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Here's the thing: we're back, but our archives aren't.

I am, if I understand the new workplace guidelines correctly, free to be snarky, punchy, and, even, if only occasionally, mordant...as long as the topics are completely, utterly, and 100 percent content-free.

I was, don't get me wrong, initially bummed about this dilemma. On the one hand, the anti-authoritarian 12-year-old within me -- which is, actually, most of me -- bristles both at the constraint and the injustice. On the other hand, paycheck. Even if I tend to regard my job as rather peculiarly dead-end, I still don't necessarily want to get, as it were, cul-de-sacked.

And then I thought: hey, waitaminnit. Content-free? I could do that. In fact, I usually do that.

And so, here we are. For now. I mean, we'll see how it goes.

If you're still trying to get into a certain other blog: there's nothing behind the curtain. The password-protect is a temporary measure, while I figure out how to safely export and preserve those entries, and after that it'll come down entirely. That blog is no longer being updated, with or without content.

This one is a work in progress. Is it aesthetically displeasing? I think it is, a bit, and will keep tinkering (anyone know how to get underlining out of a blogroll widget? Ug-leee, and not the simple fix you'd think Ed update: oo, I think I got it ). Feel free to make other layout suggestions.

More reader input requested: I'm still going to need to talk about my job, though I'll need my best Eastern European techniques to do so (and please don't get me started on the irony). Thus, I'll need a stand-in career that I can actually discuss, in order to talk about what ol' Napoleon and Snowball are up to, if you catch my drift. Ease of metaphor is the primary criterion. Potential for humor is a close second. Contenders?