Fraggin' stupid intended side-effects!

We ran out of Children's Sudafed this evening and every store I stopped by to pick some up had either stopped carrying it or had locked it up and nobody on the floor had the key. Washington state has implemented a law making Sudafed a "behind the counter only" medicine, and I have to sign a form whenever I want to buy some. Y'know, I'd rather the people of my state be free to fry their own brains in whatever imaginative way they want than to have to sign a form that nobody will ever see just so my kid doesn't go to bed with a runny nose. Grr...

Any bets Sudafed and Tylenol stop making the children's stuff because it's just too damned hard to sell? And any bets what's left gets more expensive as stores tack on the significantly higher handling fees because it's no longer part of the distribution routine at their end of the supply chain?

Why television sucks, part XCVIII

I awoke this morning before everyone else and, having little else to do, snuck down to the TV room and did something I haven't done in months: I channelsurfed. And while engaging in this mindless activity I came across an ancient relic of a happier time as Turner Broadcasting was showing Smokey and the Bear. I had forgotten than once upon a time Burt Reynolds was hot and Sally Field were cute, that Jackie Gleason was talented beyond his years, and that "cool" car stunts with stock engines and no digital enhancements usually consisted of jumps of maybe four or five car lengths. It's not a brainy movie, just one long car chase but well-done and it's obvious that Reynolds, Fields, and Jerry Reed are having a whole lot of fun moving from one scene to the next.

I had to turn it off. The advertisements that interspersed the action were for diabetes medicines, heart medicines, liver medicines, "I've fallen and I can't get up" services and, most disturbing of all, erectile dysfunction treatments. And I'm sitting there thinking, is this my demographic? Is this the population I will have joined when I turn 40 next year? This movie is clearly aimed at me: I was thirteen when it came out and it's all about cars with a little mushy love story somewhere in the middle. I don't want to be one of those people to whom they're selling those drugs, though.