I include below some things that part of my brain wants to build nodes for. I have decided that the nodegel doesn't need such rude intrusions, and so I write them here.

So I realized today that I don't despise Brad Pitt.
This came as something of a shock to me. I'd really disliked him for quite some time, since Thelma and Louise, in fact. I didn't dislike him nearly as intensely as I dislike Richard Gere, for example, but it was the same general form of dislike, the kind that men often have for male, "hunky" film actors whom women tend to fawn over and tend to accept film roles that accentuate their hunkiness.

I should note here that I am not an unmanly man. I'm a reasonably large guy, I enjoy violent sports, I can grow a great beard when the need arises (I am goateed at the moment), and I've managed to father a child while within the bonds of a happy and monogamous marriage.

But I was having a conversation with my brother about Fight Club, which I'd recently caught on cable. "I was surprised," I said, "it was pretty good for a Brad Pitt vehicle."
----Keith replied, "I know what you mean. But he was good in Seven."
----I thought about this, and said, "Yeah, that's true. And he was really good in 12 Monkeys. And did you ever see A River Runs Through It?"

Things continued on that way. I came to the inevitable conclusion that 'ol Brad has not really taken lots of roles in lame movies in order to become adored, in the manner of shameless Richard Gere (what IS the deal with that guy anyway?). He has taken some, of course, but he hasn't made a career out of them. He seems to take riskier parts that, presumably, he enjoys. I can groove to that.

BTW, A River Runs Through It is both a tremendous movie
and short story. I recommend the film highly if you are, as I am,
a major fan of Tom Skerrit's work (look for him in the film version of M*A*S*H). It pained me
deeply to see that man hawking Aleve on TV, but I guess you have to
pay the bills. People will miss him when he's gone.

KFC Requiem and Sundry
I drove past a KFC yesterday and noticed a sign fluttering in the breeze which appeared to say "Join Our Death." It actually said, "Join Our Team," but you have to wonder which neurons of my brain decided to misfire at that moment.

Later in the afternoon, I was walking with my daughter in a supermarket parking lot, her in the carriage (or "buggy" for you in parts of the western US) and I strolling behind. The sky was clouding over what had been a warm spring day, but the gentle, cool breeze was compensation enough. As the wind rose, I began to sense a slight saltiness, a sea-tang that those raised near the ocean can sometimes smell even when they live far inland. I smiled, and then a fat, ugly woman with a cigarette unattractively suspended in her mouth walked by and belched a cloud of tobacco smoke. Frankly, I might not have marked either her obesity or her fundamental ugliness had she not been smoking in this horrid way.

As a fine wine may help to bring out the better qualities of a sumptuous meal, so too did this cigarette serve to enhance the unpleasant qualities of this woman. Perhaps this is insensitive of me, but there you have it.

On the plus side, the store had RC Cola
on sale for $0.69 for a two liter bottle. They also chose to
double my coupons, good for $0.55 on the purchase of two two liter bottles. This means I was able to buy
copious amounts of Royal Crown Cola for the low, low price of only $0.14 per bottle.
So life is good after all.

And so ends the flotsam and jetsam of my mind…for today.