If Brad Carson is still confused as to why Tom Coburn won the election, he should read this Ted Rall cartoon over and over again until he finally gets it. Given all his deflections of late, he should be done in time for the 2010 elections.

So, yeah, I usually hesitate to post stuff like this, because people worry about me. It's nice, but I don't want people worrying unnecessarily.

This time, though, after that post and a similar message to the private work-related mailing list, I got more E-mail than usual, from some people I didn't expect, with some warnings about brain-fry that resonated significantly more than usual. That, combined with might have been becoming a twitch when working, was enough to convince me that even without going anywhere, it was time to not work for a few days. I kept up with news and most E-mail (not all of the data entry stuff, esp. since everyone else is gone this week too), but avoided the stuff that was making me, perhaps, twitch.

So what did I do this week?

• Slept. I got 1-2 more hours of sleep each night than I had in most nights for the past three months. That was nice.
• Exercised - three times this week, which is about as many times as I did through all of February.
• Got out - went to restaurants I should have been visiting more regularly, and not fast food either (well, once).
• Spent some money - GameCube games (I finally found Tetris! Yes, I'm old and square. Bite me), a few DVDs (The Incredibles was better on DVD because, unlike the stupid theater, I could hear all the dialog), some good food.
• Caught up on some TV I was too stressed to watch for the past several weeks, including three episodes of Lost, some Iron Chef America, a CSI episode from February I didn't even remember that I'd missed. Still haven't gotten to NUMB3RS or Law & Order: Trial by Jury, but I didn't feel like watching those this week, and so I didn't. Nyah. I'm just finishing up Trekkies 2, which was a hoot.

• Read things that aren't Web pages, such as Real World Digital Photography, 2nd Edition, which is very good, and Alton Brown's latest, I'm Just Here for More Food: Food X Mixing + Heat = Baking, which is disappointing.

  I should post a full review of the cookbook after I finish it, but I probably won't, so let me say here: it needed much stronger editing. In one place, AB says that since active dry yeast is 25% dead, you should only use 75% as much instant yeast if you substitute for it. Three pages earlier, he says to substitute instant yeast for active dry yeast one-for-one. A major theme of the book is that baking needs precision, and yet one recipe I remember has the precise direction of "knead the dough three times."

  The recipe for brownies is not only far more convoluted than the Good Eats recipe, it's imprecise and confusing. It tells you to dissolve cocoa powder in an amount of water listed only as "tk", which I think is editing shorthand for "to be provided." None of the weird steps are explained, though that's kind of beside the point since you don't know how much water to use and therefore can't really make the recipe. That one is so bad that AB has actually corrected the entire recipe on his Web site, along with listing lots of other corrections - not including the ones I listed above.

  Don't get me wrong - AB fans will still enjoy the book, but perhaps a later printing would be a better purchase. This one's just not up to snuff. I hope AB isn't overextended with the books, Good Eats, Iron Chef America, and the normal human things. I'd rather see one new Good Eats a month of exceptional quality than 26 mundane episodes per year and more books like this one that, sorry, needed to bake a little longer.

The movie's over so I'm headed to bed. I hope to ease back into everything tomorrow and Sunday, then take a day or two off mid-next week, then start taking weekends off again next weekend. This time, I intend to stick to it - it's just way, way too easy to work through "just one" weekend, and then another one a week or two later, and then another one if there's something to be done, and pretty soon you're twitching.