cool as ice

Ah, President's Day. There was a time in my life when I was in school and would have this whole week off. Now I'm here at work, in one of the few offices in my building that's open... sigh. This after a weekend in which I spent an agonizing amount of time attempting to buy a new computer in a major electronics store--man, I hate those places. I walked away with the computer I wanted but it took hours of waiting around and resisting high-pressure up-selling tactics. I walked out of one store after talking to a salesman for about half an hour (this coming after I waited another half hour to find someone to talk to) because I suspected he was flat-out lying to me about several things, and it turned out that I was right. So that was fun. Online shopping is the way to go, kids.

http://www.tampabays10.com/news/news.aspx?storyid=25442

Read this if you want a scare--a middle school student compares the bacteria content in toilet water to the ice in soda foutains at several fast food restaurants. The study made the news, so you can imagine how it turned out.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/allstar2006/news/story?id=2335818&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab2pos3

How sad is this: It's very possible that the highlight of the Knicks season will turn out to be tiny Nate Robinson (wait a second, I take that back--we're the same height, I can't call him tiny) winning the Slam Dunk Contest by dunking over the head of 1986 dunk champ, 5-7 Spud Webb.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/20/sports/ncaabasketball/20akron.html

Fun article about the 19-6 Akron men's basketball team imagines how much better they'd be if they featured a player who considered attending before heading straight to the NBA after high school: All-Star Game MVP LeBron James. Three of James's HS teammates and his former coach are now at Akron, where James would be a junior if he hadn't gone straight to the pros.

Pitchers and catchers have by now reported everywhere, and I'm starting to get (fantasy) baseball fever... I'm sure I'll write more about my teams in the coming weeks. I would add, jokingly, that this is due to popular demand, but that would be too ridiculous to even joke about.

More later, as I continue to ponder why I'm here...