“I read the news today, oh boy ...” (Dad’s Birthday Edition)

This writer's father, Paul Andrew Alexander, would have turned eighty-nine years old today. This video clip is a scene from a parish Oktoberfest outside of Cincinnati, Ohio, in October of 2010. He passed into eternity in February of 2012. Requiescat in pace.

And now, back to our regular programming.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I was pretty excited when they unveiled the Apple Watch (or “iWatch” as it's been called). But unlike the new iPhone 6 (which I'm getting the minute it's available), the iWatch doesn't actually exist, and won't for at least several more months. It'll probably cost more than my phone, but for my sixtieth birthday, I'm probably worth it. As you can see, Stephen Colbert is pretty jazzed about it too.

Meanwhile, elsewhere on planet Earth:

• Until the “iWatch” actually exists, we can at least hear from the privileged few who got to wear one for five minutes, which is still pretty good for something that doesn't exist yet. [Gizmodo]

• Someone once said it: “In one hundred years, we have gone from teaching Latin and Greek in high school, to teaching remedial English in college.” It does make you wonder … [Mental Floss]

• David Letterman has a few burning issues of his own, like the fact that the band can't play any songs by The Eagles on his show. Is that any way to treat some clown who's used to getting his way all the time? I think not!!! [Ultimate Classic Rock]

• In an illustration of how you just can't please some people, Facebook went from forcing more than giving us more than fifty choices of "gender" to making us use our real names. Or something. [Gigaom]

• If you saw the movie “Jurassic Park” you've probably been wondering ever since if you could outrun a Tyrannosaurus rex; you know, just in case one should ever be created in a lab somewhere and get loose. It could happen. Really. [HowStuffWorks]

• Does anyone remember these commercials from twenty years ago? Let's all go into the past for a look at the future, because hey, we're in the future right here in the present. (That almost made sense.) [Vox]

• And speaking of the future, we presently have this new “Utopia” show that is actually more like a dumb dystopia, but obviously that's the point. [Paleofuture]

And that's all the news that fits. As the week goes on, stay tuned, and stay in touch.