Today is another media day, with new cat pictures, BU pictures, and a few movies from the weekend.

Happy Birthday Ada!

A ton of today's blogs have a page called "100 Things About Me" where the writer describes subtle and not so subtle peculiarities of their life or personality. In an effort to maintain my bandwagoneer membership (which expires soon), I've created a page of my own which you can find in the About section . Regular visitors to this site probably know a lot about what I've done in life, but not so much about who I am. I plowed through about 160 "things" before I ran out of steam, but I'll probably add more as I think of them. I also put a Comments link on that page, so you can dissect the cadaver of my soul at length with other visitors.

Happy Birthday Ada Hettinga!

Focus

Welcome back from your four-day weekend of drinking and easy women (or, if you spent the time on a retreat at a Bible camp full of old Southern Baptists, "wheezy hymnin' "). I actually worked on both Monday and Tuesday of this week, but to maintain my patriotic facade, I seized upon the excuse to be lazy and not update my web site -- to do any less would be to deny the Amberican way.

These past couple of weeks have found me in a mood of split focus, where I'm really not doing much at all, but I feel as if I have too many side projects going on and can't muster up the enthusiasm to bring any of them to fruition. For example, I have my master bedroom coated in masking tape ready for the walls to be painted PUFFIN BAY GREY but have not yet shown Mr. Miyagi "Paint the Fence". I've done some mockups of the DECADE EDITION of the URI! Zone, slated to be released in August, but haven't picked the improvements I'm actually going to implement. My lawn is mowed but I did not use the string trimmer on the hard to reach spots.

This mood hits me every few years and the only way to beat it is to completely abandon any semblance of productivity for a few days until I get bored and restless. At that point, I'll go back to overcommitting myself and return to being Super BU. So in an effort to be completely useless, I went on a two hundred mile road trip to go to a barbeque where I'm known as "Mr. Brian", watched an entire half of the first season of Veronica Mars, recommended by Kim, which is 100% shameless WB-teen-melodrama but is also a really good whodunit show with complex back stories and witty dialogue, listened to a new Cardigans CD ad nauseum, and played Warcraft until I could barely see straight. The last one netted me a nice new toy from Stratholme, the STAFF OF BAMBOOZLE, which shall aid me in my quest to ERADICATE THE HORDE and also allows me to NEEDLESSLY CAPITALIZE WORDS FOR COMIC VALUE despite the fact that it looks like a giant feather duster. And because of my new hat, everyone thinks my character is from Down Under.

Now it's out of my system and tonight is paint-night.

Happy Birthday Ada Hettinga!

Audience Participation Day: 2007 Census Results

Read the complete survey results here.

Weekend Wrap-up

Burning down the casbah.

DDMSence v1.5.0 has been released.

Hot Dog Day

Obviously, the burgeoning Asian-American community in Charlotte has never heard of Chun King chow mein (966KB MP3).

Review Day

There are no major spoilers in these reviews.

Red (R):
This movie really only exists to show Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, Hellen Mirren, and John Malkovich blowing stuff up, as old Retired Extremely Dangerous spies. If you expect anything more than that, you'll be dissapointed. It's stylishly put together but won't change your life.

Final Grade: B

Love, Save the Empty by Erin McCarley:
A Pandora recommendation from my Lenka station, this album has a good mix of styles and a soft-timbred vocalist. It didn't become an instant favorite, but it's an enjoyable listen.

Final Grade: B+

Let's Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson:
It's been my experience that bloggers rarely transition into book-writing very well. The reason for this is that blog posts must be over-the-top to attract an audience, but are limited from oversaturation by the fact that you get a little bit every day. When you transform a blog into book form and get all of the craziness at once, it becomes a tiring read even if you generally like what you're reading. It's also hard to run a cohesive theme throughout so some books end up feeling like a mishmash of blog posts.

Somehow, the Bloggess (linked in my Bloglog) manages to pull it off. Although there were a few places where paragraphs could have been better edited (generally where each sentence tried to out-do the last one, but the paragraph would have still be funny with half the sentences), the book kept my interest throughout. Some reviewers hated the use of the f-word as all parts of speech, but I barely even noticed that, having grown up in the GoodFellas generation. If you enjoy the blog, you'll enjoy the book.

Final Grade: B

Pushing Daisies, Season Two:
If TV shows had bodies, there wouldn't be a mean-spirited bone in this one. It manages to be pleasant, cheery, and uplifting, without forcing itself into the guise of a kid's show. Although the seasons are free on Amazon Prime, this was one series I liked enough to buy on DVD for future watching. Although the show was cancelled after this season, it wraps up nicely, and I actually think that two seasons was a perfectly-sized run. You should always go out while you're on top (unless you're at home and it's sexy time).

Final Grade: A-

Fourth Wrap-up

Last night, we went to the Lake Barcroft fireworks with Rebecca's aunt and uncle, who were visiting from Santa Cruz. The forty minute show was decent, although it suffered the same affliction as the third Lord of the Rings movie, where every climactic display was followed by yet another ending five minutes later.

Weekend Wrap-up

Rebecca and friends make workout clothing by cutting up other clothing at a "Shirt Party" on Saturday night.

10 mile hike at Signal Knob, near Front Royal, on Sunday morning.

Burning a matchstick village in Taylorstown on the Fourth.

Assorted birds of the weekend.

No baby yet!

Review Day

There are no major spoilers in these reviews.

12 Monkeys, Season Three:
This season kicks off with an incredibly ambitious first episode that clearly embraces the difficulty of gaining new viewers and doesn't look back. Every episode feels like a season finale, to the point where I finished this whole (10 episode) run in just a few days. This show also features a crazy character (the Brad Pitt role from the movie) that perfectly walks the fine line between really funny and annoying.

Final Grade: A

Flowers in the Pavement by Bliss n ESO:
This is the first album of my favourite Australian hip-hop band, released in 2004. It has a few "first-time rapper" flaws, like songs that greatly outstay their welcome with innumerable choruses and a preoccupation with describing all of the sex they're having, but it's buoyed by strong production values and interesting beats -- this is probably the only rap album that remixes Peer Gynt and the Nutcracker Suite behind their vocals.

Final Grade: B

Sneaky Pete, Season Three:
This season is better than the second but worse than the first. It throws a lot of balls into the air in the earlier episodes and drops most of them by the end. It's also hampered by a production move to California, which requires the primary cast members to have story reasons to make the cross-country trip. Pleasant enough, but by the end, I was only watching it to see how things turned out. The show was canceled after this season, and the finale wraps up sufficiently to not leave much hanging. Free on Amazon Prime.

Final Grade: C+

Superstore, Season One:
This lightweight comedy starring America Ferrera and the love child of BJ Novak and Robert Downey Jr. is harmless, mostly funny, and requires no long-term investment. In tone and execution, it reminded us of Outsourced.

Final Grade: B

Independence Day

Ian is 10 weeks old!

Maia (right, in patriotic dress) helps build a matchstick village to burn down, supplemented with old sparklers and gunpowder.

"The bunnies have four different fireworks. Each one explodes in the sky!"

Sir Dumps A Lot emits a 12-inch black snake then his butt explodes and sparks fly everywhere.