Wednesday Macédoine

Temperature when I got up this morning, just after sunrise: zero Fahrenheit. By midday, the air had warmed into the mid-20s F. Remarkable how pleasant that seemed by comparison.

The neighbors who put up an electric-light simplified Serbian flag last year for Christmas didn't do it again this year. For whatever reason, this year they were later in stringing lights -- last weekend -- and instead of a glowing Serbian flag, put up a string of blue icicle lights near their roof, plus blue lights in the shape of stylized Christmas trees closer to the ground. A nice effect.

We received another odd business-advertising 2011 calendar in the mail yesterday. A calendar after my own heart: this one includes more presidential birthdays than the standard Lincoln and Washington. But not all of the presidents. Chronologically through the year, these chief executives made the cut: Franklin Roosevelt; McKinley; Lincoln; Washington; Jackson; Madison; Jefferson; Grant; Kennedy; John Quincy Adams; Hoover; Benjamin Harrison; Eisenhower; Teddy Roosevelt; and Wilson.

Fifteen out of 43 (Cleveland counts only once for this purpose). I guess the calendar-maker didn't want to clutter it up with all the birthdays, but still -- Benjamin Harrison but not Cleveland? John Quincy Adams but not John Adams or James Monroe? Hoover but not Truman? And what about poor President Fillmore? He would have been first on the calendar (January 7) had he been included.

Our annual Think Geek catalog came recently as well. High amusement value, as always. This year I noticed an entire page devoted to The Big Bang Theory merchandise. The TV show, not the cosmological event. Maybe the page was there last year, but I hadn't seen the show then, so wouldn't have paid attention to its merchandise. Lately we've been working our way through TBBT DVDs, because the show has that certain something that most sitcoms lack. Namely, it's funny. Hard to believe that the same producers are responsible for the not funny Two and a Half Men, but the strength of TBBT seems to lie in its talented writers and cast, especially Jim Parsons, who's probably stuck with Sheldon Cooper for the rest of his career. These are examples from the first, second and third seasons.

I'd order a Periodic Table shower curtain if it weren't $30. It would have to sing Tom Lehrer's "The Elements," and maybe some other songs about elements, to be worth that much. That isn't far-fetched: you can buy a "personal soundtrack" t-shirt from the Think Geek catalog.