Here’s my recommendation on a new brand for the newly-merged combination of satellite radio companies XM and Sirius:

Xirius.

It’s got a vaguely Greek sound to it, if you pronounce it with the “ks” sound. Doesn’t mean anything, nor does it mean I’ll actually pony up for it. Especially when I consider my iPod to be a far superior option to any radio format, terrestrial or extra.

This evening, while waiting for my subway train to arrive, who should I see sauntering down the platform stairs but Karl Marx?

Well, I guess it couldn’t have been Marx, since he’s been dead for 120-some years. But he sure looked like Mr. Dialectical Inevitability, with the properly-parted wild hair and wooly-bully beard. He was even walking with a cane, which I took as an old-world flourish.

Then, as he got closer, I could hear him speaking with his companion — in Spanish.

With that, I thought: That’s just about perfect, in this context.

It’s always nice when I spy a unique example of street art, and my cameraphone actually captures a decent photo of it. One bright spot in an otherwise frustrating day.

This frantic-looking black-spraypaint mouse, apparently raging against the concept of global warming, was found against a concrete stairwell on Avenue A, in the heart of NYC. A neighborhood I know a little something about…