Thetford travel trailer toilet. Thetford travel trailer toilet. Thetford travel trailer toilet.

That 100 degrees a few weeks ago is seeming pretty darn pleasant now!



Yes, 105 degrees at 8:30 P.M. That's a depiction of the moon next to the temperature -- it's dark out, and it's still 105 degrees!

It's so bad that the heat's even affecting the elevator in my building. It's on the second floor with the door continually opening and then slamming shut with a thud, which I can only assume is the elevator's attempt to fan itself to try to stay cool.

This past weekend, I drove up to San Jose for one day's worth of the annual 2-day California Extreme pinball and video game show. The idea is that they rent a space in downtown San Jose, people bring in pinball machines and video games from their collection, and the public pays admission to play the games, which are all set on "free" mode.

I didn't even do too much video game playing, because there was more than enough pinball to keep me busy, from the old-timey to the new-timey to my favorite pinball machine of all time to strange pinball machines from other countries.

For the first time, I "flipped" a pinball machine -- I went over 100,000 on a 1971 machine called Dimension with only 5 digits available on the scoreboard. It probably helped that it's an "add-a-ball" machine -- it awards multiple extra balls in lieu of free games -- and it was set to give away extra balls as if they were free candy. I ended up playing about 15 balls.

Hopefully next year, I'll be able to attend both days of the show. Maybe I'll even enter the pinball tournament -- I didn't feel confident enough to do so this year, because I was way out of practice. It's been almost eight years since I was playing pinball regularly (in a league in Pittsburgh).

Because I like to pretend there's some overlap between this blog and the page where I have my radio jingle collection listed, this is an announcement that there is now a new crop of audio available on that page for your listening pleasure. Look for the bright blue backgrounds as you scroll down.

Yesterday, someone took my newspaper, which I didn't realize until after I'd gotten another copy delivered (my paper was sitting next to the chair at the end of the walkway two doors down from my apartment).

Today, two copies of this notice were included with my paper. It made me think twice about picking it up, and I am the subscriber for whom the paper is intended...



The fact that my newspaper was still in front of my door this morning isn't a good test of the effectiveness of the notice. Yesterday morning, I was looking for the paper and not finding it at about 8:15, but this morning, since I had to go to work for four hours today, I picked up the paper at about 6:30.

Now John Hodgman is answering questions on his blog. I give up.