The weekend wrap-up

It was a quiet weekend, devoted to cleaning(Saturday) and editing(Sunday), in fact the most notable bits were things that didn't happen to me. More on those later.

Friday saw an altar to a Elvis appear on a table in the office hallway, commplete with donut offerings, which only served to complete my disorientation. I had been up too long the night before drafting for fantasy football, and since I had forgotten my lunch at home, I was running almost entirely on caffeine and Altoids Citrus, not a good combination. At a certain point, you're just grinding your lining, and those Altoids are the equivalent of a Dremel tool.

I'm already worried about my fantasy team (and this is a bad thing for me), I can see that my running backs don't have that automatic threat among them (and of course, I've already lost an RB for the season). Mostly I'm worried as this is the first time I've played this non-ironically. I've done fantasy XFL, and a twisted league where bad players are most valuable, but for actually knowing what's good...not a clue.

Sunday night came with the heavy veg-out of watching preseason football, with the sound down to listen to the dulcet tones of Myron. I was starting to worry, the local sports radio callers were in full force after the Jets game, and what was really needed was a good game to shut them up. The Steelers looked really good for the first half, though I think the second half all but cemented the remaining important issues of the roster, Tee Martin's gone after this one. Now there's certain to be a Redskin fan reading this going "look at the scoreboard, punk!" Okay, if that was you, remember that you just called me a punk because the guys your team is going to cut are better than the guys my team is going to cut. Yippee.

Meanwhile in actual news around other people.

1. My father, after getting 4 satellite dishes cheaply from my aunt three years ago, finally put one of them up at my parents' place. (perfectly normal behavior for him, by the way, any new technology takes approximately 300% longer to be adopted, once he actually decides to do it. I have the same problem, except I don't buy it, then wait.) This means he has access to cable television for the first time since 1986. (My folks live too far out in the country for cable, but we had about 3 years of old-school satellite television until the groundhog bit into the line and flooded it.) This ought to be interesting. I figure the idea of streaming stock quotes will drive him insane in about a week, as he dissolves into a pool of worrying constantly about how my stocks are doing. (I know enough to be worried, also know enough to know that if I watch it constantly, I'll ulcerate the entire lower gastrointestinal run.) Then follow up with political ranting on demand and I'll never hear the end of it.

2. Bad post-midnight weekend TV moment number one: About 1AM Saturday, there was a rebroadcast on PCN (PA's C-SPAN for the state) of a debate between campaign reps for the gubernatorial candidates. Issue one: which candidate flip-flopped later on the issue of whether or not to allow gambling in PA to keep our seniors from starving. Congratulations, guys. You've just turned this campaign into a parody of itself. If the most important thing you can debate is how to save the lottery...

3. Bad post-midnight weekend TV moment number two: An hour later while flipping channels I see someone familiar utter the phrase: "They're computer generated women fighting, while wearing school girl outfits. WHAT COULD BE WRONG WITH THAT?" (emphasis theirs) While being frightened by that as a selling point, I realize it's Wil Wheaton saying it. Good career move, Wesley...

4. I need your help, or perhaps an appropriate 12-step program. As most of you know, I have a major problem with used book stores, a problem that isn't helped by having one not a half mile from my apartment. My resistance has been good the past couple times in there, but Saturday I saw the news I always feared. They lost their lease, everything must go... I'm twitching badly here, might be time for that intervention.