Do you ever get tired? I do. I get tired a lot. I used to just get tired at the end of the day before falling asleep. Sometimes I’d get tired in the middle of the day, and I’d drink a cup of coffee or take a nap. But now I’m tired a lot more often. I’m even tired right after I wake up! That’s why this Sunday will be my last regular appearance on “60 Minutes.” They say I can come back any time I want, but no one seems very enthusiastic about that. So I guess I’m retired.

That’s a funny word, “retired.” Re- means again, and tired means tired, so I guess I’m tired again. Lots of other words begin with “re-.” Remain. Recite. Review. Repeat. Resist. Return. Rebuff. Receive. Remember. I remember a lot of things, but sometimes I forget. Lately I’ve been forgetting a lot of things, like where I put my wallet or… there was something else, but I forget. And now that’s another thing I forgot!

Another “re-” word that bothers me is “recycle.” My granddaughter says we have to recycle, because that’s the only way to save the Earth. But I don’t know. I like throwing things away. I’ve done it all my life, and I don’t see why I should change now. That’s how we’ve always done it. You have something, then it gets old and boring, so you throw it away.

…I guess I’m being thrown away now, too. But that’s fine. I wouldn’t want to be recycled.

Flame tanks get my panties wet.

One of my favorite programs of last year was History’s “WWII in HD,” a documentary that unearthed astonishingly vivid color video of the Second World War. Now, History has greenlit a follow-up called “WWII in HD: The Air War” that will focus on the American 8th Air Force’s battle with the Luftwaffe leading up to D-Day. From THR:

Sean Astin, Chris O’Donnell and Elijah Wood are lending their voices to historical participants in the wartime drama. Rob Lowe narrates. The miniseries uses largely never-before-seen color footage of air battles that has been remastered to HD-level quality.

But wait, this is the best part:

One of the stories being told will be that of 60 Minutes veteran Andy Rooney, who was a reporter for Stars & Stripes during the battle.

Oh, I’m sure Andy Rooney’s story will be fascinating. “Air battles weren’t easy to report. Ground battles I could report on because I was on the ground, but air battles were in the air. I could look up into the sky and squint, but I could hardly tell which planes were which. Mostly I just stayed in a bunker drinking tea. The British soldiers were always drinking tea. I prefer coffee, but I I drank tea to fit in. I always had mine with two sugars because of my sweet tooth. I would have liked it with milk, but fresh milk was in short supply, and powdered creamer hadn’t been invented yet. Can you imagine that? Scientists were working on the atomic bomb, but there was no creamer for my tea.”

“The Air War” will air November 10th. Watch the chilling trailer from the original “WWII in HD” below.

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Andy Rooney caught wind of the report that claims three-fourths of Americans will be obese by the year 2020, and he had something to say about it. Nothing that made any sense, but he had something to say. Specifically, he’s going to lose 20 pounds by Halloween. That’s 20 pounds in three weeks. Watch the more-rambling-than-usual video below.

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It’s been a while since we’ve checked in on Andy Rooney, the official dementia-ridden rambling old man of Warming Glow. And while this missive against unnecessary developments in technology that deprive him of the joy of getting lost isn’t as epic as the time he realized he wasn’t average, it IS remarkable in that he (a) somehow still does this every week and (b) is still alive.

“I have a lot of gadgets in my office, but I don’t like them. I don’t know what they do, and I don’t like the word ‘gadget.’ Sounds like one of the Kaiser’s words. Now there are cars that are syncing up with our gadgets, and I don’t like that, either. Cars are supposed to be simple black means of transportation, like Henry Ford used to make ‘em. We’d be a lot better off listening to Henry Ford — now there was a man who knew how to keep the Jews away from his stash of gold. But now cars are green instead of black, and green doesn’t even describe the color of the car. When did green become something besides a color? That’s like the color orange and the fruit orange — which one was named for which? Maybe there’s an app that could tell me, but I don’t want it. Things were better when we didn’t have the answer to eveyrthing. Forced us to be more creative. A stick — now THAT was a good toy.”

(YouTube link here)

Andy Rooney cooked up his standard recipe on “60 Minutes” last night: one large chunk of old man grumpiness, three ladles of stroke-induced confusion, and a sprinkle of rambling dementia. The target of his ire this week was desire, which he called a “serious and constant defect in the human character.” Rest assured, Reverend Rooney is a sinner like the rest of us, helpless against his basest instinct to eat extra cookies after lunch.

“The medical industry makes pills for headaches, constipation, and high cholesterol, but they still haven’t invented an anti-desire pill to stop me from wanting cookies. Delicious chocolate chip cookies. I only wanted one, but I took two and ate them both. It used to be standard to put walnuts in chocolate chip cookies, but somewhere along the way that stopped happening. I guess Americans just wanted something sweeter. Where did the walnuts go? Does the government subsidize those walnut farmers? Think about that: being paid not to grow something. I’ve been not growing things my entire life, and I’ve never gotten a dime for it. Of course, a dime won’t buy you much these days. Why is that? I remember buying a Coke and a hamburger with a dime, but things slowly got more expensive. Now if you have a dime, it might as well be a penny. Why does the government still make pennies? Probably to pay the walnut farmers.”

TAKE HIM TO THE VET AND PUT HIM TO SLEEP ALREADY.