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Tuesday, June 29, 2010

I suppose I should get caught up here...

In bullets!
  • The gig on Friday night went quite well. The treatment we got was far different than what I think most of us were used to. The festival we played consisted almost entirely of acts from out-of-state. So the hospitality was kicked up a notch. We benefited from that. Coolers of beer/pop/water for the band (ah, just like the good old days...), a real stage to play from, with lights and decent sound, and the all-access green wrist bands for each of us. Far different from the weekly music thing that all of us have played for numerous times in the past.
  • Performance-wise, we did very well, but not perfect. We could have used just one more rehearsal with the full band. Part of our problem stemmed from sound issues onstage. One side of the band couldn't hear what the other side was doing. And whereas the last band I was a member of (which will continue to be nameless) knew, simply by a look, what the rest of the band was going to do next; this band doesn't have that telepathy yet. Not to say it wasn't tight, or that it was sloppy. We just had a minor moment or two that probably no one but the rest of the band wished they could get back.
  • We got a little bit of ink in the local paper the next day. People really seemed to like us! Our one thing that we did drop the ball on was length of our set. We ended about 15 minutes earlier than anticipated. And we heard about it from the organizing chairman. Sure, we could have repeated one of our first songs, as most of the crowd was filing in as we started our set, but that's just tacky. But we all agreed after the fact that we definitely need to work up more tunes. In other words, more writing for me!
  • Moose made it into town about 11:30 Friday night. We stayed up past 2AM to catch up on things. She wasn't repulsed by the apartment (or has been polite enough not to bitch), so I think Operation Scrubdown was a success! And after three days, it's still clean!
  • We've been out for beers, pizza (Howard's, for those of you in the know...), movies, and she's gotten to spend time with some friends and their babies. Tonight we ended up at one of our favorite hang-outs--the York Bar. We had the world-famous burgers, and she had her customary Ceasar, a particularly vile Canadian concoction. But the view was nice at least!
  • In a new twist to end an activity, she also celebrated with a shot of Patron. Known the girl for damned near 15 years, and didn't know she liked Patron.
  • Spent some time in symphony staff meetings. The summer concert is less than 3 weeks away. I haven't spent hardly a minute in working on preparations. I'll need to do that this week. Fortunately, having done this for the past 12 summers, there's not much that will catch me off-guard.
  • I have a meeting with the bass player from that band with no name mentioned above. We've got a wedding gig over Labor Day, and we need to come up with a plan. Again, after so many years together, it'll come together pretty easily. But we still need a plan.
  • I think I mentioned it last week (I'm too lazy to check), but Dad had another 18 liters of fluid sucked from his innards last week. He had a bit of the flu a couple of days later and was feeling pretty poorly, but he's doing better since the weekend.
  • Part of the success of Operation Scrubdown was donating a hide-a-bed and about 10 boxes of clothes to Good Samaritan. Clothes that I wore when I was teaching. Twenty-some years ago. No need to call "Hoarders" now!
Probably some other stuff to report, but I can't think of what it would be. Moose heads out on Wednesday. Most likely going to a concert on Friday night. Probably some lake shenanigans over the weekend (that's going to be a little weird). Damn. Summer's almost over!

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Solstice 2010 HNT

As I do every year, I was up with the sun on the longest day of the year. Birds were chirping. Bunnies were hopping. There was a damp chill in the air still from the storms from the night before. Curiously, there were no joggers/walkers out at this time of morning, which really is odd. But it made it much more comfortable to be on my balcony just a bit more than half-nekkid for my annual Solstice Sunrise picture!

Of course, the clouds you see coming in blocked out the sun for most of the morning...


Not much to say here.
An angel who helped in a time of need.
To be revealed Thursday afternoon.
Come back to see!
Not too difficult to figure out this week's angel of mercy. I call her that, because she stepped up at the 23rd hour to be the MG. Thanks, Jobthingy! Be sure to stop by and thank her. And kiss her boo-boo from the earthquake...





Plenty of fellow HNTers to check out over at "...the Other HNT" this week. NSFW, as usual, but please stop by and leave plenty o' comments!
Go ask me an anonymous question over in the white formspring box!
Way back in 2008, Tony over at BTExpress started a project in his back yard that he got us all excited about. Replacing his small, plain pool with a much larger, much nicer pool. He spent most of the summer posting construction updates, pictures of the hedges and trees being taken out, and throwing in an occasional HNT with them. Then last summer, he posted the final results (click 'em to big 'em).


