Many congratulations go out to M for her new fairy tale life.

Overheard at the farmers’ market (from people under 3 feet tall):

• (while looking at a rooster) “Don’t touch it. It might be poisonous!”
• (while examining bins of produce) “It’s a weed.” “It is not a weed!”
• “It looks like you live on a farm.”

Since the television programs I watch have been captured by the TiVo, I haven’t watched commercials in a long time. Yeah, shame on me for stealing from the broadcasters. Anyway, because of this, I miss things like announcements of new movies and odd things like Stop the Polyp! and Watch the Frog. That’s where knowing [Kristie and Patty comes in handy.

Autographed copies of the DVD box set of Doctor Who’s Key to Time series, featuring voice overs by Tom Baker and Mary Tamm, is available for pre-order at Tom Baker’s web site.

Those people freaking out over the plummeting stock markets obviously didn’t read my announcement last year. True, I did expect the lows to come six months ago, but I didn’t anticipate 9/11 and the wave of patriotism that pushed the markets higher for a while. Now that that’s over with, real market forces are back in control and I stand by my previous announcement.

A pair of astrophysicists at the school I surly would have gone to had I remained in-state are advancing a theory that the solar system did not convalesce from a nebula of interstellar gasses, but rather from the remnants of a supernova, the core of which is still embedded at the center of our sun. It’s certainly not mainstream astrophysics, but it may be right.

A tiger after my own heart!

Mikey, guitarist for the immensely popular Athens band Widespread Panic shared some extremely bad news with his fans yesterday.

The last week has been dominated by a single event, and I haven’t yet mentioned it here. So here goes… Ten days or so, I began feeling a little twinge in my lower back, just inside the left hip. I took it easier than I would have liked, leaving several garden jobs unfinished, but by the end of the workday on Monday, it was all I could do to move. It took me nearly fifteen minutes to make it the hundred feet from my office desk to my car, and the ride home was terrible I stopped on the way at a pharmacy and struggled to make it in and out of the store. A man stopped me in the parking lot (well away from anything to lean on) and asked, “Your back hurt?” When I nodded yes, he began to tell me all about his back and wondered if I had any suggestions for him. I tried to be polite, but probably failed when I told him that if it was obvious by looking at my that I was in terrible pain, then maybe I wasn’t the best person to be asking for pain relief suggestions. And then I discovered a cruel joke played by the drug: store – all the back pain medicines were on the bottom shelf. [Note to self: remember them when you’re evil overlord.] I spent Tuesday and Wednesday at home, mostly in bed. Things started getting better, but I discovered that sitting down caused the problem. Laying down took the weight off, but standing actually seemed to improve things. So, Thursday and Friday I was back at the office. I set my laptop atop two large boxes stacked on my desk and stood all day. I worked slowly on the farm this weekend, doing enough to get by, but still leaving plenty undone. I’m back to sitting at work today, but only for a half-hour or so. Things are slowly improving. I’m still wondering what it was exactly (my guess is a muscle/tendon pull on the inside edge of the pelvis) and I now know that if I begin to feel it again in the future not to sit down. Also, even though I’ve never seen mention of this on the exercise charts, wincing can apparently give you a good workout. Even though I ate the same and worked out less, I managed to lose ten pounds last week. Two pairs of jeans that I bought a few weeks ago, already on the small side, now need a belt to stay on.

Folding chairs have a long and glorious history dating back to at least ancient Egypt, and designboom is there to tell us all about it. With pictures!