In the midst of mindless beauty pageant controversies, increasing troops, fights in retail stores over new PS3 and Wii units, corporate greed, blizzards, Rosie O’Donnell vs. Donald Trump and this little slice of insanity, it’s heartwarming and nice to read Brian McGrory’s column this morning from the Boston Globe. Just take a minute out of your busy day to read it. That is what the holidays are about, my friends.

So I’m at Redbones with an old friend last night whose been away at Syracuse for the last couple of years. Redbones is a great barbeque joint in my old haunt of Davis Square/Somerville, MA and a good place to catch up with people you only see once or twice a year. The place is humming with people – kids back from college, post-grad twenty-somethings living it up (kinda miss those days!), people my age catching up, old Somerville hands who just want a bite, etc. There’s plenty of seating in the place, but only five counter seats, where you literally sit in front of the cooks and watch them move meat around at a pace which can only be described as alarming. Let me tell you something, these guys earn their keep and they probably are grossly underpaid. Hard work in a hot kitchen. Man, I am thankful.

Finally, I’d like to take a quick poll and I hope everybody reading this will participate. Just humor me, ok? Do it. It’s so easy to comment. I’ve been curious to know who reads this blog. And I don’t want specific names, I just want to know who knows me, who ramdomly came across this place and continues to read, etc etc. So, I’ll make this as easy as possible: four choices:

a) You know me and speak to me relatively often
b) You know me, but we haven’t spoken or interacted for over 5 years
c) You don’t know me, but randomly discovered this blog
d) This is your first time here

If you would, just say which of the four. You can identify yourself if you want, but don’t feel obligated. Thanks.