Happy snooze year!

What did YOU do today?

Did you clear out your closets? Did you help a lady pick out garlic at the grocery store? Did you race a ghost through a bunch of chicken legs as Mario? Did you drink a beautifully smooth chocolate stout?

Aren't you jealous you didn't and I did?

Skeep Bop!

Marcy's new computer is a veritable paragon of technology, which allows us to do important and groundbreaking things such as this:

I'm back .. uh ... again

Seems that every post for the last few posts are me saying I'm sorry for not posting.

SORRY for a busy month: Wedding, honeymoon, burfday. In that order.
Stay tuned. MUCH more to come on all 3. It doesn't help that I got a Wii as well.

Well, here we go!

Tomorrow morning we hit the road. Then it's on to rehearsals, dinners, and the big day.

Dum, dum de dum ... dum dum de dum ...

That song sucks. Wait'll ya get a load of our music. He heh heh.

Droppin' some knowledge on YouTube

I get YouTube. I really do. I get its user-friendly methods, and the necessity to shrink video file sizes in order to post the millions of closeups from desktop Webcams of preteen pontificators.

It's a money-generating machine for Google, which bought it last year. And darn if it's not fun.

That's what makes me think that somewhere at the YouTube home office there is a room full of monkeys at typewriters trying to conjure a solution to the aspect ratio issue.

Of what do I speak? Well, we recently bought our wedding videographer - I say "bought" because we plunked the $700 the pro wanted into buying our very own Hitachi HD and DVD camcorder. It's pretty sweet - it has its own hard drive, which can keep something like 4-5 hours of video, but also can burn 30 minutes directly to a tiny DVD for immaediate viewing.

I tested the camera last week at work, and kept the letterbox aspect ratio. But when the video showed up on YouTube, Youtube automatically added the black bars at the top and bottom but, as you can see, still squished it a bit on the left and right sides.

I'm not complaining. It's an uber cool free service, and technology is only now outpacing it. The only question I have is: When will the monkeys launch V 2.0 to give us bigger picture capability?

Seven days and

... 19 hours from now until I'm married, for those of you keeping track at home.

The 100th Post!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Where have I been for the last month, you ask?



Preparing for the Blurb's 100th post EXTRAVAGANZA!!!!!


Here's a look at the highlights of the last year and a half, the fun times and the bad times, the stupidness and the ... smartness.



At right is the publication that started it all, the Daily Blurb. A second incarnation will be in the works at a later date.



So enjoy a look back at the blog that is Blurb.



Word, sucka.

1. In June last year, we visited the WWE. And who wrestled but none other than Balls Mahoney. On an unrelated topic, I'm naming my first-born Balls. Boy or girl.



2. July 2006 was a fun time as my friend, Lisa Garvey, had her first child, a cute little imp named Maeve. I made some predictions here, and 'm waiting to hear the results. Her husband, Mike, has one of the best blogs ever.



3. A few weeks after moving to Massachusetts, I hosted a dinner party.


4. Then, I got engaged.


5. And, if that weren't enough to make last year's the best Christmas ever, I discovered the Lego Store at the mall.
6. I found the greatest cartoon theme songs ever. How many have YOU seen?
7. In February we celebrated Meep Day with a cake shaped like a movie icon.
   
8. March and April were a busy time, what with planning a wedding and getting a new job and all. Then in June I visited a graveyard and a mountain.
9. I officially became a Bostonian when I attended my first Red Sox game.
10. Nowadays, my life has been pretty much consumed by planning a wedding. This blog post was supposed to be much cooler, with Venn diagrams and guest appearances by Richard Little and Bette Midler. But that's showbiz for ya. Truth is, I couldn't let my blog wallow any longer. So for the Blurb faithful, thanks for your patience. I promise it won't be so long next time.
    

Post #99

Stay tuned for a big extravanganza for the Daily Blurb's 100th post. It'll be GREAT. I promise. Some surprises, some laughs, some tears, some pictures. Until then, let's talk plumbing.

Is it so hard to find good plumbing in apartments these days? In my favorite apartment ever, the one I lived in by myself in Rochester, I had OK drains but the building was owned by the same guy as the apartment I lived in before, which had the worst drains ever. I mean, maybe that's your thing and the ankle-deep pool of cess doesn't bug you, but I say this: If the hair on my head chooses to loose itself from its mortal coil, I don't get in its way. Let it embark on the adventure of a lifeftime through the many tubes and interwebbings of the City of Rochester sewer system.
Our apartment here in Boston also has crap plumbing, which makes me mad. Not at the current system, but at my landlord in Rochester, who was an ass to begin with. He always said that because his buildings were built in the 1920s, modern plumbing conveniences (in retrospect, a pipe's a friggin pipe) were never installed and as such, Bryan took a shbath every morning before work. OR a bshower.
But I've earned that apartment plumbing is crap no matter where I go, as evidenced by the discovery Marcy made this morning of the ankle-deep pool of mung coagulating nigh her toes.

