inspired by wrighty's "touching base" thread.

What are some alternatives to those awful biz-speak clichés that end up being ridiculed in threads on DiS? E.g. "heads up", as in "I just want to give you a heads up that...".

I'd love to be able to avoid using the phrase, but I can't for the life of me think of a suitable alternative. "Alert" makes me think of pop-up dialogue boxes on computers. "Warn" sounds too ominous, as does "forewarn", with the added disadvantage of striking my ears as internally redundant. Isn't a warning by definition given in advance of the event? Or is it a warning before the warning? Who the fuck knows?

Same goes for "touch base" / "catch up". Worst of all is the "I just wanted to get in touch..." that I can't seem to stop myself from typing every time I'm emailing someone to prompt them to do the thing I asked them to do 4 weeks ago.

Suggestions?