Off The Desk 11/2/26

Hello. Happy Monday. Thanks for being back with us for another exciting episode of Off the Desk. I'm I'm Julia O'Keefe. And I'm Chris Pazakis. Happy Monday. Happy Monday. We are another week, another month. It's November. First Monday of November. Yeah. Yeah. And it's a Above average for temperatures today, Chris, right? It doesn't really feel like it's going to be November. Yeah, it's definitely going to be above average for today. It's cold out there this morning. We're waking up with temperatures pretty seasonable in the 20s and 30s. But by this afternoon, yeah, some spots could be near 70. A good amount of sun, so really nice. So we'll likely stay right around 70 the next few days. Enjoy it. It looks like we get quite chilly next week, so I'd say enjoy these warmer temperatures. Cheers. The next few days also look dry, so especially tomorrow is election day. A lot of people heading out to cast their vote, so it looks good for that. By the end of the week, we could see finally a little bit of some rain. It doesn't have to be a lot, but at least something. Because we haven't really seen any rain over the past now over two weeks. Thanks. Yeah. Even nighttime temperatures looking ahead look to be in the 40s and 50s for the next few nights. Right. So, um, Julia, no frost for the next few nights. Frost, yay. This morning there was a light layer, but it cleared pretty quickly, so it wasn't that bad. Yep, but we are now in November, so it's only a matter of time until we are just completely stuck in the freezing temperatures at night. Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah. Yeah, November, we actually averaged six inches of snow in November. Really? I'm kind of excited for the first snowfall. I like the snow in November and December, and then after that, I'm okay. I know you feel different about it, but... It gets gross. I don't know. When it gets gross, I'm like, okay, it's time for spring. Yeah, I'm excited for the first snow, too. Nothing in the near future, but there are signs that by the end of the month, it could get very cold. Get more of a winter-like pattern. We'll enjoy it for now. I mean, I do kind of also appreciate a good 70-degree day in November. Oh, yeah. It's going to be nice to be able to go for a walk later. And I don't know. You still have the feel of the burr months, you know, but it's warm out, so. Yeah. Yeah. But then that makes it so we're going to feel less of a transition. It's going to feel like it's going from summer to freezing. I don't know why I'm yawning. We've got an extra hour of sleep and I'm still so tired, but that's life. That is such a... It's one day. I actually feel wide awake today. I don't know why. I feel like I just relaxed a lot this weekend. I didn't really do much and so caught up in myself. That's good. Refreshed. Speaking of the weekend, what did you guys do? Yeah, so take it away. I can go first. It was hella weekend. And, um... Friday night, I didn't end up really doing anything. I was dog sitting for friends. And then. And then, yeah, so we just stayed in and watched. Actually, I started, well, I made Noah watch some of Love is Blind. Oh, you did? Because I was like, you need to see how insane these people are. You got to see what goes on here. Yeah, so we flipped through that and then chill night. Then Saturday. During the day, we went out to lunch with some friends, then gave out candy for trick-or-treaters. Saw a lot of good creative costumes. There was a family. They were all dressed as different Toy Story characters. Saw the Monsters, Inc. as a family costume. A lot of Pokemon group costumes. Yeah. And then one kid, I didn't really know what they were, but the two of them built their costumes out of cardboard. And one was a mask and the other was a big TV thing. It must have been a character from a show, but I didn't know what it was. But it was awesome to see the kids get super creative. That was fun. And then... Yeah, my friend had a party and it was outside, but they rented heat lamps and had fires going. So it was a lot of fun. Yeah. And then yesterday just chilled out in the morning. I watched. The Villanova and Notre Dame basketball teams played at the Vatican. Oh, wait, that's so cool. Yeah, it was cool. They called it the Eternal City tip-off. It was the Pope organized the whole thing. Wait, I did see some headlines about that. Yeah, it was cool. So I watched some of that, and Villanova had the lead the whole way and then ended up losing in the end, which was a bummer for the Wildcats. Is the Pope— Does he have a particular college team that he's a fan of? Well, he went to Villanova. He did? Yeah. Wait, I feel like we talked about this. You and the Pope went to the same school. That's very cool. Yeah, but he's from Chicago, so Notre Dame and Villanova. Oh, right. That's both prominent Catholic colleges. It all came together, but yeah. So that was that. And then I went to bed so early last night. I went to bed at 6.30. That's good, though. Which was really 7.30. I was a little messed up, but that worked well for me. It really did. That's good. It did. Yeah, you seem refreshed. Sure. Sure. I'll go with that. Sometimes when you sleep longer, though, I