Moral of the story: Cess isn't used often enough in the English language these days.

Best game of the minute

www.kingdomofloathing.com

Go there now. It's easy to sign up. I'm a level 2 Sauceror, also known as a Cilantro Seer. Anyone want to challenge me, I'm game.

If, and I say IF, I were to get ink

I'd get this coat of arms. Sick.

Maybe Marcy and I will do it for our 1-year anniversary. Some people go on trips. Others stay at home. Maybe we'll get tats.

Truth in advertising? My butt!

My future sister-in-law Kelly's washing machine went kaput. She has to call the Maytag repairman, but he can't come until next Tuesday.
What?!?! I thought all those repairmen did was sit around all day waiting for a service call. And Kelly has to wait until TUESDAY.

Maybe they only work on Tuesdays.

Then I found no less than 20 questions on the FAQs on their Web site. Maybe they expect you to do all the work yourself?

Bunch of hokey if ya asked me.

Bret Michaels is king.

Does anyone know the female form nore intimately than Bret Michaels? He's one step below a gynecologist, I think.
A rockin' rollin', screamin', gynecologist.

Train talk

I'm hoping my friend Bob Hughes (Grady, Bobbalew, The Keed) will give us a little insight here, as he knows more about trains than a human probably should.

At the end of the Minuteman Bikeway is this depot where an old Boston/Maine Railroad train resides. The fact that its initials were the same as mine was not lost to me.

I do like the track that leads to nowhere. Looks like a good place to park my bike.

Here's a funny but true story. When we were looking at apartments, we saw the overpass next to my future home, and I asked the landlard when he planned on telling us when the trains came through.
"What trains?" he says.
"The ones that travel along that track up there," I say.
He laughs and takes us up the slope. It's a FORMER train track now turned into a 10-mile bikeway. Oh. Whoops.

I think it's best in life to be yourself in moderation.

Our quote book resides in our living room. The rules are thus: Say somethin' stupid, you make the book.
And now, a smattering. Feel free to do your own dramatic reading at home. Play with your friends!

"You smell like waffles." - Bryan
"They're shit waffles." - Marcy
"They're rotten shit egg waffles." - Bryan

"I'm not sure if the ice is cold." - Bryan

"I got caught in a downpur and I'm drenched." - Marcy
"Is my grill OK?" - Bryan

There are quotes sometimes that I say when I'm half-concious at night when Marcy insists on keeping a conversation going. She's rewarded with these gems:

"Have you done the one last lawnmowers?"

"I'm sorry for interrupting you." (said to Marcy as she got into bed and wasn't speaking.)

"I love that there's a momo family."

"Why are there so many leopard-print scarves on the road? Is that like, the new apple pie?"

"I think it's best in life to be yourself in moderation."

Good morning!

Dear construction people,

Let's have a little talk, you and me.
I know it's your time of year to get everything done, and those of us making a commute each day appreciate smooth roads and whatnot.

But enough with the digging the hole, then filling the hole, then digging the hole. Seriously. If you need to get back down there, just don't fill the hole yet. Wait until you're done down there, then fill the hole.

To sum up, that's dig, fill. Not digfilldigfilldig ... hold up traffic ... digfilldigfill.

Thank you.

The view from my office

When you're in a band and you've practiced for hours and hours and your fingers bleed from picking the guitar strings and you have that moment of connection on stage, when it's just you and the audience, and the audience leaves the theater ready to take on the world, inspired by your art, and so in their moment of bliss they take a sharpie and scrawl your band's name on a dumpster outside my window ...

...then, and only then, will you know you've arrived.

Breaking news

I have absolutely nothing to post today. Zilch. I'm really trying to think of something, but I ain't got shazbot.

So enjoy some Legos:

Han Solo in carbonite.

Stephen Colbert

Duckhunt for the Nintendo

Homage to M.C. Escher

Random baby

Moses gets the Commandments (Click here for more)

The Taj Mahal

Toronto

A Volvo

I love math!

But only when it does this.

