Lighten up, it's Friday.

WASHINGTON - Would consumers get the same warm, fuzzy message from a drug advertisement that promised to lift their mood if it also urged them to report side effects like suicidal thoughts and diarrhea? Under a proposal regulators will consider Friday, that buyer-be-vigilant message would have to accompany the rosy messages of pharmaceutical promotions.

Aren't the side-effects already longer than the drug's benefits in those ads? I think they are. I particularly like the anti-depressant meds that advertise that the side effects include yawning and diarrhea. Isn't being depressed better than that? I think it is. I'm depressed, and I don't think yawning and the runs would make me feel better about myself.

Meanwhile, speaking of side effects...

COLUMBUS, Ohio - John McCain, looking through a crystal ball to 2013 and the end of a prospective first term, sees "spasmodic" but reduced violence in Iraq and Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden dead or captured and government spending curbed by his ready veto pen.

Oh God, in Columbus? Kimmy, do something! What a coincidence that he sees and end to the war if we give him 4 years? I'd have to do some research (egad) but I think that's the same thing that G.W. Bush said in 2004. How did that work out for us?
I did manage to look up the definition of spasmodic, since I could reason what it means because "spas" is in it and "mode", but ...

1 a: relating to or affected or characterized by spasm b: resembling a spasm especially in sudden violence, spasmodic jerk
2: acting or proceeding fitfully : intermittent spasmodic activity
3: subject to outbursts of emotional excitement : excitable

So, based on the definition, I would say that John McCain is a spasmodic jerk. And here's a question: How many lives will be lost because of these "outbursts of emotional excitement"? My guess is: A lot. A second question: For what? Answer: Not a lot.

We used to have ice cream trucks in the neighborhood. Don't you love the way I can switch gears? Not so much anymore. They disappeared about the same time that the mulch showed up. Coincidence? I think not. Around here, it was Mister Softee which, besides being a really bad porno name, is a cool brand of soft-serve ice cream. The drivers used to run around in trucks playing a horrible 20-second tune that signaled eating like a Pavlov's Ice Cream Dog. "Gimme 65 cents. I need a cone!" Kiddie crack.

I don't even know if 65 cents can buy an ice cream cone anymore. It doesn't buy much. It won't even buy a newspaper. They're 75 cents now. I understand that the local delivery people are griping because the price of gasoline has made it difficult for them to make any money delivering the local newspaper. They don't earn enough to make up the difference in what they spend on gasoline.

Newspapers used to be delivered by kids on bicycles. They disappeared around the same time that adults needed a second income and shoved the kids out of the way with their fancy automobiles and enhanced sense of responsibility. That was when newspapers came in the afternoon and people actually read them at night. Now, the paper crashes on my doorstep at 4:30am, delivered by a person I've never met yet expects a Christmas gift every year. Maybe it's time to go back to delivering newspapers on bicycles?

I'm getting old.