feel like I'm more tired. You get more tired. Yeah. It's still really hard to wake up this morning. I don't know why that happens. Such is life. It is. How was your weekend? It was good. Yeah, Friday night. Oh, actually, Friday night, Bobby and I ended up going out on a date night. We went out to this new restaurant in Newtown. It was, I don't know if you've heard, Chris, of the Taco Barn. Oh, yeah. Yeah. My mom asked for it not long ago. It was good. It's a cool, like, it is inside of a barn. So it has a cool vibe to it. And they did have some outdoor, like, heated lamps. Nobody was sitting outside, though, because it was, like, 9 o'clock. It was dark and colder. But that was good. I'm going And then Saturday. to go ahead I felt bad. I was taking Ava all over the place because I had to run some errands and do some grocery shopping and read some of and stuff before we were doing like her Halloween celebration. And I wanted Bobby to be able to see her in her costume, the questions which she was a beanie baby. She looked so cute. Thank you. A little bear costume. It came out very cute. I was happy with it. that have And I drove. Yeah, I stopped by. Bobby and my brother were working together been posted. and they got to see her in her costumes. That was good. But before that, I had gotten lunch with my dad. My dad hasn't gotten to hang out with Ava in a little bit, so he was really happy about that. And then we went to my sister's for trick-or-treating. Not my sister's, my brother and his wife's neighborhood for trick-or-treating, but my sister was also there with her kids. Saw all the cousins together, and they got to take a picture, which was cute. And then I just came home. We put Ava to sleep. I already accepted that her sleep this weekend was going to be different just because of the time change and the holidays. She went to bed a little bit later, but she slept through the night. Look at that. That's good. So it was really good. And then I guess she woke up this morning at like. I was still home. See, this is where my brain is like all over the place. But she woke up this morning around like two before I left. And then Bobby told me that she went right back to sleep and she was up at like six. So she this time change didn't mess with her too much. But yeah, yesterday was her six month half year birthday, half birthday, whatever. So we just gave her a couple of different solid foods to try. We were hanging out at home. We did some cleaning and stuff like that. But she liked peas. Look at that. Which is good. That's a win that she's liking some vegetables. Nice. Yeah. Kind of just a family weekend, but it was fun. Nice. What about you, Chris? Halloween was chill. We just stayed home, kind of welcomed trick-or-treaters to our house. Got a good amount. Watched kind of a Halloween-ish movie. Which one? Go on. It's on Netflix. It's called The Whisper Man. Oh, you were telling us about this. It's Robert De Niro. It's a new movie that's out. It was really good. Not horror, but it's, like, a little creepy. It's about this... Like a thriller? Yeah. Robert De Niro plays, like, this retired investigator, and he's trying to track down this guy who's, like, abducting these kids. Oh, okay. And he's, like, a serial killer. He's called the Whisper Man. Yeah, and so, yeah, you should watch it. I liked it. So yeah, it was a good, good movie. And then, yeah, we just welcomed the kids to our house. My favorite costume of the night, I had to take a picture of this kid. He's a mailbox. Oh my gosh. That's so creative. That's awesome. Wow. And you open the door, like you're putting in the mail, and he had like a little, as if you're putting a letter in, you put your candy into the mailbox. Oh my gosh. That's so cool. That's so awesome. Did you ask him if he made it? His grandmother made it for him. His grandma made it? That's so cool. I was like, this is like one of the coolest costumes I've ever seen. That is so cool. Like, I gotta take a picture of you. Kids are so funny. I love that. I want to, like... As I have more kids and we're going to be moving into our house and stuff, I want to do stuff like that where you make a cool, I don't know, display for the trick-or-treaters, make cool costumes, get super creative. Because if I tried to build something like that now, I could do that. That's so funny. Kids just being like, yeah, I'm going to win a mailbox. Yes. Come on. That's awesome. No, we had a lot of good costumes, but that one just won. Oh, that's a good one. It was him and his mom. I was like, I got to take a picture of you, buddy. This is like one of the coolest costumes I've ever seen. It was like, Mom, I want to be a mailbox. And then like, he walked out into my yard a little bit and like he kneels down a little and like you can't even see his legs. It looks like a mailbox in my yard. Yeah. I'm like, That's so funny. That's awesome. I got a kick out of that. It was like, it was pretty sweet. That's great. But we had a lot. We have about a little over 30 kids, so Saturday, what do we do? Um, Saturday, just hung out, got lunch with my in-laws and my parents, and then yesterday in the morning. Put away all my furniture in my yard. Oh, you