Reach into my head, pull out a handful of thoughts, stir fry lightly with olive oil and sun-dried tomatoes and serve and this is what you get:

My family has expressed a certain degree of envy over a $.25 discrepancy in gas prices in our separate locales. I suggested they drive here to refuel, but for some reason they interpreted that as jest.

I had my first videoconference on Tuesday, a spectacle that involved a great many people discussing matters that did not concern me as I waited patiently to give a 4-minute summary of the work I've been doing on a special project. The expected heart palpitations and other symptoms of glossophobia were mitigated, to some degree, with my examination of the technological aspects; I found myself greatly amused by the participants in another office who sat just far enough apart and close enough to the camera that only roughly one third of each of them could be seen, on opposite sides of the screen, a gaffe politely ignored by all other participants.

I listened to NPR's Monday discussion on the "plight of singlehood" with a degree of personal interest. While much of it revolves around personal opinion and thus is unlikely to be resolved within any reasonable amount of time, there were some interesting facts, perhaps the most interesting being that unmarried adults now head a majority of America's households. Most of the discussion involved the advantages written into state and federal law for married couples (tax breaks, healthcare decisions, participation in joint plans and the like) and whether those now constitute an unfair advantage singling out a minority. Time was given to the discussion of the modern state of marriage compared to marriage in the past, with proponents of the "singles are getting screwed" philosophy making the point that many of the traditional expectations of marriage (the things that benefited society and thus justified special legal encouragement and treatment) are no longer "standard" parts of marriage (between prenuptial agreements, no-fault divorces, the trend toward second, third and even fourth marriages and the so-called "marriages of convenience") and thus advantages are being conferred to people who have not "earned" them, so to speak, while being denied to people who raise the same families, pay the same taxes and buy the same houses but did not go through the legal ceremony. Whether one accepts this as a valid topic of conversation or dismisses it as whining is something I leave to the audience.

I'm having daydreams of taking a week off next summer and refinishing the floors of my house by myself (and thus saving what would probably amount to about $3,000). We'll see if it materializes, and if so how much of a disaster it is. On a positive note, I'm pretty sure the original wood floor exists under my kitchen linoleum and is in pretty good shape; it would be nice to have polished wood floors in my kitchen. On a negative note, the project would involve moving *all* of my furniture into my basement and putting the fridge and range on the back porch for at least four days; what a logistical nightmare. We'll see how many of my friends suddenly "vanish" in the weeks leading up to such an operation . . . ;)

I'm beginning to get the impression that sitting in a bookstore for two hours reading Maureen Dowd is not the best way to pick up women.

Who is in charge of hiring and firing on SNL? What the hell? Is it even going to be worth watching now?

Another study suggests green tea is good for you. The subjects of the study, however, drank *5* cups a day over seven years. I drink between two and four cups a day and I'm far above the average for Americans, so I'm pretty sure the whole "five cups a day" benchmark isn't going to happen. Most people will wait for the pill form.

Labels: random, social commentary

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