NaNoWriMo Update:
As of 11:59 p.m. on 11/03 I have 3,291 words.

Morale:
Much improved. The beguiling company of J & W (& J & P) - who generously offered to save me the trouble of making dinner - kept me away from the keyboard until around 9:00 p.m., but when I got there I had many swell ideas and the words just flew. This must have something to do with J's recipe for vegetarian lasagna, and W's recipe for Manhattans.

I'm still behind quota, but I'm feeling better about my ability to make it up soon...or at least get caught up to where I was this time last year.

Excerpt of the Day:

The corporation I temp for started its life as the American Box Company, a daring young upstart among the manufacturers of storage-oriented paper products. AmBoxCo quickly began to outshine its rivals, including the Amalgamated Box Corporation, a staid, temperate organization that had been making boxes since World War I. AmBoxCorp had the stronger valuation and steadier earnings, but AmBoxCo had a website, and a vision. Or rather, a Vision.

"The Internet Economy will be fueled by cardboard boxes," announced the CEO of AmBoxCo, and when the company went public, investors saw his point. Those ten-pound bags of kitty litter people were ordering online would obviously need to be put in something sturdy.

The influx of capital allowed AmBoxCo to acquire AmBoxCorp, whose corporate culture was quickly obliterated in a tide of branding and synergy. First to go was AmBoxCorp’s logo, a traditional horizontal arrangement of the letters A, B, and C. AmBoxCo logo featured the same letters in a vertical design, on a slight diagonal toward the right.

"It’s a logo that says we’re hurtling toward the future," the CEO declared in a press release.

He also made the point that "AmBoxCo" was more streamlined than "AmBoxCorp", having jettisoned two unnecessary letters.

"That’s a 22% increase in efficiency," he assured stockholders.

A few months and a few acquisitions later, the company was renamed Daedalus, Inc., because - according to rumor - the CEO thought it sounded "cool." They spent $500,000 acquiring all applicable domain names, and the logo was changed to a winged D.

"It’s a logo that says we’re hurtling toward the sun," I tell Kelly with exaggerated cheeriness. She rolls her eyes and mumbles something about leaving early to get her legs waxed.