This week's Ledger

PLUS

• Musically, this week felt like a return to the salad days of college life. Two of my favorite bands with obvious connections to the motherland released new albums. I downloaded both REM's "Accelerate" and the B-52s "Funplex." I had lost touch a bit with REM over the last couple of albums, as they seemed to lose a spark and be a tad more ponderous. But "Accelerate" is a total kick-ass return to the form many of us loved about them in the first place. It's short, aggressive, uptempo and a great ride. And the B-52s? The name says it all: "Funplex." If you like the B's, you'll love this album. After just a few listens, I'd put it right up there with "Cosmic Thing." I was blogging and reading through some of the BSG boards on TWOP while it was playing in the background, and found myself "chair dancing" right along to it even though I'd never heard a single note from it until then. Also highly recommended, and not just for nostalgia.
• The motherfrakkin' return of Battlestar Galactica. Has it really been 55 weeks? I can't believe I was in another state -- geographically and psychologically -- when I last saw a fresh ep (not including "Razor") of the best show on TV. And it didn't disappoint.
• I was so jazzed about the return of BSG, that I went frakkin' nuts on Amazon. I purchased the original mini-series, Season 1, Season 2, Season 3 and "Razor" on DVD. As we all know, I loves myself some TV, but there are very few shows I own lock, stock and barrell on DVD. There are the occasional one season wonders (Wonderfalls, Profit, Firefly) that are easy purchases to make. But there are also other great, fantastic shows I adore that I don't necessarily feel compelled to purchase in their entirety (The Sopranos, Sports Night, Deadwood, etc.) and probably wouldn't watch over and over. BSG will now rest on the shelves (well, when I actually have some fucking shelves, and not just wine boxes stacked up beside the TV) beside the complete runs of Buffy, Angel and Farscape. At some point, I need to add Arrested Development to this mix.
• Swiffers. I was late to the Swiffer party, but now I have the Swiffer duster and the Swiffer wet-jet. How awesome are these things? Anyone else find the Swiffer indispensible?
  
• Finally catching up.

MINUS

• Odd bouts of insomnia. I don't sleep that much compared to some folks, but twice this week I found myself in bed "actively" trying to go to sleep without much success. Even the brain numbing foolishness of Horatio Caine couldn't make me let go of my tether to the world to the waking. And of course, I still wake up at 6.
• This week has been good for watching the Braves, because they were on FOX yesterday and MLB Extra Innings has had a free preview this week (thanks for the reminder Freebird!), but because TBS needs to air more Sex and the City reruns and Frank TV, they've banished "America's Team" to the backwoods of something called "Peachtree TV." Which I don't have here as part of a local sports package. So hello purchase price for Extra Innings!
• Seeing birthdays pop up in the Outlook calendar and not celebrating them like you did.
  
• The Baltimore Sun sports section. Although the AJC Sports section got a lot of criticism from the locals while I was living there (and some deservedly so, between the ancient ramblings of Furman Bisher and the one-note racial blatherings of Terrence Moore), you don't appreciate a decent Sports section until you don't have one. Even the Sunday Sports section in the Sun takes about 5 minutes to read. Here's how it goes: Orioles suck, lacrosse, local minor college minor sports news, Orioles suck, women's lacrosse, truncated MLB and NBA box scores, men's lacrosse, TV listings, college lacrosse, professional lacrosse, will the O's ever trade Brian Roberts, high school lacrosse, tidbit about the Ravens, and oh yeah, more about lacrosse. Calling it a "fishwrapper" would be an insult to fish. Thank the gods there's news about more than lacrosse out here on the interwebs.
• Sporadic communications.