Today, I wll be spending the entire day on the couch. I purchased NFL Sunday Ticket this year, and I haven't had a chance to really put it to use. Thus, I'll be watching football from 1 until 11:30. From now until then, I'll be updating as I watch.

10am: I was pumped up, so I figured I would start the day off with some fake football. Madden. Things started off poorly as I went down 14-0. I was able to tie things up but things ended abruptly when I turned the machine with only a few seconds left. Yeah, that happens sometimes.

11am: The football pregame shows start. Generally, these are horribly painful to watch. They've apparently learned something from the political "discussion" shows as there is a great deal of yelling. They seperate themselves by actually provding some real analysis. I'm sticking with ESPN for the most part as Fox can't shut up (surprise...) and CBS is just boring (...surprise). The highlight: an Adidas commercial for these shoes (you can watch the commercial if you dig a little). I don't think it's a good sign that the first exciting moment has nothing to do with football.

1:30pm: Finally, football begins. I start off the games with a little cleaning. I know, that really shouldn't be a part of my football sunday, but it's early in the games and the kitchen was dirty. I'll mostly be watching Indy and KC this afternoon as it's fun to watch lots of scoring. So far, 7-0 Indy. The only bad thing about having so many games and one television is that you're likely to miss everything that's good. I swear, some Sundays I'll spend 3 hours of watching kickoffs and commercials. Hopefully I'll get a little luckier today.

2:11pm: Here's my setup. Although I have Tivo, I'm using the cable remote because the channels change more quickly. On my computer I have up my fantasy football team, nfl.com for live stats and the DirecTV sports site with channels up. Something I've figured out is that nfl.com shows when teams are in the red zone, so I'll just flip to that channel and I'm usually guaranteed something exciting.

I'm also eating lunch right now. Turkey and swiss on an onion bagel, all toasted together, and topped with mustard. On the side we have pickles and root beer. Yay sunday football.

2:59pm: The Giants are beating Minnesota 20-0. What? Well, I guess they're pretty worthless without Moss playing.

4:33pm: Round 1 is over. Nothing too shocking, but KC has been pretty amazing. 99 points in two games and 8 catches, 2 scores, 125 yds. for Gonzalez in this game. Yay fantasy points. It's been a good fantasy day for me so far. Let's hope Tomlinson can rip it up in his game.

5:04pm: The Steelers, so hot right now. 21-3 after the end of the first. I really thought New England would keep their streak alive, but it doesn't look so good right now.

6:46pm: My two liter bottle of root beer is now half gone. More news as it develops.

9:42pm: I took a little break, but not from football, just this blog. I'm watching the Bears now. They started out amazing. Krenzel threw a 49 yard touchdown pass on his first try. Unfortunately, he followed up with a fumble and an interception. Things are okay now, as it's tied up, but I'm still not resting easy. Highlight so far: both teams' kickers have knocked in field goals off the crossbar.

10:31pm: Watching the Bears by itself is often too painful. That's why I'm cutting it with the baking of an apple pie. It should be out of the oven near the end of the game.

11:42pm: The Bears have had two challenges go their way that were highly questionable. I'm not complaining, as it means we're up by 10 now. In other news, the pie will be done in 15 minutes, which should be right on time.

Congrats to the BoSox. I am pretty shocked that they were able to win eight straight and sweep the Cardinals. My only complaint is that baseball is over. Before the game last night I became a Cardinals fan just so that we'd get to see some more baseball. Alas, I will have to wait until April now.

In Cubs news, it looks like we'll be without Moises Alou next year. I love Moises as he's been great for us the last two years, but $11 million is too much money. Hopefully this will mean we can either hold onto Nomar or take a shot at getting Carlos Beltran. I'd prefer Beltran, as he's got a much better bat than Nomar, but then we'd lose that great fielding at shortstop. It's a tossup. No matter what, it should be an exciting offseason.

Now, I get to root for my cities two crappiest teams: the Bears and the Bulls. God, I love the Bears but I wish they'd get their act together. Hopefully Craig Krenzel can give us a spark this week.

Recently, Malcolm Gladwell published an article on rising prescription prices in the New Yorker. I'm a big fan of his, so I dutifully read it on a recent ride into the office.

In brief, it questioned who is to blamed for the rising cost of drugs. He talks about how drug companies will make small changes to existing drugs, right around when they can go generic, and rerelease them (Prilosec and Nexium were his examples). Still, he places the blame on the doctors, health care providers and consumers as well, since there are often very capable generic drugs available but people just aren't buying them as much as they should be.

Last night I was talking to Jori's dad and brother -- one is a doctor and the other works for a drug company, in that order -- about this very issue. We talked about Nexium and Prilosec specifically. They both explained to me that they have patients and customers who started out using Priolec and later moved to Nexium and said there was a world of a difference. Gladwell explains things differently.

Jori's father said the exact opposite. He's had patients who have dropped Nexium for over-the-counter Prilosec, due to high costs, only to find that it takes as much as five of the OTC Prilosec to match Nexium's effectiveness, thus nullifying any savings. So, I'm curious how much research Gladwell did.

