sugarcrook

Fall is easily my favorite season, but for the past two years the weather has somehow gone from 80-90F in September to 20F in late October. There’s no gradual change, which is good for my fledging golf career but bad for almost everything else.

Football games shouldn’t be watched with the A/C on.

Admittedly, I’m looking forward to snow to see how the kittens react. Clarice will probably attack it, while Hannibal won’t care what happens as long as his back is being scratched.

Speaking of the cats, here’s a relatively recent picture of them:

Apparently there’s a plague going around the World of Warcraft (WOW) servers. Here’s the scoop.

While I don’t play WOW, I think this is pretty awesome. Communicable diseases in online role-playing games… What will they think of next? Virtual bio-hazard suits?

A Metra train derailed over the weekend and is being blamed on the driver speeding while switching tracks. While the loss of life is tragic, my question is: Why do we have people driving trains at all anymore? Shouldn’t this all be done with computers now?

I’ve said it for four years: Joey Harrington has to go.

An avid reader of Merlin’s 43 Folders, I’m always looking for ways to be more productive with my limited time and resources. One thing that I’ve been moving to is centralization: everything goes into the Powerbook or a trusty Moleskine. I don’t even own a PDA anymore. (That’s not true. I still have an M500 for some reason. Anybody want it? $25 + shipping.)

I’m also reducing clutter. If it hasn’t been used in 2 years, it’s gone. I tend to take this a little far, which pisses off some people. Pictures? Gone. Holiday cards? In the shredder. I don’t need a pile of paper to remind me of the experiences I’ve had. After all, if it’s important enough, I scan it and burn to a DVD. (When your life is inside a computer, you learn to be anal about backups.)

Less clutter and more productivity means more time for golf.

The city of Chicago, long known as the corruption capitol, has decided to install palm reading scanners in place of punch cards to prevent fraud. Apparently, there’s a lot of buddy punching going around.

I’ll bet everyone is going to use the same prosthetic hand.

No pressing deadlines and a six-pack in the fridge. Yay Monday.

(I’m so liberated from the notion of a title now.)

My goal for this past weekend was to golf 9 holes at three different courses in one day. We pulled it off on Saturday, getting in 9 at one local and two not-so-local courses: Billy Caldwell, Salt Creek (white course) and Schaumburg (players course). I didn’t have the best day until my swing got corrected halfway through the last 9, then I was hitting the ball fairly well. Crushing it, to be more precise.

After 27 holes in one day, I’m still wiped out two days later. Did I mention that we walked? And it was like 90F ALL DAMN DAY?

A long day on the links only calls for lots of alcohol. Dark & Stormy, a mix of ginger beer and Gosling’s rum, is excellent for warm or hot days. Or cold days for that matter.

I’ve become a gas price junkie. I must know the cost of gas in places that I’ll never visit, like Kuala Lumpur. A $0.02 change in the price of a gallon of regular is worth commenting on.

Current events have always been a passion of mine. I store most of the information for a few weeks, then dump it. Because that’s what current events are: current.

This gas price thing worries me though.

We returned from the joyus lands of Michigan on Sunday night instead of Monday to avoid fighting Skyway traffic, which was a success. I only had one opportunity to golf, which I’ll blame on a 170-lb jackass named Greg. No name changing here. Nobody is innocent. But I did get to grill, which everyone benefits from.

Since we were in town Monday, we went on a bike ride to Lincoln Square, then walked for about 250 miles to see if my book was on shelves yet. It was. There was much rejoicing. We took the bus back.

Tuesday was another matter entirely. It was supposed to be a work day, and that’s what the plan called for. But I was exhausted. Holiday hangover. Maybe it was allergies. Either way, nothing got done yesterday. Today needs to be better.