Blog fatigue

Things I think of when I can't finish a post:

* At this point, it's a two-man race for Most Useless Movies: Ben Stiller and Adam Sandler. (Rob Schneider, mercifully, isn't nearly as prodigious.)

* "Ciabatta" is the new "focaccia."

* "Inspired by actual events" may as well mean "We made it up, but used real peoples' names."

* It ought to be admitted - I talk a lot about playing hockey, but it's exclusively deck hockey: everyone on foot, including me in goal. I've played roller hockey, but only in leagues where they let the keepers stay on foot (ball hockey). My current league is here, though currently my team is taking a season off. *poser!*

* Playing during this post - the MST3K episode "Cave Dwellers." Lordy, but it's bad.

* It's going to be a tough few years, no matter what you enjoy. Sports? Keith Jackson has already retired. Vin Scully, Myron Cope, and Bob Shepard won't stay long. We'll lose the greatest living hitters from the left side and the right side soon. Acting? Take your pick, there are plenty of 75-and-ups: Newman, Douglas, Bacall, Connery, Scofield, James Earl Jones, Angela Lansbury... For music, the bar starts a lot lower thanks to the ravages of the lifestyle, so I wouldn't bet on too much more from the Stones, Sir Paul, Ozzie, or what's left of the Who.

Normal, I know. We grow into a certain background, familiar sights and sounds that have always been there, a background painted in light on smoke. The wind picks up a little more each year. But I think my demograhpic gets the worst of it: when you're young you don't feel the sting as much. My parents were shocked when it was Elvis, John Wayne, and the Berlin Wall, but why shouldn't it have been? I wasn't old enough to have an established backstory.

But now my generation is beginning to lose bits of that backstory, people we've grown accustomed to have in our mental landscape, people behind our best memories. We start to lose parents and grandparents, and then, before long, friends. Soon the background settles in again for our children as we age. As morbid as the preceding sounds, I actually find it comforting to know that we help to leave behind something for them. We have much more to lose but it's left in good hands, if we can master the art of letting go gracefully.

* Czechs 3, US nil. As in zero, no goals, the Big Bagel. Oh, next game is Italy. See you in 2010.

* For cartoons you've got Bill Amend, Darby Conley, Stephen Pastis, and Mike Twohy. Scott Adams is still good, but those four are the in the lead pack right now.