No Thought Involved

The Herbies are awards for outstanding achievements in friendship and acquaintancy.

The Herbies Award Ceremony is scheduled for Saturday, April 21, 2012 at 14:30. Winners will receive a certificate commemorating their victory as well as WooBerry immediately following the ceremony.

Objective Awards

Best Co-Volunteer at MGH

• Michelle Fasano
• Joy Lee

Best Work Lunch Friend

• Keith Metcalf
• Nicole Richards
• Paul Lalicata

Best Work Lunch Acquaintance

• Nathan Johnson
• Adam Tankanow
• Andrew Keely

Homestead Award

• Steven Beigelmacher
• Elizabeth Kennedy
• Vonda Bui

Most Solicited Friend Assists

• Adam Epstein
• Claire Taylor
• Caitlin Bresnahan

Most Unsolicited Friend Assists

• Nicole Richards
• Laura Amodeo
• Adam Epstein

Most Lunches Out Weekday

• Michael Carbonello
• Kevin Derwin
• Jason Gronlund

Most Lunches Out Weekend

• Caitlin Bresnahan
• Vonda Bui
• Adam Epstein

Most Dinners Out Weekend

• David Voutila
• Caitlin Bresnahan
• Vonda Bui

Most Dinners Out Weekday

• Caitlin Bresnahan
• Vonda Bui
• Kate Larrabee

Largest Value of Prime Scheme Purchases

• Andrew Friedenthal

Largest Value of Prime Scheme Purchases (not Andrew)

• Steven Beigelmacher
• Tyler Leeds
• David Voutila

Largest Value of Spot Loans (not Vonda)

• Steven Beigelmacher
• Kate Larrabee
• David Voutila

Largest Value of Spot Loans

• Vonda Bui

Largest Spot Loan

• Vonda Bui
• Steven Beigelmacher
• Tyler Leeds

Largest Prime Scheme Purchase

• Tyler Leeds
• David Lalicata
• David Voutila

Ed Hoculi Award for Most Games Attended

• Adam Tankanow

Most Expensive Friend on Average

• Molly Nawrath
• Kevin Derwin
• Jacob Varney

Most Expensive Friend (not Vonda)

• Jason Gronlund
• Kate Larrabee
• David Voutila

Most Expensive Friend

• Vonda Bui

Best Online Friend/Acquaintance

• Jason Gronlund
• Adam Epstein
• Vonda Bui

Best Friend of the Year 2011

• David Voutila
• Vonda Bui
• Adam Epstein

Most Phone Calls

• Wendy Herbert
• Judith Rutsky
• Vonda Bui

Best Acquaintance of the Year 2011

• Mary Ruda
• Melissa Malone
• Tim Sarrantonio

Most Invitations

• David Voutila
• Vonda Bui
• Jason Gronlund

Most New Acquaintances

• Caitlin Bresnahan
• Tyler Longmire
• Mark Epstein

Subjective Awards

Best Email of the Year

Your Order with Amazon.com
Andrew Keely, Caroline Keely

Worst Social Interaction of the Year

The Events of August 6
Daniel Boothe, David Voutila

Best Social Interaction of the Year

Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final
Pat Canny, Jenelle Pope, Jacob Varney

The Price is Right Filming
Vonda Bui

Tuesday night, I traveled from Kenmore to Park on everyone’s favorite line. The train was headed for Government Center but was taken out of service at Park for an unknown reason.

Since the train was taken out of service at Park, it pulled into the station on Track 3! I didn’t even know they used that track.

This past Monday evening, I made a trip to my local IKEA where I purchased a brand new STENSTORP. At the time, I did not realize that the solid oak top benefited from regular treatments of BEHANDLA. Needless to say, when I went to assemble it Thursday night, I was upset.

Not wanting to make the trek back to down to Stoughton, I did some research to see if I could find a similar product at my local Home Depot. It’s a mixture of tung and linseed oil, and the offerings from Minwax didn’t seem to quite fit the bill and a return to IKEA seemed inevitable.

Then I remembered about Task Rabbit, which I had read about when it launched in Boston a few months ago. I logged on and explained my task, etc. My biggest worry prior to posting the task was that no one would pick up the task and I’d end up going to IKEA. Much to my surprise, though, the task was assigned within ten minutes (at 7:15 p.m. Thursday evening).

I received contact information for the person assigned to the task (which they refer to as Task Rabbits, appropriately enough). We had a small conversation over email to make sure she had the exact product description and my work address. She also let me know what time she’d have it delivered by. This also happened very quickly and by 7:30 we had sent our last email to each other and then all I had to do was wait.

The cost to me was $19 (which is the Task Rabbit’s bid to complete the task plus a service fee that goes to the company (I’m not exactly sure how that break down works)) and $5.30 for the actual item purcahsed. Task Rabbit takes care of all the money and charges my credit card.

As you can gather from my overall elation in this post, the item was delivered without issue and on time. I strongly recommend the service – they do a great deal more than delivering things from IKEA.

The 2011 Holiday Mailing took part in two phases. Phase I, postmarked on December 19 from Somerville, included 100 holiday cards bound for all destinations outside of Massachusetts. Phase II, postmarked on December 20 from Burlington, consisted of 136 holiday cards, all bound for addresses inside Massachusetts.

VistaPrint provided printing services for these cards. Excluding the cost of shipping the order, I am quite pleased with the cards and I hope the recipients are, too!

Some other fun facts about this mailing:
* 236 holiday cards
* States Represented: 20 (New England, NY, NJ, PA, MD, VA, NC, FL, MI, IL, LA, TX, CO, CA, OR)
* First holiday mailing to include all six states in New England
* Lowest ZIP: 01075 (South Hadley, MA)
* Highest ZIP: 97035 (Lake Oswego, OR)
* Top 5 Cities: Boston^† 22, Somerville 16, Worcester 15, New York^‡ and Brookline 7
* Most Distance Traveled: 10,519 miles (as the crow flies) to Richmond, Victoria, Australia
* Least Distance Traveled*: .3 miles to Windsor Road, Somerville, MA
* Sent to Massachusetts: 57.6%
* Sent to the balance of New England: 14.4%
* Sent to the Atlantic North East (NJ/NY/PA/MD): 13.6%
* Sent to the balance of the United States: 11.9%
* International: 2.5%

Compare to 2009.
Compare to 2008.
Compare to 2007.
Compare to 2006.

† – Includes Boston, Charlestown, Dorchester Center, Jamaica Plain, West Roxbury
‡ – Includes New York, Bronx, and Richmond Hill
* – Excludes the cards mailed to my roommates and downstairs neighbors

I met a young woman named Ali over the weekend. No matter how much time passes since I was first introduced to Homestar Runner and Strong Bad, whenever I meet someone named Ali, I immediately say in my head “Ali, Ali’s Sister” per this cartoon.