Tired TV

Flipping through the many TV channels yields near-identical scenes — a doctor show here, a dance show there. It’s hard to tell which is worth watching when the previews are so similar. Check out this helpful guide to picking the best of the cable copycats.

Click This: RunPee.com

You don’t want to miss a minute of your movie, but you downed a Coke the size of a kiddie pool before the previews ended and a bathroom break is in order. Luckily, you checked RunPee.com, a Web site that maps out the best times for cinema potty stops.

Family BBQ v. Float Trip

You can stuff your face with free food alongside the family, or you can indulge in some floating shenanigans with buddies this Fourth of July. You choose.

Playing inside the box

The question has been perplexing electric bands since the advent of the garage: Where can we practice on the cheap without catching static from annoying relatives and neighbors?

Hold my beer

Next time you’re pulled over by a Highway Patrol officer in Missouri, don’t bother to drop your beer. As long as you don’t raise it to your lips, you’re good. And your passengers are welcome to keep boozing.

Navigating the Homefront

It’s sometime in the afternoon and the walls of the hospital are white and Sgt. 1st Class Calvin Miles is in a hospital bed. All around him are cookies, cards and sinister-looking tubes that form a disjointed fence, an ominous display of construction paper and Hallmark stationary, green cellophane and clear fluids. Poised beside him is his 7-year-old niece. She reads from the book that she holds in her lap, and her high-pitched voice passes softly, deliberately from word to word. Calvin’s eyelids are drooping under the weight of the drugs and hers are wide open, and Calvin is groggy and vulnerable. He doesn’t like the sensation of helplessness that he feels; it’s altogether new and unfamiliar and perfectly unbearable. He’s always been the eyes above the bed, the caregiver, the worrier, the teacher, the superior, the vigilant father of so many families that go far beyond his own flesh and blood.

Red, White and Booze

Tottering British hooligans wailing about women, wine and lechery isn’t exactly the image that comes to mind when someone mentions the “Star-Spangled Banner.” But maybe it should be. We’ve recently cracked open the history books and discovered how a lawyer’s poem set to the tune of a British drinking song became the national anthem of the United States.

Summer lovin’

MU’s Summer Repertory Theatre opens next week, and this summer it’s all about relationships. This year’s productions deal with real-life situations. I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change features short vignettes about the interactions between men and women, and Steel Magnolias follows the lives of six southern ladies.

For your eyes only

It’s summertime, and if your workload is lighter, you may actually have time to read for pleasure. As you pull out your sappy romance, sci-fi, suspense or mystery novel, try to be discreet while enjoying your favorite “guilty pleasures.”

On the Job: Fireworks Wholesaler

Midway has an eclectic assortment of businesses and organizations: Larry’s Boots, Midway Heights Baptist Church and Phillips 66 Gas Station, to name a few. The small community at the intersection of I-70 and Route 40 is also home to Spirit of ’76, a large distributor of wholesale fireworks. As the man in charge of the operation, John Bechtold has been lighting the skies since 1987. Although most Americans look forward to the Fourth of July as a relaxing holiday, this Saturday will be Bechtold’s busiest work day of the year.

Coming home

A lot of attention has been given to the troops that our nation deploys. The death toll rises, the violence continues and the troops keep heading out. But what happens when these men and women come home?