Sunday Snippets

Love this time of year. Always have. Crisp mornings, a little fog in the valleys and things moving a little slower – not much – but a little slower.

Getting closer to the Ho Ho Ho.

Old friends checking in to see if we’re still kicking, ticking us off their list of “Status Unknown” and renewing contact with that oldest of conversation starters: “Remember when we…?”

Yep. And we were lucky to come out of it alive.

This little (not so little any more) site of ours has been an aggregator of sorts, with new friends making contact and proving to be witty and friendly and funny as all get out. And when things are looking kind of bleak news wise one of you will come along and say or do something to jolly us up, which has lent itself to our increased engagement and enjoyment and commitment to the effort on our part. Some of us have been doing this for quite a long time now. It’s nice to be reminded how much fun it is.

There are a couple of old saws about things you do or don’t do in a news room: no idle whistling, you always leave a quarter in the coffee fund and you never, ever outwardly express your belief that something particularly nasty is about to happen because 9 times out of 10 it does. Especially around Christmas. It’s a sad fact.

When we were first starting out in The News Biz we used to catch all the crappy shifts all the veterans with families wanted no part of – running around in the radio car at indecent hours looking for a story. And there was always one, we came to call it the Christmas Horror Show, that was particularly horrific. One of ours took place in a See’s Candy Store in the City on Christmas Eve and it was bad, earning eternal placement on the Top 10 Horror Show Stories of our career, and we knew even then that it would stick with us for the rest of our days.

So, we’ve committed to keeping things light as we can and the coffee can funded, carefully jovial and enjoying the Season, but with our eyes peeled and heads on a swivel. Not all Christmas Surprises arrive under the tree.

It has been pretty busy out there, for the Holidays, and people are drinking and partying – and we all know what that can lead to, sometimes. We like to dial things down a little, not wanting to talk business or overwhelm your phone with Flash Alerts or Tweeterings, but it is apparent you all want what we have to offer so we’ll try to keep it light where we can and just carry on.

And we’ll just keep on hoping that the News Gods don’t align this year to bring us another Christmas Horror Show. We think we can all use a Holiday Season without one.

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