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*Spoilers for today’s (5/11/09) Ellen Show in this post. LOL!

I’m working at home today, writing test cases for a product that is, itself, quite interesting. Sadly, the test cases are not so interesting – you know the drill (maybe): verify basic functionality, try to break it, repeat endless variations. Anyway, I took a short break just now to go downstairs and fix myself some lunch. While I was eating I caught a little bit of the Ellen show.

OMG! She had this 9-year-old guitar player on and he was AMAZING. He explained (through his interpreter, since he doesn’t speak English) that he started playing when he was 3 and said his favorite musical inspiration was Ozzy Osbourne. Then he played Ozzy’s “Crazy Train” and just shredded that mother to pieces. If you check out Ellen’s web site, it’s on the front page today.

Anyway, after he played, Ellen told him she had a surprise for him and guess who strolled out from backstage – OZZY!! At this point I got a little choked up because the look on that kid’s face was priceless – I thought he was going to cry or scream or faint from pure joy! And Ozzy was so sweet (isn’t he always?). Then they gave the little kid a framed, autographed photo of Ozzy in concert, or something.

Seriously, check out the look on this kid’s face. So awesome:

Pure joy!

That was a really nice lunch break.

Posts like this and this and this and this are why I can’t stop reading Kristin’s blog. Over this series of posts she tells the story of a weekend trip (and a potential relationship) gone wrong. Same old story, right? Has happened to all of us at one time or another (some of us more than once). Except my God – the way she writes about it:

“But I am writing because I don’t know what else to do as yet another relationship curtain falls on an increasingly decrepit stage, bereft, half-hearted encore complete and shoddy. I just want to exit stage left.”

“The tires squealed as he burned away in my Jeep. I had my laptop, my cellphone, my bank card, and woefully thin white shorts. I sat on a rock and stared at two squirrels dustling in the nearby forest and I took out my cell phone to be picked up by someone, anyone, other than him.

There was no cell phone service.”

“I pulled away with one of his hiking boots, some battered Okanagon fruit, and an intact heart, stealing glances in my rearview mirror at the fury that surrounded him.

I’m OK. I’ll float on. Now I can tread water, and I know how to look out for sharks.”

There is no shark big enough to devour your talent and your spirit, Kristin. Thank you once again for raising the quality level of this “blogosphere” thing. I am in awe of you.