Words of wisdom

If you're deaf, don't walk backwards into a parking lot, as the guy did last night when I was leaving the movies.

ELEPHANT vs. DRAGON!!!

Dateline: Tokyo

A giant red elephant battled a fire-breathing dragon to the death today, much to the surprise of American tourists taking too many pictures on their way to famous Tokyo landmarks such as Jumpin' Yamoto's Whitefish Shack.
A tourist managed to photograph the fray before being bloodily trampled to death by the beasts:


The fighting became worse when a giant furred beast calling itself Joxer the Giant rounded a Tokyo skyscraper and tore the dragon's tail off, giving the giant red elephant the advantage it needed.



More on this story as it develops ...

Thinky animation

I'd been meaning to pst this for awhile now and my computer overload this evening (now that it's working) got me thinking about this animated short, a student project put up on YouTube about a year ago.

I don't know why I love it so. Maybe because it's happy and sad? Or because it says so much by saying so little? I'm in the camp that feels the little kiwi is crying tears of joy at seeing his dream realized. Because in the end, if we did what we wanted to do in life, then wasn't it all worth it?

Blogout

That's what I suppose you'd call a blackout of a blog.
See, our power cord to the laptop went on the fritz last week so today I was delivered another. Yay for the modern era!

But seeing as how I've gone a lot longer without blogging, few of you probably noticed I was gone.

SO ... a blow-by-blow update:

1. First, some good news: Marcy and I booked our honeymoon in an awesome exotic location where I can drink mojitos while deep-sea fishing. Three of my favorite things: Drinkin', fishin' and wenchin', all in one place. Paradise!

2. Again with the good news: Marcy just told me "it's not all that it's cracked up to be" is an Irish expression, acording to the book she's reading. I am unable at present to verify with a second source.

3. We have been dining for the better part of a week on spicy gumdrops. I loves me some spicy gumdrops.

4. Mom came to Boston this weekend to surprise Laura for her birthday. Here's a photo:


And Joey C was supposed to visit last night, but his plane had to go to Hell's Armpit, also known as Hartford, Conn.

6. I've saved the best for last.
I saw a movie that made my insides move. It made my ears dance, my tongue thick, and my feet curl. I didn't know a movie could make you reconsider your own dogmas, or render you a slave to its heaving massivity. It made me skip No. 5 in this list and go directly to 6.

I bow to Transformers. It owns me now. And any minute my laptop is going to sprout machine-gun hands and feet and shoot me down, then beat me senseless with an mpeg of Larry King. Because those Decepticons, man, those Decepticons are ruthless.

Help me, Optimus. Help me.

BoSox! Booyah!

Yes, there I am eating my beer at the Red Sox game today. Granted, they lost to the Rangers, but it was my first Red Sox game and Luke and I had a great time. Luke, for those of you who don't know him, is Marcy's cousin's fiance. He got the tickets through work; so the price was right.

Best part of the game: Turning around to face the Fenway field once we found our seats, which were on the first-base line and were AWESOME.

Weirdest part of the game: the umps literally walking out to the bullpen to get the Rangers' closer, Gagne, to get out and take the mound. I thought they were about to call a delay-of-game penalty. Cripes.

Worst part of the game: $7 cup of Budweiser.

A great day all around, though. Lots o fun.

Benoit's death - UPDATED

Now the news is out. I don't care to wait long enough for toxicology reports to know that something went wrong in Chris Benoit's life.

I credit the Associated Press for its handling of this story. They've come out with some good coverage - not the sort of thing you see when a pro "sports" athlete is in the news. Mostly it's the nature of the story that automatically called for a reverence you didn't see when Anna Nicole Smith died, but should have. I get it - I do this stuff every day. This is bigger than the way wrestling is always covered - like it's a niche hobby appealing to the NASCAR crowd. A quaint obsession, if there's such a thing. This time everybody said, "Whoa." and I think they're still trying to catch up with the strangeness of it.

My friend Greg framed this whole thing very well. He said, in essence, things will forever be changed in wrestling. Congress is going to be involved now. For those who may not remember, WWF (as it was) went before Congress in the 90s because of its rampant use of anabolic streroids. It was then that Hulk Hogan sold out Vince Mcmahon and blew in his whole operation. Things had cooled between them over the years, and Hulk was allowed back to wrestle.

But grievances and grudges aside, I think Greg's right. I think this will change things. No, I take that back. I hope things will be changed. Honestly, I could care less how a wrestler looks if he can perform. I think most fans would feel that way too, because despite physique, the human talents on which pro wrestling is based will never change. It will always take a specific personality type, with an intelligence behind the hype, to pull of the kind of entertainment fans want to see.

