Thinking all good thoughts for Matt and Gandalfe's families.

National news is all Jackson all the time, but the local channel showed the plane crash for a minute. The place is a broken up mess, but the pilot seems to have done a good job putting in down in the road in the midst of apartment buildings. The buildings look ok. Can't tell much from the coverage.

Now I am switching among stations all showing Jackson news and not local. Blah.

I haven't a good guess Tom. One thing I can be sure of is that the media will be talking about it in depth forever and ever, or until they get another story that they think I care about, and don't.

My weight has pretty much steadily increased throughout my life (with a nice little leap after the terror attacks). I just lost 40lbs and for the first time EVER the doctor said she wanted to keep an eye on my tryglicerides. Hee.

The big changes in my body, and they happened at about thirty, are that when I wake up in the morning I now have to pee IMMEDIATELY and I don't have the iron stomach (eat anything, at any time of day in any quantity without any ill effects) that I once had. Recently my hair has gotten thinner (its not the weightloss, its genetics). All in all I'm aging pretty well.

You really have to keep after some doctors to keep them from just writing off older people. My aunt, who's in her 80s, was mumbling and falling down all the time. Finally, when she broke her arm, an alert doctor ran some tests and discovered she had low tryroid. She's like a different person now.

I am 6'2". The chart in my doctor's office states that as a "large framed" person, I should weigh 185, which seems rather absurd.

Agreed. Although I have seen a guy who is 6'5" 190#, he also looks like one of those drawings of what happens to a person getting stretched out into a noodle as he approaches the event horizon of a black hole. (He is a pitcher, by the way.)

Askye, if your grandmother is as not-really-competent as it seems you are describing, it might be necessary to draw up some kind of legal/medical durable power-of-attorney papers for Aunt to be able to make decisions for Grandmother. Because, if Grandmother really isn't (or soon won't be) capable of making those decisions herself, somebody's got to make them, and paperwork now means less hassle later.

One thing I can be sure of is that the media will be talking about it in depth forever and ever, or until they get another story that they think I care about, and don't.

Yeah. I just said to my officemates, "I keep thinking that a verdict will mean the end of this circus."

Then we all laughed.

Especially if he's convicted, Kristen. Because then there's the appeal....

I love the little chart CNN.com has with the radio buttons for each offense.

I was just talking about that in IM!

CNN has a little diagram of the counts with a key! Red for guilty. Green for not guilty. Yellow for hung jury

It would seem the justice system is a lot like a traffic light.

Also, the verdict has been pushed back 15 minutes. Did the networks need more time to promo?

I think they needed more time for MJ to get to the courthouse. Seems like he just got there.

Also, I haven't followed this trial at all yet for some reason, I can't wait to find out the verdict.