did? Yeah. So my yard is completely... No furniture out. It's all my shed. Right. I'm trying to get extra positive. Sorry. We'll get to that. Cut down the last of the few bushes I needed to cut down. Did one last mow the lawn. So my yard work is complete for the year. There you go. Until you have to snowblow and shovel. Yeah. Yeah. And then watch football. Pretty much all afternoon. Bill's getting here with the Patriots. Watched a little bit of the late night game last night. And then went to bed. Yeah, so good. There you go. Yeah, I watched the first half of the game. And they were still losing. And I was like, I'm going to go to bed. Then they won, though. So that was cool. It was a little messy the first half. But they came back. Yeah. And Saturday night, Matt and I made chili. Nice. Which was really good. Cool. Yeah, it was pretty chill. We just kind of hung out. Hello, weekend, behind us. Another one. And now the sun sets earlier. Yeah, last night, I thought it was late. I was like, I'm probably up late, and I looked at my phone, and it was just about 7 o'clock. I know. The time change always throws me off. It felt like a very long day yesterday, which was kind of nice, but yeah. Yeah, by 3 p.m., you're like, it's already like the sun's going down. Hey, the day is done. Yeah. We'll get used to it. Yep. All right, we'll be right back after this short break. All right. Welcome back on this Monday edition of Off the Desk. It's time. Mariah is defrosting. Oh, Lord. This is the day. Actually, yesterday. I keep getting thrown off. It's November 2nd. It is the 2nd. Yeah. But yesterday was the day that people officially say it's acceptable for Christmas time. I got to give a shout out to the buddies. Um, Nicole and Victoria Buddy, who, you know, reporters here for a few years, um, they posted on their Instagram story, they decorated their place for Christmas. And I was like, hello, I saw them and a few other people, but obviously I have to give a shout out to the Buddies because we know them. They're near and dear to our hearts. Um, I totally see them. Oh yeah. Oh yeah, for sure. To start the Christmas spirit, getting used to the Christmas spirit. We put out our Thanksgiving stuff yesterday. Yeah. I still have my. I literally just took down the one Halloween... What are they called? The little towels. A kitchen towel. I just took that down. That was it. I still have little miniature pumpkins around because it's still fall and Thanksgiving decor. I haven't really done any other decorating. Yeah, pumpkins can continue for Thanksgiving. Yeah, for sure. I mean, like the leaves, the corn stalks or whatever. Mums, you know, I have some mums outside. It's still time for that. But yeah, some are getting ready for Christmas, like Mariah Carey. She released her It's Time, her annual video. And this one's interesting. It starts off with the clock. And it's ticking. It's like 11.58 p.m. And it's a Halloween party. And she's singing at this Halloween extravaganza. And she's all made up. And it's kind of spooky. And then as the clock ticks to midnight, she does a quick costume change. And she's Christmas Mariah. And she's like the top of the Christmas tree. And it zooms out. And she's standing on the Christmas tree singing, All I Want for Christmas is You. You know, I wonder, how long has she been doing the video now? I don't know. She still makes a lot of money off that song. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Because I'm just thinking, this, like, her doing this video every year was probably just born from the internet. Yeah. And people, the memes literally saying, like, oh, Mariah Carey's defrosting just because people get so into Christmas on November 1st, and her song is, like, the most popular Christmas song. And she really went, rode with it, you know? Yeah. So now she does it every year. Like you said, she probably makes so much money on it. Yeah, there was something I read. I forget what it was, but it was a crazy amount of how much she even gets every time someone plays it. I bet. Like, it's crazy. I will say, a Christmas song did come on Shuffle this morning on my way here and I just let it play. You left it? What was it? It was Christmas Tree Farm. I knew you were going to say that. I randomly will have it on Shuffle and if those songs come on, I'll just skip that right now. But it was Christmas Tree Farm and I'm like, It's a good thing. I didn't notice. So yesterday watching TV with the football games, like now every commercial is Christmas. Really? It's like, as soon as Halloween ended and November hit, everything was Christmas commercials. It's that time. You know what I've already had to do? I have to stop myself and, and literally just do like old fashioned pen to paper, write down things that I want to get people for Christmas. So I don't get carried away because I was like already adding a ton of stuff to an Amazon list for it's just it's just so ridiculous. And because it's starting so early, I could totally see myself just spending a ton more than I want to by starting Christmas shopping now. And then you get stuff and I genuinely I don't even I can't even remember like. anything that I really got for Christmas last year