In the lane

It snowed throughout the night, so now everything is nice and winter wonderland-y. I say this is the perfect amount of snow: not storm-like, just enough to cover the ground.

Orange is the new yellow. Today our national threat level was raised one notch to “orange” (high risk) on the ol’ Homeland Security Advisory System. Ashcroft said today, “Recent intelligence reports suggest that al Qaeda leaders have emphasized planning for attacks on apartment buildings, hotels, and other soft or lightly secured targets in the United States.”

As an aside, I only just noticed that blue is higher on the scale than green, when in fact green is closer in the light spectrum to yellow. Whatever. I can understand having green as the lowest level, as in green light, go. And I suppose they were trying to avoid something like “yellow-green” or “chartreuse” (#7FFF00), which would make the whole color-code thing only slightly more snicker-inducing than it already is.

And what of the other system, DEFCON (defense condition), whose very utterance commands a James Earl Jones-like gravitas? I was always under the impression that the numbers were ordered in terms of increasing severity, but no. It starts at Defcon 5 (normal peacetime readiness) and ramps up to 1 (maximum force readiness). The U.S. went to Defcon 2 during the Cuban missile crisis. So while Kate Hudson gets the message across by saying, “I have to crack this guy. I mean, this is Defcon 5,” in the trailer for How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days, it would mean nothing to the DoD. God, I have a lot of time on my hands.

Odds and ends. Ack, I spilled coffee on myself a few minutes ago, but thankfully it was just a thin splotch and any potential stain has mostly disappeared into the pattern of my shirt. Whew.

Rifling through my backpack the other day, I found my passport. I must’ve left it in there the last time I went traveling, which was to L.A. a few weeks ago. I’ve taken to carrying my passport when traveling even domestically, not so much for identification purposes (though I suppose it is the next best thing, should I lose my driver’s license), but for the quiet but heretofore underutilized thrill of being able, at a moment’s notice, to whisk myself (almost) anywhere in the world. Very Alias, for sure. Hm, I think I’ll keep the passport in there. “Jeff, we need you in Madrid. Now!” I wish.

Well, I’m off to the bookstore. I need Valentine’s Day cards and a 2003 wall calendar. I always wait until January to buy a new calendar at usually drastic discount, but maybe this year I waited too long. It is already February, after all. Speaking of bookstores, some of the Queer As Folk cast — Gale Harold (Brian), Thea Gill (Lindsay), and Scott Lowell (Ted) — will be at the Georgetown Barnes & Noble on Saturday, 1 March at 4 p.m. to promote the second-season DVDs. Hm, I’ll be in New York that weekend. Must do more investigating about this QAF tour. Though, my favorite cast member is Hal Sparks, who is as cute as a button.

Have a great weekend, folks.