Lightning Round -- 122815

Random thoughts from a holiday weekend:

• I was going to complain about the snow we're going to get today, but then I saw what happened in Texas from this same storm. We have snowplows and the know-how to dig out from snowstorms, but a tornado is another matter entirely.
• We saw the new Star Wars movie over the weekend. Is it Great Art? Of course not, but it's a good popcorn movie and it hits most of the right notes for rebooting the franchise. I didn't bother with the Star Wars movies that came out around 2000 and from what I've been told, I didn't miss much. I'm irritated with Goth Vader, a/k/a Kilo Kylo Ren, the new bad guy, who is more hamdinger than Hamlet, but the rest is good clean fun. You can never go back to 1977, but the new movie is worth a look, especially at a matinee price. 
• Yes, I know the Packers played a miserably bad game yesterday. I don't think they're that good this year, but I reject the idea that it's time to clean house. The Vikings are coming on, though, and they're going to be a problem for the next few years.
• I don't know when we started looking to Al-Jazeera for sports coverage, but the reporting they are offering concerning Peyton Manning using Human Growth Hormone seems to be falling apart. I'm in the middle of reading a fascinating book on the rivalry between Manning and Tom Brady and the notion that Manning would use HGH doesn't ring true. Then again, I used to believe a lot of things about Tiger Woods that didn't turn out to be true.