious about for weeks.

There's also at least a slim chance I may actually meet up with a flaky fellow hockey enthusiast. While I'm not strategically using The Rules, I think my "whatever" attitude (thanks to his prior flakiness) and the fact that I've been too busy to be easily reachable this week are having a similar effect as if I were playing Hard To Get.

The hospital has internet access, even though the house still does not.

I still have had no liquor, since dinner was Subway, eaten in the ER waiting room last night.

And now we're under an advisory to boil water. Ha. Ha ha.

Ooh, Matt, my dad would be so envious of the Russian restaurant. He loves Central European food and it's not that common out here in LA. Loads of ethnic restaurants, but not a ton of European ethnicity restaurants.

I saw HPVII-PartI today (there ought to be a better acronym

Preferably one that doesn't make me want to encourage young women to get their Gardisil vaccinations.

Thank you Cass, so glad it's not just me. My first thought was, "sounds like a new strain of herpes."

That restaurant article makes me want to go out to eat. Hmm. Maybe we need to plan a very LAista outing to good food in a casual setting. Preferably kid-friendly.

Dana, I am so sorry you are having such a collection of troubles all at once.

I gather it's really a sort of pan-Central Asian place. The owner is from Uzbekistan, but their menu is about half Russian and features other countries too (I think plov is Turkish?). Saturday nights they supposedly do a Russian disco thing.

Spidra, back in 2004 I ate in a Russian place that was in a strip mall between Santa Monica Blvd. and Sunset. Maybe it's still there?

Spidra, has he ever been to Warzawa? It's a Russian restaurant in Santa Monica, been there for decades. I've never been there myself so I don't know how good it is.

Dana, your last few days have been rotten.

Marketted, where I only bought empanadas. Then leaves. 2 hours and 7 bags of leaves. My walk, the sidewalk of 4 houses and street. Next up: swim. After I eat something.