Quick thoughts:

- Back from Beaufort, South Carolina (for the second time) and likely not heading back again anytime soon. Scenic place, but if my cell phone doesn't work, its not going to endear itself to me. Got some good reviews from Actus superiors on the work I did there, but you can chalk that up to a talented cast of characters that were already there.

- How dumb are the Braves to allow Leo Mazzone to run off to another team to be pitching coach? The real error was not locking him up to a nice, fat long-term contract years ago. That streak of 15 straight years of winning the NL East? Adios.

- Speaking of Atlanta, spent Friday night with none other than Mark Presley. Went to see Doom (if you played the game, go see it...just enough creativity on top of all the action/horror to make it worthwhile) and then saw Mark dispatch some helpless duo of clowns on the tennis court in his last regular season league doubles match of the year, 6-1 and 6-2. I'm looking forward to seeing if Chik-Fil-A, his employer, continues to recognize what an asset they've got in their IT department with him and gets him into a position of wide-ranging authority as quickly as possible.

- The Titans will be sending Billy Volek into the fray in their effort to dispatch Arizona tomorrow. I'm ready for the Titans to start beating the living hell out of some people, and it might as well start now, guys. If Tyrone Calico doesn't turn his season around tomorrow, with the strong-armed Volek cannoning balls to him throughout the afternoon, he ought to be cut.

- One person that ought to be cut RIGHT NOW is Daunte Culpepper. Yeah, yeah, talk about his salary, but this pretender has been revealed to be a talentless hack now that Randy Moss has headed west. The Vikings are going to continue losing with or without him, so why not send the scathing message to the team, if you're Zygi Wilf, the owner?

- Heading to Fortune Magazine's Innovation Forum in New York City on Nov. 30-Dec. 1, and may stay Friday, December 2 if I decide to take a day off from work that day. I've already used up 3-4 of my 16 vacation days, and I'm going to need a substantial amount for planned Christmas and summer '06 vacations, so it's not certain yet if I'll take that Friday off. If I do take that Friday off, it'll be to accomplish a couple of key iTest-related tasks. The Innovation Forum is full of huge names and will be great to help me consider new possibilities within my role at Actus. I love events like this!

- I have been getting some spam-bots or something leaving automated messages in my "comments" area of this blog lately, so as of right this second, comments are now disabled on this and subsequent posts. I already know who comes in and out of this blog, and as ought to be apparent, I post what I feel like posting regardless of the audience. If you have a comment, email me or something.

- I have plans to get a week's worth of Guest Bloggers to blog for this Online Travesty in a week coming up real soon. Stay tuned.