Midnight magic

My Mac is back, and it's charged as well as ever. After almost a week of relying on the Wii for all my Internet needs, it feels good to type something more than a few sentences long in less than a couple of minutes. Unfortunately, the new power adapter came just in time for me to begin my self-imposed media lockdown. Why a self-imposed media lockdown? To avoid seeing some giant spoiler plastered across the Internet or television about the final Harry Potter book. Then ending of Book 5 was spoiled for my by a 10-year-old the summer I worked ACU Camps, and I won't have that happening to me for the last book.

The book will be released in fewer than six hours now and my festivities have already begun. The day began with an hour-long wait at Barnes and Noble at 9 a.m. to get a ticket, thus reserving my place in line for later this evening. I've passed the time this afternoon by playing most of all the Potter movies in the background of whatever I've been doing around the apartment. I'll round out my day with another viewing of HP5 in the theatre before making my way to Barnes and Noble again, this time to retrieve the book. Some of you might this would put the average person on Potter overload, but I don't think that's really possible for me -- not with all the anticipation for this final book.

It's time to leave now, but I just wanted to write now, since I know I won't again until I have finished the final tome. I anticipate a Sunday afternoon finish before I have to go back in to work. Until then, it's time to begin my media lockdown. Books have just been released in England, so spoilers could pop up any moment.

Power failure

Nintendo's Wii is not the ideal machine to blog from. Yet, that is what I have been reduced to. All because my Macbook Pro's power adapter has failed me yesterday. With no charge left on the laptop, I'm left to surf the Web and blog from my Wii's trial version Internet browser. No physical keyboard. Just a motion-sensing Wiimote and a virtual, on-screen keyboard. Needless to say, I'm setting no WPM record typing on here.

So my computer and I are at the mercy of the Apple store and FedEx. Maybe they'll come through for us tomorrow. Maybe not until Thursday. I'll bring you more whenever that is. But if this doesn't prove my blogging dedication more so than my posting frequency, I don't know what will.

J.G. Wentworth can help ...

Two things gleaned about the late-night TV-watching crowd after analyzing the advertisements.

• Judging by the sheer number of ads and companies providing this service, just about every one in this TV demographic needs cash now and is seeking immediate liquidity from their annuity or structured settlement. Several businesses advertise this service, but I'm particularly tired of that one old guy always appearing to hawk his company's version of this service. You know the one I'm talking about. Lesson here: Don't get locked into a longterm annuity or structure a settlement so that you find yourself needing cash now.

• Anyone else who doesn't need cash now has been involved in a fall, an auto accident or any kind of accident and needs a lawyer now. Lawyer advertisements are great because any town you go to, there are different lawyers, but the commercials really are all the same. And every community has that one lawyer or two that everyone claims to hate because of their commercials, but they must be well off enough to inundate the airwaves with their low-quality advertisements.

In the first 4 days of July, it rained more than 13 inches here. That made it the wettest July since 1976. Not just the wettest first week of July, but for the entire month ... in the first four days. The ramifications of this downpour and the inevitable flooding and standing puddles -- mosquitos. Lots of mosquitos. And very large ones, at that. For the oddsmakers out there, this week's betting line: Odds that I will get West Nile virus in the next month -- 53:1.

You stay classy, Tyler, Texas

[Pulls out rag and lemon-fresh Pledge to dust away the cobwebs]

Many apologies for the absence. I've put you all through much worse though, but I'll do my best to get back on the blogging wagon.

I think I've blogged before about the strange things that always seem to happen in my hometown -- things that typically land it on some national newscast from time to time. This time, it will be featured on a reality TV show. I'll just let this YouTube clip of a Good Morning America story set the stage:



Lauren Jones finished up her monthlong stint on Tyler's CBS affiliate a few days ago. I don't know what kind of portrayal Tyler will get or even how much it will be portrayed at all when the show begins airing Aug. 21. But it doesn't take much imagination to guess what kind of image will be portrayed of any small city in the heart of East Texas. When the show boasts no cast other than the good people of Tyler, you know we're all in for a treat. Will it be trashy? Coming from FOX, there isn't any doubt. Will it make a mockery of broadcast journalism? Maybe, but having seen some of the newscasts of certain stations in Tyler, they could do no worse. Oh, and did I mention that I absolutely cannot wait.

I'm sure coming to Tyler was a bit of a shock for Miss Jones. Not only I'm sure did she experience culture shock, but apparently there probably with a bit of media shock as well. She was ripped from the covers of such magazines as, well, the types of magazines you get on when you're a "WWE diva" and swimsuit model, and thrust onto the likes of Tyler Today. I didn't even know such a magazine existed by that name. I don't know how she feels about this; maybe she's proud. She is, in all likelihood, the first swimsuit model ever to grace its cover. And I guess she has that right to be proud; this is, after all, Tyler's oldest city magazine from all the way back in the dark ages of 1989.

Suffice to say, Aug. 21 cannot come fast enough. You can bet you'll read more about this on here in the coming weeks.

And as Lauren Jones' forerunner as anchorwoman, Ms. Veronica Corningstone, would say, "Thanks for stopping by."