I think, and this is just me, that many will feel alienated the way I do. It's different than when Mark McGuire was before the government testifying about steroids, or talking about Barry Bonds' records with asterisks next to them. It's not just a case of having your hero crumble before you, when you're made to realize that he was just, after all the hype, human.

This was a man who took a tumble far, far, from his station in life. The Associated Press, and again I give them credit, included a quote from Benoit of long ago in which he said his one vice in life was his family.

Let me define family. Wrestling, sometimes, is weird like this because there's more of a connection between fans and athletes. Perrhaps it's the preponderance of House Shows, the equivalent of which is if the Yankees came to central Virginia to play the hometown AA team with no cameras, no body guards, and just were there to put on a show for the fans and sign a whole bunch of baseballs afterwards.

In this way wrestling fans feel a sense of ownership over "their" guys, and they become protective. They fiercely defend their favorites, and just as vehemently seethe at the enemy. But at the end of the day they respect all of them who go beyond what any pro athletes go through, that is, they travel not for one season out of the year, but the WHOLE year. Guys leave relationships, families, whole lives behind to be pro wrestlers. All they have left are their fans. And they're welcomed with open arms, because the fans know they're the most constant family these guys have got.

I've read three wrestlers' autobiographies. No, they're not representaive of the entire industry. But the guys at the top of their respective games are a lonely lot. They're often sad, and crave stability though they know they can never have it as long as they do the thing they love.

It's a paradox I think contributes to, but does not excuse, eventual self-destruction. No act of Congress can chage that, unless the fundamentals of the industry change first.

That, unfortunately, is the paradox the fans face.

ORIGINAL POST, TUESDAY, JUNE 19:

WWE.com is reporting that pro wrestler Chris Benoit is dead. The site quotes an Atlanta Fox affiliate that he killed his wife and son over the weekend, then himself.

Benoit was cut from the same mold as Dean Malenko and Eddie Guerrero. In fact, the three all jumped ship to WWE when WCW folded in 2000 I think (I'll have to check that.) They were all able technical wrestlers, indeed some of the best, and in recent years Benoit's role really shifted to WWE's development office, helping other wrestlers "tell the story" more with their in-ring performances.

I know Eddie's death in 2005 hit Benoit pretty hard, though I haven't seen any stories detailing reasons. In cases like this, often there aren't any.

More later.

Lazy Sunday

Here's the view out of our living room. Kinda nice, really.

That's a toe, not a thumb.

My review of Pirates of the Caribbean 3

The moral of the story is:

Dirty swamp women have powerful crabs.

Me Laura! Me want chip!

On saturday, Marcy, Laura and I trekked to the bustling metropolis of Scotia, NY for my cousin Steph's graduation party (h.s.). We had a blast catching up with the fam, plus it was the first time Marcy met my dad's side of the fam. (She still has to meet the extended side of my mom's family as well). So we had fun with my grandma, Mimi:



and Dad got his Father's Day gift from Laura and Marcy and I, a set of new patio chairs to chill on:



And I ate cake.

Let's answer fan mail!

Dear Bryan,
Do you know any smart rodents? I would love to meet some.
Signed, Lonely in Las Mesas

Dear Lonely,
As a matter of fact, I do. I met this squirrel at Harvard the other day.

He wrote a thesis on why Eastern squirrels were better equipped than Western squirrels to hunt and gather, and then his parents paid a skunk to collect all his nuts for him. I also met an MIT squirrel once, but he was able to write an algorithm that fine-tuned a human's brain waves to obey the squirrel's every command and now that squirrel is running for President. Good question!


Dear Bryan,
What are those non-Asian people doing on that bridge over there?
Signed, Confused in Cambridge

Dear Confused,
I have no idea.

My thought on Murf's passing

Many regular Blurb readers won't know Tom Murphy, and frankly I think those that knew him didn't really know him.
Murf was the sports editor for the Messenger Post weeklies. He died in his sleep Monday.
The guy was an institution, one that I think often was taken for granted in the MPN newsroom. I feel weird mentioning it, because if you told the guy that he'd just laugh. He owned a house on Conesus Lake, a steal that he purchased I think it the early 80s for a hell of a lot less than what it's worth now. He told me about it once, and we shared stories about the lake (my family and I spent two summers there when I was in 1st and 2nd grade).
Truth is, I barely knew the guy. Maybe it's because he was so young - 50s - and he was about the age of my own parents, but the news really hit me. I think it has to do more with the fact that when I do go back to MPN to visit, he'd be one of the guys I'd make a point to see. He was one of those people that had such a positive outlook on everything, sometimes you couldn't help but indulge yourself a little and be a part of that. His joys were so simple: sitting on his corner of the world, watching twilight hit the lake, cooking a hot dog on his grill (see a great account of his life from one of his neighbors here.)

