YESTERDAY WAS "READY, SET..." and today is "Go!" Go back to my former job to learn just how badly I've been screwed. Will they extend benefits to the end of the month? Will there be any severance pay? Betting on either of these things would be a waste of money, and I don't have any money to waste. But I'll also discuss possible consulting work in the future, and if I can pull $50/hour out of them, that will ease my trouble just a little. They won't be keping me busy 40 hours a week, so I'll need to rustle up more work from somewhere. But it's a start. Then, finished at last with that humiliation, it's off to Boston and the MIT Mystery Hunt. I've been looking forward to this since... well, since the last Mystery Hunt. Over 48 hours of solving puzzles, with very little time for sleep? I'm there! Sign me up! This is the kind of thing you either jump into with both feet or couldn't be dragged into with a power winch. And strangely, one's enthusiasm for the event has very little to do with being a "puzzle person." My brother Daniel has been going for years, and as far as I know it's the one time each year he glances at anything puzzle related. You might go because you love puzzles, yes, but it's just as likely you'd go for the team spirit thing -- the joy of working together with good people to solve devious, outrageous puzzles that often, on the surface, seem simply impossible. It's a thrill to be one of twenty or thirty minds, all focusing on a single puzzle that has stopped us all for hours. And to see that puzzle crumble to the ground on the force of our mental exertion. Every year, there is someone who joins the team despite the fact that he knows that he will be useless. And inevitably, that person brings an simple insight to an intractable problem, one that allows it to be solved once and for all. Last year it was Janinne, and she wasn't even in attendance. We had been staring at the blackboard at a list of words, and after many hours of getting nowhere, I took a break and called my wife. After the inquiries into the health of babies and dogs, I read her the list of words, and she jotted them down, but said she didn't really want to think about it because a movie was about to start. Well, that's fine -- if she wanted to join in, she could have schlepped to Boston with me. Love, love, love, miss you, miss you, and good bye. Half an hour later I checked my e-mail, to see that she had sent me a message perhaps five minutes after I had hung up the phone. She had just about solved the whole damn thing. I remember looking at her e-mail and initially thinking, What is she talking about? That can't be... right... Hang on a second!!! I must have made some sort of barking noise that indicates sudden inspiration, because the rest of my team surrounded my computer and read her e-mail, too, and suddenly new ideas were flying, and within thirty seconds the puzzle that had stopped us for nearly a day was checked off under the Solved column. Happens every year. It's a wonder to behold, and a thrill to participate in it. I'll be staying with Dan this year -- no hotel for me. Ah well. But I'm only in the hotel for maybe eight hours over the whole weekend -- a nap, a shower, and then back to the puzzles. Foolish to spend so much money on it when Dan lives ten minutes away. Plus he just e-mailed me to announce that Beef Burgundy is on the menu for this evening. Why on earth would I chose to buy a completely average burger at the hotel sports bar instead of chowing down with my bro? It's going to be a great weekend.

SPENT THE DAY WORKING ON THE WEB SITE. It is no longer "Eric Berlin's Little Chunk of Web," but instead, "Eric Berlin -- Editorial Services." Considering how very bad I am at HTML, it looks okay. Gets the message across anyway. Need to fix a few more things, and then tomorrow I start spreading news of my existence to my pitifully small list of contacts. Speaking of pitiful: Sheryl Crow. There's nothing more cringe-worthy than artists -- especially those whose work I respect -- spouting off on the issues of the day. Sheryl's statement last night at the American Music Awards is a marvel of oversimplification: "I think war is based in greed and there are huge karmic retributions that will follow. I think war is never the answer to solving any problems. The best way to solve problems is to not have enemies." We shouldn't have enemies! Why didn't we think of that?! I wonder what Sheryl would have done about that Hitler fellow way back when, since war is never the answer to solving any problems. What's amazing is she almost certainly believes what she is saying. Karmic retributions. Good hopping Christ.