Shortly after that, he and I were chatting, and he mentioned how he wished people could come see it. It was at that point that I blurted out the obvious..."POOL PARTY!" Knowing that I've got some experience in the blogger meet up area, he asked how he should start. The first thing I suggested was to give at least a year's notice so that people would be able to plan. So he picked a date, and the rest is history. Well, maybe not history yet, but it will be!

We're at 45 days out now! The party will take place on Saturday, August 7th, starting in the mid-afternoon. And it's open invitation! Sure, many of us have gotten the personal invites, but there's so many newbies out here that he's asked me to mention it here and extend the invitation to all. I'll be there, as well as a couple of people from Texas, and other guests have indicated their probability of attending. He really needs to get a head count, plus none of you know where he lives, so here's all the details:
When: Saturday, Aug. 7, 2010; 2:00 PM - Midnight (at least)
Where: Long Island, NY (get details from Tony)
Who: Friends and Bloggerfriends of Tony (BTExpress)
Why: Official Grand Opening of his pool
What to expect: Drinks, swimming, grilling, profound conversation, probable skinny-dipping (based on trial parties already held), new friendships and good times.
Go check out his post from last year where he showed off his new pool. Let him know that you're interested in coming by emailing him (check his profile for his address). He'll be able to give you more of the details. Let's make this the most memorable blogger meet-up yet!
It's been a busy week here in the Land of Os. Final rehearsals for Friday's debut of the Big Soul Band; final cleaning for Operation Scrubdown; graveside services for my BIL; Moose's arrival sometime on Friday; symphony staff meetings--all these have pretty much kept me away from the computer since last week. Apologies for not keeping up with my "regulars"!

Monday, June 21, 2010

Change of Season

Spring went out with a bang on Monday. We were pelted with a pretty decent storm, a little hail, and then a steady rain for most of the night. But that paled in comparison to what happened in Billings (3 1/2 hours to the east). An F-2 tornado touched down during the late afternoon. Fortunately, no one was killed, and there were no real injuries. The biggest casualty was the biggest indoor sports/entertainment facility in the state. The roof was ripped off, as well as much of the siding, and the question now is whether it can be gutted and repaired, or torn down and rebuilt.



There's some great videos online if you google Billings and tornado. This one in particular is sort of a compilation of various videos. You can tell that Montanans aren't accustomed to the correct protocol when dealing with a tornado. Between the guy that videos the funnel directly above his house, to the constant flow of traffic driving past the complex as debris is blowing all around them.

While we didn't get anything like that here, it was dark and rainy all afternoon/evening. Until sundown, when the sun peeked through the gap in the clouds and mountains to make the most perfect rainbow. The perfect way to end Spring, and ring in the Summer! Click 'em to big 'em!


Sunday, June 20, 2010

Hazmat suits optional...

