It's the weekend and I have no plans...

to go and see a movie.  It's a strange feeling.  I think this is the first weekend this year that I won't see at least one movie; assuming I don't decide to go see one tomorrow.  Today is almost 100% out of the question because I'm very tired for some reason.  But I am looking at what's playing in theaters with an eye to find something I haven't already seen to go and watch tomorrow.

Things I'm pondering this morning include why the makers of DVDs of the entire season of a TV show divide them up the way they do.  I am watching the early seasons of "Grey's Anatomy" and the sixth disc of the season arrived in yesterday's mail.  It had only one episode on it.  The first five had five each.  They should have added this one to disc 5 or perhaps made them all four episodes per disc, except the first and last, which would have been five episodes.  5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 1 just isn't a good division.

Why did it take this long for one of the surviving children of the Newtown mass shooting to sue the state of Connecticut?  Yes, a six year old girl who survived is suing the state.  I have a lot of sympathy for the ordeal she underwent, but I don't see where the state is to blame for what happened.  Someone's just trying to cash in.

Does the government need to intervene to make pay-telephone calls more affordable for prisoners while they are incarcerated?  Just allow companies to install competing payphones in prisons and the ones with the most favorable rates will be the ones that get used.  The problem is the absence of a free market.

Why do people not read the fine print when they get something in the mail?  A friend has been wanting a credit card for some time (her problem is no credit history, not bad credit history) and she got one in the mail, from a business she'd sought a signature loan from.  She was about to use it when she got smart enough to ask me to look it over first.  For a $600 line of credit the annual fee would have been $115.  Worse yet, the starting interest rate was 29% per annuam (32% for cash advances) and if she ever missed even one payment due date, the interest rate would rise to 35.99% permanently.  She cut up the card and sent it back.

Why is it weird to finally see a business you'd had years of telephonic dealings with?  Earlier this week I drove by a hospital that I'd spent hours on the phone with, when I worked at a nursing registry.  I didn't even know where they were located, and suddenly there it was.  I actually pulled over and stopped to look at it.  It was much smaller than I'd imagined from the number of nurses they were hiring from us.

Is $47 million in alimony too much?  Apparently not when you're Italy's richest man and you were fooling around with younger women while still married to your second wife.

Does anyone really care at this point that Nancy Reagan's obsession with checking plans with her astrologer kept President Reagan's staff from responding in a timely manner to an invitation from Queen Elizabeth II for the Reagans to stay at her place?  That was 30 years ago.  We already know all about her astrology obsession.

Really?  Is the latest obsession for women to have younger looking faces is shaving them like men do?  Actually it involves something called dermaplaning in a doctor or esthetician's office.  But the basic idea is the same.

Does anyone really care how far Suri Cruise travels at the holidays to be with her paents?  Why is this even celebrity news?  She's a kid.

I'm not so much pondering this one as I am amazed and admiring.  Former NBA superstar Dominique Wilkins wrote a very touching piece about a former teammate of his who died in 2012.  Dan Roundfield had been a team leader and All-Star and he drowned saving his wife while they were in rough waters off the shore of a vacation destination.  The piece Wilkins wrote is a strong reminder that athletes are more than that, they are people as well.

This Date in History:

On this date in 1813, British soldiers burn Buffalo, NY.  Imagine, if it hadn't been rebuilt, buffalo wings would have never been created.

On this date in 1845, the U.S. annexed Texas.

On this date in 1851, the first YMCA in the U.S. opened in Boston.

On this date in 1890, the Wounded Knee massacre takes place, with more than 200 Oglala Lakota being killed by four Hotchkiss guns (Hotchkiss guns were a type of rotating multi-barrel machine gun).

On this date in 1911, Sun Yat-Sen becomes provisional President of the Republic of China.

On this date in 1934, Japan renounces several Naval treaties.

On this date in 1940, the German Luftwaffe fire-bombs London.

On this date in 1959, a physicist gave a speech that is considered the birth of nanotechnology.

On this date in 1971, an Eastern Air Lines plane crashed on approach to Miami International Airport, killing over 100 people.

On this date in 1998, leaders of the Khmer Rouge apologize for the 1970s era genocide in Cambodia.

And on this date in 1938, actor Jon Voight was born.