February 1, 2003: More mundane stuff: we saw CHICAGO yesterday and really enjoyed it. The director should certainly be up for an Oscar, and I'd say the same for Catherine Zeta-Jones. I've never been too impressed with her acting before, but she was great in this, and her songs and dances were zowie. Rene Zellwegger and Richard Gere were also good, and Queen Latifah was terrific in her big number. Probably the most entertaining movie I've seen in a long time.

February 1, 2003: The space shuttle blow-up is the big news today, of course. What a thing to happen, and probably for no good reason. The space program that could put a man on the moon 34 years ago now can't even fly safely. Which proves something or other. Of course there will be all kinds of out-cry about the disaster, and people won't look back to the first days of flight, when no doubt many people were killed. There's risk involved, and we have to realize that. I hope research doesn't stall again because of this.

January 29, 2003: OK, so I watched the State of the Union Address. Sheer torture. Nothing but the same half-baked half-truths surrounded by sound bites and empty rhetoric. The Smirking Chimp strikes again. With a leader like him, who needs enemies? We're doomed.

January 27, 2003: Best Super Bowl commercial: Ozzy's kids morph into the Osmonds. Best Super Bowl vocal performance: The Dixie Chicks. As for the football game: You mean there was a football game?

This is my daughter Angela's 34th birthday. I remember vividly the day she was born, the day we took her home from the hospital, and many of the other details. It's hard for me to believe that 34 years have passed and that instead of being a 27-year old happy-go-lucky guy, I'm a 61-year-old fart. Wow. I don't even want to think about it.