This week's Ledger

PLUS:

• Very inexpensive haircuts. And no, I'm not talking about a Flowbee. And creative tipping.
• Bowling! After a lackluster opening in the 130 range and fueled by a Lebowski inspired white russian, round two was in the 180s.
• Southwest's new boarding policy. I had never flown the cattle car of the air until a few months ago, and was aghast at the lack of assigned seats. However, provided that you login and check in online at the 24 hour prior to flight mark, you can now easily find yourself an aisle seat. Once again, thank god for the crackberry.
• Watching TV shows on the iPod on the airplane. You'll see a few things I tried to find on iTunes below, but couldn't. However, I did manage to snag a Classic episode of the original Star Trek (Remastered!) to help me ignore all the noisy family travelers in the long, cylindrical tube of flying death.
• Text messaging.
  
• Aaron!
• Falcons win the coin toss. And have someone who might actually turn that pick into something.
• Big spikes in readership of this here blog. It seems lots of folks ventured over for the Super Bowl ad blogging, and decided to stick around. Thanks for wasting part of your day here at TNRLM.
  

MINUS:

• No AC/DC on iTunes. Nor any Def Leppard (what? I went to high school in the 80s)
• Picking out a show to watch on recent flights, I didn't find Pushing Daisies (I still want to catch up with this, dammit) or Dexter Season 2.
• Removing the guns from the Indiana Jones trailer. This is also the same director who turned guns into walkie-talkies in ET for the DVD, and the same producer who made Greedo shoot first. Not sure about the rumors that the Nazis in Schindler's List will be replaced by bunnies.
• Non-smoking hotels. Couldn't each floor have one of those little glass "petting zoo" type rooms like in the Atlanta airport, where the demented smokers could all huddle in the morning in their bathrobes drinking overpriced coffee, dying together? It's even more of a pain in the ass when it's snowing outside. Of course, I wasn't desperate enough to risk the $250 "cleaning fee" by taking a few furtive drags in the room's bathroom, like a few of my business associates did.
  
• Carrying things. I'm so fucking sick of "toting." I feel like an abused burro looking for the treasure of the Sierra Madre. In the house, I could pull into the garage, and load and unload the car (golf clubs, luggage, bags from the store, etc.) in just a few steps. Now living in apartmentland, I have to walk down a long hallway, down some stairs and out into the parking deck to reach the car. Also complicating matters is the fact that there is no curbside garbage pick up in an apartment, so you have to make that every few days trip down to the car with a big bag of refuse. So mornings, you're dragging your ass down a hallway, trying to balance a briefcase with a laptop, a jumbo coffee and a bag of beer cans and cat shit. Coming home, you're hauling a briefcase, dry cleaning, mail and if you stop at the store, 15 plastic bags looped around your digits until all the circulation stops in your hand after about 10 feet. I want a moving sidewalk. Or a personal valet.