My brother, the bicycle aficionado, was indirectly in the news. While out riding on Sunday, he heard a car crashing into the Lexington Reservoir, near Highway 17. He flagged down a passing car to call it in. The Merc ran a small blurb on the crash. Police are not sure if it was a deliberate act or not. My brother had felt guilty that he didn’t jump in to help, but after he waited an hour for police and fire people to try to get to the car, the guilt was lessened. They had to call in divers, and of course by then the driver was gone. Senseless deaths upset me greatly. Soapbox time: Do NOT drink and drive. We’ve heard it a million times, but people keep doing it. Don’t let anyone else do it. And, if you are thinking there is no hope in sight, you can’t go on, and no one cares, PLEASE call a suicide hotline. There’s also a national number: 1-800-784-2433.

I’ve seen some interesting mint containers lately, but the one I spotted at Trader Joe’s today takes the cake. It’s a Hint Mint tin. Their drawn animation does not do it justice. It is much prettier than their drawing, all shiny and thin. They say it is “modeled after antique art deco/art nouveau cigarette cases.” That explains why I like it so much, art nouveau fiend that I am. However, the Altoids tin is the most practical in terms of re-use. I can’t think of anything to put in the other mint containers. Maybe they could sell bulk mints for refills. A few years ago, Lifesavers sold a product called “Lifesavers Holes” which were, as you can guess, like donut holes, but from Lifesavers (though, they don’t really come from the hole since they aren’t made that way). They were sold in a roll-shaped plastic container with a small opening. I still use one as a paper clip dispenser.

A belated Solstice Celebration from NASA’s wonderful Astronomy Picture of the Day. (They’re not being belated, I am!) It’s a false-color composite photo showing different areas of temperature using different colors.

From the depths of my bookmarks file: Female Nobel Prize Laureates. Here’s hoping the list continues to grow, especially in the science categories.

It’s amazing how quickly certain things fade from memory. I was doing some cleaning and found some CD boxes that I had saved. I had forgotten that CDs used to come in long boxes, usually more fully decorated than the small CD case will allow. I saved a few because they were so nice. Now I wonder how much more a collector would pay for an unopened long box? Unfortunately, I don’t have any unopened.

John Leonard, who has been the editor of the NY Times Book Review and worked at many other media outlets, waxes whiny (he admits he’s whining) about self-censorship and bias in the media. Amongst the tidbits about reporters cavorting with politicians and corporate sponsors, he offers up a positive view of the late Charles Kuralt, reminding us that although he may be remembered for his warm and fuzzy anecdotes, he was a serious reporter. And Kuralt declined to appear on Murphy Brown, saying “I don’t know where the line is, but that’s crossing it.”

These days when I say “I’m just going to check my email” with an implied “this will just take a couple minutes”, it always turns out that I check my email, browse a few news sites, see which
weblogs have updated, read them, take notes for my own weblog, and then maybe send some email and then I’m done. Needless to say, it takes more than a couple minutes.

Dennis Miller was my favorite part of Saturday Night Live in the eighties. He was intelligent, downright sarcastic, and funny as heck. I was even more impressed when he did a show at my college and I got to see him completely uncensored. He made a crack about our men’s room having no graffitti (it was a women’s college). And now he’s signed up as an analyst for Monday Night Football? Weird. I never would have predicted that. (But they were also considering Rush Limbaugh, so they were looking at all sorts.) Oddly enough, I will probably tune in to see how he does. (ABC’s secret plan: having failed to get me to watch “Who Wants to be a Millionaire”, they will now throw 80’s cult figures at me until I tune in to something on their network. But, wouldn’t have it been funnier if they had gotten Dennis and Rush? I would have paid to see that!) (via Metafilter)

The Director of Corporate Marketing for Pixo wrote to inform me that they do indeed pay for their new hires’ significant others to go on that weeklong trip to Hawaii. Awesome.

Chicken Run was fun fun fun. There’s a “Making of” special on NBC this Sunday. Also, Cartoon Network is showing the Wallace & Gromit shorts this weekend. Thanks to Laurel at Windowseat TV for that info.