It was the best of...

naw, can't steal that.  There was some good news and some bad news on Tuesday.  Good (I guess you could view it as bad) news was I'm only having two procedures next week, not three.  The shock the heart back into normal rhythym one has been taken off the calendar.  But some of the blood tests they ran as part of the preparation for the remaining procedures weren't as good as they might be. 

And tomorrow will be another day where I'm probably stumbling through the entire day in a state of total exhaustion.  I left this morning before 8:45 a.m. and didn't get home tonight until just before 11:00 p.m.  I was "on the go" all day long and I'm so tired now I can't fall asleep, which is why I'm writing this now rather than in the morning. 

I got home just in time to see Jerry Maguire tell his wife that she completed him, but she responded by saying he had her at hello.  Love the ending of that movie.  Now the news is on and hopefully sometime in the next hour I'll be able to try to go to bed.

Things I'm pondering this evening include:

So Disneyland is having people who buy multi-day tickets pose for photos so they can't re-sell the tickets to brokers who re-sell them to other park patrons at a discount.  Why does Disney care?  Yeah, they offer a price discount for people who buy multiple days.  But they're getting paid and paid well for those multi-day tickets.

How long did it take one of Jay Leno's writers to come up with "BCS stands for Beating Catholics Soundly" after Notre Dame got whipped by Alabama for the National Championship?

Why is it things like a pizza place manager giving a pregnant woman a nice discount and including a good luck note on the receipt don't get more play in the news?  We sure hear the bad stuff fast and often enough.

Who cares if Michelle Obama wears a dress from Target?  As long as we didn't pay for it, I don't care what she wears.

Brad Pitt as Pontius Pilate?  Why not.

The Razzie Nominations are out.  Here's who should win:

Worst Movie - "A Thousand Words".
Worst Director - Peter Berg - "Battleship".
Worst Actress - Katherine Heigl - "One For the Money".
Worst Actor - A tie between Eddie Murphy for "A Thousand Words" and Tyler Perry for "Alex Cross".
Worst Supporting Actress - Rihanna - "Battleship"
Worst Supporting Actor - David Hasselhoff - "Piranha 3-DD"
Worst Screen Ensemble - "Madea's Witness Protection".
Worst Screenplay - "A Thousand Words"
Worst Remake, Rip-Off or Sequel - "Red Dawn".

I hope some of the eventual winners will have the good sense of humor required to show up and accept their awards in person

More ponderings:

The White House is going to start work on their new gun control strategy.  What's the point, when according to research I came across a few days ago, 8 out of 10 guns used in a crime were either stolen or taken without permission from a friend or family member.  Only 2 out of 10 guns used in crimes were purchased legally by the person who used them.  So what will "gun control" do to make things safer or better?

Something went "boom" in North Hollywood, but no one knows what?

I saw a car fire alongside the freeway last night.  It made me put "get a fire extinguisher for the car" on my to-do list although I'm sure I'll forget about it in a few days.

So Monopoly is going to "retire" one of the board game's tokens.  This is another marketing ploy that only fans of the game will have any interest in.  When was the last time you played Monopoly the board game, with other people, on a board?  I play an online version sometimes but I don't even have the board game.

How pissed are people going to be that the IRS has postponed the day they will begin processing tax returns for 2012 from January 22nd to January 30th?  I'm guessing pretty pissed off.  People who are owed money want to file now, not on the next to last day of the month.

Why does the NBA bother?  They fined Mark Cuban $50,000 for comments he made about officiating.  He's worth more than $1 billion.  He probably makes $50 million or more annually.  So a fine of $50,000 is 1/10th of one percent of his annual income.  That's no disincentive to shut him up.

Will the makers of DVDs of the movies from the Wachowskis go back and re-label the credits on their old films, changing what reads "The Wachowski Brothers" to read "The Wachowski Siblings", now that one is no longer a brother but a sister?

This Date in History:

One hundred years ago today, Richard M. Nixon was born in Yorba Linda. (will people by filing by his grave at the Nixon library today, to make sure he's still dead?)

On this date in 1349, the Jewish population of Basel, Switzerland were rounded up and incinerated.  The other residents blamed the Jews as the cause of the "Black Death".
On this date in 1768, the first modern circus is staged in London, England.
On this date in 1788, Connecticut becomes the 5th state.
On this date in 1806, Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson is buried following a state funeral.
On this date in 1857, the Fort Tejon earthquake strikes California, with an estimated magnitude of 7.9.
On this date in 1861, Missississippi secedes from the Union, becoming the second state to do so.
On this date in 1947, Elizabeth Short, better known as the "Black Dahlia" is seen alive for the last time.
On this date in 2007, Steve Jobs unveils the first iPhone.
And on this date in 1916, bandleader and composer Vic Mizzy was born.  You may not recognize the name, but you may well recognize one of his most well-known compositions:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mbk81X6WHA4