10:03 a.m

Forgot my cell phone at home this morning. Eh, doesn't matter. I leave it off all day at work anyway because I get absolutely NO reception in the office. So it sits there at home on the bed and Lori will be confused if it rings, that is if she's home all day. And it may be me calling later to check my messages, of which there will be none.

One of the best things about my drive to work is not having to go on highways and pay tolls and being able to open my windows and sunroof. That and I haven't bought gas in eight days, and I've still got a quarter tank left, which should get me all the way to Sunday AND Monmouth County and I can fill up then, cheaper than I can here.

And this will be one of those leave-SimpleText-open-all-day-and-continually-update days.

10:19 a.m.

Barb and Mike in Illinois saved my ass.

Back in July, I told Casey's dad -- an ardent University of Pittsburgh fan -- that I could get him tickets to the ND-Pitt game in South Bend next month. He said he'd take them. So I got them when my friend Julie said in August that she wasn't going and I could have hers. So we made arrangements for me to pay her and she to give me the tickets on Sept. 7 when we met up on campus for the Purdue game.

I gave Julie the check, but she'd forgotten the tickets at her parents house. No problem, she said, she'd give them to me that night when we went out. I said OK and asked where the seats were.

"Um ... they're in Alumni Alley," she said.

Ooops. Alumni Alley is the new standing-only alumni section adjacent to the student section in the north end zone. It's cool for alums who want to stand the entire game and be near the band and (some of) the action.

It's bad for a Pitt fan and his wife, the latter of whom is making her first trip to campus and likely cares little about the game.

So I didn't tell Jim about the snafu, particularly because when he talked to Casey on Labor Day and asked where the seats were, I joked that they were in the alumni standing�only section.

But yesterday, a day after Barb sent out an e-mail saying she and Mike had two Pitt tickets to sell and I replied saying, See if the buyer wants to stand and then we can trade, she wrote back saying their buyer would be happy to take Alumni Alley "seats." I said Great, and today we each put our tickets in the mail, with Barb sending them straight to Johnstown.

I won't tell Jim about the mistake until Thanksgiving, after he's been to the game ... and after we've had a few bottles of wine.

12:06 p.m.

I know celebrities repeat themselves when promoting their latest effort, but this is nearly clairvoyant. This freelancer wrote an article and included a quote from Susan Sarandon about he daughter, Eva Amuri, who is in The Banger Sisters with Sarandon. The story was written a few weeks ago. In checking the sources, I found the quote � which Sarandon said yesterday on both the Today show and Oprah. Crazy.

12:59 p.m.

I hate how the Q and W are right next to one another on Macs. Well, they're right next to one another on all keyboards, but I hate it on Macs, because I'll go to close a window using the apple key and W, but I'll accidentally hit the apple key and Q, thereby quitting the entire program. I've lost several browser windows this way. Argh.

3:06 p.m.

Just finished my late lunch of microwavable Stouffer's cheese ravioli. Yum.

5:32 p.m.

Hypnotized by all the research I've done on both celebrity mothers and daughters and, now, what famous Hollywood couples think her best feature is. Sarah Michelle Gellar: "My back and ankle>" (Where her tattoos are.) Freddie: "Her brain." Yeah.

5:34 p.m.

The chicks for the teen magazine who sit near me are listening to the radio, and "Bare Naked" is on again. Interestingly, the video for John Mayer's "Your Body is a Wonderland" is on VH1.

5:49 p.m.

Just watched Springsteen's performance of "The Rising" from the MTV VMAs, which VH1 is now playing as a video.

6:05 p.m.

I'm officially done with working for today. So here's your boring post for the day.

6:06 p.m.

After working all day with no problems, my fucking computer freezes as I'm about to post. And yet, being the dork that I am, I restart soley to post, rather than just turning it off and going home.