Apparently, just before I walked in, they set off *some* of the fire alarms accidentally.

I'm glad I missed it. May be losing internet shortly due to other work. Bleh.

Temp: -15˚F (-26˚C)

Yikes!!

My current annoyance is that I guess I ruined the battery of my cell phone. Last month, I let it die completely when I was out of town, and since then, it loses the charge really fast and suddenly. Like, last night it showed most of the charge there, but this morning it was dead. Annoying!

-6 in Chicago, with a windchill of -20 or so.

I couldn't find my second scarf, which I wanted to cover my face with. And I probably should have worn long underwear, and a better hat and gloves. So being outside for 10 minutes at a time is fine, but I could tell I was gradually getting colder. Ideally I try to dress so I can stay outside indefinitely, but not today.

Check out these fingernails: [link]

Cool polish!

Cripes. Man I wish I could WFH again today.

Yeah, my inner 6-year-old was all, "Don't wanna go to work today."

Thank you, Andi, you made my morning. And I can say that we have warmed up 2 degrees to -8.

Woo and hoo.

My sister-in-law posted this link - learn why Borderline Hysteric Southern Mothers are Superior - written by the Ghost of Tennessee Williams' mother. An excerpt from her book "The Sunday-Service Hymn of the Bobcat Mother."

Andi, I feel your pain. It's so cold it hurts my skin to go outside. And I have to take the kids to school in this.

Adorable adoptable puppies.

R.I.P. Tape Decks In Cars: The End Of An Era Arrives

If some of your fondest memories include road-tripping across the U.S. while flipping cassette after cassette of your favorite tunes, the next sentence will make you very sad.

According to the New York Times, new cars will no longer come with a pre-installed tape deck.

"For the 2011 model year, no manufacturer selling cars in the United States offers a tape player either as standard equipment or as an option on a new vehicle. The most recent choice for a factory cassette deck was the 2010 Lexus SC 430," the Times reports.

Cassettes, once a dominant audio format, are now but a novelty. Indeed, 2010 not only saw the end of the tape slot in cars, but also saw Sony ship its last batch of cassette Walkmans.

The Times indicates that CDs may be spinning their way into obsolescence, right behind compact cassettes and their eight-track predecessors. "The iPod and its ilk are easing the journey along the path to the increasingly popular concept of file storage known as the cloud -- that place in the Internet ether from which music is streamed, generally through a Web-connected mobile device that communicates with the car by a wireless Bluetooth connection," writes the Times.

I haven't had a tapedeck in one of my cars since 1998 or so.