Who needs cable?

Thanks to Rob, I've been watching a bunch of old "Northern Exposure" episodes lately. The series ended by the time I was 13, so I associate it primarily with winter sick-days during high school when I would sit for hours in my parents' basement, wrapped up in a blanket watching re-run marathons on TNT. While I'm sure that the various cough medicines and pseudophendrine-ibuprophen cocktails I was on heightened the experience at the time, the show still holds together in its surreal atmosphere and existentialist themes. Yes, Chris's verbose philosphizing comes off as a bit more asinine now than it did 8 years ago, but Maggie's stunning beauty and the fact that Ruth-Anne is just as likely to "Potemkin" or hard-core porn in stock as she is the more typical sundries more than makes up for it. Anyway, after two years of living in a place that rarely sees the low side of 40 degree Fahrenheit, it's nice to watch a show about cold and that reminds me of Midwestern winters.

Anyway, today's song is Stack O'Lee Blues by Mississippi John Hurt. It's fantastic. And let me just say that I'm quite happy about tomorrow being Friday.