My Sick Mind

I've been thinking. That's dangerous, I know. I've been thinking about the way things are now as opposed to the way things were then . However, in order to really understand the difference between now and then, one must be old enough to know the difference between color television and black and white television, and a time when there were programs "presented in living color" and how special it was. This isn't about TV, but it's a good frame of reference. The reason we need a frame of reference is because most of the people reading this are unaware that there was a time in which, if one didn't have the cash to purchase an item, one could not own that item - unless one could secure a loan from a bank. Cars and houses were the big-ticket items in those days. Anything else would have to be purchased with cash. I remember my parents saving money to buy a new car. A brand new 1964 Ford Fairlane cost my parents around $2,200, which seems cheap until you ...

If all the world's a stage, where does the audience sit? The NCAA tournament continues, and I can't help but wonder what all the fuss is about. From the looks of the TV (which is after all, the final authority) they're playing to half-empty lower-level seating in Detroit. It makes me think that the tournament is the sports equivalent of the lottery. It's popular because people can wager on it, but they don't have to actually watch it to know if they win. All we need to do is check the scores and check our picks to know whether we have a chance to win. It doesn't help that the games are being played in football stadiums, where the worst seat in the house is barely in the house. How many people who play bracket pools actually watch the games? If you buy a lottery ticket do you watch the drawing? Speaking of sports (which I was), it's now more expensive to go to baseball games: CHICAGO (AP) - It will cost a lot more to root, root, root for the home team th...

Mi Mente Enferma . That's how My Sick Mind is translated into Spanish. I had a reader today from Columbia, South America and the link translated the blog to Spanish, via the smart folks at Google. I had no idea. To see your blog translated, click on your Buddy link on the right of the Spanish page. Click here to see Mi Mente Enferma ( Lo que está en mi cabeza, derrama sobre el monitor del ordenador ). The girls are playing golf this weekend at Superstition Mountain, Arizona; outside of Phoenix. Take a minute and wander over to the Golf Channel for the coverage. If only to see the beautiful course and the background. I think I know where next year's vacation is going. The NCAA tournament is back this weekend, where the cream should rise and Cinderella will find that the shoe doesn't fit. By Sunday, we'll be down to the so-called "Final Four" which, although it does contain four teams, it is by no means final. There will still be two games left. Speaking of ...

"We are bound by the secrets we share ." Every time I went into my Netflix Queue, I saw this title on the page. We'll think you'll like "Notes On a Scandal". As though Netflix could determine that I enjoy deep character studies and stories that had layers that required some thought and exploration of ones deepest feelings. Films where nothing explodes and there is absolutely no CGI. Netflix wore me down. I put it in the queue behind "I Am Legend", mostly because I like the stars and partly because I figured Netflix had a keen idea. I liked it from the start, which is odd for me. Generally, I have to be drawn into a story and get acquainted with the characters, but this film drew me in from the start and I had no trouble finding the angles of the story and the complexity of the plot as it unfolded. Kate Blanchett and Judi Dench. Can it get any better? I submit that it cannot. Both were Oscar nominated, Dench for lead actress and Blanchett for supp...

A vast ice shelf hanging on by a thin strip looks to be the next chunk to break off from the Antarctic Peninsula, the latest sign of global warming's impact on Earth's southernmost continent. Scientists are shocked by the rapid change of events. The Wilkins Ice Shelf was stable for most of the last century until it began retreating in the 1990s. A previous major breakout occurred there in 1998 when 390 square miles (1,000 square kilometers) of ice was lost in just a few months."We believe the Wilkins has been in place for at least a few hundred years, but warm air and exposure to ocean waves are causing it to break up," Scambos said. A new study of glaciers in a portion of the Antarctic finds 84 percent of them have retreated over the past 50 years in response to a warmer climate. The work was based on 2,000 aerial photos, some taken in the 1940s, and satellite images. The climate in the region has warmed by more than 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit (2.5 Celsius) in the l...

The final two minutes of the Marquette-Stanford game Saturday night took about a half hour to complete. Why? Because sports, like life, places an undue burden on the final minutes rather than the first. The referees forced several time-out's running to the scorer's table asking for extra time to be put back on the clock because the official scorer started the clock too soon. My question (because I love to ask questions) is, who was watching the official scorer with ... say ... 13 minutes left in the half to make sure he was re-starting the clock correctly? My answer (because I love to answer my own questions) is: Nobody. We don't pay as much attention to things at the beginning as we do at the end, which is why sports emulates life. Last-second field goals are supposedly more important than the one he missed in the first quarter, ninth inning home runs carry more weight than the strike-out with the bases loaded in the first inning and buzzer-beaters beat the 30% three-...