Apparently my company doesn’t want anyone to feel left out on Valentine’s Day, so they gave every employee a little gift.

Actually, it’s kind of a big gift. They gave us each an overnight kit with our company logo on the front, and they attached a heart-shaped keychain which is imprinted, “From the bottom of our hearts.”

Inside the overnight kit, there’s a bag of “Utz” potato chips, a bag of M&Ms, a package of Twizzlers, a 3 Musketeers bar, a Hershey bar, a bag of “Swedish Fish” (which are like gummy… um… fish), a bag of “Choczels” (chocolate pretzels), a package of Oreos, a package of “Lorna Doone” shortbread cookies, a box of Hot Tamales, a pack of Life Savers (original five flavors), and a pack of Big Red.

It also had a Rice Krispie Treat, but that mysteriously disappeared in the last few minutes.

Dude, my keyboard is making funny noises when I type. Like, it sounds like a very quiet old fashioned cash register: “ker-ching, ker-ching, ker-ching.” I think what’s happening is that some of the springs (or maybe just one spring under a letter I type frequently) is getting worn out. That’s not nearly as cool as if it really were an old fashioned cash register, and were full of money.

Oh wait… I just realized why it’s making that noise. My computer’s microphone is turned on, and it’s picking up the sound of the keystrokes and amplifying it.

Stupid David.

I just saw a Coca-Cola commercial. At the bottom of the screen, I noticed this fine print: “Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola Classic, and the dynamic ribbon are registered trademarks of the Coca-Cola company.”

Apparently that logo on the can is officially called the “dynamic ribbon.” So Nike has a “swoosh” and Coca-Cola has a “dynamic ribbon.”

To stay in the game, I’ve decided that I’m designing my own corporate logo with a spiffy name. As such, I’ve come up with the “static floob.” I hope you enjoy it. And if you use it on your site, in your magazine, or on your television commercial, please mention that the “static floob” is a registered trademark of David Nestor.

I have dinner at Grandma’s house about once a week, but always on a different day, depending on my schedule.

So today I called Grandma and said, “Hello, I’d like to make a dinner reservation for one person on Friday night.”

She got all confused and thought I had the wrong number.

I went into Starbucks on Brookhurst and Ellis last Wednesday, and I noticed three people with laptops using the T-Mobile HotSpot high-speed wireless internet service, which is now available at most Starbucks locations.

Well, far be it from me to let three whole people have newer technology than me, so I went ahead and bought an 802.11b card, and I’m going to sign up for T-Mobile HotSpot. Finally I’ll be able to get lots of work done without being trapped at home or in the office.

The wind was really loud last night. It woke me up, so I checked weather.com, and it said that the wind was 25 mph out of the northeast, with gusts up to 45 mph.

Well, there’s some furniture in the side yard next to my apartment, and all night this furniture (which is not mine) was banging up against my bedroom wall because of the high speed gusts. Needless to say, I didn’t sleep very well, and when I did, I dreamt about furniture banging into my bedroom wall.

The damage from the wind was really apparent on the freeway today. Several of the exit signs on the side of the 73 had been destroyed by the wind. Generally these were two-post signs, and the wind had blown too strongly on the sign, thus dislodging one of the posts and consequently bending the sign.

The wind was still very strong this morning, and traveling down Fairview, I noticed that the street signs hanging from the signal poles were hanging horizontally instead of vertically.

What’s up with this wacky weather? First it was really cold (for Southern California), and then all of a sudden it got really hot, and now it’s extremely windy. I would like to remind the National Weather Service (which, we all know, creates the weather), that we in California pay a lot of money to have beautiful weather at all times, and we do not approve of these shenanigans.

I have a thirty dollar promotional gift certificate from Amazon.com, and I can only use it on books, music, movies, and a few other categories. I can’t use it on toys, clothing, home and garden, or anything else that’s fulfilled by one of Amazon.com’s partners (Toys ‘R’ Us, Office Depot, Target, Circuit City, etc.).

So I’m trying to decide what to get. I could get Songs for a New World, Elton John’s Greatest Hits 1970-2002, or White Blood Cells, but I feel silly spending money (even if it’s not mine) on music these days. There’s also The Simpson’s First Season and A Hard Days Night, but I feel similarly silly about movies.

Then there are books. I don’t like to read, but some books catch my interest too. I could conserve the chi in my living room with the Little Book of Feng Shui, or I could teach my friends The Art of Cat Massage.

On the other hand, I could get something useful, like some slim jewel cases or blank CDs. They just happen to have a few that aren’t sold through Office Depot. But do I really need more? I think I have plenty already.

I think I’ll just hold on to this gift certificate until the next time I’m really excited about buying something. I’ll prob’ly get something really expensive, like a new printer or monitor, and just use the gift certificate as a discount.

The break room here at work is about eighty degrees. No one knows why. The entire building is air-conditioned, and the rest of the building is around room temperature (like it should be), but for some reason the break room is consistently much hotter, even when no one is in it. It makes me wonder if our real business is refining plutonium in the break room.

The PaperPalm is so cute! I want to get one for my mom. She could tease my dad with it. Her Palm would be faster, more reliable, lighter, less expensive, and easier to use than his. Ha ha.

The power supply in my computer blew a transistor, so I replaced it. Then I realized that the CPU had been fried, so I replaced that. Then I realized that the motherboard was also fried, so I returned the CPU and power supply, and began seeking out a whole new computer.

I bought a “barebones” computer (just a case, power supply, and motherboard) from Fry’s, a big hard drive, and a cheap CPU, and built myself a new computer. The case was really cool, but one of the components on the motherboard (namely the video card) was apparently not compatible with Windows XP, so the computer kept getting “the blue screen of death.” In retrospect, I think the blue screen wasn’t caused by the incompatible video card, but rather by some kind of electrical issue. Still, I wasn’t going to be able to troubleshoot the problem successfully, so I took apart the computer and returned it to Fry’s. Did I mention how much I love Fry’s return policy? Well, I do.

Then I went over to Micro Center to look at pr