15 February 2006

Yesterday was one of those days where all you can say is, “Well, at least Dick Cheney didn’t shoot me in the face.”

Shyaka and I kept calling each other, playing a game of “top this” with our bad news. Shyaka started. We have to move. The VOA heard from Washington that they have some sort of training coming up at the end of this month, and they need the office we squat in. So he spent all day trying to figure that out. Since next week is also deadline week, and I won’t be here, this was unbelievably bad.

So then I topped him. We’ve been working hard at getting stuff done early so that Shyaka and Vincent and I don’t have to stay here until 2:30 in the morning when we’re finishing off the paper. So Vincent had finished seven pages out of the 40 we’re putting out. We were cooking along.

And then yesterday, Vincent said that five of the pages were gone. The virus had killed them. As you may have noticed, the Fonze was not mentioned in the above paragraph. The Fonze has jumped the shark, you see. Among the many things he did wrong – even worse than not showing up for work when he said he would, not showing up with the business cards we asked for – he infected us with a computer virus he knew he had. Worse than that, the Fonze gave us copies of the layout and photo programs we needed that were infected with a virus. That’s considered homicide in some states.

So that’s what happened to Vincent. The virus ate the files he did since the end of last week. So that’s when I topped Shyaka and told him. “Ohhh man,” was all he could say.

I then called the Fonze. I explained to him, as calmly as you would have imagined, that he gave us a virus and he needed to come to fix it. He said he was sick. I said I didn’t care. I then explained what the virus did. “My virus doesn’t do that,” he said.

And then I grew even calmer, as you would have expected. I explained to him, calmly, that he had to get down here, that he was responsible for the paper being up against it and that he was a terrible person. All of this, I assure you, calmly. So he hung up on me.

Well, I had to tell everyone that all he said was, “My virus doesn’t do that.” And it got a laugh. The staff all said he was drowning in a bottle of Primus, one of the local beers. The IT guy from the Internet café downstairs redid our systems. Of course, my computer may have the virus, too. Ah, the sacrifices for journalism.

I spent all day yesterday trying to hold the place together. We had a good laugh that no one on the staff could spell Big Paul’s wife’s name. J-E-A-N-N-E-T-T-E. And then I crashed when I went home.

So of course we thought things couldn’t get worse. And then there were rumors that Alex, our society columnist, got beat up last night while taking pictures with my camera. His mobile phone wasn’t working all morning, so I had visions of getting a camera case with smashed-up pieces of glass and plastic back. That’s when I thought about leaping from the balcony.

But he was not beaten up, and the camera came back okay. I was a little concerned that I was more worried about my camera. Shyaka found us a new office and we’ve got pirated versions of the software we need on the way. The Fonze is officially no longer a member of the Focus team. Ah, life is better.

Anyway, I’m off to Uganda tomorrow morning and will be back a week from Friday. So if I don’t post, Jordan, don’t worry about me. I’ll be reporting during the day and night, and editing even later at night.

Remember when I said I was considering breaking the law when I went? I’m not doing that. I will register with the government. It’ll just cost an arm and a leg.

Happy early birthday, Moms.