falling ladders, a Seussian psychopath, boys' names, and Beethoven...

     What's happening around here, you ask?
     As a contractor, I carry around in my truck these folding ladders. As you can see from this link, the typical heavy duty sort weighs around 54 pounds or so. Well, earlier this afternoon one of these collapsed onto my right foot as I helped an idiot insurance adjuster extend his. 'Got away from me,' he said rather laconically. Huh. Anyway, I am apparently what the kids call a 'lucky bastard,' because there isn't a mark on me, and the foot only aches a little. Now, I had boots on, but they weren't steel toed or otherwise protective. (Needless to say, I now need a new pair.)
     In other words, my foot was crushed by a ladder collapsing at top speed, and nothing happened. Weird it is, in every sense of that old, old word.
     What else is new?
     Do head over and give a listen as Leonard Bernstein all to briefly descants on the wonders of Beethoven's Third Symphony, the Eroica. The simplicity of means by which Beethoven achieves the most daring and complex works always astonishes me. 
     What else, what else...how can I beguile you into staying with me instead of taking in the latest episode of Black List? 
     Speaking of Black List, does that show rock, or what?
     Anyway, what else, what else...o, I know. As you can see from this gif, my brothers and I - William, Daniel, Thomas - are distinctly outliers when it comes to popular names for boys over the years. William does not come into its own until fairly late in the cycle, and then only in a few southern states. Daniel and Thomas don't seem to ever make the cut. For no reason at all, this pleases me. 
     Finally, it seems I need to explain my hatred of Sam-I-Am. For those of you who don't remember him, Sam-I-Am is that noxious little troll from Dr. Seuss's beloved tome Green Eggs and Ham. I have always, and I do mean always, loathed that pestering, nagging, intrusive little sonofabitch. To my ear, he sounds like a monomaniacal psychopath. Had he not succeeded in browbeating the hapless guy into eating what, let's be honest, sounds like food that's gone off, then I shudder to imagine how things would have escalated. I see Sam stalking his prey for months, growing ever more violently insistent, until...o, dear reader, let us not sully our evening together with such horrors.