My second favourite story of the weekend was that of Tropical Storm Alpha, which, I'm sad to report, has now been downgraded to Tropical Depression Alpha and looks like it will eventually lose in a fight with Wilma. For the first time ever we've used up all 21 names and we've had to move onto Greek letters. Although it looks like we might get away with it this year; I think it's a tad unwise to set about calling a possible hurricane Alpha. Hurricane Alpha might try and earn the name, so to speak, as we all know God and Mother Nature have a darkly comic streak in them.
My favourite story of the weekend was that of Frankie Coleman. Apparently Mrs. Coleman, the Mayor's wife, was arrested around 9pm on Thursday for operating a vehicle under the influence, OVI. There are a number of things I love about this story. Firstly, it was 9 o'clock in the evening — you really have to be putting in a concerted effort if you want to get your blood alcohol up to 0.27 by 9 o'clock on a Thursday evening. Secondly, she hit a parked truck and then got confused and claimed the truck had hit her. Mainly though I love this story for the comparison between Frankie and Brit. Brit is the friend I wrote about being pulled over for riding his bicycle home drunk from the bar. I think it's really, umm, impressive that Brit and Frankie now face identical charges and identical penalties. Because they both had high alcohol OVI's they both now face a mandatory 3 days in jail and 3 days in alcohol class, not to mention fines and license suspension. That's right folks choosing to not drive your car home and being pulled over for wobbling on your bicycle is apparently worthy of the same punishment as driving your car in to a parked truck and then claiming the truck hit you. You've got to love a justice system like that. In fact I love it so much that on the 2nd of November I will go down to the court house to offer moral support and try not to burst out laughing as the state of Ohio tries to send Brit to jail. Maybe I'll even wear one of my new t-shirts...
It was my birthday yesterday, "Happy Birthday to me!", and all that. I only mention it because you didn't write, call, send me a present, or anything. Unless of course you did, in which case it was great to hear from you, I love the gift, the card was wonderful and no I didn't know that about Timmy. I celebrated my birthday by going out on Saturday night to a place which had all the beer you can drink for seven dollars. The beer is fairly crap, but seven dollars is only seven dollars. On the way to the bar we were in a car that ran out of petrol. I've never been in a car that ran out of petrol before, it was enormously entertaining. Not quite sure how you manage to not put any fuel in your car and expect it to keep on running forever, but for sheer entertainment value I may have to start adopting the policy. On the way home from the bar, I was somewhat less than sober and decided it would be a good idea to kick a plastic lawn chair. I now have a very sore left foot (why I kicked it with my left foot is lost in the annals of history... or at least it's lost in the murky fog at the back of mind).
I have two new addictions: betting and eBay. Now I realise betting isn't really a new addiction for me, but my betting on college football is a fairly recent thing. The last three weeks I've bet on several games each Saturday, coming out with 2-4 (for a big loss), 4-1 (for a okay win) and 5-1 (for a good win) win-loss records for the three weeks. It's lots of fun. And this week it actually made be give a damn about Fresno State, I don't even know which state Fresno State is in. I do know that they beat the spread against Idaho and made me very happy (well moderately happy, I think the aforementioned beer pushed me up to very).
My other (new, best not to mention all the old ones) addiction is trying to buy vintage Waterman's fountain pens from eBay. I'm not sure why I want one — I think I can probably blame most of it on Neil Gaiman. But, for whatever reason, searching and bidding for old pens on eBay has been eating up a disproportionate amount of my time recently. I'll keep you posted on how this new addiction develops.
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