Ah, our modern world....

Roger Ebert takes a break from writing about movies today to wax eloquent about leaf blowers, and how much he dislikes them. I pretty much agree with his sentiment. Blowers are definitely useful for removing large amounts of leaves from the roof of one's domicile, thus preventing them from collecting and rotting in the gutters and rain spouts, but whenever I see someone dutifully shooing the leaves from one's yard with one of these gizmos, I am immediately certain that come June this person will be outside again waging a war on dandelions, those innocent yellow flowers which go away all by themselves in two weeks anyway, if left alone.

And in a nice bit of incongruity, at the bottom of Ebert's article is a small box containing "related advertising links", which in this case are advertising -- you guessed it -- sites that sell leaf blowers.