Much in the vein of others before me, I have decided to pause what I am doing upon some arbitrary signal (in this case, a ping from my computer telling me an email has arrived) and review three random objects in my vicinity.


ViewSonic VS11349 22" LCD Monitor
This is what my work provides us with for gazing pleasure, and it's quite a good job -- 1680x1050 resolution, for looking at webpages with all the content scrunched up on the left and the right side of the screen mostly blank; plug-and-play operation, for plugging it into your computer and then watching the little light slowly shade from orange to blue and then think about it for a minute or two before showing you your desktop; and quite handily small desk footprint, for the piles of papers and discarded chocolate wrappers to take up even more room. The stand is a bit wobbly, though, so if I get frustrated and bang my elbow against the desk I have to watch my emails sway gently back and forth for a few seconds before it settles back into stability.

500ml bottle of Dr Pepper
This is my vice. I won't say my only vice, for I have several others, but this is my biggest. I love Dr Pepper, and every so often I give in to temptation and pop into the shop on my way to work to grab a half-liter bottle of mysteriously fruity, fizzy, caffeine-laden joy. It's magical.

Business card
Um. So. Laminated, printed little rectangles of cardboard, with names and company logos and phone numbers on them. Usually white -- mine are, mostly. Often found in a slick little metal case. In today's office environment, where half of things happen by email, how useful are they? I don't riffle through my tiny stack of other people's cards when I need to find their phone number -- I go hunting through my email inbox to find their signature block. More often than not, the signature block is more helpful. So who really uses business cards?