TV Shows On DVD, Vortex.

This (from that Salon article linked to above) made me think "aha!":

The press also downplayed references to a 2000 trial at which Schiavo's extremely conservative Roman Catholic parents conceded that even if Terri had told them she would never want to be kept alive with a feeding tube, they would not have honored that request (an acknowledgment that goes a long way toward explaining their actions in the case). For the most part, the press portrayed Schiavo's parents, Terry and the hospice protesters as simply being overly concerned and vaguely conservative. And nothing more.

The book, A Million Random Digits with 100,000 Normal Deviates, is real, and something of a classic in the field of cryptography and computer science, although it's somewhat obsolete nowadays.

It's notoriously difficult to produce random numbers on a computer that are truly random and unpredictable. If you were doing an experiment or some sort of encryption that required some sort of actual randomness, the book was quite useful.

The bit about them not pulling the tube no matter what is also in this week's Newsweek article. Anna Quindlan's column says she understands Michael's refusal to divorce Terri and let her parents take over care. Quindlan says it would have been a "gutless betrayal" for him to walk away and ignore Terri's wishes. The article says the first nursing home got a restraining order against Michael because he was butting into her care too much, but the nurses are quoting as saying, "He's a bastard, but if I were sick like that, I'd like him for my husband."

Tom comes in with the obscure knowledge! I am impressed.

ita, I would recommend avoiding being kicked/hit/butted/etc. in the head until the dizziness is well gone. And maybe a call to the doctor.

Congrats, Jim and Penny! Buffistas really are busting out all over.

I just printed out a picture of one of the toddlerpedes and left it sitting on the printer near my cube. I wonder what people's reactions will be.

ita, if you need anything today, let me know okay? I would be happy to be your driver for the day. (I'm even planning on Portos later, if you are up to food.)

Buffistas really are busting out all over.

World Domination. It's a plan. A good plan.

About Ayelet Waldman -- I didn't dislike with the column on loving her husband more than her kids, though I found it boring in the way a lot of mundane confessional writing is. But if she wants to share that about herself, okay, whatever.

But I did have a problem with the column saying she hopes her son will be gay (because then he'd shop with her), but not her daughters (because they'll judge her for shaving her legs). It just seemed like an inappropriate thing for a parent to say about their child in a public forum, and I can't explain it better than that.