For the fifth year in a row, I am about to do all my Christmas shopping in about two hours without leaving my chair. Like many of you, I depend on Web retailers to facilitate this for me. Also, like many of you, I depend on Search to get this done.

Have you ever been asked to deliver an enormous amount of media work in an unreasonably short period of time? Have you ever had your account group promise the delivery of media plans every which way from Sunday so that you end up working on Sunday, after already putting in a full day on Saturday? Well, fear not, young media professionals!

As we all know, advertising can be viewed as a form of psychology. It can be viewed as either a psychology of the masses or a psychology of the one, depending on the methodology that you apply to your practice. The bottom line is that an analysis of psychology can be very important when we determine how advertising works.

Media buyers from agencies large and small have identified a new challenge for the industry. The challenge? Online tearsheeting.

MSNBC, Newsweek, and a couple of foreign sites were some of the only sites that had coverage of Saddam's capture. So much for our beloved 'Net being up-to-the-minute. So much for content being king. Where the heck was everyone yesterday? Does Internet traffic tank on Sundays? Did TV win yesterday?

As I walked the floor at the Search Engine Strategies show in Chicago this week, I was expecting to see maybe 500-600 people here, rattling around a big hall. But, the 1800 attendees that came to this show were here to do business. Sure, there are a few companies here who clearly aren't going to make it, who clearly lack the focus to capitalize on the best opportunities. But, something that separates what's going on now from the old days of four years ago is that interactive marketing works, and we can prove it.

I just got back from the iMedia Buyer's Summit in Beaver Creek, Colorado. Conversation was interesting, insightful, passionate, and humorous. But there was something that was emphasized during one of the few panels held during this event that reminded me of something some in the industry have addressed before, but as an issue tends to sink beneath the dark waters of more immediate concerns and distractions.

Have you ever patronized a bar to see a local band consisting of your friends and colleagues? How many times have you sat and listened to a relative unknown sing covers of your favorite songs, with a sprinkling of some originals? Well, it looks like those days may be on the way out if the record industry has their say.

Dear Santa: I originally sent this to you at your NorthPole.com address, but it bounced. I guess it must be tough getting reliable bandwidth up there at the top of the world. Either that or I must've sent my e-mail while your servers were down. (Darn that Grinch and his Denial of Service attacks!)

I spent a lot of time at home for the past week. I couldn't escape the bad ads on television. The copy and content isn't all that different from our inboxes today. Whether you have inbox filters on or not, it somehow slips through. I happened to stumble upon something very funny. Have you heard about slam spamming?