Thursday Thoughts

The best thing about Thursday is that it's almost Friday.

You may have noticed quite a few posts about sports lately. This is a trend you should probably get used to. With football season fast approaching (eight days until the high school season starts) I'll be attending/watching a lot of games and probably writing about them. I'm guessing I'll probably end up just posting more in general, as I have no intention of paying short shrift to other topics and issues that come up.

Brandi is an enabler. For some reason she has decided to help feed my sports addiction, particularly my affinity for sports video games. A few months ago she bought me a college basketball game for my PlayStation 2. Yesterday she surprised me with ESPN NFL 2K5. It's pretty sweet, I must say. I started a franchise with the Bengals, and my first official act was to trade Carson Palmer and a first-round pick to Atlanta for Michael Vick. Then I traded Casey Bramlet and T.J. Houshmandzadeh to Baltimore for Josh Harris. My interest in the NFL has really bloomed over the past two years, so this game should be a lot of fun.

I'm pleased to report that my car started right up this morning (and on my lunch break) and ran fine despite the fact that it has been raining quite a bit. I'm hoping that means my troubles are truly behind me, but I'm knocking on wood as I type this. Still, as soon as I have the financial means, I plan to start looking into something new. That may be a while.

There are few simple pleasures more satisfying than driving along with some good tunes and singing along. I was cruising to work this morning, belting out "Some Guys Have All the Luck" with Rod Stewart, taking in the expansive flatlands view of farmland under an overcast sky, and feeling pretty content. I think that's pretty significant--I usually don't enjoy much of anything before noon.

Music by itself just makes me feel pretty good, actually. I really wish I could have some sort of music-playing device here at work. It would make my time here more bearable.

The Toledo Blade ran this story this morning, citing a study that shows that heart attacks in Bowling Green have decreased by 45% since the city enacted a smoking ban in restaurants. Of course, correlation does not mean causation, but I think it's safe to say that the ban has had some impact. Besides that, it just makes dining out a whole lot more pleasant. I personally wish the ban would have included bars. The bar scene in BG is strong enough that I doubt it would have had much of a negative impact on business.

I had lunch at Magic Wok today, and finally ate something that was "pretty good" instead of just "decent." It was the princess chicken, which was the special of the day. I hope it's a regular menu item so I can get it again. It was spicy and had lots of different vegetables, and I liked it a lot. I really like eating there. I've yet to eat there when screaming kids were in attendance (again knocking on wood), and that's a huge plus. Besides that, the radio station they play in the restaurant plays mostly 80s pop/rock, and that kicks ass.

From my fortune cookie: "You will get something new within a week." Since I got this fortune today, I'm guessing the video game I got last night doesn't count. I just hope it's something good.