Weinergate.

In a world filled with goldfish-length attention spans and 140 character tweets, I do get a kick out of our very, very first reactions to things - to news items, to gossip tidbits (and in this case, the latter pretending to be the former).

Gleefully full of schadenfreude and tuned into today's Anthony Weiner press conference, I was still shocked, however, when two people in the room, awaiting the good Congressman's turn at the podium, repeatedly said, "His wife is so beautiful, though," as if that had something to do with it!

As for my first reaction? A little shock, I admit, last week - he's Jon Stewart's friend after all! And then laughter today, and then a Wikipedia visit to find out he has been married for NEARLY ELEVEN MONTHS. Time for a vow renewal, I suppose?

Frank and Ruby

As far as the down and dirty of office life goes, I have very nice digs. (The kitchen, the commute, the desk, the parking, those kind of down and dirty deets.) I share a roomy office with two other women, and all of us agree to only use overhead fluorescent lighting on the darkest of days (yay!), and I have a window in front of my computer to look out of. A little bench (albeit often filled with smokers), some greenery, a walking path instead of a road, and something that is flowering in early February that draws the attention and love of Frank and Ruby.

For Frank and Ruby are hummingbirds! And I see them off-and-on all day long, sipping from these tiny yellowish cone flowers, Ruby showing off her shimmery scarlet breast, and Frank with his dapper green vest. For all I know they are both male or both female and I assume they are ten to a million different birds… BUT… I like Frank and Ruby. They were named by the previous occupant of my desk, the absolutely great - and burnt out - person who trained me on the gig. It's like this good luck talisman from her when Frank and Ruby buzz by, and there's nothing like watching a hummingbird, is there? You just HAVE to stop and watch, and the mini-breaks are perfect pieces of rest throughout the day.

Good Thing Friday: The Fry Edition.

It's an easy way out, but I'm letting Stephen Fry speak for me this week, in the UK's Guardian:

"I would not say that I lost faith in Twitter, I would say that I lost faith in my ability to negotiate it. I don't know about you but whenever I read a blog I do not let my eye drop below half the screen in case I accidentally hit the bit where the comments reside. Of all the stinking, sliding, scuttling, weird, entomological creatures that inhabit the floor of the internet those comments on blogs are the most unbearable, almost beyond imagining. Their resentment, their desire to be heard at the most vituperative level, at the most unpleasant and malevolent, genuinely ill-willed malevolent, level is terrifying and I am very often simply not able to cope with that. Twitter is usually not like that... [but] I found that the @ mentions were just getting... I could see these comments that would just make me upset."

I think, with the exception of Jezebel.com (where the comments are on topic, not trolling, etc), I am going to try to skip reading comments on anything online through 2010. Can I do it??