Happy Father's Day to everyone who is a father, had a father, or wishes they were a father. It's going to be a bit subdued around here I think. Brunch is planned, but the normal clan gathering to chow down for dinner isn't going to happen. Dad's not feeling up to it (remember the post about the 2+ gallons of fluids drained from his gut? He goes in again on Monday for another round), and frankly, emotions are a going to be quite raw this Father's Day, as you could imagine.
I finished up the last of my music writing on Saturday morning! Took a late Friday night and an early Saturday morning to do it, but it's done. For now. It's going to be an ongoing thing all summer, but the pressure is off for now. And even in time for a Saturday afternoon rehearsal!
We've gotten our first decent weather in awhile, and I'm stuck inside all weekend. Since the music is done, all efforts have been turned to Operation Scrubdown. Actually had a good day of it today. I broke out the garbage bags, which is a major step for me. I think I just need to get to a mental state where I'm tossing out papers, etc., that belong to someone else. That worked pretty well today, though it was still tough to part with some of it. Visions of "Hoarders" helped me justify it...
I spent some time cleaning out (and simply cleaning) my fridge too. Oh, what an adventure that was! I found cans of fruit with "best if used by..." dates that were older than this blog. No fewer than 4 pickle jars (with no more than a half dozen pickle chips in each). Some old ranch dressing jars and mayonnaise jars with that last knife spread's worth of stuff in each. Now nicely congealed. And the coup de grĂ¢ce, a bag of lettuce (I think) that was tucked in the very back corner of the lowest shelf. There was nothing left in the bag that remotely looked like vegetation. Whatever was in there had liquified, possibly eaten a hole in the bag, and leaked to the bottom of the fridge. And then dried out and crustified. So, since I'd emptied out and tossed most of what was in there, I took the next step and just went to town on the inside. It's all sparkly fresh in there now! Haven't decided if I'm going to tackle the freezer or not at this point. My big project for today will be my bedroom. It's not going to be pretty.
Had an interesting problem with my power company. I may or may not have been a bit lax in getting my payments to them. I received a disconnect notice the day after the funeral stating that my power would be shut off on Monday. Nothing like that to get a payment to them! Well, on Wednesday morning, just before heading to work, off went my power. No warning, no fanfare, no courtesy call. Just off. I contacted them as soon as I got to work. They had, in fact, received my payment, but didn't cancel the disconnect. No problem--it was early enough in the day that they would probably get it switched on again before I got home from work, but I was told that it could take up to 24 hours (to flip a freakin' switch???). You can see where this is going, can't you? I get home, and there's no power. I head back to work, so I can get HNT/OHNT drafted and scheduled. I get home and the power's still off. I did what little cleaning I could around with the evening sunlight still out. Then it got dark. And quiet. No internetz. No TV. No stereo. I putzed around on my iPod and my phone, until I realized that, by the morning, they'd need to be recharged. Oops. Took care of that at work the next day. The rest of the story...it took 4 afternoon phone calls, but the power was restored Thursday night. Just shy of 36 hours after it was turned off! THIRTY-SIX HOURS! Moral of the story? Pay your bills on time, boys and girls!

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Not For the Birds HNT

Still working on catching up from not accomplishing anything from last week. Sitting on the side burner has been the music writing (almost done, though) and work on the OsShirt site. The big project to really fall behind was Operation Scrubdown. So I've been working on that to some degree and hope to really get a lot taken care of this weekend (I have to!). One of the first projects I took care of was my balcony.

For those who have followed me for awhile might remember that the birds around here like to fornicate outside of my bedroom window. Generally between the hours of 4:00 - 8:00 AM, but there's no time that isn't good for them. This year, I got proactive about curbing their procreation. There's a man-made hole in the ceiling of the balcony that serves no useful purpose, other than it makes a great nesting place. I duct taped that sucker shut in March, so that there was no access. The birds didn't like that at all, as you can tell that they've been pecking at it, trying to get in. When that failed, they started to build a nest in the corner of the awning just below that. I've torn that down twice, and I think they realize they've been defeated. I haven't seen any evidence that they've tried anything else.

However, the balcony was full of twigs, grass, leaves, bird poop, dead baby birds (you can read about them in the archives too), and whatever else the wind might have blown in. Making it totally gross to walk around barefoot. Even wearing shoes wouldn't help, as I'd end up tracking all that stuff inside. So I've reclaimed my balcony! I filled an entire big trash bag with the twigs, grass, leaves, bird poop, and dead baby birds. Then I took a vacuum to the really tacky astroturf carpet. And now, I can enjoy my balcony all day, if so desired! Half-nekkid in my bare feet! Enjoying a morning cup of coffee...


As a side note--I'm glad I took this on Monday, as we've had rain ever since, with days more to come. The good news is that it washes the bird poop off the ledges!
"You're written in her book
You're number 37, have a look
She's going to smile to make you frown, what a clown
Little boy, she's from the street
Before you start, you're already beat
She's gonna play you for a fool, yes it's true

'Cause everybody knows (She's a femme fatale)
The things she does to please (She's a femme fatale)
She's just a little tease (She's a femme fatale)
See the way she walks
Hear the way she talks"

excerpt from
"Femme Fatale"
- Lou Reed

This week's Mystery Guest isn't going to be revealed here. But if you do some looking around at this week's HNTs, you won't have much trouble finding out who it is. Think of it as a treasure hunt!


Another good week over at "...the Other HNT". Definitely NSFW this week, too. But don't let that stop you from dropping by and leaving a few comments! Your fellow HNTers always appreciate it!
See that empty white box over there in my sidebar? Go ask me a question! Anonymously!
Have you seen the new thing that Blogger has done for templates? They've finally given more template control over to the user! You should go check it out on your Dashboard. Of course, I won't be doing it any time soon, as I'm still using the "old" Blogger (some of you don't even know that there was an "old" Blogger!).

