So I'm on a 90-minute "town meeting" conference call, right now at about the 30 minute mark. As you might guess, the first 1/3 of the meeting has been less than thrilling. So I figured I'd take the opportunity to update you on a couple things, since I'm sure you can't sleep at night without wondering about my health and prosperity:

• The left foot is largely healed. It aches a bit if I try to run on it, so I don't do that, but it doesn't give me any trouble when I'm biking. I have to be careful when I lift weights, but hopefully it's healing it up stronger than before. Thanks for all your prayers. Unless you haven't been praying. In which case you obviously don't care about me. I hate you.
• Speaking of bike riding, I've been really getting into it. I need to find more places to ride, though, that don't involve 50mph traffic. I've done all the exploring in my neighborhood that I can, so now I have to venture out on the major roads near us. Yesterday I was cruising down the shoulder of route 40 at about 15mph, while traffic flew by at about 50mph. Not the best of times.

  I think in future I'm going to start taking the bike to work so I can go out in Newark, where there are more bike-friendly paths and roads, not to mention White Clay Creek State Park. I'm looking forward to flying madly down a hill in that place and erasing portions of my motor control via heavy foliage impact. Let the fun begin!

• I have to stop listening to my friends' movie recommendations, particularly when they say "Dude, you have to see this, the movie is so YOU." You may remember a few months ago when I watched "The Big Lebowski" and was greatly disappointed with it, considering the number of people who had told me I would love it. I had the same problem with "Anchorman," which I watched with HW on Saturday night.

  You know a movie is lame when, about an hour in, I actually pick up an old newspaper sitting near me and scan it absentmindedly. "Anchorman" started out relatively fun, and it definitely had a few good lines ("Hi, I'm Matt Hearn. Drink it up . . . it always goes down smooth." is now my standard greeting), but it was so over-the-top that it came full circle and started taking itself too seriously, if you can follow me. It was truly disturbing to see. Perhaps that was the point, to show how television news shows are so over-the-top with drama, but it made it pretty painful to watch. I think I'm just getting too old. Now I enjoy films with much more subtle humor, like "Napoleon Dynamite" and anything where somebody gets kicked in the nuts.

  I also like nudity.