This morning, my odometer reached the 33,000-mile mark. These past few months are the first time in a LONG time that I've put this many miles on the car in one year. It's definitely the first time since I was married that I've used the car this often, because I travel so many places (other than work) with Mark, and when we're together, he drives.

In other news: since I took this assignment, I have typed a LOT of companies' names as I enter their information into the computer system. One thing I've noticed is that certain buzzwords crop up frequently in business names. Now that I'm also filing policies and correspondence in the file room, I'm seeing even MORE company names, and I've reached a point where I regard certain words and phrases as cliches.

For example, in my opinion the word "Solutions" is used way, WAY too often. Maybe the people naming the companies think it sounds dynamic and proactive, and maybe if you're not encountering a few dozen company names every day, it does. But if every day, you see several company names that fit the description of "____ Solutions", it stops sounding proactive and starts sounding unoriginal. Ditto for the numerous companies that are named "Integrated ____". Good grief, I had to return a correspondence file for an "Integrated ___" company to the shelf this morning, and it took eons to locate where it belonged among the eighteen bazillion OTHER "Integrated ___" files. I was never over-fond of industry buzzwords to begin with... too many people seem to fling them around in order to appear that they're oh-so-cutting-edge, or to try and mask the fact that they don't know what in heck they're talking about. That's why seeing buzzwords being used to excess in companies' names is turning into a pet peeve of mine.

So, why am I ranting about these things? To explain why this afternoon, when I had to enter a submission for a company named "Integrated ____ Solutions, Inc", my first reaction was, "AAAAARGH!"

I'm not planning on starting a company of my own any time soon, but if I ever do, you can guess what words won't be appearing in its name. ;o)