Here's the comment I left on the discussion thread at mpnnow.com. I wished I'd read the comment from his neighbor about him grilling hot dogs before I wrote it, because that conversation about the lake was my favorite. But his one really gives you an idea of the guy, though you may never have met him:

"I know that guy."
The statement came out of nowhere. Murf and I were sitting in the Pittsford newsroom decompressing after a hard deadline, and the winter Olympics were on.
"You know who, Murf?" I asked. I had learned my lesson long before to doubt his credibility, but I loved to joke him about the endless statistics and players he'd covered over the years. I could invent a name, Joe Smith, and ask Murf about what town he played in. He'd list every Joe Smith that played every sport in every town in Monroe County, and it's not an exaggeration.
"That skier. I know him. He's from Brighton."
Then he floors me.
"So is the guy running the Web site feed for this broadcast."
That was Murf. He knew the little stuff. If you tried to call him on anything, chances were that he was right.
When I'd harrass him about the piles upon piles of newspapers strewn about his cubicle, threatening to clean it for him, he'd shoot me a "Noooooo, Mahoney. What am I going to do without my archive?" He could stick his hand in a stack seemingly at random, and magically produce any issue you'd be looking for. Of course, they were just the sports pages.
If God needed a statistician, He just got one of the best.

A bold exchange between font nerds

Bryan, while reading Ain't It Cool News: They're making a movie caled 'Helvetica.' I don't think I need to see that.

Marcy: Oh come on, you're a font nerd.

Bryan: Yeah, maybe you're right. I would see a movie called 'Futura.'

Marcy: You may be the biggest dweeb I know.

When meth addicts get corporate gigs

You've got to wonder how people so bad at life get where they are in the world.
It's the only way that a video game called IRRITATING STICK could ever get made.

That's right. IRRITATING STICK. I'm going to capitalize it for the rest of this post in hopes YOU feel the way I do, in that you want to TAKE said stick and shove it in your THROAT and PULL it out of your own throat and then JAB REPEATEDLY in your own eye.

Don't believe such a game exists? I don't make this shit up.



I think the pitch meeting for this game went like this:
A guy wakes up and eats a bowl of crystal meth for breakfast. Then he buries his face in his dirty laundry pile for an hour while listening to Tchaikovsky played by a chorus of circus dogs. He kills a man down the hall and puts on his suit, then arrives at work at 11 a.m., just in time for his pitch meeting.
"OK guys," he begins. "There's this stick. And it's got, like, all this shit to do. And ... um ... it flies."

And that's it.

The guy across the table, the one who ALSO applied for the meth addict's job but lost it because ... well ... life sucks a lot of the time, well HE is sitting across the table not believeing this shit and thanking GOD he was here to witness this because his nemesis is going to get canned for sure.
But NO - the friggin' corporate slug at the head of the table stands up and says he wants specs drawn and someone comes up with THIS:



Then the corporate guy says, "OK," and the meeting's over and the meth addict has fallen asleep or dead and the guy across from him just can't fucking believe it because Playstation actually MADE this game, and here's a cheat for it!

To start with seven lives instead of the usual three, enter the following code: At the mode select screen, highlight "1P Play" and press Right on the D-pad four times. Highlight "Tournament" and press Right on the D-pad 1 time. Highlight "Course Edit" and press Left on the d-pad twice. Highlight "Option" and press Left on the d-pad six times. Now highlight "1P Play" and press X. You'll hear the crowd cheer to confirm the code.

Search for witches, find pirates instead

Depart my friends dry up your tears,
Here I must lie till Christ appears.
Death is a debt to nature due,
I’ve paid the debt and so must you.

-On Daniel Bray’s gravestone, Salem cemetery.



Salem Cemetery is a strange place. There's a muffler shop 20 feet away from the bones of people who shaped a lot of this region's history.



