My colleague Bobby Tanzilo and I both decided that we're too cold to blog this week.

As we trudged over to Alterra for a morning coffee, in hopes that hot liquid would also thaw out our writers' blocks, we agreed that it's hard to get inspiration to write about anything other than shoveling, driving in snow or shivering at work.

And we've already written about that, ad nauseam. In fact, just by writing this blog, I'm doing it again.

Sorry.

It's a little tough, though. It's our jobs to write, and write a lot. Whether we're being pithy, silly, critical, sincere or even melodramatic, we expect our staff writers to blog at least twice a week -- and hopefully more.

But this week is weird. Between last-minute holiday gift shopping, getting ready to launch a new product from OnMilwaukee.com (more on that next week), and spending way too much time digging out from under piles of snow, I've got nothing.

I could, I suppose, fill up this space by telling you what I bought my wife for Chanukah this year (she got a Snuggie last night). Or how my dog thinks she wants to go for a walk until she takes one step outside and immediately changes her mind. Or how my tire-pressure monitors on my car think that I have a flat tire every time the temperature drops by 10 degrees, forcing me to bust out the air compressor and refill each one when I can't even feel my fingers.

Or I could write about what a great decision it was to buy those $10 moon boots for my Napoleon Dynamite Halloween costume in 2005 -- they're hideous but totally waterproof. I could write about how the Packers and I are now seeing other people: I didn't even watch their Monday Night Football match up against the Bears last night.

I could tell you about my latest cockamamie scheme to install a gas fireplace in the living room, which I've co-opted my dad into for some father-son bonding that may or may not result in the explosion of my house.

Maybe you'd like to hear about the phenomenon in which I buy more stuff than I need on Amazon.com just to get to the $25 "super-saver" free shipping minimum (case in point: mail-order fish oil capsules).

But all that stuff would be boring, right?

Instead I'll just work on meeting my blog quota with this entry about nothing. I apologize if I wasted your time by making you read this blog that ultimately didn't go anywhere.

You see, it's cold outside. My brain is a little frozen right now. Maybe when the snow melts a little my writer's block will defrost, too. See you in, say, June.