Sometime this afternoon, the work week won, and I lost. This week had been up and down, sometimes dramatically. In the closing hours, the work kicked my butt. I gave up and rode the subway home with The Replacements in my head: Paul Westerberg yelling Unsatisfied.

A minute or so after I got home, I got a phone call from a loved one. The caller had a terrific day, one that offered promise for the future. Hearing this kind of happiness, this true, reality-fueled happiness, I couldn't help but switch tracks on Let It Be to a happier 'Mats song.

How young are you?
How old am I?
Let's count the rings around my eyes
How smart are you?
How dumb am I?
Don't count any of my advice.

Oh, meet me anyplace or anywhere or anytime
Now I don't care, meet me tonight
If you will dare, I might dare.

Among his comments in the new Esquire "What I've Learned" feature, he begins one, in bold print (as every item begins), "I love spaghetti."

And I like to cook spaghetti. And I used to eat it every day. I weighed thirty pounds more than I do now. You can't — you can't do that. Ice cream — I love to watch television and eat ice cream. But that's like a ten-year-old. I can't do that anymore. Beer. Beer, spaghetti, ice cream.

Update at 8:30 p.m. after a rough afternoon: Sincerely, tonight's Blue Moon Winter Abbey Ale, San Giorgio, and Turkey Hill "Double Dunker."

As I just posted on Twitter, I want to befriend people who make Rube Goldberg machines. My quality of life would go up just knowing them.

Watch and enjoy. (Can't say I'm a fan of this expansive, framed embed of The New York Times, but I'll admit I did just click on the story link. It's good as well, explaining how a young man gets into this line of work.)

Updated January 14:  Thinking about Rube Goldberg again today got me looking for his obituaries in scanned Google News archives. In my search (God bless participating papers), I found a Milwaukee Journal editorial from Wednesday, December 9, 1970. Closing paragraphs:

In his 80s, Goldberg turned to sculpturing. Just two weeks ago, the Smithsonian Institution opened an exhibit of his work. And not long before his death Monday at 87, Goldberg described his invention for getting rid of long winded speakers.

A quarter (A) sings a sad song and a man nearby (B) breaks down and cries into a flower pot (C). Flower (D), wetted by his tears, grows and tickles the feet (E) of a man sitting on top of a children’s slide (F). He slides down and bumps into a Civil War bugler (G) at the bottom of the slide and wakes him up. Bugler blows reveille into the face of an innocent bystander (H) who catches cold and sneezes into the propeller (I) which starts a bell-like machine (J), raising an American flagging, popping off guns, emitting smoke and, finally, extending a broom (K) which sweeps the overlong speaker off the platform.

Rube Goldberg, we’ll miss you.

Also, I learned from 1915 to 1933 Goldberg wrote a comic strip called "Boob McNutt." Characters included "Lala Palooza" and "Mike & Ike."

Yes, a coming-of-age story. Our television tale begins a decade ago…

January 2002: I buy my first TV. The set is a used 20" and costs $80. Amit and I put the TV in our living room on top of some old milk crates.

July 2004: I inherit an old, low chest of drawers from Lindsay when, in one of the many odd twists in our history, after breaking up, she exits a Silver Spring apartment and I move into it. The chest is one she had found in her previous apartment, moved for some reason with the help of myself and several others and smartly decided never to move again.

February 2005: Jess' departing roommate gives me her old 27" TV for free. I am grateful, too proud to accept offers of help and nearly keel over moving the huge non-flatscreen from Courthouse to Silver Spring.

April 2005: I move from Silver Spring to Courthouse, taking the TV a block away from where I had taken it just two months prior. For some reason, I also move the chest to my new apartment. I take out a few drawers, remove other parts and have one ugly, but proud, TV stand.

January 2009: I inherit a new TV stand from Jess when, in one of the many odd twists in our history, after breaking up, she gives me her old entertainment center. I go to pick up the stand in biting cold and find it will not fit entirely in my trunk. Jess sits in the back seat of my car and holds desperately onto the stand as I hit potholes on an icy Route 50.

May 2011: My brother buys a new flat-screen TV, and I see it. I decide immediately also to buy a new flat-screen TV and begin my research.

August 2011: I have bookmarked dozens of pages over multiple Web browsers. Articles, reviews, comparisons, round-ups, shopping carts.

October 2011: I bookmark dozens more pages. To up the TV ante, I begin bookmarking pages about TV stands and entertainment centers.

November 2011: Fed up with my own foot-dragging, I conduct a last burst of bookmarking late Thanksgiving night. Black Friday morning, I awake, delete my bookmarks and buy a new TV, my first TV purchase in nearly a decade and my first new TV purchase ever. I subsequently realize my new TV is exactly the same set my brother bought last May, sparking my six months of unnecessary research. Also, I buy a new TV stand, my first new one ever, unaffiliated with any long-term break-up.

A coming-of-age story, I tell you.

December 2011: I work from home to receive my new TV and stand, which somehow arrive on the same day. I assemble them that night. The TV is easy, but the stand takes a couple hours of work. There is wood, metal and glass. There are screws, washers and tools strewn around. But the building process feels good, and the work is done.