On a wall, graffitti boasts some unintelligible message about God knows what. I won't speculate on who wrote it, but I think they're local - teenagers most likely, because the cemetery seems like it's not as respected as it should be. Well-trodden paths come too close to gravemarkers, so I have to believe hundreds of people each year walk over these graves, reducing it to tourist attraction rather than place of reverence.
I was humbled by the experience. I'm older than many of the people there; whole families are buried together and many are 25 years old and younger. Three sisters were buried next to each other, and all died within days. I don't know if they were burned for being witches or if they got some disease.

On a lighter note, I visited the pirate museum. And I found two pirates!



The one on the left is Mad-Eye Marge, wanted in fifteen states for piracy, including stealing men's hearts and cheese. The other is Jolly Jillianne, a thief who's hard to catch on account of her being always on the move; She lives in Vancouver, but works all over and after a meeting in Toronto visited us in Boston. She's frequently seen cavorting with Mad-Eye Marge.

Music to poop by

We live next to a high school stadium. Usually it's good for a chuckle when we suddenly get a roaring ovation for doing the dishes. But today there's a festival rockin on the football field. You can hear "YMCA" very well from our bathroom.
On a related note: They're now playing the "Electric slide." Appropriate.

Painful, but appropriate.

Truer words were never said.

"The most important part of travel is when you come home, because that's when you see your country with new eyes. I was amazed to realize that we are the only country, that tells the rest of the world, on a nearly constant basis, that we are the greatest country on Earth. And that is a little fuckin' obnoxious. And I know it's obnoxious, because if you were in an office, and there was someone there who came in everyday and said, 'I'M THE GREATEST FUCKER HERE! AND YOU SNIVELING SHITS WOULD DIE WITHOUT ME!!' I can guarantee you by the end of the week you'd have killed him, and eaten him, just to try to possess his power. The amazing thing is that there are people who have never left this country, who talk about the fact that we are the greatest country on Earth. How fuckin' dumb is that? 'Cause you don't know. If you haven't left here you don't know. There are countries that may be giving shit away everyday! Canada's one of those countries. You know what they give away? HEALTH INSURANCE!"
-Lewis Black

I CLIMBED A FRIGGIN MOUNTAIN.

Don't believe me? Eat this:


That's me with Marcy's dad on top of Mount Jo. Mt. Jo is in the Adirondacks and is a "small" mountain, meaning it's not considered one of the 46 high peaks.

Not a high peak? My ass! I was climbin' up sheer rock for crumb's sake! I got stung by something that ate my leg! And I kissed my fiance on the top of the mountain. All in all, a great day.

And another season ends

Ottawa: 3
Buffalo: 2

Damn.

Sabres, don't quit now.

We're down. But we're not out.

And Brett Hull can kiss my ass.

Zombies get political.

For those of you not journalists here, a little insight into the profession:

For every fun or quirky story you read/hear, there's a journalist behind it that had twice as much fun covering the story.

Case in point: Every year Zombies have a march in Somerville. That's right. The undead. In the middle of spring, because even the recently deceased appreciate good weather.

Check it out (This story done by one of my colleagues). http://www.townonline.com/townonline/homepage/x417434860

And if you don't feel like reading the whole story and such, just watch the people protesting the zombies:

Spider-meh.

I give Spiderman 3 2.5 out of five beers.

I mean, it was good, but not Batman Begins good. Honestly they didn't spend enough time on any of the "new" characters; though I did like how the internal conflict/MJ conflict was set up. But honestly, they could've taken out Sandman entirely and used that time to develop Venom more, or even Gwen Stacy (reduced in the film to a bit part, in a disappointing underutilization of a character a la Bane in Batman Unlimitied or whatever the hell the worst comic book movie ever was called. And yes, I'm counting "Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD" starring Hasslehoff.)

Saturday mornings

The only thing that will change when Marcy and I have kids one day is that we won't be the only ones watching cartoons.

Spandex ballet

A woman I work with sez men need to shave their legs if they're going to wear spandex.
Well, I have "bike shorts", which I guess are spandex-ish but they're got padding on the butt, right? So is that spandex?
Bottom line: Ain't shavin' my legs.

Spider Man 3 today

Will it suck as bad as everyone says? Tune in, Spidey fans, when you'll here Bryan say:

"Hey, that movie was ------ than -----!"

