Well, there goes the neighborhood

A few cubicles opened up near my manager, so my co-workers and I moved recently. I did my best to clean my old cube before I moved and expect that the former tenant did the same. That said, there was an empty "Break The Curse" cookie package along with clear evidence that mice had dined well.

This new area is noisier than my previous location, all the more reason to crank up the tunes. I record broadcasts from radio stations over the Internet and then listen to them on my own schedule. Lately there have been a lot of tributes to the guitar great, Link Wray, who died last month.

You'd think that New York would have world-class TV news. It is, after all, the largest city in the country, the media capital, and the home of newspapers such as the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. Nope. The TV news, at least what I've seen of the morning and evening offerings, isn't much better than the hyperventilated happy talk that we get locally. Heck, the small market stations, such as Manchester NH or Springfield MA, do just as well. And, with the local stations, you stand a chance of seeing clips from high school football games.

Next week we're having a holiday party at work. (Oh, bliss.) We were asked to bring foods from our ethnic traditions. I persuaded my boss that it wouldn't be a good idea to bring Finnish cuisine to a civilized gathering. I remember avoiding the pickled herring and baked turnip, but that's just the beginning. This article, for example, offers such gastronomic bombshells as fish aspic and lamprey. A cousin has had a business exporting dried reindeer meat, the perfect appetizer for a Christmas gathering. "Here, friends, have some Rudolph."

Happy 92nd Birthday, Huck.