You know what's on television at four in the morning? No? Well, I do.

I started feeling sick yesterday around 2:00 at work, but thought it was just allergies. Maybe someone rolled around on the ground with their cat before coming in, or something. When I got home, I took another allergy pill, and another Aleve to soothe my growing headache, but neither worked. I called my lady last night, and had to cut our conversation short because I felt so crappy. (To be fair, she also had to go so that she could close the windows in the house against the sudden thundershower which had rolled up.) I went to sleep around 11:15, more tired than I'd been in weeks.

I woke up at 2:30 a.m. with a skull-splintering sinus headache, one of those crippling bastards that usually keeps me bedridden until it goes away. And to top that off, mucas seemed to be leaping out of right nostril, perhaps trying to get away from something farther inside. I tried for an hour and a half to roll over and lose myself back in sleep to no avail. So finally at 4:00, I got out of bed and cooked up some TheraFlu. While I waited for it to cool down enough for me to sip it (and it was cherry flavor, blech), I turned on the TV, and saw, among the other news on ABC's World News This Morning, that both John Ritter and Johnny Cash died last night.

I was stunned. Ritter was only 54 years old, and had a massive heart-attack after suffering from aortic dissection. Cash was 71 and had complications due to diabetes, though some would say he died of a broken heart; his wife died a few months ago, and he was reported to have not been the same afterward.

This on the heels of the second anniversary of September 11, 2001 (which has now been apparently labeled Patriot Day) makes me a pretty somber dude right now. I wasn't a big fan of Cash's, but his remake of Trent Reznor's "Hurt" made me turn up the radio every time. I was, however, a huge fan of Ritter's, having watched reruns of Three's Company when I was a kid, and more recently supremely enjoying his role on 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter. He did excellent work in the movies as well. He's definitely going to be missed.

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When the Women Come Out to Dance by Elmore Leonard

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