Mishmash Musings

A U.S. Airways jet that took off from LaGuardia Airport this afternoon made an emergency landing in the Hudson River just minutes later. Initial reports indicate that birds may have been to blame for the incident. Thus far, no deaths or serious injuries have been reported, and all passengers and crew members have been rescued from the sinking Airbus 320.

Ugh, plane crashes are my worst nightmare, and I can’t even imagine how scary the ordeal must have been for those on board. Yes, the pilot seemed to be in control the entire time, but still, it’s got to be pretty terrifying having to make an emergency landing in the water.

I’ve got to hand it to the U.S. Airways crew for taking care of business and making sure that there wasn’t widespread panic on the aircraft as this happened.

Thank goodness everyone survived!

Even though the Bears didn’t make it to the playoffs this year, I’m still interested in the games. I don’t much care who wins, though, as long as fans get treated to some exciting action.

This weekend, I’m going over to a friend’s house on Sunday to watch the NFC Championship game between the Arizona Cardinals and Philadelphia Eagles. I think I’ll be rooting for the Cardinals because I like Kurt Warner and Larry Fitzgerald a lot. Plus, Brian Westbrook screwed my fantasy team more times than I care to remember this season!

It should be fun either way. There will be plenty of beer and food, and we’ll be catching the action on a 50-something inch screen hooked up to a cool plasma tv mount on the wall. Can you think of a better way to spend a cold and dreary Sunday afternoon in January? I sure can’t!

Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced that he will be on medical leave until at least June. As most people know, he underwent surgery in 2004 to eliminate complications from pancreatic cancer. Since then, he has seemed to be in relatively good health — until the past year or so when people have been commenting on his weight loss and gaunt appearance.

Jobs initially attributed the weight loss to a very treatable hormonal deficiency, but now says his current health situation is a bit more complicated than he thought.

Chief operating officer Tim Cook will take over the company until Jobs returns.

I need a vacation. Like right now. Unfortunately, I’ve got about a hundred things going on, including a very important job interview scheduled within the next two weeks for a position that I would LOVE to get. So as things stand, I need to put up with the stress, strain, and winter blahs for at least two more weeks before I can even think of taking time off.

But if the job interview is successful, I just might treat myself (and my family) to at least a 3- or 4-day weekend at a beach resort. I need a lazy holiday where I can just take a breather, get my bearings, and recover from the constant activity of the past few months. It feels like things have been nonstop since Thanksgiving, and I really need a break!

We’ve never been to the Bahamas, but this would be the perfect time to go. Let’s hope I can arrange something soon!

The always controversial Ann Coulter appeared on The View today, and though I didn’t see it as it aired, she apparently caused another ruckus with the cohosts.

Coulter has written a new book called Guilty, in which she talks about various social problems in the country. The ladies of The View (I’ve never, ever seen the show, so the only two hosts I recognized were Barbara Walters and Whoopi Goldberg) immediately jumped on her about her views regarding single mothers and a couple other things.

I watched a YouTube clip of the appearance, and was quickly reminded why I don’t watch these kinds of shows. I couldn’t hear a damn thing above the screaming and yelling! I don’t know about you, but I find these scenes to be positively cringe-worthy and wholly unproductive. What’s the point of having Coulter on as a guest if you don’t LET HER TALK?

Good Lord. I’m not saying that Coulter was right and that Whoopi was wrong, I’m saying that I really couldn’t make a judgment because no one would let anyone else finish talking. How can a show with five panelists and one guest work? All that cross-talk and yelling to be heard above everyone else gave me a friggin’ headache–and that was after just 8 minutes. Who can watch an entire hour of this crap???

Former president George H.W. Bush was honored earlier today by having an aircraft carrier named after him. His son, current president George W. Bush, spoke at the commissioning ceremony in Norfollk, VA, saying that this was the perfect gift for someone who has been “blessed and has just about everything he ever needed.”

Belonging to the Nimitz class of nuclear powered aircraft carriers, the USS George H.W. Bush is 1,092 feet long and weighs some 95,000 tons, with a 4.5-acre landing field and 20-story tower. It will carry around 6,000 sailors.

George HW Bush is the second living ex-president to have an aircraft carrier named after him. I think this is a fitting honor for a man with a long history of public service, including a tour of duty in WWII that resulted in the Distinguished Flying Cross and three Air Medals. Good call, Navy!

(AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)

I finally tried out an iPhone today. I know I’m way late to the party, but none of my friends (and I do have quite a few) have one, and I haven’t been shopping for cell phones in a while, so there was really no chance or reason for me to take a closer look at one. But my cousin decided to buy an iPhone a couple weeks ago, and I played around with it at dinner today.

I’m usually not that crazy about touchscreens, but I have to admit that the iPhone’s is pretty good. It’s sensitive enough to recognize taps, yet not so sensitive that I end up activating a lot of buttons that I didn’t need to push.

My favorite part of the iPhone has to be the GPS application. It is extremely accurate and very easy to use. My cousin had a las vegas strip map loaded on the iPhone for her trip to Sin City last week, and said that it worked very well. She didn’t have to buy a guidebook or anything, so she didn’t look like a total tourist while walking around.

My current phone contract is up in March. I hadn’t ever planned on getting an iPhone before, but I think now I’m actually considering it!

I haven’t done the “five things” meme in ages, so I decided to bring it out for today’s post. If you’ll recall, I don’t officially participate in the meme, which is why I don’t link back to the originating site or anything like that. But since I like to make lists, I still want to do this meme on my own.

Anyway, the subject this time is five 1980′s television shows that I used to watch. That was my formative decade, as I was six years old when it began, and 16 when it ended. I remember watching a lot of cop shows and lawyer shows back then — and I still favor those two genres to this day. Imagine that!

1. L.A. Law
2. Cagney & Lacey
3. Murphy Brown
4. Moonlighting
5. The Golden Girls