Happy Memorial Day weekend, dear readers. As I sip my morning coffee out on the porch on this glorious Saturday morning, I pass along the following idle thoughts, musings and pieces of information:
- I posted last night about my favorite war movies. How about books, you ask? Here are a few favorites: Winds of War and War and Remembrance, Herman Wouk; From Here to Eternity, James Jones; any of the books by Michael Shiarra; War of the Rats, David Robbins; Dispatches, Michael Herr; All Quiet On the Western Front, Eric Maria Remarque; and The Naked and the Dead, Norman Mailer.
- And, speaking of the war movie list, I confined my favorites to World War I-themed through today. There are some terrific Revolutionary War and Civil War films which are also personal favorites--Glory, Shenandoah, The Patriot and Ride With the Devil. My all-time favorite piece of film about war is Band of Brothers, the 10-episode series which aired on HBO and was based upon one of the non-fiction books on WWII written by Stephen Ambrose.
- This is "speed weekend" with two of the great American races tomorrow--the Indianapolis 500 and the Coca Cola 600. It's hard not to bet on Helio Castroneves, the pole sitter, in the 500 and on Jimmy Johnson, who seems to own Charlotte Motor Speedway, in the 600. Look out for Ryan Newman, whose car looked great in qualifying, in the 600 tomorrow night.
- A birthday shout-out goes to fellow hometown girl, Melissa Etheridge, who turns 49 today. Etheridge's father, John, was my psychology and civics teacher in high school...and my favorite.
- Our quote of the week has to go to Dancing With the Stars contestant Niecy Nash. Here's what she had to say about DWTS winner, Nicole Scherzinger. "Nicole today is who she was when she got here--she was a great dancer and still is. There were moments when you couldn't tell her from the pro dancers. The translation here is, of course, what many of us have been saying--Scherzinger was already a dancer and thus had an unfair leg up (no pun intended) on the competition. Continued Nash, "I cheer for the people who have evolved. To me, that's what the competition should be."
- It seems Kevin Jonas' vow to remain chaste, until married, has had implications on his newly wedded life. Jonas' wife, who had not slept with him until their wedding night, discovered that Jonas has a rather significant snoring problem. According to InTouch Weekly, the problem is so bad that now the couple sleep in separate bedrooms. When I recounted this story to my wife, she said, "She (Jonas' wife) needs to suck it up, like I have for these many years." Ouch!
- Did you hear about the two-year old in Minnesota who caught a muskie bigger than her? The young girl was fishing with her family at Round Lake, using her pink Barbie fishing pole, when she caught a small sunfish. While reeling in the sunfish, a 20-pound, 30-inch muskie came along and ate the sunfish, and little Ella Haag had a trophy fish on her line. Her mother grabbed the pole and Ella's grandpa nabbed the fish with a net. The muskie was bigger than Ella.
- Finally, 10% of Americans under 50 say they would be willing to implant a device in their brain to be connected to the Internet, if that were possible. (Source: Zogby) Yeah, but what operating system would they be using?
Have a great holiday weekend, one and all.
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