Thanks, Nora. Emily or vw, would either of you be interested? He's a German guy in his late 20s. Nice guy, funny, prone to philosophical musings on art theory. He's a heavy smoker; I don't know how big a problem that would be for you. You can ping me at my profile address if you're interested.

Congrats on the interview, Heather. Calling back the open position depends on how not interesting it sounds, I think. I'd schedule an interview, on the theory that even if you end up not being interested in the position, it's ghood practice. You can always cancel if you end up starting today's job tomorrow.

That's my instinct, -t. If nothing else, I should call back and thank them.

KATE! We have a fabulous room available in our apartment. It's available 9/1. When is he looking to move? Should we take this to e-mail?

Does anyone still have a link for that site where you can find out where people are register for wedding gifts?

Kate, I just e-mailed you.

Awesome, vw! Insent in a few minutes.

edit: er, nebbermind, I shall await your email. :-)

Just got back from the building collapse.

It's between 99th and 100th which makes it two blocks from me which feels so weird. I shopped in that Gristedes plenty before they closed it and started to take it down. There are big orange steam shovels (what ARE those called now that they surely don't use steam?) and pincer things cleaning up the block. There are squashed up shovels INSIDE the site which is sort of a funny picture -- looks like the equipment is trying to rescue its friends.

There is lots of FDNY and NYPD milling about. I didn't see any dogs so I guess they are comfortable that nobody is left under the rubble. There are also vehicles from the Housing, Transit, Construction/Demolition, and Sanitation Departments. (Sanitation is out at the edges, actually -- all these big trucks lined up on the side streets ready to move in and haul crap away). It's all very organized and calm. Oh, there is also the Salvation Army, the Red Cross, and half a billion reporters several of whom were interviewing a woman in an orange top (I resisted the urge to jump behind her and wave).

There were also lots of me-like people milling around and staying well out of the way and asking one another if anyone had been hurt. As I was leaving a Coco Helado vendor showed up -- it's been a shock and I'm sure people will benefit from frozen tropical treats.

"An airplane can kill 3,000 people. A bomb on a subway might kill thirty."

People just never, ever learn that fighting the last war is a bad idea, do they? Is it just me, or does all this obsession over airplane security to the exclusion of all else feel like the Maginot Line of anti-terrorist efforts?

This is why spam is profitable:

For all the jokes everyone makes about how lame most spam e-mails are, you would think no one believed that some oddly named company was a good investment or that one's bank account needs a bit of updating with oddles of personal data.

Not according to a survey conducted by secure messaging provider Mirapoint and consulting company Radicati Group. According to the survey of nearly 800 end-users, 11 percent of users have purchased products and services from spam e-mails and nine percent of users have lost money due to an e-mail scam.