This makes me very sad.

On the bright side, I guess there won't be too many other people to bother me the next time I go to a  state or national park.

Originally posted as part of a discussion thread over on Indiana Auditions:

It seems, based on a recent and now much-repeated interview that the late Heath Ledger gave The New York Times, that he may have started on sleep aids and/or anti-anxiety medication because of the stress and disturbing nature of his performance as the depraved Joker in The ( Read more... )

You know, when it comes to people's ability to interpret facts, I'm continually surprised at how some people simply fail to see very important things about the context of the facts they're discussing . . . Take this Reuters article about library usage, boldly headlined:

Generation Y biggest user of libraries: survey

In this article, the authors of ( Read more... )

Signs that Brian is Becoming Old(er)

In no particular order:

1. This is not such a big deal any more, but a few years ago, when everyone was talking about wanting a "PS2," I kept thinking about one of these:


( Read more... )

Newly sensitized to the corrupting influence of store displays, I trundled through the Keystone mall and its surroundings last night whilst Christmas-shopping, mentally noting the various scandalous sights one could encounter right in the heart of affluent Hoosierland. There is, of course, a Victoria's Secret store in the "Fashion Mall," which ( Read more... )

Last night, as I lay on my couch recovering from an awful day of something that may have been food poisoning or a 24-hour virus (either way, I wont be venturing into the Outback steakhouse on West 86th street anymore), I happened to catch the movie Legend on one of my various movie channels . . . Something about it instantly caught my eye, and it ( Read more... )

Ladies and gentlemen:

Today is the 35th anniversary of the introduction of PONG.


( Read more... )

Watched Transformers tonight with Monica. In general, all I can come up with is . . . Well, the robots look cool.

Let's not kid ourselves, this movie is - to paraphrase Harry Knowles - really only about Giant Effing Robots bashing the crap out of each other, because that's what they do. We're not given much more reason to think about them than that ( Read more... )

I don't know why I bother trying to read anymore. I can get about three or four pages into any real, grown-up book (i.e., Harry Potter doesn't count) in the evening before Mr. Sandman comes to bring me a dream. Only he uses the whole bag full of sand and swings it directly into the back of my skull. I look forward to taking some vacation time next ( Read more... )

Quick break from North Dakota data . . .

From the August 27 Indianapolis Star:

Indiana's obesity rate rises

By Shari Rudavsky

We’re still fat.

Indiana ranked ninth out of all states in the Trust for America’s Health annual report of obesity in the United States.

And while Indiana fell a notch from last year, when it was tied for eighth, the percentage ( Read more... )