Instead of thinking of these as ships we need to consider them as large sea-going Petri dishes. ... Congress has made surprising progress in compromising to pass legislation. Most of us thought that was as likely as Amanda Knox signing up for a Roman Holiday vacation. ... It's Girl Scout Cookie time and I encountered the new Girl Scouts as I placed my order online. Next year, the scouts will be using drones to deliver boxes. By the way, I have believed for a long time that a box of Girl Scout cookies should contain the warning "Contains one serving". ... You know what they say about life, one door closes; another gets slammed on your fingers. ... I don't understand the fascination with red velvet. There's red velvet cupcakes, coffee. I hear for the Super Bowl this weekend, sports bars will be offering red velvet pizza and beer. There was a report this week that football was considering allowing medical marijuana. I don't know if it was serious but all I could think was "Great, something else to slow the game down." This weekend is Super Bowl 48. For Super Bowl 50, there are proposals to shorten the game to allow more time for ads.