Watchmen: A review

Who’s watching the watch---

A recurring theme to this graphic novel is that the above phrase is never fully shown. It’s always partially obscured, or just off the panel, so that we never actually read the phrase, which was based on an old Latin saying.
I mention this because if you go googling the watchmen, or look at the many annotated scripts out there (more on that in a minute), you’ll see people are always pointing this fact out first.
Here’s what I got from my first read:
- You’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t.
- The book’s “villain” posits that the only way to save humanity is to destroy it (or at least some of it). So it’s hard not to draw comparisons to Sept. 11. And it was strangely prophetic in its depiction of the world coming together.
- Realistic omnipotence – is there such a thing? If you were given all the power in the world, and all the knowledge, would you cease caring about taking part in humanity? I’ve been stuck on this one for awhile.
- It takes a certain type of person to go around wearing a costume all day. My sister was Ernie (of Bert n Ernie) once. Nuff said.

That’s all for now. I’m going to read it again and post another review, one a little more in-depth. There’s just too much to say about it all at once.

Coming soon.

I have stumbled on a book that I'm about halfway through but can already feel is changing my life. And while it SHOULD be "The Universe in a Single Atom" by the Dalai Lama, which I've been reading for the better part of a year in order to understand it, it is not. This book was named one of the top 20 novels of the 20th century by Time magazine. Its got surprisingly deep characters with very complex issues.

And it's a comic book.

I'm reading The Watchmen, which is actually a graphic novel but most of the folks that are regulars of this here blog will see it and say, "That's a comic book." But I know better. Just thought you should know that I know that.

So stay tuned, as there's a review to come, Neil Cumpston-style I think.

To tide you over, watch Will Farrell get verbally bitchslapped by a two-year-old.

Sculp-tastic!

Last weekend, Marcy and I decided to have craft night. It entailed a foray into Sculpey, the clay material you bake in the oven to make lovely sculptures. I turned out to be pretty darn good, and await local art critic Garv to tell all the Blurbites how we did. Enjoy!

(From left: Mr. Quacky by me, a hot dog also by me, an Easter bunny by me, jack-o-lanterns by Marcy, gnome by Marcy, and flower pot by Marcy.)

Another look at the bunny, including Easter basket by Marcy.

Has it been TWO WEEKS!?

Dear God it's been awhile. Been busy with the new job (check out here if you don't believe me).

Some randomness while I've been away:

- My mother and sister went to Costa Rica. Why? Why not!? And the trip was .... mysterious. Neither will tell me anything about it yet, but I've seen pictures of them zip-lining through the jungle. I think they stumbled on a futuristic alien that makes itself invisible and has lazer scopes, and they had to battle it by smearing mud on themselves so that it couldn't see them because it's got infrared vision and my sister got wounded but said, "I ain't got time to bleed."

- I learned how to install laminate flooring. Yep. Here's a picture of me doin' it:

- Marcy and I went to an event to look at wedding rings. She almost bought her band at half price, and it had five diamonds on it! It'll make some other girl very happy, because we decided that in the end, this is one of the things we're not going to skimp on. We want the rings to mean something, rather than go for what we can get cheap. So we left empty handed but not empty stomached: We each had a thick slab o' cake and man was it tasty. So we're going with the Celtic bands we found online. Should be pretty sweet.

- Apparently test dummies were the "alien bodies" found at Area 51 in the 1950s. But some old guy won't believe it. I mention this because there's a lesson here: Dummies are everywhere.

- Marcy made a mighty fine dinner from instructions she scribbled on a Post-It note.

- I find myself envying Joxer's life sometimes. The big decision in his life is whether to sleep on the back of the love seat or the chair in the guest room.

- Vince McMahon got his head shaved. While that doesn't directly impact my life, I am still bummed that I missed Wresltemania.

There. Had to get that out. Next post won't be so random.

And Glinda the Good Witch is a Barmaid!

Here's what it's like to visit the Sam Adams brewery, in which the brewery is Oz, the wizard is some guy named Jim, you are Dorothy, and the lion, tin man, toto, and the scarecrow are whatever boozers you bring with you. And for the purposes of this story, since she won't appear here anyway, let's say the Wicked Witch of the West is John Q. Lawman.

You get to the Emerald City after a long journey. Its doors are already open, and an ugly dude invites you in for free. There are some cool trophies and such that the Emerald City has won over the years by being the best gemstone-laden municipality there is. Some years it gets beat out by the Gold City and the Ruby City (which manufactures slippers), and occasionally even the Dull Quartz City has a good year. But the Emerald City is proud of what it is and what it's done, and wastes no time in telling you about it.

You're led into an anteroom where the fine people of the Emerald City tell you more stories and promise to take care of you and your friends, and even shine your tin man and bikini wax your lion. Then it's time for the Great Unveiling, and you're led (ok, more like pushed) into the Great Oz's chambers.

