Saturday
I think that I figured out why I’ve been so tapped the past few nights: I was sick; it came to a head yesterday afternoon. Fortunately, I don’t get sick very often and I tend to get over being sick fairly quickly. So, today, I’m back on at least 5½ cylinders.

NPR/PRI Stories
There were actually a few good stories on the various NPR and PRI programs yesterday.
Fresh Air
The World
Talk of the Nation
All Things Considered
Of note from Friday’s grab bag of radio goodness:

  • Scientific Fraud on TotN-Science Friday
  • Interview with Garrison Keillor (host of A Prairie Home Companion) on Fresh Air.
  • Ad Campaigns on All Things Considered

Stray Toasters
I’ve noticed a couple of things at the gym about which I have neglected to comment. Now that they are (for whatever reason) in the forefront of my cognitive processes, I’ll throw them into the ring:

  1. There is an older gentleman there who works out around the same time that I do. I pointed him out to Jess the other day; she looked around and said “Who? That Scotty-looking dude over there?” That exactly echoed my thoughts about the man. He looks like James Doohan from Star Trek – The Original Series. Of course, my thoughts also typically include a line from Animaniacs: “Hey, look!!! It’s big, fat Scotty from Star Trek!” Which is a bit unfair to the man at the gym – he’s not fat.
  2. The recumbent exercise bikes have a feature that allow you to monitor your heart rate: Hold the handles near the seat, wait a couple of seconds, and voila, your heart rate appears on the screen. The stoopid thing about it is that after you have grabbed said handles, the following message appears on the screen: “Hold handles for heart rate.”
    ::: boggle :::

    And after all this time I thought that they were just there for aesthetic value. You mean that they are actually functional!?!? Well, shit fire!

And an unrelated ‘toaster: As I mentioned on Wednesday and Thursday, we got a new satellite system. Now, we have 2 receivers… which means that Jess can watch The Anna Nicole Smith Show to her heart’s content in the living room and I don’t have to fight the overwhelming compulsion to slit my wrists. One of the programming packages that we got was ::: deep breath ::: NFL Sunday Ticket. This means that I get up to twelve (that’s right, boys and girls: twelve) games of gridiron goodness per Sunday! I will be able to watch all of the Ravens games this season!

::: genuflect :::

Yesterday, however, I realized something. In the middle of my dreams of all-day football for Sunday (tomorrow), I remembered that we are going to Park City early tomorrow afternoon. What does that mean in layman’s terms? I’m going to miss most of my football-induced bliss tomorrow. BAH!!! Of course, since the VCR and my computer are hooked up to the system, I can record the game of my choice in the format of my choice. Technically, I guess that I could record 2 games… if I leave the VCR on antenna feed and run the satellite feed to the computer. Decisions, decisions….

Okay, enough of that. Time to get the day started… and see what kind of trouble that I can get into.

Namaste.