I saw one of the brand new Mercury Sables on the road the other day. I REALLY think it was a bad move to essentially remove all of the color from the tail lights. The lenses are clear instead of red. It's not quite as bad on the other colors, but on the silver ones, it looks like the back of the car has cataracts. The ass-end of this car is just bland with absolutely NO personality. Just these empty eye-like things staring at you.

Blah. Bleh. (I thought about pulling down a photo of someone with cataracts for you, but that would have been...weird.)

You may or may know this about me, but most Sundays my wife and I have dinner with my parents. Usually in the 7:00 timeframe. We usually are able to hang around and chat awhile about...well, stuff.

Anyway, often the TV is on during our meal. We usually watch some combination of 60 Minutes and Antiques Roadshow. Tonight, during Andy Rooney's commentary during 60 Minute was pretty interesting. He talked about all of the different stack of papers and such in his office. The general gist was that he collects and stores a bunch of papers, and then doesn't do anything with them. At some point he decides that a particular piece of paper is important and stores it away, but rarely does he ever find a reason to go back and retrieve one of those pieces of paper.

He seems to be pretty comfortable with this arrangement, but he does realize that it's kinda counterproductive. I'm trying to move more towards a paperless lifestyle. I don't want to get to be Andy's age and have whole forests' worth of paper stacked up everywhere.

http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?id=2512318n

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...to see people with SUVs creeping over speedbumps. Or even worse, going around a speedbump.

Come on, people.

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According to this article, January 2007 - June 2007 is the second warmest January-July period. Ever. (Well, at least since they've been keeping track.) Behind 1998.

Wow.

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There are a many sites/blogs that I frequent, and there are a handful that I subscribe. One of the latter is Word Wise. It's written by Dan Santow, a Senior VP at Edelman, the world's largest privately held public relations firm. He began by sending out a weekly writing tip to some of Edelman's employees, and well, you know how things can kinda develop minds of their own.

Anyway, Dan recently released a post about once-impactful words and phrases that have been used and re-used so much that they have really lost their "oomph". He recommends finding a substitute whenever you find yourself using one of these terms. I wholeheartedly agree. Many of the terms he mentions come up quite often in the my field (Information Technology Consulting). Check out his entire post here, but here are some of the terms he mentions:

• robust
• turnkey
• best-of-breed
• mission critical
• interactive
• value-added
• utilize
• facilitate
• strategic
• leverage
• proactive
• empowered
• best practice
• granular
• bandwidth
• industry-leading
• next-generation
• world-class
• paradigm / paradigm-shifting
• revolutionary
• wide-ranging
• solution provider
• integrated
• thought-provoking

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That's just something people say when they know they can't catch you.

So, I've gotten over the ludicrousness of purchasing bottled water, please tell me...why...does my Aquafina have an expiration date?

Water expires?

Know What I'm Sayin'?? Hello?!?! Is this thing on?!?! HELLO?!?!

No links on this, because there are PLENTY out there, but The White House is being REAL gangster with their's on these federal prosecutor firings.

Gangster.

I'm just sayin'.

Alright, family. I'm assuming that you've heard that July 7, 2007 is the biggest wedding day of the year, if not the decade, if not the millennium. That being said, odds are that you know of a couple of weddings going on this weekend.

I'd like to share a tidbit of knowledge with you. Even if you don't apply this this weekend, you will undoubtedly one day call on this information, and you will also probably share it with someone.

Have you ever been to a wedding with the happy couple chooses not to include on the program instructions on whether or not to stand during the bride's entrance? Or maybe they do print it on the program, and you have some people who just don't read? Then there are those darn late-comers who may not even get programs. It can be pretty awkward. Some people sit, some people stand. The ones who don't have programs kinda do the half sit/stand, trying to see what everyone else is gonna do. It gets really bad when all the people in the back(who don't have programs) decide to stand, but they really aren't supposed to stand, and the people in the front know that they're not supposed to stand but they can't see because of the nimrods in the back. Sometimes one person shames everyone else into standing with a comment - "Oh. Look at her. She's so beautiful! You HAVE to stand up for her!". (I saw that happen once.)

Anyway. When absent of explicit directions, here's how you know whether or not to stand up during the bride's entrance: Don't look at her. Look at her mother. If the mother of the bride is standing up, then get to your feet. If she's sitting there looking at her daughter and on the verge of tears, stay in your seat. A little dose of etiquette. It's that simple. Don't look at the bride. Look at her mother.

Know What I'm Sayin'??