Aiee. I need to catch up and don't have much time to do so.

First, thanks for all the well-wishes and the Amazon votes (I've finally topped the 500 positive vote mark--we'll see how that affects my ranking next time they update that). The party was a great success, too--it was a regular blogathon here with the attendance by the proprieters of Medley, Now This, Literary Bargainville, and Random Bird all sitting around and screaming out "Two! Two! One! Four!" (from the Parker Brothers' game Pit).

The birthday fairy got the message and obtained a 30GB iPod for me from Crazy Mike's Discount Hut. I've already filled it (as Jill says, now she'll have some room on the iMac for her pictures) and started to investigate the joys of portable random music.

On Sunday I volunteered to answer phones for Maryland Public Television. During the breaks between the Victor Borge special, you could see my face (somewhat obscured by the computer in front of me) in the back row asking people if I could take their pledge. I've done this before for public radio, but this was the first time for public television. I don't think I took a pledge from anyone under 50.

I've got a backlog of things to write about plus a Web site makeover coming up. Maybe after we finish moving the furniture around....