Okay, truth be told — we prefer it every day, even more than our preference for maple-frosted donuts and a pumpkin spice latte (blood sugar alert!).

So even if you don’t yet Tweet, you really need to sign up at Twitter just to read this guy. There’s really nothing quite like teaching freshman English to a room full of teen angst every day of the week to bring out the humor in a guy. (Of course, it was either throw himself through the cafeteria window or open a Twitter account, and we’re thankful he chose the latter.)

And no, this isn’t a shameless plug for one of our homeys and yes, we know he’s an Oregon fan — we’ve got plenty of other homeys to shamelessly plug and most of them have better taste in college football teams. He’s just flat-out hilarious and has been since about 1980. He was probably funny before 1980, but that was before we met him and his terrible backswing. Or was that his jumpshot? We forget — they both look so alike.

Hayes Carll

But we’re also dipping into a little old-school R.E.M., thanks to all those 3 a.m. turntable plays by the world’s best college roommate of all time: Mike Brooks. Sorry we never quite bit on Husker Du.

And a sudden but wild step back into Gerry Rafferty, especially Baker Street. Could be because I had those same glasses in 1977 — but it wasn’t because I was hip; it was because I was (nearly) blind. A close second is Right Down the Line, especially this awesome video. Am I the only one who finds that downright clever? (Humor aside, we do wish the lad were faring better these days … a sad story, no doubt.)

John Hales, who is doing some great stuff here.

Anil Desai, who’s been doing good stuff dating to my New Riders days. Egad — has it really been 10 years?

A well-earned shout-out to Kim Lindros and Ed Tittel. Always great to compare notes with you two!

Tough to find anybody more brilliant, professional, and friendly than Amit Kalani. The guy’s work is just flawless.

We’re reading Sams Teach Yourself HTML & CSS in 24 Hours, due to hit bookshelves in November.

We’re writing, developing, and editing instructor resources, textbooks, and lab manuals …

We’re working on the amazing Skills for Success product line that Stephanie Wall‘s team is publishing out of Prentice Hall.