Thanks all! Yeah, I enabled NFC right from the get-go, since I use tags all over the place! Had no idea it was that! My Galaxy Nexus didn't display an NFC icon...
Ironically, that icon is not listed in the manual (not that I ever read those!). A friend has a Note 2 and looked for it in there!
Regarding my home screen (still a work in progress), I use Beautiful Widgets for my clock, and found that cool sketched look. Turned on transparency for the background to the widget, an viola!
Matt
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