The mind is a terrible thing to treat as a pinball machine.

If you haven't been following the winding road with the surprising lack of scenery that is my life, I now work four days a week, ten hours a day.  From 0000 until 1000.  I haven't seen a weekend off since...uh...2008.  But having three days off in a row almost makes up for the fact that most of my very important work is mind-numbing.

Believe me; for somebody who has striven, for most of his adult life, towards mostly cerebral endeavors, 'mind-numbing' is like the kiss of death.

(Temporary change of subject, on the subject of Death:  I do not care for the Final Destination film franchise.  First of all, to have six of these films produced makes the term 'Final' somewhat silly...and I don't think that we should ever consider Death to be vindictive or egocentric.  Death is Death.  It simply exists.)

I've mowed the lawn, done some laundry, and now I'm settled upon the couch and watching a Syfi* Channel marathon of the hour-long episodes of The Twilight Zone.  They are wonderfully elongated half-hour episodes.  Yeah, it was a bad choice to go from a half-hour to an hour, but I love Rod Serling.

(Temporary shift in subject, on the subject of the Anthology Series on Television:  I miss them.  They were classics; The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, Alfred Hitchcock Presents.....I even liked the crazy ones like Love, American Style.  I don't know how we can get into endless patterns of Doctor shows, Lawyer shows, Cop shows, etc....but the Anthology series has gone the way of the Dodo.)

It's August in the Northern State; summer nearly gone now.  The river has slowly receded, but is still above flood stage, but we are assured by the Corps of Engineers that it will be down below flood stage just in time for the whole thing to start again in the Spring.  Let us hope that whatever missed signals went into this near-calamity will be sorted out and we can avoid such things in the future.

Football is just around the corner.  The Lions look like they'll field a team this year.
The Tigers are currently 3 games up, but they lost in 14 innings last night against second place Cleveland.  I am reminded  constantly that the only consistent sound that comes out of Comerica Park in August and September is usually the sound of choking.
What if the NBA had a lockout and nobody gave a crap?

I've rambled enough for one day.  Perhaps even two.


*Two further observations:  First of all....how stupid is it to change the name of the SCIFI Channel to SYFI?  Remember when Science Fiction was considered cerebral?  And remember when you could go to the Science Fiction section of the Barnes and Noble and NOT see freakin' VAMPIRE s**t?