Last night as I was trying to find some dinner, waiting for Baby Z to be born, I passed a number of Irish bars in the neighborhood. For some reason — and I’m not an alky — the lure of the bars was palpable. For some reason I was overcome with the fear that I…

Roberta Austin of The Compulsive Reader offers this review of Half Mast. Thanks, Roberta!

Thank God — you can have ’em!

Highlight something in Microsoft Word and hit Shift+F3. It cycles the selection through ALL CAPS, all lowercase, and First character of a sentence capped. Invaluable for cleaning up text.

Last night I dreamed I had a meeting in the Playboy Mansion. There were like six of us, meeting with a pajama-clad Hugh Hefner in a traditional boardroom on the property. Toward the end of the meeting, Hef pulled out a giant bottle of Cristal and passed it around for us to drink from. Then…

Half Mast is now on sale for $12.99! Get ’em while they last!

What I really, really, really want is a really, really, really loud horn for my car.

I love Amazon’s “Recommend an Item” links. Not only can I pepper the site with links to my book, enterprising lads have made classic connections like this one. (You’ll have to click the movie title and scroll down to see it on the next page… I can’t get the direct-product link to stick)

When you refill your old water bottle from the company water cooler, don’t put the nasty, slimy lip of the thing right up against the spout where the water comes out. That’s disgusting.

Yes, standard time! Helpful hint of the day: If you get a pop-up ad that says Messenger somewhere on the top bar, it’s an aggressive new ad using the Windows Messenger service. Just turn off Messenger (which you probably don’t need running anyway) by going to Start / Control Panel / Administrative Tools / Services…

Not only did that VCR arrive broken, but: – The ticket I protested 4 months ago came back guilty – Blogger got hacked – Car seems to be dying – Refrigerator began to freak out, making bizarre squealing noise – Dishwasher mounting screws snapped, sending dishwasher jumping out into center of kitchen – Strange Jamba…

I hate hate hate hate hate it when I order a new electronic gizmo and it turns out to be crap on arrival. Absolutely appalling. Today I received a new JVC VCR, not a top of the line model, but a presumably workable S-VHS unit. It was obviously crap the second I opened the shipping…

Add to nuisance file: Talking on one of those short-wave radio cell phones in the supermarket. For the guy trying to plan a party and talk to his girlfriend over a very loud, beeping radio in the snack aisle: It does not matter what kind of chips you get, nor is it worth spending 15…

Maggie and I share our love of GRAMPY. She’s got the whole story, though I think she assumes too much. Grampy is not neccessarily a relative of our pal. For all I know, he’s talking to his girlfriend.

Things I found under my desk this morning: – a pen – a penny – a Milk Dud

Spoof idea: Where’s Abe? (Tracking pennies based on the year of issuance — then everyone has tons of hits! Har har.) Ironically, wheresabe.com redirects to wheresgeorge.com.

The secret lives of dollar bills revealed at Where’s George? Here’s my profile.

Here’s what she did when everyone jumped out and screamed at her: And here’s a little video of the event (courtesy Chris Pirillo). Thanks, Chris!

Headline least likely to make an overweight woman buy a magazine: “Lose 25 Pounds By Thanksgiving: Our Scientifically Proven Plan Will Kick-Start Your Sluggish Gland!” From First for Women.

There’s a woman at my office his a always smiling. Always. It’s not some phony smile. It’s a genuine, warm smile. It sounds cheesy but she always brightens my day, while at the same time I wonder if she is really, truly happy.