love and hate

Feeling the love?
Hate everything?
Commiserate with your choice here.

observation of the day work edition

People(possibly) better at my job than I am are:
- people better at math
- people who namedrop and tell better stories

Neither of which are insurmountable.

whoa

If you know me, you'll understand.

Download here (PDF, 8.5MB)

google reader

Ah yes...resolutions. Tis that time of year.

In my Top 5 for 2008 is "Get Organized" - which of course comes in many forms, but let's start with email.

In an effort to be more efficient, I've unsubscribed from every work-related newsletter with an RSS feed. The solution? Google Reader (thanks Eric!)

If you're like me you open email as soon as the little notifier pops up and get totally distracted from what you're doing to read the latest from ClickZ or DMN or AdAge or whatever. Or you leave it unread and it quickly ends up below the fold in Outlook as your Unread Mail ticker soars. Maybe you tried turning off notifications or closing Outlook altogether but then you miss out on time-sensitive stuff -- and flagging leaves you with an Inbox full of red flags and well, that just causes unnecessary anxiety.

Google Reader is an RSS feed aggregator that lets the user decide what to read and when to read it. Blogs, newsletters, real estate listings...anything with RSS. The coolest features revolve around sharing - besides your basic email a friend function, any article can be flagged as Shared, which adds it to the Readers of your friends (kinda like Your Network on de.licio.us). There's also the Add To Blog feature that widgetizes any article to embed as you please.

Did I mention the Blackberry app? (Speaking of which, if you don't have Google Maps for Blackberry launch up that Berry browser, go to mobile.google.com, and install right now. Instant GPS!) Reader is part of Google's suite of mobile apps that work with most any phone or Berry.

Now, if only certain people at work had RSS feeds and I could unsubscribe from their emails...

observation of the day

Ever notice that Peter Cetera is wearing a Bauhaus t-shirt (of all things) in the video for "You're The Inspiration"?

Looks like it's the cover for the single ""Bela Lugosi's Dead". Weird.

tree transformation

before...


...after


(don't forget the hot buttered rum)

need a little christmas, right this very minute

There's leftover Halloween candy in the kitchen, and we're barely into double-digit dates in November...but I'm already jonesing for Christmas.

My spirits are in need of a major boost, and I'm throwing myself into the holidays this year. As a child I loved Christmas, but in 1990 everything went seriously downhill...and soon thereafter obligation replaced simplicity, with joy pretty much nowhere to be found. In recent years I've been lucky enough to be around people who really love Christmas, enough so to help me finally dig myself out of that hole.

It's cliche, but you could say it's like I'm experiencing it for the first time. We went to Target tonight, where I turned into a child again, in awe of the lights, sparkly tinsel trees, and baubles of all sizes. And yeah, half of it's crap, but an explosion of Christmas nonetheless. I had to keep myself from buying everything I saw.

Surprisingly Thanksgiving never fell victim to my holiday disdain, which makes it doubly enjoyable this year -- and the perfect start to a (hopefully) rediscovered holiday season.