I wanna really really really wanna zig-a-zig ah

Greetings from The Woodlands... I got into Houston yesterday morning (in time for breakfast tacos at Taco Cabana), bummed around the hotel for a wee bit of the afternoon before heading over to the pool to swim. At the pool, they had an aerator [at left] assisting with cooling the pool: made me wish we had something similar in FtL (particularly since the pool water was 86° earlier this week).

And Masters Nationals got underway this morning. First up was the men's 400 free (I went a decent 4:23), which was followed by a 30-minute warm-up break for the folks who didn't want to get up for the 6:30-8:00 a.m. warm up.


And, per the norm, the second warm-up [pictured at bottom] was more crowded than the first [above]. Although not nearly as dramatic as I've seen before--imagine wall-to-wall swimmers, in each lane. Maybe it'll be better tomorrow...

Anyways, post the second warm-up, I swam the 200 fly (2:17), then had lunch and swam a 50 free on a mixed free relay. Time at the pool 7:00 a.m.-3:30 p.m. (and this is the short day). Ahh, the fun...




But then again, I wasn't the only one waiting around (and the picture of some of my teammates at right was taken fairly early in the morning, way before it started to get really hot).





Did I mention that the grocery store here had Nilla wafers?



If you really bug me then I'll say goodbye

Yo I'll tell you what I want, what I really really want
So tell me what you want, what you really really want
I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna
I wanna really really really wanna zigazig ah

Just walk away, just walk a-way...

"This scares me politically. There is no anger that comes close to the anger of an American that cannot get television."

-Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo.

The quote above was from a discussion about how U.S. t.v. is preparing to go all digital, which means that the older, traditional, antennas will no longer work...

Other news items from the past few days...

• Americans think text messaging should be banned while driving (I may need to start carpooling/riding the bus). Course I'm not really sure that it will make U.S. drivers better... people holding their phone up to their ear or watching a movie in their car seem more dangerous to me (and that's not even mentioning the people who like to stop in the middle of three lanes of traffic, or the people who drive like they're on a NASCAR track, instead of the street...)
  
• Apparently the name of the lyrics-guessing t.v. show I mentioned the other day is actually "The Singing Bee" (which would explain why I couldn't find anything about a "Music Bee" online). I found the name, along with a Lyrics IQ test, here (I got 11 of 12 ;-).
• One of my old teammates (Caitlin) got named to the USA team that will swim in Japan later this month--it's her first international trip (congrats!!!).
• And the 2008 Olympics start exactly a year from today, at 8:08 p.m. local-Beijing time (NBC didn't get them to move that) on August 8: 08/08/08. (Eight's a lucky number in Chinese culture, I believe.)

Otherwise, I leave for Masters Nationals in The Woodlands, TX tomorrow morning, and as of this afternoon my boss is sending me to Acapulco the Thursday and Friday before my birthday (oh the heartbreak of it all...).

I'm looking for attention, not another question
Should you stay or should you go?
Well if you don't have the answer
Why you still standing here?
Hey, hey, hey, hey...

Underneath your clothes, there's an endless story

After a random urge to do wash yesterday...

all my Laundry is done!

Marking the first time this year / since I've been in my condo / actually, probably since I've been in Flordia, all of my laundry is clean at the same time. Which is great.

And this in between seeing The Bourne Ultimatum on Friday night, Hairspray on Saturday, Bourne again on Sunday afternoon (in Boca with a group of friends).... I really enjoyed Bourne; Hairspray was good, as well, although I'm still not really over John Travolta's make-up (the drag, I'm handling ok, but the facial add-ons where just a tad overboard).

As for the laundry, the only minor problem now is that I don't know where it all will go (which is part of the reason why it all hasn't been done prior to now--the other reason being a lack of time/general laziness). But I've started putting it away, so at least that's a start.

When the friends are gone, when the party's over
We will still belong to each other

Ooh, it's kinda crazy, I’ve been thinking maybe

According to my listening to CNN at work this week, the only thing that happened in the world was that a bridge collapsed in Minneapolis. Or, at least, that was what CNN chose to cover, solely, Wednesday through Friday. While it is definitely tragic, it also seems tragic to me that with 24-hours of airtime to fill, the only thing deemed worthy was that bridge. Did we, America, really need to know every 30-60 minutes how the flow of the Mississippi River was changing? I think not...

It might have been pertinent to know why the U.S. Cabinet meeting was called, rather than that they also talked about the bridge (a late-add to the agenda). Or another story: cyclone headed to Southeast Asia, Bush signing a new Homeland Security bill, that Eddie Murphy got Scary Spice pregnant, that lightning killed 141 people in China last month, or how the disappearance of Pakistan's Indus River delta seems a lot like the Mississippi River delta... anything. Call me crazy.

Actually, it's just kinda sad to me that with all the expanded news coverage now available, the diversity of stories seemingly has decreased: we're not getting news about more things going on in the world, but rather more details about the stories we already had.

And to think: I drove across that very Minnesota bridge back in April. Maybe I could be interviewed by the local news here: about how I safely traversed the bridge and the ones I go over everyday...

(please note, I'm not trying to belittle the deaths that occurred, but I do think the coverage has gone overboard, to the point that I'm wondering if they are purposely covering it instead of something else...)

Ooh, it's kinda crazy
I've been thinking maybe
Gotta get you out of my mind

In an mmmbop they're gone, in a mmmbop they're not there...

As I was on my way into work yesterday, the morning radio show played a variant of t.v.'s "Music Bee", ending with Hanson's Mmmbop. This proceeded to get it stuck in my head for the rest of the day. It also made me think I might be a good contestant for the t.v. show....

(In all honesty, though, Mmmbop really isn't a very fair song to use: even to people who care what lyrics are, the song is a rather difficult one to know what's being said. This is mostly due to whichever Hanson it is semi-mumbling the lyric.)

So, I had Hanson driving me crazy, and then swim practice in the evening kinda just pushed me out of my mind completely, to the point where I left a half hour early and was seriously contemplating not going to Nationals (for which I leave a week from today). But things are better now. Mmmbop's still stuck in my head, but I've remembered that my condo ownership turned a year old on Tuesday. :)

(And just for Erin: "We're tiny, we're toony... we're all a little loony ;-)

So hold on to the ones who really care
In the end they'll be the only ones there
When you get old and start losing you hair
Can you tell me who will still care