We finally addressed a bunch of envelopes for our “Save The Date” cards… now we just need to put the cards in the envelopes, slap on a stamp, and mail them out. Expect that to happen any day now…

In other news, Leanne has been doing a great job wrapping all of the Christmas presents we have for people. I’ve been ensuring that indented spot on the couch continues to stay nice and warm, all while keeping the TV company.

Two things led me to stumble upon the band The LeeVees. The first being that I’m a huge Guster fan. The second being that I’m a huge Hartford Whalers fan.

The first connection is fairly easy to make. Adam Gardner from Guster started The LeeVees with Dave Schneider from The Zambonis. Ok, so where’s the second connection, you ask? As it turns out, The Zambonis are a band that only sing songs about hockey… and one member of their band is just about always in a Hartford Whalers jersey. So it’s a bit of a long connection, but all three bands deserve a looksie… so why not get The LeeVees on CD or from iTunes today!

Speaking of holiday music, I found a great list of the Bestest Christmas Songs Evah, courtesy of callista’s blog.

I just stumbled upon a sad story… John Spencer, who played Leo McGarry on ‘The West Wing’, died today at the age of 58 (he would have been 59 next week). Aparently he had a heart attack, which is an evil parallel to last season’s story line where he suffered a heart attack while serving as the President’s Chief of Staff.

He was a great actor and one of the best remaining on ‘The West Wing’ cast. It will be interesting to see how the show handles the premature departure of Leo. More information can be found on CNN.com.

I love telemarketers.

I especially love when they call me at work.

Not only am I getting paid to listen to their crappy speech, but the telemarketer is loosing out on commissions the longer I keep them on the phone. It’s a fun game to ask for more information, have them explain stuff, only to say “take me off your list and thanks for wasting your time”.

Don’t like playing games with telemarketers? Sign up for the National Do Not Call Registry.

I had to take the T into Boston last week for the conference I attended on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. The total commute time was about 2 hours – I’d leave the house around 6:45am and get to the conference around 8:45am. I don’t know how people can do that every day! They’re crazy! While it was nice to use the down time for relaxing, listening to music, and doing Sudoku puzzles… I don’t think I could spend 4 hours of my day just getting to and from work. Don’t get me wrong, it is much less stressful than driving, but it just takes to darn long.

Anyway, I’d hop on the commuter line in North Billerica and take it to North Station / The New Boston Garden. Then I’d walk over to the Green Line and take a nice 15 minute ride into the city. The commuters were fun to watch. Most of them either had an iPod or they were reading a book. Those with neither were sleeping or playing with their cell phones.

Packed in a subway car like sardines just to get to a crummy job that probably has you packed in a cube like a sardine. If these people love being crammed in so much, you’d think they would just live in the city!

There is a reason why one end of a typical consumer battery looks different than the other. While the tiny diagram hidden inside the battery compartment of your remote may be hard to see, it’s easy to tell the difference between the ends of a battery by looking or touching it. Where am I going with this? I have no idea.. but I do know that batteries are fairly easy to use.

Ah, right. Usability. I was at User Experience 2005, a web usability conference held last week in Boston. I learned a lot and was quite intrigued by some of the subject matter. My biggest surprise was walking up to the registration table the first morning and seeing my friend Amy (and former boss from my days in the WPI Web Development Office). My second surprise came when it was almost 4:30pm and I was still wide awake and eager as ever to hear what was next in the presentation.

It is amazing to see how decisions are made about web sites, and how those decisions impact the target audience – the user. Where to place links, the colors that are used, and writing style all have a fairly large impact on how well a user can accomplish a task on a web site. I came away from the conference with a wealth of knowledge and a signed copy of Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug. Woohoo!

On our way home from a Wedding Photo-Video-DJ presentation last night, we stopped by Burger King for some dinner. As we walked in, I noticed a bunch of football field laminates on some tables.

Upon further review, we saw some table-tent-uprights. Cool! They have a cool Finger Football promotion going on. Kudos to whoever came up with that idea. After we were done eating, Leanne and I played a quick game. I started off well, making my extra point kicks… but she made a quick comeback and was getting touchdowns all over the place. When all was said and done, she had scored 11 touchdowns to my 7. Oh well, I still claim that the playing surface was too slipery!

Like it’s not bad enough all the exit signs say “sortie”… but the faucet handles in the hotel are labeled “C” and “F” (with C on the left). Took me a minute to realize that the C was for hot water and the F for cold.

Oh, and Lou Dobbs in Canada is just as annoying and one-sided as he is in the United States. The Scare of the Day today was regarding evacuating a large city in the event of a terrorist threat. Yes, when we’re under attack I want to be a sitting duck in the middle of an open area like a highway.

I flew to Montreal this afternoon for a business conference. When I entered the airport terminal, I quickly found that none of the ATMs accepted my ATM card. Figured. I started to worry that US $8 wasn’t going to get me too far.

Thankfully, the cab companies take plastic, so I was able to make it to my hotel. When the cab driver pulled up to the hotel, I handed him my credit card. He turned to me and said “no cash?”. I told him that was all I had so he proceeded to take an imprint of the card and write up what I thought would be a receipt. When he asked for my signature, the receipt was blank. No dollar amounts, just an imprint of my card and lots of empty fields. Naturally, I asked how much the fare was. He claimed it was normally CDN $31 (which is true) for cash only (which is not true). Then came the sob story of having to pay a 7% surcharge on credit card transactions. Waaahhhh. He got his fare and a mediocre tip and I was on my way.

Later, while I was up in my room (28th floor!) working, my room service arrived. A delicious bacon burger, fries, and a beer. There were even two tiny jars of really thick ketchup. Yummy. But wait!! No napkin? No silverware? Crap. Now I’ve got greasy burger fingers, no napkin, and no way to get the ketchup out of the damn jar.

Now I just have to remember people talk different because of their accent and not because they are being snobby.

Two things this weekend depressed me.

1) Going to Costco and finding an entire aisle dedicated to Christmas stuff. It’s barely September!

2) Looking at my calendar and realizing after Labor Day, my next day off is Thanksgiving. Ugh.