Busy Sunday, Poor Car, Poor Animals

Happy Monday... or something. I actually had a pretty good weekend. Saturday was largely a lazy. Hung out with the fam, went out for a tasty lunch at Amy's favorite (Texas Roadhouse), etc. Nothing really of note. Contrast with Sunday, which actually wound up being pretty busy. Didn't go to church because of the horrible weather, but we did hang out with Amy's mom & cousin and watched X-Men 3 instead, so that was fun. After that I got to play beast of burden/photographer at Evie's first swim lesson . I had a blast watching and taking pictures - the class is all people we know (Evie, Allison, Katie, Audry, and Glenn), so that was funny too. Be sure to read Amy's writeup for all the details (and of course, pics).

After swim-time I shoveled the drive/walk (first snow of the year and it's ~3 inches + a bit o' ice!) and then watched some football. I was rooting for the Saints, so it's a bummer that they went down so hard to Chicago, but I don't really have a beef with the Bears. I mostly just can't believe how lopsided it was - LOTS of mistakes by the Saints. I think the poor weather (and poor field condition especially) definitely played a role. I was definitely very happy to see the Indy/New England game - it was a really well-played game, with a nicely orchestrated comeback on the Colts' part. Peyton finally gets over the hump by beating the nemesis Patriots and making it to the Super Bowl. Now can he win the big one? I guess we'll see in two weeks. I'm actually pretty bummed out that the Super Bowl's only two weeks away, because that means that two weeks from today begins the months-long sad span that is known as the football off-season. I just can't get into other sports at anywhere NEAR the same interest level.

In other news, been having some car issues lately. To begin with, I'm well overdue for an oil change and just need to make the time to get that done. Not easy with Evie around, but my laziness is also playing a role here too - I hate taking my car to the shop, even for an oil change, as something else always winds up being wrong. Last week/weekend during the endless downpour I noticed my speakers warbling a bit. They've been fine since, but I'm wondering if I got a wet wire somewhere which was causing things to not do well... And finally, this morning as I turned on the car I noticed that one of my headlights is out. Fun fun. So I guess I'll be taking it in sooner rather than later. (Oh, and of course my a/c is still broken, but it being winter that doesn't really matter at the moment). My poor car just needs some TLC.

Last but not least, I got a huge kick out of this this morning - check out this breed of goats that go stiff-legged when they get exited:



Then there's this poor dog with narcolepsy. I feel bad, but it's so funny it's hard not to laugh:



There's a longer video here about a different dog with narcolepsy (a news story about a poodle with the condition) - with the full story it's more sad than funny, but there are still some pretty entertaining zonk-out moments from the poor dog...

Yeah Toast

Or maybe it should be "Yeah, Toasta". Check this out:


I need one of these! A ceramic toaster that pulls the bread through this little stand-up thingy and spits toast out onto a nice forked-catching rack on the other side. This design won first prize at a "Ceramics for Breakfast" competition over at DesignBoom. According to the designer, "This toaster is designed to engage the user, re-invigorating the social context of toasting by questioning everything about what we toast with today." Read more about it.

I really could've used one of those last week and earlier this week while in the grips of la grippe. I'm well on the road to recovery at this point, but I believe that was one of the worst colds I've had in recent memory - perhaps ever. Holy crap that was no good....

In other good news, I read on BoingBoing today that they're going to be turning one of my favorite books into a SciFi Channel Miniseries. George Clooney is executive producing a miniseries based on Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age. (see SciFi news blurbs here).

The book is set in a pretty distant-future type setting with a society based around the wonders of nanotechnology. It's a big departure from my favorite Stephenson book (Snow Crash, which is a gritty pure-cyberpunk type book - in fact, IMO it's one of THE definitive cyberpunk stories. I'd LOVE to see an adaptation of that), but I still really enjoyed it. I'd say I'm definitely excited to see the miniseries here, but I'm also pretty skeptical on how well they can pull it off - all the nanotechnology effects in the book are going to make for some pretty hardcore special effects and CGI-work, and the book's immersive interactive storybook/illustrated primer (as mentioned in the subtitle) leads the book on some pretty odd tangents which, while interesting, could have a hard time translating to a TV audience. Since it was only just announced, it'll be a long time before it makes it on the air, and there's always the possibility it'll die on the production shelf and the project will never see the light of day... I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Is it Friday yet?

To say I'm having a bad week would be an understatement.

I started coming down with a cold sometime over the weekend. A coworker was showing symptoms on Thursday, so I suspect he's to blame for this particular infection. It started out slow enough that I thought I was going to get by without any major symptoms, but the decline continued and I hit condition critical last night. I'm NyQuil/DayQuilling through the day today - hopefully it's a short one.

Then there was the OSU football debacle Monday night. Yeah, that's pretty much all I have to say about that. At least it was a good time hanging out with everyone BEFORE the game massacre started. Chris has some pics up over at his site.

