Is your holiday schedule filling up? It's time to mark down a couple of upcoming seasonal goings-on on this blog, if you don't mind. Buck-a-Hit Day -- our ninth annual charitable giving fest -- will be held all day and night on Tuesday the 20th. That's as late as we've ever had it, but let's hope that it will get folks into the spirit of the season. Over the years, faithful readers and our family have given more than $40,267 to worthy local charities through this event on this day. Our record for any single year is $10,115, which we reached in 2008. We're going to try to beat that this year; more on our plans over the next week and change. Call your rich uncle.

And then on Thursday the 22nd, we'll have our annual cyber-office Christmas party. We're not sure how many of these we've thrown now, and even if we did remember, we wouldn't say. Because what happens at the cyber-office Christmas party, stays at the cyber-office Christmas party. We'll crank it up in mid-afternoon that day. Please plan to come as you are.