Simple pleasures

In this world if information technology, it's a surprise and inconvenience when anything hiccups. That's what happened to our wire service tonight ... box scores weren't available for hours, and with two colleagues, I helped add coding to garbled text in order for our paper to publish something resembling baseball box scores. While doing this tedious work, I began to wonder about the old days. Before computers, when reporters would use typewriters and a carbon, editors actually used pens and copy-editing symbols and typesetters would take 26 letters and arrange them in such a fashion that, when a little ink and paper is added, you have a newspaper. A far cry from our newsroom today.

So last night while driving home after the busy flourish, a trio of songs played on my iPod in shuffle mode. It's not that bizarre since more than 10 percent of my music collection consists of this one artist, but the trio of songs by Harry Connick Jr. made me forget the night that had passed. The first was an instrumental I Like Love More from "Occasion," then the crooner's smooth, blues-y voice in You Don't Know Me from "Only You," followed by a bass-slapping, chord-thumping rendition of Stompin' At The Savoy from "When Harry Met Sally." Mission accomplished. Spirits lifted!