Maggie Shnayerson

This is quite possibly the best thing I’ve seen in at least six months.

Honestly? There really are no appropriate circumstances under which it is acceptable to use the word “interface” as a verb. None. I don’t want to hear it, IT folks. None.

I’m guest-editing over at New York magazine’s Daily Intel blog for the next week. Stop on by! Or don’t! But do read something, it’s good for the complexion.

I particularly like the moment in this new JCPenney ad where the little girl reaches through the slats of the wondrous bed-in-the-wood to play, ever so tenderly, with the towish and touseled hair of the little boy. Come on now, Madison Avenue. It’s titillating and controversial when Abercrombie & Fitch does this with male models. But um, this is just skeevy.

But they did give him his wife’s voicemail message back:

“…Verizon had archived all the old greetings and messages. Company spokesman John Bonomo said Tuesday that a contractor found the recording and restored it to the new voicemail system. ‘I’m glad they rescued it,’ Whiting said. “I’m very happy.’” [WNBC]

“An 80-year-old Westchester man who kept the voice of his dead wife on his phone message, lost her voice when Verizon upgraded his service. Charles Whiting says he stayed connected to his wife, by calling the phone everyday to hear his wife’s voice saying ‘the Whitings aren’t home.’ Whiting said he immediately called Verizon and waited for an hour for help. He got disconnected, so he called back. After another 90 minutes, he said he was told he couldn’t get the message back and that he would just have to record a new one.” [WNBC]

“Multiple award-winning 7-day daily” is a real winner of a phrase, but nevertheless. Which Western U.S newspaper, “without question, the leading newspaper in the market,” has a 40-person newsroom and an about-to-be-fired editor?