The ratings for game one of the Stanley Cup finals were higher in Denver, where the Avalanche didn’t make the playoffs, than in LA. LA doesn’t need or deserve two hockey teams. The Anaheim Ducks should become the Toronto Hosers.

Colorado Springs, CO

I’m rather groggy from travel, though a visit to my favorite bookstore turned-recently-even-more-favorite cafe helped. This place now caters to all my fetishes (well, within legality). The new bar reminds me of a place in San Fransisco I used to go. I picked up a copy of In the Wake of the Plague. I’m afraid I was a little too dribbly to fully appreciate the first few chapters, but they were satisfying nonetheless.

I just finished Norman Cantor’s little book Antiquity. I have mostly been too occupied with physical work to fit in much reading. I just paid someone $120 to haul away an immense amount of debris, some yanked from the house during recent renovation projects, some left behind by the previous occupant.

I have read a great deal about the ancient world, as well as many original texts in translation, but I still often had trouble piecing it all together. This was a great “big picture” book, and provides an excellent bibliography. I will have to track down his other recent work In the Wake of the Plague.

Yes!

(CNN) — The Rev. Jerry Falwell, the television minister whose 1979 founding of the Moral Majority galvanized American religious conservatives into a political force, died Tuesday at age 73.

That’s one person to scratch off the “people I will assassinate if I get diagnosed with a terminal disease” list. Now there’s room for another name… hmmm…

Humans are not physically normal in the absence of hard physical effort. Exercise is not a thing we do to fix a problem–it is a thing we must do anyway, a thing without which there will always be a physical problem. -Mark Rippetoe

An interesting thread at the RD forum asked: if you could grant immortality for five people, living or dead, who would they be?

Frank Zappa. It’s hard to pick among musical geniuses, but Zappa was also a kick ass social critic. A personal choice, but I’d trade just about anyone for FZ.
Thomas Jefferson. I’d take someone from the enlightenment, and Jefferson stands out as someone who could adapt his principles and have an impact.
Leonhard Euler. This choice is looking for someone most likely to advance science over many lifetimes. Among many natural geniuses, Euler was ridiculously prolific. Even in one lifetime, he did the work of a hundred men.
Bertrand Russell. This one was tough. I think philosophy deserves a representative, but Jefferson kind of counts. Mainly chosen as someone who would be a social activist as well. I really don’t like Russell all that much, but he was a good communicator. I would probably come up with someone else if I thought about it longer.
Sigh… Albert Einstein, but not for the reasons you’d think. He was probably the most popular choice in the thread. But he didn’t contribute much to physics after the 1920’s. The EPR paper is the only thing that comes to mind. Euler was my workhorse pick. I take Einstein because of his notoriety (while deserved, it is out of proportion). Due to his fame, people would listen to him. We will always need a respected pacifist. I wanted a more of literary figure for the last spot; but I can’t justify it.

Sad to say, much as I tried, I couldn’t think of a woman for the list. Certainly a byproduct of our patriarchal European background.