This could be something as small as sending them a note in the mail, to watching their kids for an evening.
Imagine all those little Ford Escorts crushed by Ford Expeditions whose drivers were too busy with e-mail to watch the road.
Taking a cue from BlackBerry and Apple's iPhone, it seems like the Lenovos, Acers and Dells of the world are catching up with the fact that people want all-in-one, Swiss army knife devices that can do everything from e-mail to watch streaming video.
Make arrangements for someone to pick up mail (or instruct the post office to hold your mail) and to watch the family pet.
In January 2007, Mr. Lopez received a group e-mail inviting him to watch a Duke basketball game at Brother Jimmy's, a bar and restaurant on the Upper West Side.
The company says the bad guys are populating sites like Digg.com and Blogspot and sending spam e-mail with enticements to "Watch 'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince' online free" and links to a bogus film site.
So I got home a few minutes ago, grabbed the mail and sat down to watch Michigan sneak a win over Indiana.
Still, this is how I came to receive an e-mail, last week, inviting me to watch the President's final State of the Union address with other "Obama Alumni" at a bar in Brooklyn.
"Derek told us that the mail suggested there were things to watch out for, but no fire to extinguish," she said.
He sat me next to an experienced operator, Phil Smith (another Mail staffer), and told me to watch how he went about the job.
Similarly, the struggle between the Sun on Sunday and the Mail on Sunday is one to watch, and the margin between them, 89,621, is smaller still.
