1. Marcia and I had to fly out to the Midwest this weekend, and booked a round-trip on Delta Airlines that appeared, online and on paper, to construe a reasonably easy trip. Woe unto us, however, that’s not how things played out, as one flight was cancelled and one flight was delayed due to mechanical difficulties, one flight was cancelled due to weather in a distant market precluding the equipment from arriving, and an easy hop through Detroit was re-routed through Atlanta, more than doubling the amount of time we had to spend up above 30,000 feet. All told, we ended up spending two nights in places that were not on our original agenda. No good. No fun. While I appreciate the fact that Delta flies Canadair Regional Jets (my favorite commercial aircraft), I’m not sure I can ever book a flight with them again after this weekend.

2. Speaking of movies, I’m not a fan of paid product placement in films, nor do I care to see great songs marred by association with crappy commercials that use them in a needlessly exploitative fashion. That being said, I am glad to note that our nation’s hipoisie seem to have discovered The Free Design in recent years when they program their soundtracks and advertisements, and anything that gets this awesome family band’s music a wider audience is okay by me. I have particularly adored their song “Love You” since I was a child. I think you need to adore it, too, since it sounds like nothing before or since. Listen here:

3. And speaking of awesome, Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity is within a day or so of peering down into the massive Endeavour Crater for the first time, amazingly surviving a trek that was largely unimaginable when the doughty little robot landed in the Meridiani Planum seven and a half years ago, with a planned 90-day life expectancy. The Road to Endeavour website has been providing regular reports on Opportunity’s progress since December 2008, and the excitement there is palpable as Opportunity closes in on landfall at Botany Bay and Cape York. Incredible stuff, truly, and it will be touching moment indeed when Opportunity rolls up to Spirit Point, named after her late lamented sister rover, star of the saddest cartoon ever.