Wednesday PM

I had great expectations of doing an entry while while-ing-away Christmas afternoon. It just didn't happen. 2 and I finally went for a long walk before dark, but that was about the extent of our productivity. But it was a good day, none the less.

When I met up with 1, 1.1 and 3 for some adult beverages on Sunday afternoon at Chili's after their workouts at Gold's, there was a small debate as to whether the laptop was having a negative impact on blog quantity. I admit that my entries over the last couple of weeks have been below standard, but I attribute that result to the season rather than the new technology. With so many irons in the fire with work and Holiday commitments, it's been hard to get any rhythm with the blog. My guess is that that condition will continue for another 10 days.

I vaguely remember 3 stealing Mom's dinner at the hospital after 4 was born. Hard to believe that the entire crew has now reached legal age. A lot of water has passed under the bridge of my own life in that time span. A rough time here and there. But very few things worthy of change.

The first couple of glitches came up on the laptop over the weekend. The wireless mouse seems to have died. Even with a fresh battery properly installed. And my IT guy had not initially installed Adobe for reading PDF files. When I tried to download it myself, I couldn't find where I had it saved. For all I know, I have a web-cam now activated on my machine streaming video of my sorry life to the Internet.

The NFL has caved and is allowing broadcast of the Patriots-Giants game this Saturday night on the broadcast networks, not just it's own NFL network. If it were a lesser game, there would have been little outcry. I still can't see where they'll give in on the longer term issue. This was just a public relations decision because of national interest in the game.

The Bull's fired Scott Skiles after about a quarter of the season. The team has been the biggest disappointment in the league this year. This is a case of where you can't fire a team, so the coach has to go. In my opinion, the GM now has license to trade some supposedly "un-touchable" players, although it could be argued that the team's poor performance is because no such moves were made previously. They still need inside scoring.

I heard an Old Wive's tale today that you don't give knife sets as gifts because it's bad luck? I really like the set I received from 3. If I have any problems this week, I'll have to check out my Old Wive's Almanac.

Anybody notice the passing of the Winter Solstice last week? The day's already seem longer. Not!

I made a miscalculation on SB's hours yesterday. The local stores were actually open from 8-3. I had somehow recorded that in my mental computer as "opening" at 3. So I had Shell gas station coffee yesterday. SB's shouldn't worry too much about losing many customers to that brand.

We had basically no time to catch our breath from "Christmas" shopping to launch head-long into "post-Christmas" shopping. I understand that December 26th is second only to the Friday after Thanksgiving as the busiest shopping day of the year. I know the Target lot was packed at 7:30 this morning as I drove by after coffee. If cars-in-the-lot is any indication, the deals at Target must have surpassed those available at Kohl's. What's next, New Year's Day final write-downs? This all smacks of old-fashioned bartering on the streets of Tijuana.

So I'm trying to feed the masses of my readers a little literary fodder here. But that's it for today.

Have a great evening.

BCOT