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

"Normal"

Trying to get back to some sense of normalcy around here. Nothing like a bunch of staff meetings for the symphony to bring one back the frustratingly mundane.

Hey! Dad's birthday is today! Seventy-seven. Wow. Also Ashly Star's bday too! She's not 77 today.

Ooh! "The Secret of My Success" is on right now. Helen Slater...mmmmm! As a side note...damn, the 80s were embarrassing.

Have you seen that Huggies commercial for the "denim" diapers? I'm not a big fan of diaper commercial, in general, but I really like that one!

Speaking of commercials, another one that caught my attention (and brought a tear to my eye) is the one for freecreditreport.com. And the news that they're replacing the band. Been there.

Speaking of band...the official name of the big soul band I've joined is (are you ready for this?) Big Soul Band. Good thing we make better music than original band names! Last week sort of put the pressure on me to get horn charts done as quickly as possible. I'm down to only four more left! The question has come up...can a hot chick and eight white boys from Montana play soul? We'll find out! Our first gig is at a local festival. Opening act. Opening for Michelle Shocked. Pressure's on!

Speaking of that night, that's the same night that Moose will be coming to visit! For those new to the game, she's my best friend, the one who got me into blogging, and one of the original HNTers. She informed me that she was staying with me for about 5 days. In my apartment. We've shared a motel room or two in the past, but we've never played house before. She's only concerned about the bathroom being clean, but I can't let her stay here in its current state. Now have a reason to do an intense cleaning of the whole place. And it's started!

Speaking of playing house, well, this doesn't really have anything to do with that, but I've got food to last me for quite awhile. While people have best intentions when they send food to families, there gets to be a point where food needs to be redistributed. My sister got eight (8!) whole hams. About four meat/cheese trays. Maybe half a dozen veggie trays (with dip). Cases upon cases of water, pop and beer. Casseroles. Enough bags of chips to last the summer out at their lake place. Far too much for one family to dispose of before things start to spoil. I got one of the hams, one of the meat/cheese trays, and a baggie or two of the veggies. Thanks Ray!

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Farewell HNT

Well, I can't promise anything, but this should be the last reference to my brother-in-law's death. I can't begin to thank everyone individually for the condolences you've passed on to me and my family. But thank you all anyway. Of course, it's a little weird to try to explain to your sister that so-and-so from Alabama offers her condolences... Then again, they're all used to my flitting around the country to meet the funny people from the other side of the computer monitor, so they take it in stride.

I remember my first impressions of Ray. I was home during the summer of my college years. Dad was playing in the derby after the first round of the city golf championship (a derby is a mini-tournament among the top golfers, and there's betting action, a gallery following, cheering even...it's a golf thing). Anyhoo...Dad has made it to the fourth hole. A long par-5, with a severe right dogleg off the tee. The big hitters would cut the corner, but have to hit it long and hard and over some huge cottonwoods. The first two golfers took the safe route and hit the "safe" shot down the middle.

As Dad gets up to the tee, this juvenile delinquent in bib overalls, long straight hair below his neck, a full beard and a beer in his hand (maybe 16 years old) yells out, "C'mon Bud, hit it over the trees!" Now, that wouldn't have meant much, except that this same delinquent could have grabbed that club and easily hit it over the trees, outdistancing everyone standing there. So Dad steps back, re-aims for the trees, took a mighty whack at it, and promptly duck hooks it out of bounds on the left side of the fairway. That was the point where my mother informed me that that was my sister's boyfriend.

Ray cleaned up quite a bit from those days, but he still knew how to push my dad's buttons. There's a thousand stories I could tell about Ray. But I won't bore you with them. Let's just say that he was a gentleman, and a nice guy, and a hard worker. He was a people person, which he had to be in his position. Yet he was not one whom you could steamroll into a decision that he hadn't already thought out completely.

I've often times stated that I think it should be a rule that no one could marry before the age of 30. Ray and my sister are one of the exceptions that prove the rule. They were married for 25 years, and dated for about 5 or 6 before that. Sometimes that whole monogamy thing works! He's been a vital member of this family for over 30 years. He's going to be sorely missed...

