Thursday miscellanea #4

• I adore autumn.  When I get the first little hint of it, it’s amazing what it does for my mood.
• I haven’t been back to the Anniston area since March 2005, and I’m going next month.  I’m going to have lunch with a classmate I haven’t seen in more than 28 years, and then attend Oxford High School’s homecoming football game (with the people who would have been my class had I remained there and graduated).   Some of my favorite childhood memories are of marching in Oxford’s band, and I’m looking forward to returning.
• I took Brenna, our 13-year-old Lab/chow/German shepherd mix, to have her teeth cleaned today.  She’s in reasonably good health, but she’s slowed down a lot.  She has arthritis, and she’s been blind for three years now.  Suffice to say she’s tentative about unfamiliar places, and she looked positively pitiful on the way in and out of the vet’s office today.  It’s hard to watch her now against the backdrop of remembering how she used to be.
• I read an editorial today—can’t find where just now or I’d link it—about college football officials being told to crack down on unsportsmanlike conduct this year, particularly excessive celebration.  Folks, come on.  What’s wrong with a kid being excited about a touchdown, or an interception, or a big sack?  Now there should be limits—I can see a case for penalizing the throat slash, the jump on the logo, and the sustained taunt—but there should be no crime in a little exuberance after a big play.
• My latest weight loss strategy is to bet our sysadmin $100 that I can lose a larger percentage of my body weight than he can between the Tuesday after Labor Day and the middle of December.  I’m going to try my damnedest to stay this course and make a extra C-note for the holidays.  It won’t be easy.  He’s a monster in these competitions.  (I scored a Wii Fit yesterday, by the way.)
• Speaking of video games, my Xbox 360 decided to stop outputting video earlier this month, a mere 12 days from warranty end.  (Whew, that was close.)  Called Microsoft, sent it in, and they replaced—not repaired—the unit in a week and a half, shipped free both ways.  Given the Xbox 360’s dismal reliability record, it’s clear to me that it was released several months earlier than it should have been, and that’s a black spot for Microsoft.   However, their amelioration effort has been stellar.  They’ve lost no points with me.
• For the second month in a row, I’m having trouble getting into the Dark and Stormy selection.  I’m going to try to muster some power and get through the enthusiasm threshold this weekend.
• I guess Obama’s speaking about now.  Part of me wishes I were more excited; the shank of me is settling into what feels like a lifelong conviction that anyone who succeeds in Washington is doing so at my expense.
• I’m pretty sure I saw a Google car today.  About 8 this morning, I saw it turn from I-565 west to Sullivan St. north to Madison Blvd. east, and into the Chevron at that intersection.  It was a tealish 4-door Chevrolet Cobalt with a California plate and some sort of vertically-oriented apparatus on the roof.  When it pulled into the Chevron, I could see that it had a white (probably magnetic) something on the right-side front door, but I was too far away to read it.  We’re already on Street View, so I don’t know.  Maybe it was batting cleanup.

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