I still use Facebook, despite previous rants against its effects on our lives. My job also entails that I Google a lot of randomness. And, I think at some point I told Facebook I didn't want to have personalized ads. These are the amusingly irrelevant results. Prepare to laugh.

Yes, I ended up becoming a reporter. Funny thing is, there are a number of movies and TV shows I enjoyed in my childhood that featured a reporter (or some other figure of journalism) as a main character. And I never realized until sometime last year just how many there were. A partial list for your perusal: Roman Holiday Early Edition (TV show) It Happened One Night (sidenote: the plot is practically identical to Roman Holiday!) Assassination Bureau (Diana Rigg is splendid as the investigative journalist, if completely unethical) Superman (comics/movies) Crocodile Dundee Godzilla (the U.S. one with Matthew Broderick) Twister (the lead guy was a weather reporter - and on an irrelevant note, Cary Elwes is a fantastic villain here) Hoodwinked More recently, a few other movies have featured reporters/editors in a lead role. 27 Dresses Hitch (well, she's a gossip columnist) How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow Fascinating (at least

This year, I'm grateful for the mistakes I haven't made. Life has been pretty hunky-dory for me. I don't say that to brag or solicit commendation. I say that because there's really no reason for it to have gone so well for me as it has. There've been times when I might have made a misstep. The way was open to me, and I really didn't know any better. There was no reason for me not to have taken an unwise turn, not even a hunch that that way would lead to no good. And yet I didn't. Only later do you realize how close you got to making a mistake. It's later that you learn the likely consequences of the action you didn't take (or maybe the passive state you didn't embrace). I could say something ordinary about believing in guardian angels and in God's hand upon my life. Because I do believe that (at least the last bit). But those are cliched phrases that fail, these days, to convey just how astonishing it is ... not to have made the mis