Daily brain poke

Maybe you wake up refreshed, alert and ready to meet the world head on, but I don't. I've never been a morning person, and it just seems to get worse as I get older. Having sleep apnea doesn't help, but that's another post entirely.

I like to get up, have coffee and cereal, check my messages, etc. I'm not a newspaper reader. It seems to me that newspapers are either too depressing with their unrelenting coverage of death and mayhem, and so full of ads that I don't find much news in them. I understand and sympathize with the issues they face, of attracting readers and selling ads to make ends meet, but I just can't deal with them in general. I look around on the web, usually from Yahoo! Since I use Yahoo! for my email, I use their start page as my home page. I can scan the titles in the news and avoid reading about things that distress me. Since their feeds come from reputable news services, I don't feel that I'm getting a slanted or partisan view. If there are stories that interest me, I can do more research right away. (I use the Firefox browser. It has a very handy feature that allows you to highlight any word/phrase, right-click on it and look up more info on a separate tab. You don't navigate away from the page you are reading, and the more info you are looking for is waiting for you as your convenience.)

I like to read the daily Comics. Not all of them; I'm a fan of the one-cell version. One visual, one punch line, to the point. I also like 9 Chickweed Lane; by Brooke McEldowney. It has several plot lines and characters, it is succinct, it is about love but not mushy. If you've not read it, I can highly recommend it.

Every morning, I go to the All Star Puzzles. I really like Acrostic puzzles, and this is one of the few online sites I've found that have interactive ones. They post 2 or 3 a week. They also post a new Picture Puzzle everyday. This is sort of like a jigsay puzzle in that it is a scrambled pic. You swap pieces, individually or in groups, to rearrange it correctly. I enjoy this little bit of challenge in the morning. Let's me know my brain is still functioning.