Shorter-Week Snackage

Random minutia milling about in my brain:

'Twas The Night Before … The buzz around other offices has been, "do we get to leave early today?" I've been asked at least twice. But our director answered that for us on Monday: no. Of course, she took today off completely. So in lieu of leaving, I've turned to a bit of very-productive blogging.

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Just like the end of last week: as of Monday, I had four meetings scheduled at work today. Two were even occurring at the same time. Well, the last of the four canceled on me a mere 45 minutes in advance, leaving me with a completely clear schedule. That's the way to start a four-day weekend!

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This week's "Your 15 Minutes Are Up" award is a three-way tie between O.J. Simpson, Michael Richards and anyone involved in 2004's "Nipplegate." In brief: I can't tell if the O.J. situation means that if you ignore it, it WON'T go away, or it WILL; Mr. Richards' outburst is being blown WAY out of proportion by the media, in my opinion (let's see any TV personality badgering Nancy Grace for an apology); and can you believe that Janet Jackson/Justin Timberlake/Super Bowl thing was back in the news yet again this week? Or put more properly: is it any wonder I've switched almost entirely from terrestrial radio to Sirius?

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Tune Town … Between the Sirius receiver and the iPod integration, Dan joked that I'd probably never need the CD player in my car. Wrong. I caught up on some recent releases in the past week: Josh Groban's Awake and Christina Aguilera's Back To Basics — both purchased on "old-fashioned" CD. Completely in love with his Lullaby and with her The Right Man, among others. By the way, I've put a little iTunes Flash-based gadget on the blog homepage (lower right, for now) that should show some of the songs I'm listening to. It works fine from home, but not behind the firewall at work — your mileage may vary.

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Mini Road-Hog … I may have said this before, but nothing will make me drive exactly the speed limit (or perhaps a smidgen below it) than a Hummer, Escalade or other similarly-sized, similarly-gas-guzzling SUV riding my bumper. (And here I think of a totally out-of-character snarky remark. Curious? Hover here.)

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Beta Not Bite Me In The … I caved and joined the Blogger Beta today. I just know I'll regret this somehow — but at least I did it before a long weekend so I have time at home to fix any issues I can.

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Talk about service … I love the little UPS Store where I rent a mailbox. Yesterday, the owner must have seen me park my car just outside. By the time I opened the front door, he had a package out of storage for me, and the book to collect my signature open to the right page. Out of 200 or so mailbox customers, and countless other daily walk-ins, he remembered me by name (or at least face and box number). That, my readers, makes it a business worth my business.