It’s nice to have some conversation already scripted for you. For instance, when you are deciding how short to cut your hair, you can count on your barber (or hairdresser, whatever you choose to call it) saying, “I can cut it off all day, but I can’t put it back on.” Or some such equivalent statement.

And if someone asks you if you recently got a haircut, you’re pretty much required to reply, “no, I got them all cut.” The person who asks the question is obviously looking for that reply. Not doing so would let them down immensely.

You know, video games have come a long way, but I still think that the some of the best video game sounds of all time and the best music of all time come from our old friend, the Atari 2600. Here are my all-time favorites:

Best sound: the “squish” sound in Dig Dug when you drop rocks on the monsters. Satisfyin’. Take that, Fygar!

Best music: yep, mom, it’s the music that you still remember after all these years…the lovely musical score of Pitfall II. (Da, da, da-da da da!) There were even three different types of music…

• The happy, “I just got another gold bar that’s twice as big as my head but somehow I can carry with me” music,
• The sad, “stupid condor just cost me another couple of thousand points” music,
• And the “gee, nothing bad or good has happened in a while but we have to have music” music.

Ah…the memories come flooding back…

You know, when you think about it, a lot of people have spent $1000 or more for a deck of cards.

Today is Bear Bryant’s birthday. You’d think that the University would give us the day off, but no…

I’ve always thought that a good idea for a car commercial would be to have a car pull alongside a big-rig and have the truck driver signal the driver of the car and make the “blow your horn” motion with his arm. Then the driver of the car would comply, eliciting a big kid-like grin on the trucker’s face as the car pulls away.

Now if you see that kind of commercial on the air anytime soon, be sure and tell them where to direct the royalties for the idea…

Has anyone else besides me noticed how many barbecue places use pigs standing at a barbecue pit in their logos? Do the people who come up with these think that it’s cute in a cannibalistic sort of way?

I own eight Coca-Cola glasses. I use them to drink Diet Dr Pepper.

I feel like such a hypocrite.

Okay, this is the closest thing to a useless thought that I’ve ever put on this page. But it’s something that I’ve dealt with for four years now, and will for at least two more (plus the title is a nifty piece of alliteration), so here goes.

The question at hand is this: when traveling from Tuscaloosa to Montgomery, and vice versa, which route is quicker, going interstate all the way through Birmingham, or using US-82, which goes straight to Montgomery? Obviously, 82 provides a more direct route, but at the cost of only being able to go 55 miles an hour (legally) over most of the trip. So let’s take a look, piece by piece, of the 82 trip and see how long it takes compared to the interstate route. We’ll look at it from the perspective of Tuscaloosa to Montgomery.

The first part of the trip is Tuscaloosa to Centreville, 30 miles away. This part of the trip is the only part in which one can legally go 65 mph. So this trip takes a little less than thirty minutes (about 28, to be exact). It takes about 10 minutes to get through Centreville if you have no luck and hit every red light. After you get out of Centreville, you are 55 miles away from Prattville, according to a road sign. You can only go 55 at this point, so obviously it takes you an hour to get to Prattville. It also takes about 10 minutes to get through Prattville (I get off of 82 at this point, and get on Alabama state road 6) if you have to stop at all of the traffic lights on that path. Eventually, you end up getting off of 6 onto I-65 at exit 179. Total running time: 28 + 10 + 60 + 10 minutes = 1 hour, 48 minutes.

Now, in one hour and 48 minutes, going 70 miles an hour, one can drive exactly 126 miles. So let’s figure out how far you can get down the interstate going this way…

The quickest interstate route is to go I-59 to Birmingham, then I-459 to bypass downtown, then I-65 to Montgomery. You start at exit 73 going toward Birmingham. The I-459 exit is at exit 106. 106 – 73 = 33 miles so far.

After you get on I-459 (the start of it), you have to go to exit 15 to get to I-65. 15 more miles. 48 so far.

When you get on I-65, you’ve used exit 250 to do so. To exit 179, where we got off of 82, is 71 miles. 71 + 48 = 129. But if it takes you the same amount of time to go 126 miles on this route as it did to cover the entire way on 82, that means you’re still three miles up the road from where you could have been, even if you would have stopped at every red light on the 82 route!

So why do more people go the interstate route? I think that it’s because of the illusion of speed that the interstate gives you. Plus most people will talk of getting stuck behind trucks and the like and only going 40 or so. But in all of my drives of 82, I’ve never had that experience. Plus the scenery is so much nicer when you go 82, in my opinion. It’s a nice drive.

Well, there you go…a detailed analysis of something completely useless. But at least I feel better for having said my piece. 🙂