Raymond Johnson @ downclimb.com

MSNBC.com is running a story about Super Bowl commercials. Included are clips of noteworthy past commercials, including the famous "Macintosh" ad that Apple ran in 1984. Is it just me, or is that commercial still one of the coolest commercials you've ever seen? They could play it this Sunday and I'd still want to buy a Mac. I'm not saying I would, but I'd want to...

The Denver Post has a great update about the Baca Ranch purhcase and how it will allow for the creation of a Great Sand Dunes National Park. If you can't tell, I'm really excited about this. It's a good thing.

Here's some really great news - Colorado's Great Sand Dunes National Monument has moved a big step closer to expading and becoming a national park. The Denver Post reports that the Nature Conservancy, with some help from Yale University, has agreed to buy the 97,000-acre ranch adjacent to the dunes. I visited the Great Sand Dunes last summer and I'm very glad to see the plans to go from monument to park take action. I get a lot of mail asking me to donate money to various environmental and wilderness causes, but knowing this is the kind of thing the Nature Conservancy does will probably help me with any future money-giving decisions. Until then, I'm just a poor college student who had fun one day playing in the sand. :)

I just read at ESPN.com that one of my all-time favorite football players, Dick "Night Train" Lane, has died. I only knew of him from little bits of film, but he's the kind of player you don't forget, especially if he was allowed to tackle you. His trademark clothesline tackle (the "Night Train Necktie") was so violent that it was outlawed by the league. Not many people have earned that kind of distinction.

Maybe there is justice in this world - the Internet Movie Database is again showing "The Godfather" ranked as the #1 user-rated movie of all time, ahead of "Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring". LOTR was good, but not that good. Check out all of the top 250 movies .

While I was watching a bit of the football game on Sunday and I wondered if Pat Summerall is somehow jealous or bitter towards John Madden because of Madden's relative success in hardware store advertisements. If you don't remember, Summerall advertised for True Value and Madden for Ace Hardware, but it's been a long time since I've seen a True Value ad or commercial. Ace features Madden on their website but True Value makes no mention of Summerall. In fact, there are only a few pages on the web that mention the Summerall-True Value connection. ( Here's a little proof of existence if you need it .) I'm sure Summerall can conceed to Madden's success in the video game arena , but as hardware guys they should have been equal. In fact, if you were involved in a building project of your own, who would you rather have running around with sharp tools? Give me Summerall anyday - Madden would be a couple lost fingers waiting to happen. So why is this now s

Another "must see to believe" story . James Earl Jones? James Earl Ray? I can tell the difference - can you?

While we're on the conspiracy theory theme, check out "Who Killed Clinton's Dog? What did Buddy know, and when did he know it?" by Mickey Kaus. I only gave it a quick read, but it looked like good stuff. Maybe even Al Franken quality. (Or maybe not...that's a pretty high honor in my book.)

If you're into asking "What if?" types of questions, President Bush's choking incident yesterday should give you a lot to think about. Okay, let's jump straight to the worst-case scenario: What if Bush had died? Given the state of the world, I'd like to see what the conspiracy theorists would have come up with. This could have made the JFK assassination theories look like a back-page obituary. We probably would have heard ideas about the "Al Qaeda Pretzel" and "The deadly pretzel sent from Allah", along with ideas of poisoning, bioterrorism, secret death-rays, The Force, the One Ring, yada yada yada... With this in mind, let's just all be thankful that our president is okay. If you want to worry about something, worry about the state of American journalism. (Fox News anyone? The game show of news outlets...)

I just made a little update to downclimb.com . I've been working on stuff and hopefully I'll have a working site in place soon.

Because I'm currently on winter break I've had more time to watch TV. I mostly watch reruns of old shows, usually M*A*S*H, Law & Order, Roseanne, and The Cosby Show. While the shows are great, I'm getting tired of the commercials. I'm sick and tired of advertisements for stuff that makes your teeth whiter or for electrical pads you stick to your body for purposes of massage or "exercise". At least before Christmas we had some classics, like the Clapper and Chia Pet. I don't know if this is directly related, but I was also bothered by hearing the muzak version of The Cure's "Just Like Heaven" while at the mall. Sacrilege!

Must see to believe: "LePOT" .

YeEeeeEeEee!!! Ren and Stimpy reruns are on VH1! If you aren't familiar with Ren and Stimpy, there isn't any amount of explaining I can do that would make you understand. It's all stupid but genius, and I laugh almost constantly. I was flipping channels tonight and found myself right in the middle of the rubber nipples episode. Happy happy joy joy... My all-time favorite episode has to be the "Robin Hoek" when they re-do Robin Hood. I think I even have that one on tape somewhere...

I couldn't help but notice this story about "Buddy Clinton" at the Washington Post . Dog hit by car...what can you say?