Yep. I survived my birthday over the weekend. The lion’s share of the excitement was mom’s. Saturday I went up to visit her, and she and her roommate took me out for lunch. Since they’re both on fixed incomes, this meant I got to buy. Since they’re in an assisted living home, they wanted something a little more lively, so we headed up to the Legion Post for some buck burgers and cocktails. Seemed to go pretty well until we were leaving, when mom stepped halfway off the curb and fell down. No major injuries, but she scraped up her hand and knee pretty good, and broke her watch in the process. After some first-aid, filling out the report at the home (so I couldn’t accuse them of abusing her, presumably) and buying a new watch, I headed back home, feeling kind of down because I couldn’t deal with keeping two eighty-year-old women safe on a trip to the bar.
And that was about it for the weekend. I had big plans, but none came to fruition. I had hoped to head out and go shooting with a friend on Saturday afternoon, but he beamed up for the weekend. I was thinking that a few beers with friends on Saturday evening would be nice, until the time rolled around, and I was feeling anti-social. I had planned to install my carpeting in my bedroom on Sunday, but found laying down the chalk lines to get the pattern centered too daunting. Instead, I spent the weekend perched in front of the brainsucker watching bad movies. And that was about it. The weather was beautiul outside, and I did get out for a few minutes, but the cooler weather this weekend has brought with it a full load of allergens, and I’ve descended into something of a medicated stupor to combat them, so I didn’t even feel like going for a walk.
- TalkLeft has an account of Hunter Thompson’s Final Blast-Off. RIP. [boing boing]
- Have I pointed to The American’s guide to speaking British before? Guess it doesn’t matter. It’s still funny.
- Glenn put up a definition that’s very useful in my life. The Fred Krause Miles Per Gallon is defined as
the mileage obtained by a vehicle traveling 85 miles per hour with the air conditioner set on ‘MAX.’
My Camaro got nearly 35 FKMPG. My Blazer? Closer to 20. An even more useful measure is MPD , which turns it all into dollars. Until recently, I was getting a fairly solid 10 MPD, but the uptick in gas prices has wrecked that. [instapundit] - It’s no flying car, but Nanotube sheets come of age and offer some pretty cool applications. Internally-heated car windows are the one that caught my eye. [instapundit]
- In Japan, baseball teams often give retiring players a special send-off, or intai shiai. It usually involves a late-inning appearance by the retiring player, often facing a long-time rival. Kazuhiro Sasaki’s farewell [was] unique in many ways, since he’s a closer. [colby cosh]
- Want to know which stats you should be looking at for baseball players? Take me out to the equation has the list and explanations. A good first pass on untangling the many baseball statistics. [press-patch]
- I added Dave’s “Almost There” Breakfast Sausage to the list of recipes over the weekend. Yummy, but it will still need a bit of tweaking.
- I often read blog entries derisive of media liberalism. Fine, whatever. But I don’t think the media should be Singin’ The Crawford Blues because the president is on vacation. Just think of all the things he’s not screwing up while he’s in Texas. Personally, the idea that he’s taking time off makes me feel a little bit better.