Someone asked if there was any anger in the family. Not that I could tell. Couldn't be angry with him, as it wasn't suicide. And he was the most health-conscious one in the family (ran 3x/week, trimmed all the fat off his steak, only ate it well-done). Can't be angry at family, as there were no fights or conflicts among us. Can't be angry at strangers, as it wasn't an accident or other violent end. Can't be angry with God, as that generally has proven to be counter-productive. I think everyone is trying to focus on the good memories, as there's not really any bad ones that I'm aware of.

I thought about taking a picture of him lying in his casket for HNT, but that would probably be a bit too much, so I give you a picture of Ray (wearing his own version of the OsShirt!) and the rest of the Os siblings/husbands while drinking beer at Carlos'n Charlies in Cozumel. These are the times we're going to remember/miss the most. Gonna miss you Ray!


“ '...The blow job in the library is the very essence of it, the sanctified transgression, the campus black mass.' Janie weighed maybe a hundred pounds, no more than five feet tall, if that, a little blonde who looked as if you could pick her up and throw her around, and she was the college’s dirty diva….But she was neither stupid nor a slut. Janie was someone who knew what she was doing. She stood in front of you, small as she was….: this is what I am, this is what I do, if you don’t like it, it’s too bad..."

You might recognize this cute little behind. Or you might think you do. Or you won't. Regardless, she'll be revealed Thursday afternoon. Be sure to stop by and see if you're right!

If you got around to the HNTs, you should know who this is. It's Janie, over at "100 Ways to Be Perverse..." Stop by and see who the hand belongs to, too!

Got a nice crew over at "...the Other HNT" this week. My normal routine/schedule was a bit messed up this week, obviously, so be sure to check back later to see if any latecomers were added. As always, it's NSFW over there!
Stop by the OsShirt site to see what's been happening. Rumor has it that it's going to be headed off on a trans-Atlantic flight in the near future!
Got a question you're dying to ask me? The white box over there in my sidebar is the place to ask! Anonymously even!

Sunday, June 06, 2010

Sad, sad, sad

It's been an ugly, ugly weekend. Lots of tears. Lots of laughs. Lots of a really weird combination of laughing and uncontrollable sobbing at the same time. I went to my sister's house on Saturday morning. The first two people who meet me at the door are my 20-something nieces. Who just lost their father less than 12 hours earlier. Then my baby sister and her husband, who just lost their best friend less than 12 hours earlier. Then I saw my mom, who just lost the father of her oldest grandchildren less than 12 hours earlier. Then I saw my sister, who just lost her husband, her soulmate, her best friend, the love of her life less than 12 hours earlier.

Actually, she was holding up quite well. Somewhat business-like, which is exactly what I would have expected from her. She wasn't sitting like a lump of jello in a corner feeling sorry for herself. She was gracious when meeting the string of guests and relatives that came over. Breaking down for a moment with each new person (as did the rest of us), then gathering herself and doing what she could to comfort those same new people. I don't doubt that she'll melt down at some point, but it won't be for a few days yet. That's the way she is. The nieces had friends that came over, so that was good for them, though they both ran back to their rooms for some alone time more than once. The poor dog looked lost though. She, too, lost her protector less than 12 hours earlier.

It's still not exactly clear what happened. An autopsy was performed Saturday, but the results won't be back for a bit. I won't go into details here. If you want to know, email me, and I'll be happy to fill you in on what I know. But I will say that it was his heart, he died immediately and quietly, in the five minutes that my sister went upstairs to get into her pjs and brush her teeth.

There's a Vigil Mass on Tuesday night, and the funeral on Wednesday morning. There's going to be hundreds of people there. Literally. Ray was a high profile person in this town. For a number of reasons. You can see the headline of the Sunday morning paper below. Not buried inside. Not on the bottom of page one. But the banner headline. Click on the picture if you want to read what the article had to say.

Friday, June 04, 2010

R.I.P. Ray

It's never good when your mom calls you after 11PM.

My 47 y.o. brother-in-law (BIL2) just died from a massive coronary.

I might not be around for awhile...

Time for Bullets!

