So Yahoo's instant messaging service and MySpace are both down simultaneously. I don't know how long MySpace has been down, but Yahoo Messenger has been unavailable since I got up this morning. That makes this outage quite significant, especially in light of the fact that Yahoo and Microsoft recently began a public test that allows users of one service to contact users of the other. The problems don't seem to have spread to Yahoo's new partner, however, because MSN Messenger remains in full-service. If MySpace wasn't down, or at least significantly malfunctioning 75% of the time, I might think today's outages were part of some larger conspiracy. After all, in case you haven't been paying attention, World War III did start last week. Gotta run. "Batman & Robin" just came on HBO2, and if I don't change the channel soon, my television (and my brain) will self-destruct. Besides, "The Big Lebowski" is coming on Showtime right now. Again. I think I'll watch that instead. Again.