Incredibly weird stuff that I notice
I am such a geek. Frequent readers know this already. New readers will become 100 percent convinced.

Was reading the profile of Lance Armstrong in the latest Sports Illustrated (I think it was the latest Sports Illustrated, anyway; I might well be about two issues behind, thanks to the change of address.) Pretty good story; I have deep respect for Lance Armstrong the athlete and Lance Armstrong the Texan. He clearly is not a big believer in bullshit. I admire that.

But, of course, I must always bring these little missives back around to me.

With this article is a picture of Armstrong sitting on the tailgate of a black Suburban which serves as his "chase vehicle" when he goes on long rides. On this Suburban is a Texas license plate: RFI-7K7.

First thing I notice: Two things are wrong with that plate.

That particular Texas license plate would be numbered letter-number-number, letter-letter-letter.

Texas does not use vowels in regular-issue license-plate numbers.

Some photo editor apparently thought to go into Photoshop and rearrange the letters and numbers on that plate -- I guess so as not to give away this vehicle's license number to a worldwide audience. As someone who evaluates the content of photographs as part of my job, I'm somewhat mystified by this. I'm even more mystified by the fact that I would notice.

I wonder how much I could accomplish if I could clear my head of useless knowledge such as the intricacies of the Texas license-plate numbering system.