Some stuff in my head from the past few days:
  • Cranked out three songs last night in the span of about 3 hours. It's pressure, but once I get deep into it, the stuff just flows...
  • Famous people seem to die in threes. Though at this writing, John Wooden hasn't passed on yet, it seems that it's inevitable. Miss Ellie, the world's ugliest dog of 2009 finally put us out of our misery. And Rue McClanahan of the Golden Girls. Didn't you just know that Betty White would outlast the rest of the Girls?
  • Wednesday night, while finishing up OHNTs I was watching ESPN. Well, ESPN was on the tube. Celtics vs. Lakers. Which confused me greatly, since I didn't think the Finals started until last night. Well, they were replaying a game from the Final from TWO YEARS AGO! WTH?? My lack of give-a-damn certainly came shining through!
  • Speaking of sports... Should Bud Selig overturn the umpire's atrocious call and give Armando Galarraga the perfect game he rightly deserves?
  • In two vastly different emails from different people, I was called "gentlemanly" and "a nice guy". I can live with that.
  • Over the past weekend, I had the ringer on my phone turned off. If I hadn't, I would have been able to take the 1AM phone call I got. Reverse look-up told me that it was an unpublished land line in Atlanta (meaning it was 3AM there!). I checked with the handful of people I know from the area, and they all denied calling. Did I get a drunk call from one of you people???
  • Got word a couple of nights ago that I'll be having a house guest (apartment guest?) at the end of the month. All she requests is that the bathroom be clean. Well, I'm just a little too proud for that, so Operation Scrubdown starts this weekend. Squeezed in there somewhere between music writing, rehearsals and staff meetings. More to come about this one later on.
  • Noticed a sad trend with HNT. Yesterday there were only 48 "I'm ups". Forty-eight. Let me say right off the bat that I'm not approaching this as a comment whore. I could care less about the numbers on my own posts. But my HNT posts are more for YOU guys to come back to and see who else has joined in. Why the downturn in numbers? Right off the bat, it appears that people are forgetting. Plenty of HNTers who have been doing this for awhile forget to come over (or opt NOT to). Depriving many of us, particularly the newbies, from finding them. Also taking a hit, though minor, from those whom I apparently pissed off with my "sexblogger" rant a few weeks ago (which also shows me that they didn't really read all that I wrote...). Some of them took their gloves and balls and bats and made a new place to play. Whatever. Some of you play on both fields, which is nice. I'm not ready to consider that HNT is dying out, as I've seen this thing ebb and flow for years. But it's just odd to see less than 50 comments for something that once regularly garnered over 300!
  • I've mentioned this before, but I hope you guys are coming back to check out those who posted later in the day. There's been some wonderful HNTs that have gotten posted later on Thursday!

Thursday, June 03, 2010

Soul-full HNT

As mentioned earlier this week, my June has unexpectedly gotten quite busy. A big chunk of that will be happening over the next week or so. One of the things I had assumed when joining this soul band (we still don't have a name..."That Soul Band" might very well be it) is that I would need to come up with some horn arrangements. What I didn't quite anticipate was that I would have to write ALL of the horn arrangements. Still not a big deal, but rehearsals have started, and I just got a potential song list over the weekend. So I now have to spend my free time writing. I took care of the most complex one, so the rest should be a relative breeze. I'll be OK if I can crank out at least two arrangements/day. Which is not totally out of the question. I just have to apply myself.

So my nights have sort of looked dreamy like this. Me with a blank-ish stare, and notes flying around me. In color even! I won't say who else has been in them... :-)


"The free bird thinks of another breeze
And the trade winds soft through
The sighing trees
And the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright
Lawn and he names the sky his own.

The caged bird sings with
A fearful trill of things unknown
But longed for still and his
Tune is heard on the distant hill
For the caged bird sings of freedom."


--Maya Angelou

This week's Mystery Guest is choosing to stay a mystery. Of course, you could always shoot her an email if you think you know who it is!

Another wonderful crew over at "...the Other HNT" this week! Be sure to stop by and check them out! It's generally a little tamer than some weeks, but still NSFW...
You might see the OsShirt while out surfing this week. After spending much of its time in the South, it's finally come up north! No link to it, so you'll have to go looking for this week's appearance!
Want to ask me a question? The little formspring box over there in the sidebar is where you want to go! And you can do it anonymously!
I don't know how long this gmail feature has been available, but I just found it this morning. Or rather, it found me. I was sending some files to a friend. I wrote a brief blurb, and said I was attaching the files. But I hadn't attached them. So before gmail did its thing, a warning box popped up, said that I had mentioned attaching files, but hadn't, and did I really want to send this message?

I find part of that quite wonderful, and part of that quite scary.