The New York Times reports on something I already knew: people in Wisconsin like to drink. A lot. In most parts of the state, including my hometown of Green Bay, a bar is never more than a ten-minute drive away. On the campus of my smallish liberal arts college, binge drinking usually commenced on Thursday evenings and lasted until well after the last play of the Sunday Packers game. But I wasn’t familiar with the practice of kids accompanying parents to the local tavern. I don’t think I even set foot in a drinking establishment until I was 21. Neither of my parents are native ‘Sconnies and that probably explains their ignorance of local custom.

In the UK, a group of male strippers known as the Crippendales (agh, you Brits and your weird fondness for puns) are sending this postcard to members of parliament, urging them to ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The postcard shows two naked guys posing with a strategically placed equal sign; the caption reads “The Crippendales have NO reservations … neither should the government when it comes to disabled people’s human rights”.

It’s an interesting tactic; one I’m happy to leave to others. I learned long ago that the sight of my naked body utterly lacks any persuasive value.

Another reason to keep my HBO subscription: the network is ordering a pilot based on “Game of Thrones”, the first book in George R.R. Martin’s epic “A Song of Ice & Fire” fantasy series. I’ve discussed my enthusiasm for these books in previous entries and I’m anxiously awaiting the fifth installment. While many familiar tropes of the fantasy genre can be found in the books (swords, feudal societies, dragons), their tone is quite dark. Combine that with healthy doses of explicit sex and the material seems like a perfect fit for HBO’s sensibilities. The books’ cast of thousands might have to be pared down to accommodate the realities of a television series budget, but Peter Jackson has already demonstrated that it’s possible to adapt a literary work without slavish adherence to the text.

Just one request: please don’t film it in British Columbia. It seems like every genre series uses BC for exterior shots and it’s getting old. When I imagine the land of Westeros, I don’t get a Pacific Northwest kind of vibe.

Living with a disability sometimes requires a little homespun ingenuity. For example, I use a foam pillow to support the back of my neck, which gives me the balance I need to use my computer. Over the years, the pillow developed a groove where my neck rests, gradually reducing the amount of support. I finally got fed up with the situation today and my nurse came up with a solution involving a couple foam sponges placed over said groove. The act of typing feels much easier now, which tells me this jury-rigged is working. But I’m not sure the judicious application is going to save my bookstand, which is beginning to crumble. That thing is almost twenty years old and has an imminent appointment with a dumpster, as soon as I can find a replacement.

My equipment is getting old, just like me.

An article at Slate looks at the data showing that atheists are less happy than religious people and theorizes that we unbelievers are not unhappy because we don’t believe in God, but because we feel excluded from the larger community. In a highly religious nation, those without faith find themselves on the outside, looking in.

The validity of that argument probably depends on the context of the individual atheist. An atheist living in a rural Texas town is probably going to feel more isolated than an atheist living in a major city like Chicago or Boston. But the inherent appeal of a communitarian faith life is strong. Nobody likes to feel alone and American churches–especially the big ones–excel at welcoming strangers into a large community that doesn’t ask many questions about where they’re from, what they do for a living, and so on. The only thing required for membership is belief.

Human happiness is a fluid thing and I’m always a little suspicious of efforts to measure it. So much of life is spent somewhere in between the polar extremes of bliss and misery. And there’s a fine line between unhappiness and melancholy. For me, this life is the only chance I’ll get and the implications can seem overwhelming. I have only one life to fill with experiences and there simply isn’t time for everything. That awareness leads to sadness only if it’s accompanied by passivity.