Wednesday, May 26, 2004

Something goofy happened yesterday at The League. Something went weird with blogger.com and it resulted in a lack of access to this URL with a www prefix. Anyway, they fixed it and all should be right with the world.

Last night Jamie went to the gym with me, albeit in a largely observational capacity. On the way home, she was quiet for a minute, and then she said: I think you're using your machine backwards.
"Backwards?," I replied.
"Everyone else is going the other direction."
By this she means that I may well be back-pedaling on the elliptical machine which I spent, last night, 35 minutes on. Which was a few miles.
"What do you mean?"
"You know how you're going around in little ellipses? Everyone else's machine is going the other way."
THis made me pause. "Sometimes my knees lock up on the thing. Like my leg is popping backward."
"I'm just saying," she shrugged.
So it may be that I am BACKPEDALING for up to 45 minutes at a time. Which is kind of awesome when you think about it. It means if I went to the track, I'd be huffing it backward around the track, or walking backward down block after block. And while the idea appeals to me, I probably should be running forward since the elliptical machine is my machine of choice.

In other news: Get the warranty.

Yesterday I went to Best Buy to get a new stereo to replace my old stereo which had gone kablooey and tried to eat my copy of the Walkmen's "Bows + Arrows".

It turns out that the prices on car stereos have dropped through the floor in the two years between purchase and total chaos of the Jensen. The high dollar item for cars is now an in-dash DVD player with Liquid Crystal Display (which slides out). As ludicrous (and, if I may say, DANGEROUS) as this sounds, it is, in fact, what Best Buy is now pushing. I assume the CD players are some sort of loss-leader for speakers, installation, etc... at this point.

The bottom line is that (for NOTHING) I got a really nice Panasonic (the second most expensive model I saw) and it was STILL $20 cheaper than the crapular Jensen I bought two years ago. It doesn't get installed until tonight, but I was so giddy while I was checking out that I think I spooked the girl at the register. I guess they're more used to angry people in the returns department.

Today I am truly an Even Steven. But since I trust nothing, I also bought the 4-year Warranty on this new stereo, just in case.

Tuesday, May 25, 2004

And this shall put Reed into a tailspin from which he may not recover...

But will all 500 of their albums, bootlegs, official concert albums and recordings of them sleeping, snoring, washing their cars, etc... be enough for the Phish legions?

No. No, it will not.
From the FBI:

"Behind the clown nose, however, this man appears to have been supporting an industry that trades in the exploitation of children."

Further negating my desire to go to the circus, and reinforcing every desire I ever had to punch clowns in the head, this article appeared on CNN.com this afternoon.

Next we're going to find out the elephants are running a meth lab out of their trailer. Or the human cannonball is going to get lodged in the barrel to diastrous results. I just can't bear it.
I was recording Colonial House on the DVR last night and something went horribly wrong.

The DVR didn't stop recording. it just kept going and going and going.

THis morning it was recording Body Electric, a workout show I used to watch when I only had three channels and just wasn't up for the morning news while eating my Grape Nuts. Body ELectric was followed immediately by The Boobah Zone. Having seen the Boobah Zone before, this viewing confirmed one thing: THe purpose of Boobah Zone is to get kids interested in the wonders of psychedelics at an early age.

If you thought Tinki Winki and Co. were kind of trippy, these guys are like Cheech and Chong to the Boobah Zone's Timothy Leary. Holy frijoles, my friends. This is one show to melt your gourd.

Nonetheless, I could NOT stop the Boobah Zone from recording. I couldn't call up the menu to stop it from recording. And pressing stop didn't work. "Hey," said Jamie. "The menu said the thing is almost out of space."

Which meant the DVR had been recording since 8:00pm last night.

I eventually just pulled the plug on the thing, and it seemed to right itself after a reboot. Sadly, there was no sign of the recorded 11 hours of PBS. And if there's one thing I know from college, PBS shows some really interesting junk at about 3:00am. I once watched a whole documentary about Cicadas and an episode of Reading Rainbow in the wee, wee hours.

Sadly, I lost my recorded Colonial House, but that was okay. I ended up watching most of it, anyway, while it recorded.

On another electronics note: My car stereo went on the fritz once again two weeks ago. My warranty still in effect, the Best Buy guy called me yesterday and told me the cost of repairs was greater than a new setereo, so he invited me in to select a new stereo.

It appears all stereos for cars are now XM ready and are cheaper than when I bought one a CD player just two years ago. I am lookign forward to getting a car stereo, because with my commute, I've had to develop a second personality to entertain me while I'm on the road.

Monday, May 24, 2004

Oh, yeah...

Looks like a civilian space port is being considered in California.
I am tired today.

I had to get up early to go get blood taken at the lab near the hospital so they can measure both the purines in my blood and to measure my cholesterol. Last time I had my cholesterol checked, I didn't know I wasn't supposed to eat before the test. Consequently, my blood indicated I was fine on two of my cholesterols and on my third, I was pretty much a goner. This may yet be the case, but you never know. In my defense, since that test I've been eating less Crisco straight out of the tub.

No doubt, I will report a Lipitor prescription in the near future.

I also found out on Friday (yes, even with Jamie in the hospital I went to my own doctor's appointment) that I have been taking my medication incorrectly and have been taking painkillers for the past several months believeing they were a necessary anti-inflammatory. Which they kind of are, but it's a "take as needed" kind of medication, not "twice a day with the other pill," as I believed (and how the bottle read).

As Denby would put it, I've essentially been "hopped up on goofballs." But not really.

I did wake up feeling achey this morning and was trying to figure out what that was all about, and near as I can figure, all my neurons and what not are properly firing again and telling me about every little ache I have for the first time since August. That went away within an hour, but now I just feel tired. Which is probably more to do with my exciting weekend. I also need better coffee.

I need to get a PMA (positive mental attitude) or today is going to stink.
I kind of want to go to the circus when it arrives in town in a few weeks, but I'm torn. I am aware that some circuses do not treat their animals terribly well, but Ringling Bros. goes way out of their way to make it clear that their animals are not trained through abuse, etc...

I have no idea if either side is actually correct. I assume the truth is somewhere in between, and Ringling Bros. isn't exactly some tent set up in Wal-Mart parking lot. They have a serious reputation to maintain.

But another strike against the circus is that I kind of don't like clowns. There's always that. I mean, I HATE mimes, but I just kind of dislike clowns. I think the mean clowns in Dumbo must have had a profound effect upon me as a child or something.

And then you read something like this, and all those death-defying stunts don't seem so death defying.

But I haven't been to the circus since I was in 7th grade, and I don't count Cirque du Soliel as a real circus. Until i see an elephant wearing a pink hat, it just ain't a circus. And let's face it, thanks to our entertainment-saturated society, the circus is a disappearing art form here in the US. I'd liek to go and see the circus again just to get a good idea of what it's all about again.

What to do... what to do...