The Great Oz isn't there, but a recording of him is. Fair enough. But then you learn that magical waterfalls a la Charlie and the Chocolate Factory do not a magician make; instead his source of power comes from great steel and copper drums that are impressive when you think of how much beer they hold. Oops - got off the metaphor.

OK - so you're slightly disappointed but then Glinda the Good Witch tells you that it's all right - you're still going to Kansas. Sort of. The Wizard is instead going to ship you to Cheboygan, but will be happy to provide directions to Kansas from there. Which is fine and good, because you're still going to be closer to Kansas than you are now and at any rate, the voices from the tiny people in your head ... I mean the Yellow Brick Road ... will be quieted for awhile. Cheboygan's nice this time of year.

(The brewery was fun. They give you 7 oz. glasses for free! The guy that gives you your glass checked my ID. Apparently I own just one set of clothes because I was wearing the same outfit in my license photo. You can't buy beer there, which stinks, but they give you directions to the nearest liquor store and pub. Fine by me.)


I try me a Sam. We tasted Regular, White, and Summer ales. I'm a convert to the White.


One of the aforementioned copper kegs.


Though the original brewery is here in Boston, Sam Adams' main production facilities are in Ohio and (drumroll ...) ... Rochester, NY!! I can't escape.

Excellence par excellence

Ok, Linda Pinkow beat me to the punch on my own blog. That's what you get for hangin' around journalists.

I recently was named the editor of the Lexington Minuteman, a rather large and involved weekly out here in New England. (Remember the Lexington/Concord battles from history class? It's that Lexington. The battles of Lexington and Concord were the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War. They were fought on April 19, 1775, within the towns of Lexington, Concord, Lincoln, Menotomy (Arlington), and Cambridge. The battles marked the outbreak of open armed conflict between Great Britain and its thirteen colonies in the mainland of British North America. (SOURCE: Wikipedia)

I was told that Lexington and Concord do not, alas, play each other in high school sports. So here are the headlines I WOULD have used if they ever did:

Just a minute, man
Lexington v. Concord: This time, it's for real
Football: It's revolutionary

And if they played Arlington:
Break the Menotomy
Marauding minutemen skewer Arrrlington

Yo hair!

The barber said it was a throwback to the newspaper editors of the 1930s.
He said it's called the Princeton, and is all the rage in the Harvard Square crowd.
But most importantly, he said it was "the balls."
I have to agree. This haircut is the balls.

Oscars - wild!

Here's what I'll say about the Oscars:

1) Seinfeld and Ellen Degeneres are actually funny.

2) A teacher at Marcy's college once told her she looked like Celine Dion. Yikes. I don't think so but Marcy sings nice.

3) Pan's Labyrinth got screwed outta an Oscar.

4) Marty Scorsese's eyebrows will one day jump off his face and take over the world.

5) Some dude is standing next to Clint Eastwood talking in Italian. It's very emotional. Oh wait .. I think this guy just called Clint a damn, dirty douche ... Now I'm sure he said "Wrigley's gum." And cobb salad. He's just reading a menu now! This is the best acceptance speech ever. He just told Gwyneth Paltrow to brush her teeth with cheese, and I'd like to thank you from the bottom of my pants! (Thank you, Marcy, for translating.)

6) I've spent a lot of time watching this show, and I just saw a commercial in which a toddler knows who Taft is and what he looks like. I'm going to go do something with my life now ...

Best made-up holiday ever.

Meep Day is like if you took the original, pre-screwed-with Star Wars trilogy and made it into an intravenous drug only available to you if you take an oath to punch a Teletubby in the eyes whenever you see one. Naturally, you want it every day but you only can get it once in a great while.

It happens once a year, and is our fuck-you to the establishment that says I have to buy flowers and chocolate and shit once a year while essentially ignoring my better half for the rest. No thank you. I rather surprise her with flowers ONLY when she least expects them, and when I have the money. And when I don't have the money? Well, that's sort of what Meep Day is all about.

See, Meep day has a rule. You may not buy the other person a gift. You have to make it.

I've just celebrated my third Meep Day, and it's taught me something about the nature of gifts: When they are created by hand, they mean so much more. Maybe it's just a card you make from magazine clippings, or a dinner. Whatever it is, I've never been able to put "I love you" in a gift the way I can on Meep Day.

That said, it works the other way, too. I didn't think I could love her more than I do, but then Meep Day came. And she made me a Death Star cake. Best made-up holiday ever.






Oh yeah - did I mention the Death Star is filled with pudding?