It's 3 AM and there's freezing rain - it should be frozen rain since it's 28F out, but it's not - spitting out of the sky. The snow out back is getting a good wet surface, and I imagine it will be fun in the morning to go skating down the streets.

They called off the Groundhog's Day activities in Dover, PA for inclement weather, long before it became obvious that it wasn't going to be nearly as bad as envisioned. Unlike the movie, there were no plans to keep trying, over and over, until they get it right. Sometimes, I feel like that's Variations On A Theme, not by Erik Sartre, but by me. I keep trying different things, and they never work out.

But if the groundhog sleeps in, does that mean an early spring? If he gets up and sees his shadow, that's six more weeks of winter, but doesn't an early spring require that he get up and not see his shadow?

"Looking for your glasses?"

I hate looking for my glasses, because I can't see to find them. The last time I bought glasses, it was a two-fer price, so in theory, I should be able to wear one pair to search for the other pair, but about two weeks after getting the two pair, I ended up lying down on one pair, and bent them so that they aren't very comfortable, and at this point, I don't know where the other pair is, which seems to be what usually happens when I buy a spare of anything.

Learning The Wrong Lesson

You'd think I'd learn, but it seems I learn the wrong lesson. Mark Twain pointed out that it's a great problem for many people, and not just people, either. A cat, having once jumped onto a hot stove, learns not just not to jump on a hot stove, but not to jump on a cold one as well. That story isn't as useful today, in a world of central heating, as it was when heating stoves were common, as in my youth, but I suppose you have an imagination, else you wouldn't be reading this drivel, you'd be reading some other drivel instead.

When the ruling party's building was on fire in Cairo, Reuters and CNN were reporting that it was on fire. Fox News and MSNBC, on the other hand, were featuring talking heads, those of professors who haven't been in Egypt in 30 years, discussing how this will affect our relations with Israel.

Al-Jazerra, though was covering the fire. They had a live video feed.

Fox News proclaims that they deliver the news, and allow us to decide. MSNBC says, "Like hell, they do, they deliver false facts," and they deliver opinion based on facts which may not be deliverately incorrect, but which are based on inevitable mischaracterization and analysis based on a warped world view. And CNN's Twitter-centric universe talks about the news, but doesn't deliver the news itself.

But Al-Jazerra offers the unblinking stare of a live camera feed.

They Aren't Perfect

And I went down to the demonstration
To get my fair share of abuse
Singing, "We're gonna vent our frustration
If we don't we're gonna blow a 50-amp fuse"
Sing it to me now...

In the waiting room while Blondie got her brain scan, CNN was giving me a brain scan of another sort. To start off, they're having mass demonstrations in Egypt.

It's been a long time since the Weathermen held their "days of rage" in Chicago. That would have been a little over 41 years ago. Maybe that's what the Rolling Stones were talking about, or maybe it was a different demonstration. The time was right, but there were a lot of demonstrations back then, and the Stones were more likely to be participating in England than in Illinois.

Breaking Barriers

Jim inherited the property. A tired old rarm in Tennessee. He'd never seen it, and he had no semtimental attachment to it. And he needed some cash. He sold the land to Joe, the guy whose shop was next door to his for $100,000.

One month later, he goes to Joe, says he really misses being a landowner, and buys the property back for $110,000. A month after that, he sells the land to Joe again, for $120,000. A month later, he buys the land for $130,000, and a month later sells it again for $140,000.

On and on again, once a month, the property changes hands, and always at a price $10,000 higher than the previous month. The price was somewhere in the $350,000 range when one day Jim rushes into Joe's shop and says, "You'll never believe what happened. Someone down in Tennessee noticed that the land keeps getting sold, and the price keeps going up. He figured there must be oil under the land or something, and he just paid me a million dollars for the property.

Joe Was Unhappy