This Was The Week That Was

Life has been intruding, as it often does, so forgive the blogging gap this past week. There is only one way to make amends: Another FCB Lightening Round!!

• The next time I feel bad about spending too much time surfing the Net, not reading enough, or helping starving children somewhere, I am going to think about Marc Umile. Umile has spent the past two-and-a-half years memorizing the numbers of pi. You know, the 3.14159 thing. I just gave you the first six digits of the value of pi. Umile set a new record by reciting the first 12,887 digits (it took him a bit under four hours). Good for him, I guess, although you would think that someone with a memory like that might recall that hardly anyone needs to know the value of pi after 10th grade geometry exam.
• My jury duty experience might have gone better had I followed this person's example.
• The State of the Union speech is the most boring political event of the year, which is not an easy title to claim. This has nothing to do with President Bush's speech a few days ago. I have always felt that way. It was worse when Bill Clinton was president, since his speeches were longer, so there was many more opportunities for the senators and representatives to interrupt and applaud where they had been told to interrupt and applaud, thus making the speeches even loooooooonger. I will admit that the speech has had one benefit in recent years, however: Anything that keeps the Prince of Darkness in full view of millions of people makes the world a safer place, if only for an hour or so.
• The entry of Bob Brady into the race for mayor of Philadelphia is good news for all those who think everything is going well in our city. Not so good news for the rest of us.
• I guess all the problems around gun violence, taxes, job creation, and city services have been solved. City Council has moved on to the trans fat issue. Enough already. The government has a role in promoting the public health, such as making sure accurate information is provided to consumers about food, nutrition, and exercise. But it should not be dictating to cooks what they can put in their food and to me what I can put in my stomach. They can have my cheese doodle when they pry it from my cold, dead, and orange fingers.