Musings on a Saturday night

It’s ten degrees outside, with below zero wind chill—my favorite. I used to figure that I could do my exercise walks outside up to minus twenty wind chill, and so I used to. Not so much anymore, though the dog still wants to go out.

Unfortunately, he’s now conditioned to go about half a mile before he, um, produces. Tonight we hoofed (pawed?) our way rapidly home after an abbreviated walk in the frigid air. Even Kodiak didn’t mind moving briskly up the block toward home, hardly pausing to sniff or snuffle.

So here I sit, watching “Hustle” on AMC. Have you seen it? They’ve really got some neat stories and cool characters. I switched over to that after catching the end of “Roger Rabbit.” I had forgotten how much fun “Roger” was.

There’s a stack of DVD’s in the drawer that I never watch, but feel I must have. Son in law Peter let me raid their stash before they left for Ireland, so I did. Got some great ones like “Saving Private Ryan”, “Gladiator”, “Black Hawk Down”. Just need time to watch them all. Again. Did you know that you can get DVD’s by sending in coupons from Cracklin’ Oat Bran cereal? I already have five or six of the ones they offer. The perfect boomer marketing ploy. Remember sending in coupons from cereal boxes for toys when you were little? (“Six to eight years to arrive”?) So here you get to eat cereal that’s good for your aging self while reliving your carefree youth. What a deal.

You wanna know what freaks me out? Short track speed skating. Any kind of speed skating, really, but short track is just insane. If you blow the start you lose. No way to recover. Zooming around curves on long blades and your gloved fingertips. Hey this is too much. I just changed the channel to NBC and short track is on!. This is way cool. Let’s watch…..Oh yeah-a disqualification, a crash, an amazing inside move—that’s what it’s all about. Apollo advances to the final. He’s spent the last year training in Colorado for these Olympics, so I hope it pays off for him. He seems to be less of a madman than four years ago, but he’s still fun to watch.

So I think I’ll watch some more. After all, I already saw the “Hustle” episode that’s running now.

Darn Koreans won again.