that was like a huge item that I really needed. You know what I mean? So you want to make sure you're getting something that maybe somebody needs or something that's meaningful, sentimental value. For sure. Just to get somebody a gift. You don't need to go crazy. And it's just like the era that we live in. Yeah. With like constantly being pushed consumer ads and things. Yeah. And everything. And a lot of these places make it so easy to create a list. Oh, yeah. You just keep adding things to it until you realize, well, this is a lot. And a lot of the times I just end up getting stuff for myself. I'm like, I think I would like that. It's funny. Unnecessary spending. Yeah. Yeah, it's going to be that time. I've definitely started, like, throughout the year, if I see things or ideas pop in my head, I'll jot them down. But it's interesting. I'm very pro-experience. Like, every time, when it comes to my birthday and Christmas, they're also very close together. Yeah. So I always say, like, let's do an experience. Let's do something. Like, I think last year I went to go see a musical. I don't know. I don't know if I'm doing it this year. Was it Wicked? It was not Wicked, no. It was actually Hamilton. Oh, I do remember that. Yeah. Um, But yeah, we've done that in the years. Like, I'll go see a show together or a concert or a trip or something. That is good, yeah. There's ways to do it in an experience or something. It's just crazy that we're already talking about it. I think every year everybody has the argument of when is the appropriate time to actually start celebrating Christmas. And I think we already talked about it on here this year. I am the day right after Thanksgiving. I think so too. That's what I say. Cause I love Thanksgiving still. And it's such a big holiday. Like, I don't know. Yeah. Like, I don't want to rush that away either. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like the older I get, the more Thanksgiving becomes, it grows on me more and more and more. Because it literally is just so about your family and just being grateful that family, food, no pressure of gifts, long weekend. It's like, yeah, it is nice. Yeah, I agree. And I think. The fall decorations, I mean, if you already decorated for Christmas this week, that only gives you really like a month maybe of the fall decorations in October, maybe end of September. Let's enjoy them a little bit more. I agree. They should last a few more weeks. Fall is great, especially in New England. I was actually noticing, I know we're past peak for the foliage, but when I was driving on the highway this weekend, I feel like it looked the most colorful that I've seen. Probably because they're either... Bright red trees, or there's nothing on the trees, but still, like, it looked really pretty, so they're still hanging on out there. Yeah, it still kind of looks, I noticed that, too, just the foliage was still looking pretty nice. Yeah. So, there's time to enjoy it. Enjoy it. Eventually, it'll be sticks. I know. Yeah. I'm looking forward to that. Um, I guess going back to, to Halloween stuff, I don't know if, if you guys were keeping up with any celebrity Halloween costumes, but there were so many good ones out there this year. First of all, Heidi Klum. I just was thinking the hand, I mean, Julia, as soon as I saw it on Instagram, I was like, are we actually serious? I love Heidi Klum. And that one was insane. It was crazy. It was really well done. Yeah. It definitely looked like a severed hand. It truly I truly did. The whole, like, face and the mouth was crazy. But down to the detail of the rings and the nail polish. Oh, my gosh, yeah. I mean, crazy. Another one I really liked was Lisa Rinna as Kylie Jenner. Oh, I saw that one, too. She looked so good. Even Kylie was like, I had to do a double take. I thought that was me. Yes. Which, that's how you know you did a good job. Yeah. Yeah. There were a bunch, though. Alex Earl went all out. Did you see her costume? I just saw her, like, get unready with me the next day. Oh, my God. With the glitter eyes and everything. Yeah, she had a custom-made, like, I don't know, she was some alien space woman thing, and her nails had little saucers on them. They were so long. It's crazy. Yeah, but people got so creative. It was funny. I kind of like... Seeing everybody's costumes and stuff on social media, even people that I know that I follow, it's fun to see what people come up with and how creative they get. Heidi Klum probably won yet again. What was she last year? Last year, I don't know if it was, I had always a few of them. Like one year she was a worm, she did ET, she and her husband, she was a bird and he was an egg. Like there's a bunch of, wasn't it last year was something, was it a green creature of some sort? I don't remember exactly, but I saw a collage of all of her. It's just disturbing. Yeah, it was this. Like Medusa or something. Oh, yeah. It looks like Medusa or some kind of a Greek mythology thing. It really goes all out. But yeah, Halloween. That's a wrap. That's a wrap. Now it's November. I'm a little sad that October's gone. Yeah. October's a good month. Yeah. It's probably one of my favorite months. It is. But it's a good