Here is the one-hundred-and-twenty-eighth edition of Tom Nob’s Thursday Notes. TN2 serves as a brief summary of what good humor we have found during the past week plus some suggestions for the upcoming weekend.

 

New TV Show

Napoleon Dynamite – season one

Are You There, Chelsea? – season one

New TV Season

30 Rock – season six

The Game – season five

Let’s Stay Together – season two

New Stand-Up

Tom Papa: Live in New York City

New Books

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

Lunatics by Dave Barry and Alan Zweibel

And Finally

We’re almost two weeks into the new year which means, if past is prologue, that many of the resolutions that were made to improve our less-than-perfect lives have already gone by the wayside.  Typically one of the first to be formulated on that brand new morning is to drink less alcohol.   Chances are, according to a spate of agency data from around the world, even if you succeed in experiencing fewer alcohol-fueled fiestas, the number of drinks you consume on each occasion will remain quite high.  Government poindexters have deemed such events as “binge” drinking.   Social binge drinking traces its roots to 17th century England when well-heeled university students and barristers-in-training formed drinking societies where they were expected to drink copious quantities of alcohol yet still be able to retain their wit.  Today the phenomenon of  binge drink has permeated virtually every society and social class but in ways that may surprise you.  While the English have retained their reputation as binge drinkers par excellence, the true “champions” may be South Africans, a third of whom reportedly begin drinking early afternoon on Friday and do not stop until the workday starts on Monday resulting in a rather precarious rush hour.  Back here in the United States where binge drinking is considered the purview of the college students and cheese-topped residents of the Badger State, the Centers for Disease Control just released a study which found that the income group with the most binge drinkers were those who made more than $75,000 per year and the age group that binge drinks most often being those 65 years and older.  Clearly this cohort has taken to heart the witticism offered by their generation’s bards, the Grateful Dead, who sang:  “Too much of everything is just enough.”  A toast to their health.