List Day: Four Better or Four Worse

Four Things Which Have Improved Over Time

1. Driving on Route 28: With a traffic light every hundred yards and bumper to bumper traffic, Route 28 was directly responsible for my 5:30 AM - 1:30 PM work schedule when I lived in Centreville. Now, almost every stoplight has been replaced with an overpass, and you can easily do a crossword puzzle or fall asleep while coasting towards your destination.


2. Amber: Amber has always been an end table cat that goes off and does her own thing. As she gets older, she's spending more time in the same room with the resident humans, and is more amenable to petting, lap dances, and interspecies snuggles.


3. My Throat: After spending two of the past three weeks sick, my tonsils no longer own more real estate in my mouth than my tongue.


4. Velveeta Shells and Cheese: It seems like the Kraft corporation is continuing to refine their recipe for Velveeta, to the point where having a bowl of Shells and Cheese obviously contains some sort of whey-based nicotine that makes another serving a must.

Four Things Which Have Gotten Worse Over Time

1. LOST: The cast is too big and the plot layers are unfolding too deeply, rather than focusing more tightly towards the end. Charlotte sucked.


2. Dave Matthews Band: I tried listening to Stand Up again, and it still sucked.


3. John Grisham: John Grisham was a perfectly fine, forgettable, author who you could trust to provide an exciting formulaic law thriller. Somewhere along the line, he decided he was a serious writer and tried veering away from the formula. Unfortunately, that formula is the only thing he's good at writing.


4. Pizza Hut: The pizza's still good, but the radius continues to shrink like a dying Pacman and the prices keep going up. Now there's even a delivery gas tax added at some shops.

Four Things Which Have Remained the Same

1. Early Morning Drives to DISA: It's getting harder to wake up at 5 AM, but driving from Sterling to Bailey's Crossroad is still a comfortably acceptable mix of pros and cons. Beating HOV is always nice, but being at DISA isn't.


2. The Olive Garden: I don't even need to eat there again to know that there's still nothing of culinary interest inside these walls.


3. Alias: I'm watching this again with Rebecca, who now has spy dreams, and we're almost through the second season. It's aged pretty well for a cheesy escapist show.


4. I couldn't think of a fourth, so this is the spot for audience participation. What thing in your life is just as good or just as bad as it used to be?