Wow - time really flies. It's already been almost a month since my last post. If I'm going to earn my link from HayDuke, I'd better come up with something compelling to say. So I'll riff on the dearth of maternity clothing stores in Columbia. By my count, we have 1 - Mimi Maternity at the mall. While Mimi has a nice selection of quality clothing, it can't possibly serve the needs of the entire expectant constituency in Columbia. And there is only (as far as I can tell) one baby furniture store, too - Lullaby Baby on Red Branch. Target carries both maternity clothing and baby furniture, but some parents-to-be want higher-end options. How is a pregnant woman supposed to outfit herself and her child's nursery with so few choices?

OK, this is an issue that may not gain a whole lot of traction right now, what with the elections coming up in a matter of weeks. But I felt it my duty to expose the plight of the pregnant and fashionable.

In other news, it appears that the Owen Brown Giant has taken a turn for the worse since the KC Safeway mercifully shut its miserable doors a couple of months ago. merriweatherraven and I would regularly drive right past Safeway (twice, actually - once on Eden Brook and again on Guilford) to get our groceries from the OB Giant. But lately the service and selection have been lacking, and it's been trending down long enough to indicate a real problem rather than a simple anomaly. Last night a number of items were out of stock, the Fuji apples looked anemic, our cashier was...suboptimal...and the entire front of the store reeked of exhaust. We're hearing good things about the Food Lion in Oakland Mills - perhaps it's time to check it out.

Geez - that's two consecutive topics of limited relevance or significance to whatever meager audience I have here. Sorry.

Last try: Maryland beat Virginia today, in dramatic fashion. Woo hoo!

(When in danger of losing your audience's attention, always go for the cheap, unifying plug for the local team. If that fails, the U-S-A chant is a sure winner.)

Actually, I am a proud Terp and am really happy to see that we won. Well, perhaps "see" isn't the right term, since the game wasn't televised. The only game that's been televised live this season was that unfortunate incident in the state to the west. Oh, and if you have ESPNU, you could see the Terps get stung by those pesky bees. But other than that, we're in the dark. My research tells me that we're getting the shaft not from ineffectual athletic department negotiation skills (as was my suspicion) but from the ACC media bosses. Which I guess I can understand. There are only so many contracts to go around, and now the ACC has some teams that are much sexier than the Terps. (I'm sure there's a sexy Freidgen joke in here somewhere, but I'm gonna leave that to some creative commenters.) I think I'm going to do a little more digging to see if I can gain a better understanding of how these things work. Maybe I can lead a petition of disgruntled Terp couch potatoes.

Aight, that's all for me. Enjoy the veal.