Can't take the sky away from me

Has it been eighteen years? Really? Wow. I'm...stunned. That was our generation's JFK moment, of course. I remember taking my boom box to the lunchroom with me so my class could listen to the radio reports during lunch. Note that our school was most non-lenient about anything like this and would've grabbed it away from me, never to be seen again, on any other day. But, of course, it wasn't any other day, and we listened and ate and that afternoon we had a basketball game to play. Surreal? Yeah. For someone whose collective memories are turning into tapioca, that day remains etched. Another mitigating factor might've been that our teacher was one of the local finalists for the Teacher in Space program. He was never the same.

NASA's official site has a Flash intro featuring the day of remembrance (d'oh, yesterday) if you get there soon enough.

"Some of us find a safety net when we fall through a crack. We are somehow able to grab hold. Others fall right through -- and nobody even notices." Of course, part five of the Mike Webster story. I'm very impressed at how this transcends being a football story and becomes a very human story, almost a Greek tragedy. Oedipus was less blind than Webster, and he had the luxury of an epiphany. Webster could've had an epiphany every day of his post-football life and never been able to hold on to it, a thoroughly depressing idea. No less than the time of Webster's death, nor the fate of his four Super Bowl rings, or even the Merril Hoge moment, and the implication for hundreds of other players.... (ETA: ESPN's been posting some of the feedback they've received on the series. Wow.)

Okay, mood swing. Under star-crossed lovers, file goat and goose. Yeah, you read that right.

Until the Rapture, get a cockatiel

Ganked from tviokh: Answering yet another question the rest of us forgot to ask: Are cats for true christians?

Yes, when Satan is finally abyssed, the 'beastly' nature of felines will be forever abolished, and they will be fit companions for humans on Paradise Earth! But until that rapidly-approaching time, God will reward all of our efforts to maintain integrity by loyally submitting to the leading of his spirit expressed through the loving guidance of the 'faithful and discreet slave'. -Matt. 24:45-47