I'd love to hear from more doctors and researchers to see which side is telling the real story. I don't think Jori's family is lying, but I'm not sure if Gladwell has unearthed information that they don't have access to. So, if you have any thoughts of your own, or know where to turn, I'd love to hear from you.

It seems like just about everyone voting for Kerry is really just voting against Bush. Personally, I like Kerry. I didn't at first, during the primaries, but he's grown on me.

This brings me to the purpose of this post. People voting against Bush, what don't you like about Kerry?

The Red Sox beat the Yankees. After losing three straight, they became the first team in history to come back from a 3-0 deficit. It was spectacular in a way that words can't convey.

I'm excited primarily because, being a Cubs fan, I get to live vicariously through another cursed team. Hopefully the Sox will win it all and break their curse, which will obviously open the door for the Cubs to do the same. It seems pretty clear to me.

My curse-breaking fantasy aside, the Sox-Yankees series was one of the best I'd ever seen. While walking to work I realized that I wouldn't get to watch this series anymore. I had become accustomed to watching the Red Sox beat the Yankees. It had become the most perfect Groundhog Day for New England-ites. Of course, it's not so bad to wake up to a World Series berth.

Tonight I'll be watching the NLCS game, hoping for a Houston win. Aside from liking the underdog, I have no desire to see St. Louis win it all. That would just be depressing.

Last night I bought seven CDs. That's more than usual, but was pretty common during college. While waiting for Jori before seeing Sky Captain, I sat and listened to a number of albums I had been wanting to hear. Most of the stuff I picked up I was planning to get at some point anyway, but the listening stations encouraged my purchase of the new Heiruspecs album and discouraged the purchase of the new Hot Snakes. I've only listened to Cake's Pressure Chief and I'm disappointed thus far. On the way home I'll tackle the new VHS or Beta, which was the winner at the listening stations.

Other CDs purchased yesterday were as follows: R.E.M.'s Around the Sun, The Thrill's Let's Bottle Bohemia, The Faint's Wet From Birth and Joseph Arthur's Our Shadows Will Remain.

My most disappointing music moment of the last week was when Jen and I realized we missed out on the Arcade Fire show next month. We both dropped the ball on that and it sucks. So if you have tickets and you're dying to find someone to buy your second ticket, I'm your man.

Expect reviews of most of the albums mentioned above over the next couple weeks.

Tonight, Jon Stewart had an unbelievable appearance on CNN's Crossfire. He accused Crossfire, its hosts and similar shows of being pundit hacks. As he put it, these shows are theater and not news.

As Aaron Swartz put it, Stewart is "clearly the most serious threat to Politics As Usual we’ve had in a long time." After watching hundreds of episodes of the Daily Show, I'd never thought of it in that way, but Stewart is really able to uncover what's wrong about our system. Jon constantly insists that his show is comedy, which is definitely true, but I often wish it wasn't. His show is incredibly powerful, even in its comedic form, and I'd love to see him or some likeminded individual bring this highly critical approach to a "real news" show.

If you're interested in watching the show, which I definitely recommend, go to Randomfoo to download or to CNN for the transcript.

It's official, I will most definitely be buying either a Nintendo DS or a Sony PSP. As of right now I'm leaning towards the PSP, thanks to this video. All that's holding me up is the lack of a price or a release date. There's no way I'd pay more than $200 for a portable system, and even that would be a bit steep.

Still, I'm more than ready to welcome in some better looking games for handhelds. The color screens of the Gameboy Advance and SP were a step up, but I'm looking for more and these seem to have it. So, I'm going to wait until the PSP makes it stateside before I decide, butthe sexiness of the Sony device is pretty tempting. Don't you agree?

Sunday night, Jori and I landed at Newark Airport. After two weeks in Europe, we were a little shell-shocked to be home. Thankfully, my uncle picked us up, which eased the pain.

I woke up early on Monday morning, thanks to the jet lag. It gave me some time to mentally prepare for going back to work. Halfway through my trip I couldn't even fathom being back in New York let alone going into work. Still, when it came time to leave the host and I turned onto Nevins Street with the sun in my face, I felt good. Sometimes, it's nice to have the comforts of a city you know and love.

In short, our trip was unbelievable. There were so many beautiful sites and dozens of wonderful people. Like any trip, it had it snags, but they were overshadowed by the great experiences we had.

I have a fairly detailed travel journal that I'll be posting on this site sooner rather than later. It will likely have it's own mini-site, but we'll see what time allows. No matter what, you'll see some photos on the photo page in the next few days. I finally got all 500 pictures onto my computer last night.

In brief, Cinque Terre was my favorite stop. We had gelato every day and my favorite was in Rome at Gioletti's. We had an amazing tiramisu in Riomaggiore, which is in Cinque Terre. Our hotel in Siena, Hotel Duomo, was unbelievable and worth a little splurge. Nothing was stolen, but Naples ate us alive. Eze, near Nice in France, was a stunning surprise.

I can't wait to show you all the pictures and tell you all of our stories.

Currently, I am in Positano in Italy. I don't have time to write much, but I thought I'd let you know that Jori and I are having a fabulous time (despite being swindled a few times in Naples). I'll be sure to give the full rundown when I return, but know that tiramisu is MUCH better in Italy.