TBD 2012: I get the old entertainment center out of my hallway.

A good amount has been written about how Patti Smith contributed to Springsteen's Because the Night and how he gave the song to her in return. Listen to hers and his, and you have almost enough material for an entire gender studies class. Add Michael Stipe's cover of Smith's version while performing with Bruce, and your curriculum is complete.

Less has been written of another Smith-Springsteen crossover work: the guitar riff for her Frederick and the intro to his live Darkness-tour Prove It All Night. Her version is about her husband. His is about who knows. Both are set at night. Both are primal in their lyric elements.

Both are confident but desperate. The songs say many of the same things, but if you weren't aware of the shared chords, you'd never situate them near each other on your shelves. He knows the riff but doesn't let it take over the core of what he wants to say. She invites the guitar in and incorporates it. Mars and Venus in badass manner.

Bruce Springsteen, Prove It All Night.

Patti Smith, Frederick.

Glad to read Marah's Serge Bielanko and his family are safe after a fire hit their rural Pennsylvania house last week. Even more glad to read a fundraiser to help them raised $10,000 in half a day. A HuffPo account, "The Internet Rescues a Family," has the details. For future donations, Serge's wife Monica, a stellar blogger, recommends the Red Cross.

Thanks to friend and fellow Marah fan Randy for the alert on the news.

Andy Carvin is a Twitter star, and Wright Bryan manages NPR's busy blog roster. But in the office, when Wright and I get to talking about how neither of us have had a McRib before, and Andy jumps in to say he hasn't had a McRib in decades, we almost immediately depart the building for the nearest McDonald's. We eat standing amid the usual chaos, complete with security guard, at the Verizon Center franchise.

We bite in, worry about the sexy (?) box and congratulate ourselves. This post, as you must know, is not an endorsement. It is just lunch.

About two and a half years ago, I loved reading the New Yorker article (not stuck behind the pay wall!) about Bill Cunningham. I blogged as much. I began watching his slideshow on the Times site. I introduced my mom to  his work. She found it strange at first. Then she found it wonderful. When the documentary about Cunningham came along, I let her know about it. She and my dad watched it and enjoyed it from beginning to end. But then I somehow didn't see it. For many months.

But then I finally saw it Friday. From start to end, the movie grabbed your heart and took pictures of it. Trailer via Lori, who also liked it:

Also, friend Danny recently went to NYC. As he arrived, there was Bill.

Getting to the end of the year and having extra time, I'm finding there are a lot of photos, Web notes and papers around my house of things I meant to blog but for some reason never did. Time to blog! Part four of five.

Here are 50 links I meant to blog but never did. I may have tweeted some, but I don't think I tweeted many. I wish I could remember how I stumbled across of these and give proper credit. But here we are. 50!

1-10: Dancing, smiling, texting, punctuating.

1. "Do You Wanna Dance?" Springsteen does a cover in a 1982 club appearance. Sound isn't great, but the joy is infectious. You turn it up.

2. "Lush for Life." Published on the last day of 2010, this story was a guide post for me in 2011. It had the same concerns, same questions.

3. "In the Town of Phil Campbell, a Gathering of Phil Campbells." Weird, touching, must-read from the New York Times. Eighteen Phil Campbells gather to support the tornado-struck town of Phil Campbell, Alabama.

4. "Yelp: Instyle." I love my barber shop. I've written about it before. Wanted to write about it again. Failed. But the shop is a winner. Only there can you find a line before it opens and even mid-afternoons.

5. "The Hidden Power of Smiling." TED talk by Ron Gutman. Cute, but shows how smiling at others not only improves them but also you.

6. "Visualizing SMS messages using paper airplanes." Long-distance romance + text messages = data points converted to folds, paper size.

7. "Why McDonald's wins in any economy." A leadership and business-management class in one well-done story, whatever your burger likes.

8. "Trombone Shorty: Tiny Desk Concert." One of the most fun shows anyone did this year at the Tiny Desk. I love working down the hall.

9. "The Mountain." Vimeo video of landscapes and skies around Spain's tallest mountain. Watch this video full screen or not at all, people.

10. "An Open Letter to the Person in Charge of New Punctuation." A McSweeney's classic. I want to use the friendly period immediately.

11-20: Colleges, asylums, fried eggs, Hackman.

11. "Poetry Dessert Plates." A product from UncommonGoods. Never have plates so delighted and disturbed me. Don't want them but….

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Friday before New Year's, the bosses gave us the afternoon off. Where else to go but the high-speed go-kart track near Dulles? Turned out to be a popular afternoon for driving, especially popular with people who raced there often, some of whom brought their own suits and helmets.

In three long races, I finished sixth out of eight, ninth out of nine, and six out of nine. The serious racers were great, especially one driver in a red suit. Turned out he was a teen so good he has karting sponsors.

You know in the old Herbie movies when the villain driver races ahead of Herbie? Over and over again? It was like that. But still a ton of fun. Thanks to Lori for the pictures. Thanks to red suit kid for the humility.