I was prepared to inflict upon you, my faithful readers, a long-winded, self-indulgent rant about how much my life sucks at the moment, how pretty much nothing's going right, blah blah blah, but thanks to a chat this afternoon with my wonderful British friend and a Skype chat this evening with Eric and Bethany, I'm feeling much better.  So, instead of the aforementioned long-winded rant, you get this snippet of randomnity from a chat yesterday. (Edited for clarity)

Her: The Anglo-Saxon period was between 500 CE and the Battle of Hastings in 1066, ish.
Me: Hastings is a city in Nebraska.
Her: LOL!
Her: Sorry. picturing William the Conqueror showing up, all "....dammit, wrong Hastings!!!"
Me: ROFL!!!!!!
Me: William the Conqueror:  It's...flat here.  And full of....nothing.  And why's everyone got "Go Cornhuskers" shirts on?  

         Nebraska Person: Hey, Billy, you got the wrong Hastings.  Whatcha wanna do is take Highway 5, turn left at the tree, and then go east.  Way east.  Past Iowa, even.
Her: ROFL!!!!!!!!!!
Her: I have no idea why "turn left at the tree" strikes me as the funniest part of that.
Me: because it's true.  In that part of the country, trees are so sparse that you can actually give directions like "turn left at the tree" and everyone will know what you're talking about.

So my life still sucks, but at least I have wonderful people in it to make it suck a bit less.