time of year. Yeah, it is. Let's look forward to. All right, let's take another break. Maybe talk about the national daycare. Okay, we're back for these last few minutes on this Monday morning. We talked a little bit about Halloween weekend coming and going. It's November, weather's still looking nice, but there are some things on the national day calendar too. Kind of a slow day for that, but one that works for our line of work and that's National Broadcast Traffic Professionals Day. So shout out to everybody who gives live traffic reports in their morning or evening newscast. Yep. Our 30 second traffic report in the morning. It's always so funny when you go to do the traffic report, but it's a foggy or cloudy day and you can't see anything and you're just in front of the gray screen. I've always wondered, yeah, why do we take that when you can't see literally anything? And I got to be like, well, you can't see much, but whatever. It's tough because like in our market, it's not, especially that time of day, really early morning, they're knock on wood. typically isn't a lot of traffic to report on unless there is an accident or something, which then we put into our newscast. But in some other markets, they do daily traffic reports because there are multiple interstates that they're reporting on or there's typical congestion areas. So shout out to everybody who does that kind of traffic reporting, which is very involved. You don't have to really stay on top of all of the roadways throughout the state. We used to be a lot more involved. We used to have an iPad. I would scroll around on Waze and find problems that were out there. Yeah. We even had a camera on the Mass Pike at one point. So we would show Springfield and the Mass Pike. Honestly, I think that is helpful for people. People, you know. Heading out on their morning commute or evening commute, but also with the technology today too. Right. I guess people sometimes offer just checking on their phones too, but still important stuff. You guys do traffic too. You guys do the cone zone alert. Yeah. Cone zone alert. Yep. That's true. And of course we do reports before big holiday weekends about the projected travel and who's hitting the road. And it's always the record breaking travel year every single time. It's funny. You think back to the days before the GPS and the iPhone and everything like that. Back when you would listen to it on the radio to see where there were problem spots. And obviously people still do that. And it's not like it went away completely. But now everyone just looks at it. Yeah. Hey, Siri. What's the traffic like? Yeah. So you guys remember like your parents printing out... Oh, my Siri's off actually. Sorry. Oh, really? Printing out MapQuest directions. Yeah. Or like taking out a map. Taking out a map. Yeah, my parents just said, we would have to wait. My dad would print. Yes, the directions. My mom... Can you go print the directions for me? Yeah. And then I remember my dad brought me to a mall. It was the Danbury Mall. Okay. And it was right when the Garmin first came out. And we were looking at it. My dad was like, this is crazy. And it was so expensive. And he's like, how do you even trust that thing? How does it actually know where you are? Remember how bad the graphics were on it when it first came out? It was a massive arrow that was like lag. It's like you drove down a road. I don't remember if it was which kind of navigation system it was, but it was early on before there was all the stuff available on iPhones. We're going on a family vacation. I remember my dad driving and he was already getting a little bit. antsy to get where we were going. We'll just say that. And a little bit frustrated with having a bunch of kids in the car, like asking him, are we there yet? And we were on a bridge over some body of water and the government or whatever he was using just says like. Stop, park here, and walk to your destination. And he like freaks out. He's like, where am I supposed to go? This thing doesn't work. And it's like a running joke with us now anytime we're like navigating somewhere. But the technology has come a long way. It's come a long way, yeah. Oh, yeah. And it's still not perfect. Sometimes it'll say take a right, and there are two options, and then you go the wrong way. And that may or may not have happened to me on Friday. But, you know, I made it. You made it. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, so shout out to anyone who's reporting on traffic today. Thank you for your work. It's also National Deviled Eggs Day. Oh, I'm not a big deviled egg fan. My grandma makes them. Oh, really? Yeah, I like the way she makes them. I do like them. It's not somebody at all time, but I like them. Like if they're at a party? Yeah. Yeah. They're a good app. Yeah, they're a good app. Yeah. What else is going on? We have 15 seconds left. Today is, yeah, November 2nd, Monday. We'll be back tomorrow. We can talk about it. It's election day. Oh, it's election day. Why can't we talk about that? Go to the polls. Heidi Klum's Halloween costume was just fresh out of mind. It's Monday. I'm sorry. Go vote tomorrow. We'll talk about election day tomorrow. Wow.