This morning I turned to a colleague and said, "Why is it that even when you know something is coming that you can still be surprised?"

Was I talking about:

a.) The Fate of the Boston Globe
b.) My post-screening feelings for "X-Men Origins: Wolverine"
c.) The comments on today's column

The answer, as always, is C.

Before we jump into all the crazy shenanigans you can get yourself into this weekend, I have to make one quick programming note.

Some of you may already know, but here's the headline: I'm going to DC next week on the Press Herald's Inauguration Squad. I'll be in the district from Sunday through Wednesday and blogging the bejeebus out of it.

So logistically speaking, things will be a little quiet around here for a few days. You will be able to find me over on Political Extra, where I will be live-blogging throughout Tuesday.

But in the meantime, there are things to get into this weekend.

Some of you may have been noticing little hints lately about changes and news coming up on the NXT Desk. After my run on the Elections Desk it seems like things have been constantly in flux.

Well the news is this: I'm gone till December.

Here's the bad news, people - (no, the Internet pipe is not broken again) I'll be gone all of this week off in California.

Actually, that's great news for me.

I'll explain.

"Hello friends, welcome to the tea party."

With those words almost a year ago today, we started on a fantastic voyage into local music, graffiti, zombies, video games, Rick Astley, mustaches, pirates and bacon.

The NXT Desk is ready to celebrate its first birthday.

So, things have been in a constant state of flux down here at Press Herald Plaza in the last week.

The NXT Desk did not go unaffected.

I was a bad blogger last week. I'll admit it.
I could have taken the easy route and said I was off for the Holidays, but I owe you more than that. With everything we've been through you deserve better.

In the spirit of shaking things up, I wanted to pose a few questions to you, the audience at home (or work, or on your mobile phone or PDA. Why are you reading this on your phone? What if your boss/wife notices?)

As some of you may have noticed, I popped up over to the iHerald section today talking about some of my favorite Web sites. I do so love the Internets.

Today’s gotta be quick, deliberate and dirty as I am still recovering from the Phoenix’s Best Music Poll awards last night, too many Appletinis with Shannon Moss and the guys from Dead Season.

For all my MegaStorm 2007 jokes, guess who ended up manning the phones and chasing power outages yesterday. Sadly, I did not get access to anything with the word Doppler in it.