It's the blog equivalent of a clip show - the enumeration of random thoughts.

MedWatch Update Saw the doctor yesterday, and the rash on my legs is apparently "contact dermatitis," a moderately fancy way of saying a persistent rash caused by something that irritates the skin. From what I've read about it it can last 2 to 3 weeks if untreated, which would suck.

My doctor gave me a "dose pack" of medication that should clear it up. It's a six day course of medication, which started with six pills yesterday, five today, and so on. I was thinking I'd had some improvement, but I just had an itchy spell that makes me less excited.

As for the bumpy things on my hands, they are apparently viral in nature, and probably got some freedom to be fruitful and multiply when my body was paying more attention to the rash. They should go away, too. I used to get them from time to time in high school, but only one or two bumps at a time. It is apparently something related to (and I'm not making this up) hand-foot-mouth disease, something which usually affects children. My mouth and feet are clear, though. Good thing, as I' d be embarrased to have something that one of my nieces or nephews could have as well.

Hail the alma mater! The mighty Hornets of Manchester Jr-Sr High School (or is it Manchester-Essex Regional High School? I've seen both) are primed for their first EMass football title game since 1999, as they will take on Marian High School, the Catholic Central (Small) conference champs. Manchester bested the top defense in the division by beating Madison Park HS (Boston North champs) on Tuesday.

A quick word on how we do football in eastern Massachusetts: schools are in one of seven divisions, based on enrollment, with one as the biggest and seven the smallest (I'm still not sure how we're not in Division 7, given that we're one of the smallest high schools in the region, but it could be from added students from regionalization). Each division now has four conferences (with some schools moving to accomodate this), and each conference champ goes to the playoffs (Division 7 is the lone exception, where there are two conferences and three independents; I have no idea how the independents affect things). This sets up a game structure where most teams played on Thanksgiving, then on this past Tuesday, and will play in the finals (or "Super Bowl," as we're wont to call them) this weekend.

[Note that central and western Mass. use a different, three division system, which results in us not having a true state title game. So when I say "state title," it's actually "eastern Massachusetts title," but for all intents and purposes it's a state title.]

It's actually not a bad system, when you consider that the transitional system resulted in divisions having 2 or 3 titlists. That was the case when Manchester won its last title, a 12-6 win over O'Bryant (now in Divison 7's Boston South conference). Before that, there was a BCS-like ranking where teams got points for wins, added points for wins over teams in higher divisions (or subtracted points for wins over lower division teams), and then added points for each win by a team you beat. It was pretty complicated, but not that bad a system. Except that only the top two teams in each division got to play for the title.

That was the thing that kept us out of contention for the first three of my four years on the team, as we would win the conference but suffer one loss along the way (twice to non-conference, upper division teams). My brother got to taste the thrill of victory twice, being on the 1981 team that pasted Dorchester 49-6, and the 1982 team the beat our rivals from Nantucket 28-6.

Anyway, think happy thoughts about the boys on Saturday. Once again, I'll be out of state and won't be able to make the game. Fellow Gerbil Shawn DeVeau is in the same boat, as his Chelmsford Lions battle Acton-Boxboro, hoping to avenge a loss to the Colonials earlier in the season.

Bring our your dead My second attempt at entering a dead pool is nigh, with the season starting this weekend. My ten-person entry only saw two successful conversions, Dudley Moore and Milton Berle. My selections for the choir invisible this year are politics-heavy, based on seeing how many Cold War-era folks are still kicking around. Some of the perennial favorites are back (Hope and Pope), as are some of my upset specials (Shelley Winters, Harry Morgan, and Barbara Billingsley).

Part of me feels bad that I've passed a putative death sentence on June Cleaver for a second time, but I keep reminding myself that I don't have that sort of power over people. Yet.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow We're getting more snow today, after getting 3-5 inches before Thanksgiving. I think we've gotten more snow in the last week or so than we did in any single month last winter. Nice to see things righting themselves, I suppose, but I still think we've screwed the planet up somehow.

We're still in better shape than all those folks down south who still can't seen to figure out what to do when the white stuff falls. Two words: rock salt.

People hate us The results of a world-wide poll indicate that folks outside the US like our stuff, but not us. Which I suppose raises the question of who really is at fault with regards to cultural imperialism. I'm OK if people don't like the US (well, maybe not OK, but I can understand it), but don't call us the Great Satan and then go watch Corky Romano while drinking a Coke and eating Doritos.

They did it eBay! First you have the guy who bid $99.9 million for Eminem's old house and backed out, then you add in the California man who was recently arrested for allegedly scamming bidders for roughly a half million dollars by running fake auctions for computer hardware. Whatever happened to guys selling stereo equipment out of vans?