his week in the Reality Lab, Tom Cunningham is broadcasting from the foggy frontier between DayQuil, Jolt Cola, and sheer stubbornness. A lesser man would call in sick. Tom instead straps on the intellectual helmet, grabs a microphone, and plays through the illness like a middle-aged quarterback in the fourth quarter of a muddy Big Ten rivalry game. The upside? With the proper chemical cocktail of cold medicine and 1990s nuclear-grade soda, Tom’s notoriously wandering ADD brain settles down just enough to keep the ship pointed mostly in one direction. Mostly. Think of it as a guided tour through Tom’s brain while the tour guide is slightly feverish but extremely motivated.The voyage begins in South Bend, Indiana, back when Tom was a young newsman roaming the sidelines of Notre Dame football during the Lou Holtz era. From 1992 to 1995, South Bend was ...