Odds and Ends

Originally posted May 25, 2006

Sorry it's been a while since I've blogged, but this week has been crazy busy! Wouldn't ya know, our cops reporter has been out with health issues and my night cops went home sick last night...two minutes after she walked out the door, a huge story broke and I was by myself, so yup, I had to play reporter last night. It was good, though...I miss reporting. Anyway, just a few tidbits tonight, as it's still pretty hectic here at work.

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Why don't people name their daughters Jill anymore? I was thinking about this, and I've only known, like, three Jills in my entire life. It's a rather pleasant name...why not Jill instead of all this Bricknell, Tiffarella, McClaire crap? Who can imagine an 80-year-old woman named Tiffarella anyway?? I say go for plain! I am pro-Jill.

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The other day I was walking down the street, I think, and I caught a whiff of something I immediately identified as "airport smell." Then I started to think how funny it is that there's actually a smell I associate with the airport. It's kind of a mix of stale cigarette smoke, diesel fuel, recirculated air conditioning and people. I know that sounds crazy, but seriously...every time I'm in an airport, it doesn't matter which one, it smells the same! It's funny how much we can attach to our olfactory sense.

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So we recently switched to a new e-mail system at work, and in order to avoid the P.O.S. that it is, I imported everything into Outlook. Unfortunately, there's no easy way to get the company's global address list in there. So I've been typing in some addresses by hand. As I was scrolling through the list, I saw that Patrick Hartman, who used to work in advertising in my office before he got sent to a sister paper, has an address that doesn't follow our normal convention. Usually we use first initial and last name in our e-mail addresses, but his was just hartman@e-mailaddress.com. Then I started to wonder why...and realized that his address would be phartman. Say it out loud...all one word. Yeahhhh. I love that someone decided that would be a bad idea. Wish I had been there for that conversation!

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I was watching "History of the World, Part I" the other night (LOVE that movie) and thought it was extra funny that Madeline Kahn had gum in her mouth in the scene where she's being carried through Rome on the litter. Gotta love Mel Brooks' subtle touches! (What can I say...it's good to be the king.)

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Stay tuned next time, when I have a few "driving spots that drive me crazy" additions.