Some Distractions

I am unshaven, plowing through some writing, before leaving for SODA (San Francisco, no matter how many times one has been, one expects something to happen, maybe a new contact, a strange fruit or an unknown poem). Distractions:

• I was on the phone with Graham Cormode, when a FedEx delivery person buzzed the door and I wondered what they might deliver. GC quipped, "Your iPhone bill?"
• This AM, I woke up with sore throat and fever that sleep and pills couldn't cure and when I started typing, I couldn't find the "+" key on my keyboard. I admit, it is a reasonably new, somewhat strange keyboard and I was without coffee, but alas, what does it say about a pretend-mathematician (someone I know called us, theoretical computer scientists, thus)?
  
• Over dinner yesterday, I debated what was a good FOCS/STOC/theory paper, and as far as I can tell from the discussion, it has to be "important", but just said with a deeper, more drawn out voice, and a hand gesture of something substantial. No smileys.