Wednesday, February 14, 2007

One-Armed Paper Hanger

Wow. Been a busy few days. I almost finished replacing the ceiling fan in our den on Sunday, but had to go get some new bulbs on Monday to finish up (two of the old ones came apart as I tried to pull them off of the old fan unit and put them in the new one). So since we were going to the home/hardware store anyway, and since I have a set of scaffolding for a month (minimum rental period), we decided that it might be time to repaint the den and thus buy more paint. And since we were out anyway, we ended up making it a major shopping extravaganza by including the wine store, the outdoor clothing store, the post office, and the grocery store in our little excursion afield. By the time we got home I had no time nor inclination to type up a post.
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Last night I met Ron at a local restaurant to discuss a mountain bike event that we are apparently now in charge of coordinating (along with Wally, who couldn’t make it to our meeting). MG was to join us following her hair appointment at her favorite salon, but ran later than planned. By the time she arrived we had already decided all the issues we could and discussed all we couldn’t settle right away (and assigned a bunch of tasks to Wally since he wasn’t there). We thought about going on from there, but since she showed up hungry and we’d only had chips and beverages, we ended up grabbing a table to get real food. Oh my goodness, was that ever a bad choice. The service was so slow, we could have gone home and fixed stuff a lot quicker. So again I arrived home with neither time nor inclination to post anything.
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And today? Well, MG is fixing me dinner soon, and then we’ll watch a movie, so any posting I do will have to be done now. And a subject? Well…

I had thought of this subject a few weeks ago, but it would seem that NPR and Jef Mallett have beaten me to it, so I’ll let you see what they have to say first (funny that Jef’s strip came out so soon after the NPR piece, especially since he likely had to turn in his to his syndicate a couple of weeks ago).

I have thought for a while that video games are a likely contributor to the expansion of adolescent waistlines. Except for a Coleco Telstar Pong-type game that the family had at one time (and which our use of was limited by Mom and Dad), I’ve never had a video gaming system. I always used to want one, but never ended up getting one. Now I’m glad for that. I’d imagine that I would have likely wasted a lot more time exercising my thumbs on a game controller than exercising my body on a bicycle if I’d had that temptation. And if I’d had a Wii/Xbox/PS3 as a kid? Would I have wanted to play soccer or softball or tennis or racquetball…sports I would actually have to practice at for a long time to gain any proficiency…when I could beat the Brazilian National Team in the World Cup with a deft A/B/Up Arrow combination that I could figure out by reading up at a game-cheats website?

Then again, I might never have sprained my knee or dislocated a shoulder. But you know? I think it was worth it. And who wants a sprained or dislocated thumb, anyway?

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