"The greatest thing you'll ever learn
Is just to love, and be loved in return."

Wow...I don't think I can remember the last time it was nearly 65 degrees in Chicago in early to mid-January. Of course, it's gonna drop down to about 10 degrees for the high on Saturday. But it's winter, so I simply enjoyed the niceness this evening, knowing it'll be gone tomorrow.

Tough to enjoy the niceness though, when it's torrentially raining. Oh well...can't complain about having the window and balcony door open though, that's for sure. :)

What else is new? Well...not all THAT much...Gina's b-day is coming up, so I'm preparing for that. The big 3-0...what a lucky gal. :)

As you know from Laz's blog, "24" is actually in midseason form already, which is nice. And I discovered two things at Best Buy today. #1 is that Simpsons Season Five is in stores. Gotta get that, of course. And #2 is that I'll be buying TurboTax so I can do mine and Gina's taxes the easy way. Being a journalist, I don't trust my math skills (although I've done my taxes every year of my life, including the two years I had to file two state forms with part-time resident status and a federal form, and let me tell you how much of a bitch that was! :) ). At any rate, with the mortgage deductions Gina will be getting, it'll be nice to have anyway.

Finally, I leave you with predictions.
Super Bowl winner: Pittsburgh.
Super Bowl loser: Vikings.
Steelers are a common pick, but yes, that's right, the Vi-queens. It's weird how uniting AGAINST a teammate can bring a team together enough, and really, who is the "consensus" favorite in the NFC anymore? No one.

Attack away... :)

Well, I've decided that yesterday's headache most likely was a stress-related thing. Given the amount of stress I've been under lately, it seems the logical explanation. So we'll call it that.

The only good thing about yesterday's headache was it sapped all the pain away from my other hurting parts of my body.

See, I forgot to blog about our grade school's annual alumni basketball game, which went down on Saturday. I played OK...better than I thought I would after not hitting the hardcourt since last year's game. And, cardio-vascularly, I held up too, much better than I thought I would, again.

But the moment I started to relax after the game, I felt the pain coming on. Sunday too, it was obvious that I had injured my big toe (all the way into the foot) on my right foot and had overworked my back, arms and legs. They were sore as hell. I limped around a bit on Sunday, but found that my gym shoes were nice and comfy, so that helped. Today, I put on my work shoes to walk the dog and came back limped something ferocious. So I limped around work all day. I believe I simply must have hyperextended it or something, because it's just sore, but it's not swollen or bruised and I have full range of motion.

Ah well...I'm probably gonna go to bed now though, because I'm quite tired, really. I guess dems da breaks. :)

I woke up this morning around 6am with a POUNDING headache. I quickly took THREE Advils and went to bed, hoping in a half hour or so, when I had to get up for work, it would be gone.

No luck. So I stayed home...I managed to fall back asleep and woke up around 10:30 or so, still pounding. Took more Advil and went and buried my head in the pillows. Fell asleep again...woke up around 1:00, when my boss called me (he's actually going to the doctor's to check on some weekend chest pains he had...) to make sure I was OK. I said, well, my head isn't pounding anymore, but I still feel really disoriented and there is some pain.

I got up and ate, and the pain has subsided a bit (until the last few minutes though), so I decided to tackle the rest of the feature story (for the Canadian bakery) that was due today when I got in to work. I just hammered through it (really not long), but I believe all that concentration has set me back a bit. My head is beginning to hurt again, so the minute I end this blog, I'm hitting the Advil again.

Hopefully, I'll be better by this evening, when we get two more hours of "24"!!!! Last night's two-hour premiere was solid...not a lot of idiocy, which is good, but I know is coming. :)

It is good to see that, although there are new women in "24," they remain in the mold of previous "24" women--stupid, nosy, oblivious to everything including their own safety, annoying or complete and total bitches to the point of completely idiocy.

Who is that actor that played Ronnie, the "new Jack"? I've seen him before...what's he from? Same thing with that moronic Debbie chick. Who is that?

Ah well...hopefully the world as we know it is not encased in ice tomorrow morning.