What is it with the random song lyrics popping into my head in the middle of the night? I woke up around 6:30 this morning singing "The Last DJ" by Tom Petty.

And there goes the last DJ
Who plays what he wants to play
And says what he wants to say

There's a "Hey, hey, hey" in there too, but I wasn't singing that in the shower. I don't even own the album. I've only heard the song once all the way through, when he was on the Today show a couple weeks back. That TV commercial pushing the album doesn't help, since you hear that refrain a couple of times. Man.

We have a Nestle's Cruch wrapper living in our building.

I came home a couple nights ago to find the wrapper to one of those "fun size" bars on the landing between apartments 1 and 2 of our building. It was over near the door to apartment 1. The next morning, it was closer to the door to apartment 2. As you're ascending the steps, after the landing between apartments 1 and 2 is a short set of stairs that continues to the wall, then you turn and ascend another short set to the landing for apartments 3 and 4. The stairs continue up to 5 and 6. A night after the wrapper had moved closer to apartment 2, it was on the set of stairs leading up to our place.

It's on the move.

In Thursday morning's news conference, Montgomery, Alabama, mayor Bobby Bright was asked about his city's national exposure as part of the sniper case. A fingerprint from a liquor store shooting there in September helped lead authorities to put out a description of Lee Boyd Malvo, which led to the arrest of Malvo and John Muhammad early Thursday morning.

"Well, obviously it's not great to be associated with something so tragic," Bright said (or something to that effect; I'm paraphrasing). "But if we were able to help the authorities up in New England with solving their case, we're glad to help."

Thank you, Mr. May� Woah there! New England? Um, sir, are you sure about that one? I cringed. I'm sure any educated Alabamans cringed, because right then, on live CNN, the mayor of their capital city went and made a case for the unofficial state motto: "Alabama: Yes, We Have Electricity." Apparently, they do not use it light to study geography or U.S. history in the evenings.

As any New Englander will tell you, the region known as "New England" consists (north to south) of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut. The western borders of Vermont, Massachusetts and Connecticut form a strict line that separates New England from the rest of America. I'm sure some Bostonians or Maineiacs look down even upon those in western Connecticut ��the Tom Brokaws and David Lettermans and Kathie Lee Giffords who live there but work in New York. I'm sure they'd rather have Greenwich be annexed by New York.

But I guess to some Alabamans � not all, mind you; I'm not drawing sweeping generalizations here, just commenting on a mayor's comment ��"New England" is more than six states, all of which would fit comfortably inside Texas. When you're all the way down there on the Gulf Coast and "road trip" means a weekend in Atlanta, I guess "New England" is somewhere "up there," the part of the country in the upper right of any accurate map.

And people are still surprised when surveys show our high school students cannot name the

Our new apartment is wired for cable in every room. We only have one TV at the moment (there is another at my parents' house, and it will be relocated, perhaps as soon as Sunday). So I called the cable company two days ago to set up a time next Friday for them to come by and hook us up. When I gave them our address and apartment number, they informed me that cable was still connected there. I told them the apartment was empty. They said they'd need a copy of the lease so I could prove I will be living there. The woman, who seemed anxious to get off the phone with me, gave me a fax number. I had to stop her once to ask how much the cable will cost, then again to ask about HBO, then again to ask about internet service. Then she hung up, likely relieved.

So I faxed off the front page of the lease, where it lists both my name and Casey's, and the address, which should be all they need. The landlord is on there too. I called the cable company, but didn't say anything other than I wanted to set up new service. I thought maybe I'd see if it was disconnected. But the guy over there told me it wasn't. I said I'd already faxed the lease over.

"To whose attention did you fax it?" he asked, alertly not dangling his preposition.

"To whose attention?" I replied. "I wasn't told to fax it to anyone's attention."

"OK," he said, "I'll go check to see if it came through."

So then I'm on hold for about five minutes. "Is there a number at which I can reach you?" he says upon his return. I give him my work number, and then tell him to where I faxed the lease. "You probably sent it to 7100, right?" he guesses.

"Um, actually I sent it to 7110, unless I wrote it down wrong," I say, and then my heart starts racing, wondering to whom I've just faxed the front page of my lease. There's a seemingly long pause.

"OK," he finally says. "I'll check that line and call you back."

That was at least half an hour ago. What's going on? This is annoying me, because we NEED cable set up right away. There's a local commercial about getting it set up before you move wherein adults and children alike dramatically moan about how they could never live "without it," and about how hard it will be to move. Then you learn they're talking about cable TV. I checked out the site, but they want a phone number for the new property before they shift service, and seeing as how 1) we don't have a phone number at the apartment and 2) we're not shutting off our current service right away since Lori will remain in the apartment for another two weeks, that does us no good. They'd just better be able to get there next Friday afternoon, after 1 p.m., is all I'm saying.

WHY are people so helpless? I'm in the post office this morning, and because the automated stamp dispensing machine will not take my slightly wrinkled $10 bill, I have to wait in line for a book of stamps. (It did allow me to buy the ones with the cute kitty and puppy instead of the flag or antique toys ones. I would've bought Cary Grant stamps, but they're just a portrait. Were they the scene from North by Northwest, which is shown on the panel but not the stamps, I would've purchased those.

Anyway, I had to stand in line. I got behind a man who was there before me, and the only postal worker on duty was helping an older couple already at the counter. Only this couple needed to be walked through the act of purchasing postal products. I must've stood there for 15 minutes for an errand that should've taken a maximum of two minutes from when I stepped out of my car until I got back in. I'll give it five minutes for waiting in line, but seeing as how the gentleman in front of me and I made it through our transactions in a total of two-and-a-half minutes, I'm sticking by my assertion.

So what should've been a 15-minute detour into work to buy stamps and get gas became a half-hour odyssey. But seeing as how I left here last night at 9:15, getting in at 10:10 seems like more than a fair trade. For the company.