"The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable." - John Kenneth Galbraith

116 today.

I got a box today from St. Jude's Medical, the company that made my pacemaker. It's a weird plastic contraption slightly bigger than a clock radio and oddly shaped. Plug it into an outlet and a phone jack and set it on your nightstand. Then during the night it receives data from the pacemaker and sends it over the phone lines to the dr's office. It has a range of about six feet.

Problem: we don't have a land line, hence no functioning phone jack. But I told the doctor's tech when he saw me in the hospital and he said it was no big deal; I just have to go in every six months so they can download the data that's stored on the pacemaker.

But I'm not sure I like that technology anyway. If The Man is out to get me, can he send as well as receive through that phone jack? How do I know he's not going to send a signal in the middle of the night to turn the thing off, or worse, give me a gazillion volt shock that will turn my ticker into into an exploding bomb?

OK, I know this is more than a little icky, but we have two cases here in Phoenix that illustrate the mess that same sex marriage opens up, IMHO.

In the first, this guy is trying to divorce his wife, but the judge isn't so sure they're even married. That's because he (?) is a transexual. When she lived in Hawaii he/she got married, then finished the process of becoming a he, but not before bearing a child. That's right; the husband had their baby. (I don't know the answer to the question I know you're asking.) Now they live here in Phoenix and he wants to divorce his wife, but the judge isn't sure the marriage was ever valid in the first place. So the proper legal course might just be to send them on their way, no divorce required. What difference does it make? A: spousal support.

The other case is just the latest in a series. They arrested a guy over the weekend for attempted bestiality. He made a deal via Craig's List with undercover cops to meet at a hotel room, they bring the dog. Just last week here a couple was sentenced for the same thing, but this time it was the woman who.... (Yeah, sometimes this is a pretty scary place.)

I'm NOT suggesting anyone's looking to marry a German Shepherd and live happily ever after, but where's the line? Once we say one unnatural behavior is OK how do we then outlaw other unnatural behaviors? (unless, as is the case with pedophilia, there's a victim.)

It really annoys me, REALLY annoys me that I have to use one of those Rx boxes with an AM and PM compartment for each day of the week in order to keep track of all the pills I now have to take.
It is so Sun City.