My doctor is a little chubby, and at a recent visit he was giving me advice about diet and exercise.  That's kind of like a dentist with bad teeth, or a chiropractor with a bad back.  I might've listened more if he started with a disclaimer, something like, "The following advice is medically sound, though admittedly hasn't been followed by yours truly." #health

Sprinkle Brigade is a group of "artists" in NYC who tackle the problem of people not cleaning up after their dogs by creating works of "art" out of sidewalk-dwelling dog poop.  I posted their sprinkles on poop piece a while ago, but their gallery includes quite a few other gems.  Website Inhabitat says the group "takes turds that they find on the street and upcycles (we use the term loosely here) them into little pieces of joy."  One dog's poop is another man's art.  (via Mental Floss) #entertainment

I received a Capcatcher as a groomsman's gift recently, and it's amazing.  It's simply a wall- or fridge-mounted bottle opener, but it has the distinction that many of my favorite products have:  It does one thing, and it does it well.  I was skeptical that a magnetically-mounted bottle opener would actually be able to open a bottle and catch the cap, but it works, and with very little effort.  I realize this sounds like a commercial, but I swear no one's paying me to write this. #products

Germany just finished paying off its debts from World War I: 

Oct. 3, the 20th anniversary of German unification, will also mark the completion of the final chapter of World War I with the end of reparations payments 92 years after the country's defeat.

The German government will pay the last installment of interest on foreign bonds it issued in 1924 and 1930 to raise cash to fulfill the enormous reparations demands the victorious Allies made after World War I.

It took a little while, but good for them. #travel

They're installing solar panels on the White House: 

Obama, who has promoted renewable energy, has come under pressure from environmentalists and the solar industry to install photovoltaic roof panels at the White House. President Jimmy Carter did so in 1979, but the panels were removed during the Reagan administration. President George W. Bush used solar energy to power a maintenance building on the grounds and heat the pool.

See?  Dubya wasn't all that bad. #science

Similar to my discovery of Brits on FlashForward, it turns out the TV show Fringe has two Australians with fake American accents:  Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv) and Walter Bishop (John Noble). #entertainment

I went to the Giants-Bears football game on Sunday night.  It was a fairly crappy game until about the fourth quarter.  Oh and it was cold and rainy, which didn't add to the non-excitement exhibited on the field.  But Wendy got free tickets from a friend, so it was hard to say no.  Here are the reasons why I'll say no in the future: 

1. The view.  I don't have particularly good eyesight, but even if I did, there are only a handful of seats (right around the 50-yard-line) in a typical stadium where it would make a difference.  Otherwise, I'm constantly craning my neck to see what's happening at the other end of the field, and when that fails, looking up at the giant screens.  You know where else I could sit around and look at a screen?  On my couch.
2. The refreshments.  I have problems spending more than $1 on a beer, but I realize people need to make money, and many different people are involved in the shipping and handling of my beer from the factory through the stadium to my mouth.  But honestly, $8 for a single crappy beer in a 10-ounce plastic cup?  And $6 for a pretzel?  The markup is something like 800%, which is one of those things you'd think rational economics would dispense with.  But I like beer and pretzels.
3. The people.  I only like about 10 people on this planet, and as unlikely as the odds are, not one of the 80,000 drunk Italians at the game were in my circle of 10.  It's weird how that works.  Also, I could do without that lone Bears fan with the loudest human voice I've ever heard sitting directly behind me.
4. The effort.  Drive an hour to the stadium.  Navigate a maze of parking options while being yelled at by angry parking attendants.  Walk 12 miles up to our seats.  Sit around in cold rain, waiting for commercial time-outs.  Watch a three-and-out football game for three hours.  Walk 12 miles back to the car.  Sit in angry, drunk stadium traffic while being yelled at by angry parking attendants.  Make it home after midnight, making a 60-minute football game a 6-hour ordeal.

We just got an HDTV last week.  There's almost no reason to ever leave the house again. #sports

I'm an engineer, so my brain floods with happy chemicals when I'm able to identify a problem, figure out what's wrong, and solve it.  For example, when my DVD player stopped working, it was fun to dig around in the pile of wires behind the TV and find out that my rabbit chewed the hell out of everything including the power cable for the DVD player, which was surprisingly easily fixed with electrical tape.  But sometimes I'm ok when that middle step gets skipped, and when the problem just magically goes away.  For example, my car's check engine light was on, so I took it to AutoZone to get a free error code reading (that's seriously a great deal), and the sales guy interpreted the various codes for me with some complicated automotive verbiage.  He said I'd need to go to a special place to get it fixed, and it would cost lots of money just for them to figure out what the problem was.  Being a cheap bastard, I looked up the error codes online, and one of the solutions was to remove and replace the gas cap.  I tried it, and it worked, and I haven't seen the check engine light since.  But just because I solved the problem, it doesn't mean I actually fixed what was wrong. #technology

My chiropractor owns two very nice German sports cars.  And that's fine; people who earn a living are fully entitled to spend it however they want.  But after I walked out of his office recently, many dollars poorer, I couldn't help but think that his income is directly related to the price he decides to charge people.  I realize that a certain portion of that price is paid for by insurance, but even then, the money he gets is the money he collects from his patients.  And it would be one thing if he had a nice office (he doesn't) or a nice house (I don't know), but instead he has nice cars, which he parks right next to the front door, seemingly as a reminder to all his patients that their medical expenses are paying not only for a mode of transportation, but for a specific declaration of wealth disguised as a mode of transportation.  I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you own your own business and you set your own prices, it's pretty crappy to flaunt your wealth in front of the people who are providing for you.  But when you crack my neck in just the right way to make all my problems disappear, I'll look past your faults. #travel

I just completed the purchase of a new HD TV (since you can no longer buy a non-HD TV, I'll henceforth refer to it simply as a TV).  Unlike most of my other big purchases, I couldn't do a product comparison matrix where I list and rank different features and choose the one with the highest rating.  TVs can have the best features in the world, but it all comes down to how good the picture looks.  And the only way to compare how different TVs look is to go to a store and stare with an open mouth at the wall covered in giant TVs, which happens to be one of the most enjoyable shopping experiences imaginable.  TV manufacturers know that consumers like to compare numbers, so they advertise things like screen size and resolution and refresh rate, with the assumption that better numbers equate to a better product.  But in reality, in my experience anyway, two TVs with the exact same features and numbers typically have completely different picture quality.  And I couldn't really rely on online product reviews, because different people see things differently.  So my experience consisted of going to several different stores, watching the sports highlights and animal videos, and choosing the TV that looked the nicest.  By about the third store with the same outcome, my mind was set. #entertainment