I saw this anti-smoking commercial. A man and a woman in a car, the woman driving. Man lights up a cigarette. Woman immediately starts driving like a maniac, almost crashing a couple of times. "What are you doing!?!" asks the man. "You're endangering my life, I was just returning the favor," replies the woman. Now, I suppose they're trying to make a point. But if I were a smoker I'd just reply "well, ok" and keep smoking, because the woman is giving tacit permission for me to smoke if she can drive recklessly too...

Looks like I'll probably lose this week's Sandbox game, dropping my record to 1-3. Eh, that's the way it is. Offense is ok, defense is horrible -- a marked contrast with my two previous teams who had good defenses. So I'm trying to shore up my defense and with one trade a week that's going to take a while. After week 1 I dropped a quarterback for a defensive lineman. After week 2 I dropped the other quarterback for a defensive back. After week 3 I dropped one of the defensive backs and picked up Jerry Rice since I don't have a good receiving corps. This week I'll probably trade out one of the defensive backs for another one...

I saw _Mutant X_ today. It's a syndicated show where a team of mutants try to stop the evil machinations of the Genome Corporation. GC created about a thousand mutants scattered all over the country, giving a reason for super- villains every week. But now GC wants to rule the world or something like that, and only Mutant X can stop them. Victoria Pratt is on the show which I'm sure pleases Leicky to no end.

Unfortunately it didn't really grab me in any way. It was developed or licensed from Marvel Comics but the universe is brand new. Which makes it not very interesting for me. Because now we have to focus on the show itself and it's not that good. Too enamored with special effects and camera angles. The characters are uneven and the story is rather unoriginal. I'm probably being too critical but I'm grading it as a new show and as such it's not interesting enough for me to want to watch...

I dropped all the Tuesday night comedies from my list of shows to tape. _JAG_ and _The Gilmore Girls_ are both on Tuesday at 20:00 and since I don't want to use a third VCR that blocks me taping _Dharma and Greg_ and _Three Sisters_. That would leave only half an hour on two channels and that's not worth it for me to tape. I'm down to 24.5 hours regularly scheduled, including 10 hours because of _Live with Regis and Kelly_ and _The View_. And there are three shows that still haven't started...

So the US has started bombing selected targets in Afghanistan. The British also contributed, though I'm not sure how since I'm not really keeping track. As usual there's been anti-war demonstrations throughout the country and in other parts of the world. I'm sure there have been civilian casualties on their side, though we do have very good selective weapons. We fired 50 Tomahawk missiles which are GPS enabled. I remember when certain people complained about the excessive spending of the military. Tomahawk missiles are $1 million a piece. But think about it, we've spent hundreds of millions so far getting people there and starting a war. Contrast that with the billions lost in the World Trade Center attack, due to material losses as well as eroding consumer confidence.

A war is a serious thing. But necessary. The Taliban supports Osama bin Laden and if you can't get to him you have to go after them. People can hide, governments can't. And we're being remarkably restrained in our response. Basically it looks to me that the US strategy is to unbalance the Taliban and their troops, allowing the Northern Alliance to attack and perhaps overthrow the Taliban. Now, I don't know if the Northern Alliance is the previous government that the Taliban overthrew themselves five years ago, but since the Taliban itself is so young I don't mind overthrowing it.