Cats and Dogs

I'll start off with an update on Clara: My sister was given a handheld device that serves to monitor the function of Clara's pacemaker, and was concerned late last week when it appeared that the pacemaker wasn't providing any stabilizing signals to Clara's heart. She called the cardiologist, who downloaded the data (cool use of technology), and it turns out that the reason the pacemaker isn't firing is because Clara's heart is doing just fine on its own. No word on removal of the pacemaker, yet...but good news, indeed.

Here's something I couldn't avoid commenting on: Madonna's kicked off her new world tour. At $380 a ticket, I will not be going. Not that I would anyway; for the same price, I can get season tickets to the San Diego Opera, where I can be assured of three things:

1. The music will be excellent.
2. The social commentary will not include statistics.
3. The choreography won't involve giant disco balls or bare-breasted dancers with ball gags.

Item 3: "The Da Vinci Code" made $224 million over the weekend, despite middling reviews and threats of protests. Thus far, no one has seriously threatened to kill author Dan Brown for writing the novel, which illuminates a notable difference between the predominant faiths of the world. Salman Rushdie is still living with the bounty on his head for writing "The Satanic Verses".

Back to the Madonna article: Rosie O'Donnell is a "Gay Icon"? Does she still qualify for that if she ditched her spouse in the Ueker Seats to sit in the $380 seats? She couldn't spring for two seats? I wonder what the conversation was like when they got home. Did Rosie get the silent treatment for a while, and then have to sleep on the couch? Is she going to have to make it up to her spouse for the next six months? If so, she's truly a Gay Icon. If life was fair, we'd all be getting a Microsoft XP-style bubble popping up right about now that says "There are unused icons on your desktop. Would you like me to delete them?"

Annoying Bit Of The Day: Websites that redirect you to their advertisers without first allowing you access to the site you want. I don't mind seeing adverts on your pages. I mind-but-can-deal-with popups. But don't make me click the Back Button to get into the website I wanted to go to in the first place. (I'd wonder if it was just my computer being sent a virus, but it's the only website doing it.)

This just in: Oh, crap!