SO, I AM OFFICIALLY UNEMPLOYED. Again. Still can't believe it. My dot-com jobs -- companies with no coherent business plan whatsoever; companies that thought a catchy name was all that was needed to become a phenomena -- these jobs lasted longer than my tenure with a multimillion-dollar, nationally known toy company. I would never have dreamed it possible. I didn't think I'd retire from this place old and gray, but, shi-ite, who would have looked at this company and said, "I give this six months tops?" Criminy. They offered to keep me on. Same salary, fewer responsibilities. The trick is, I'd have to move to Chicago. My gut reaction was: No way. But I bit my tongue and listened to the offer, then came home and discussed it with the wife. Gave it some serious consideration. End result: No way. I'll happily work as a freelancer for them, do some consulting work, but this company is not going to uproot my life twice in one year. I was already leaning against the move when I called Chicago to speak to human resources on another matter -- a small insurance snafu that needs to be cleared up before the end of the week. And if I had any fantasies that moving to Chicago might be a good idea, they got eradicated fast as I tried to navigate my company's phone-mail system, which is a living electronic Escher print of menus and submenus that twist and turn and slam into each other. I expected to hear a phone-mail Minotaur come on the line: Another wanderer lost in the maze! It's dinnertime! I spent ten minutes -- a real, solid ten minutes -- pushing buttons, and failed to raise a single human being. I did leave a message for someone, but I have no idea if she's anyone who can help me. Is it foolish to reject a job on the basis of a company's phone mail system? Not hardly. If they can't get this right, what might the future hold for its products? I shudder to think.

WHAT ARE THE POSSIBLE SCENARIOS FOR TOMORROW? Let's see: 1) First, and most likely: "This office is being shut down. Help yourself to the office supplies, then get out." There's a part of me that's even hoping for this, although it would be nice if my insurance was stretched to, say, the end of February. (Ha.) 2) "This office is shutting down at the end of this week." (Or even, God help us, "This office is shutting down at the end of this month.") The paychecks will continue for a little while longer, but dragging myself to work will be like crawling through a lake of sludge every single day. But the paychecks will continue for a little while longer. So this is the scenario I should be hoping for. 3) "What? Fired? Who said anything about being fired? Jeez, how did this crazy rumor get started in the first place? Raises for everybody!" I can't really see our Chinese CEO saying "Jeez." Or the rest of it, either. But, really, it'll probably be Scenario #1: Don't take off your coat, you're going right back home. Here's a good sign that things are bad: I asked my boss for a contact at Fisher-Price, his former employer. How many times in your life do you get to ask your present boss for information to help you get a new job? I've already sent out a half-dozen resumes, including the one to FP. (Which is in... Buffalo. So it's come to this.) I am also gearing up to assault the nation with an editorial services at-home business. Writing! Editing! Uhh... more writing! The whole editorial gamut between writing and editing, right here at Eric Berlin's Writing and Editing Bistro! This plan needs more fleshing out. But I expect to have all the time in the world to do just that.

CONSIDERING THAT I AM ALMOST CERTAINLY GOING TO BE FIRED TOMORROW, I am in a surprisingly good mood. So what if I only had this job for six months? So what if I actually bought a house on the belief that this job would be stable? I can either make myself physically sick with worrying about the future -- I've done it before! I'm good at it! -- or I can simply have a nice weekend. Amazingly, I chose the latter. Would a worried-sick person make a lasagna? I think not! But I did it, although in general I'm more of a spaghetti kind of guy: Boil water, put in spaghetti, drain, add sauce, eat. Any idiot can do it. Lasagna always seemed like too much of construction project, like baking a house of cards. Surely there are at least a dozen things that can go wrong here. And now you've got this no-boil lasgana, of which I have always been deeply suspicious. It seems closer to witchcraft than food technology. The lasagna comes out of the package in stiff, fan-folded sheets, like corrugated cardboard. You lay these in a pool of sauce, and it could not possibly look less like this will eventually become a meal. Unless you like extremely crunchy pasta. But something wonderful happens in the oven, and it all came out perfect. (Except for the top layer, which really was crunchy. Oh well. Easily enough peeled back.) Lasagna even a guy can make! Try that one for your next slogan, Ronzoni.

A LITTLE PUZZLE I SUBMITTED TO WILL SHORTZ was used in his segment on NPR Weekend Edition.