It turns out last night I forgot to click the button that turns on my alarm clock's alarm. I'd undoubtedly have slept through the time, and maybe the whole morning, except that about an hour before the set time, there was a thunderstorm -- odd, for early in the morning -- loud enough to wake me up -- odd, since I'm a really good sleeper -- long enough for me to turn over, see the dial, notice I hadn't set it, and hit the button so the alarm would sound. That done, the thunderstorm apparently subsided, since I went back to sleep, until the alarm. I'm going to have to think about that one a while.
I can't be the only person shocked beyond words at the unthinkable fundamental change of what something is. WCBS-FM, New York City, the only FM station I ever really understood, has changed its 30-year format of oldies radio to ... well ... I don't know. The articles I find about it just say they changed over to ``Jack,'' as in, ``Jacking the station format,'' which apparently means something to the Internet-based radio obsessives who write articles, and to no one else. If someone could translate this into English I would appreciate it. What I do understand is they fired Cousin Brucie. It's like like trying to have the Rockin' New Years' Eve without Dick Clark or something outrageous like that. Cousin Brucie says he'll be back on the air soon. I don't know what my mother's going to listen to in the car until he gets back.
Trivia: The Orion Nebula was first observed in 1610 by French lawyer Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc, using a telescope given him by Galileo Galilei. Source: ``Orion: Where Stars are Born,'' James Reston Jr, National Geographic, December 1995.
Currently Reading: My Ten Years In A Quandary And How They Grew, Robert Benchley. Features the famous essay ``Movie Boners,'' about the continuity glitches that crept even in the 30s, into movies, eg, ``In Doctor Tanner Can't Eat there is a scene laid in Budapest. There is no such place as Budapest.'' This got him an angry letter, and he had to explain the lack of Budapest.