Unfortunately OSU sports let-downs weren't through yet, as last night the men's basketball team dropped a tough one to Wisconsin. This SHOULD'VE been a blowout as well, but the team managed a rally near the end... which fell a bit short. So far the basketball team has only beaten people we're "supposed" to beat. For a team sporting the supposed greatest college basketball player in all creation and even some fictional worlds, that's not that impressive. Hopefully as Oden continues to get healthy, they'll continue to refine the game around him and everyone will settle into the proper roles.

Coach Matta can't believe the week I'm having either!

So that brings us to last night - my cold is on full-bore and I can't get to sleep worth crap, so I take a shot of the good ol' big Fing Q, original green death flavor. It does it's job and I finally get to sleep - only to get woken up at ~1:50 or so by work. (I'm on call this week). I pursue the issue for the next hour or so and end up getting BACK to sleep shortly after 3. Alarm goes off at 5:30, I zombie-walk through the motions, discover WINTER HAS FINALLY ARRIVED (the first noticeable snow of the year on January 10th? Are you kidding me? Well, at least it looked thin enough to not bother shoveling the drive.

I've been fighting off dozing through the morning. Wish me luck.

The Waters Are Hating

It seems like most of the best stuff on SNL in recent years comes in the animated & digital shorts. TV Funhouse (I can't believe they've been airing those for TEN YEARS now) stuff like this, plus the newer digital shorts (especially the Lonely Island stuff like "Lazy Sunday" and of course "A Special Christmas Box").

Anyway, so I caught this on the rerun tonight and it had me cracking up. Quality parody, especially with all the poor translations and nonsensical cameos.

Silent Star Wars

This is so well done - my only beef is that I wish it was longer! There's so much MORE he could've gotten into the concept. Maybe even keeping the same length, but breaking it into three separate parts (all about this length) rather than all rolled into one?

The Darkside: Not Quite So Dark?

Playing around with different blogger templates to try and find something a bit easier on the eyes (for folks out there who don't dig the white-on-black -- I know you're out there).

Hopefully this one works a little better. I wish there were an easier way to make it more...interesting... but their fancy new template-system doesn't play too nicely with major hackage. I'd really like to at least get an image up sharing the title bar or something - we'll see. I can't imagine getting a wealth of time to poke at it any time soon.

The Shadowbox Shindig was a blast. Amy & I were talking it out and we're pretty sure it was our 5th straight year, which is awesome. This year we had a table (from the Fireball) AND one extra, so a total of nine in the group! Amy & I both got all fancied-up for the night out:


I will say the difference between expectations here is a bit unfair. Me getting fancied up involves a t-shirt, jeans, and a non-tucked in dress shirt, combined with messing up my hair with some gel. Conversely, Amy spent quite some time mastering the look - and she looked good! See for yourself:



One fun side-effect of this look for me is how easily it slips into greaser-mode, as can be seen at the left. I don't know what the hell was going on in this pic - I think I was talking or something.

Anyway, we had a blast - BillWho? put on a great show, as always. Added bonuses this year were a complete lack of Christmas music (it's good and all, but by New Years especially it's time to move on), Carrie Lynn getting back into action, Gabe back in action, a few preview songs from the upcoming Sex, Lies and Shadowbox, and of course, favorites from the past couple years worth of shows. Mary doing "Space Truckin'" just owns.

For more recap of the night, including a great pic of me making good use of the party favors, see Laurie's recap. Inexplicably, she's also got a picture of Amy's abandoned uncomfy shoes (they made it about 20 mins in). Because hey, why not?

Hope everyone's having a great new year so far. Less than a week 'till the OSU-Florida National Championship Game (woot!) and the end of the college football season (un-woot :( ). Enjoy the games while you still can!

Exeunt 2006

Well, I'd have to say it's been a heck of a year. Though my blogging has suffered mightily this year, in most other aspects of my life, things are going pretty damn well. Highlighted, of course, by the arrival and first 8 months of Evie! It's been a wild time, and things won't be settling down any time soon.

Aside from that most awesome of awesomeness, some other stuff of note from the Year In Max:

• Got what I believe to be the best birthday present ever, from my wife, who is awesome beyond words.
• Played my first "real" full game of golf. ("Real" is in quotes mainly because of a) how poorly I did and b) I don't believe anyone was bothering to keep score - except perhaps my uncle).
• Guitar Hero I & II
• Got introduced to another great series of books by Randy: George R.R. Martin's A Song Of Fire and Ice. Of course, this marks the second series he's introduced me to which I've gotten REALLY into, and then been faced with waiting many years for the conclusion of the series.
• Finally visted my uncle & his family at their new (swank) home in North Carolina.
• An AWESOME undefeated regular season for the OSU Buckeyes - and holding out hope to bring home the National Championship in another week or so.
• Attended a Daily Show taping.
• Saw a great rock show in Cleveland: Kamelot & Epica
• Took my Dad to a Browns game (we won!) and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. We also hit up the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Good times.
  
• I'm sure there's a lot more stuff in there my brain is leaving out - especially closer to the beginning of the year...

Anyway, good times.

Tonight we're hitting up the Shadowbox Shindig for the 5th (or 6th??) year in a row. Promises to be a great time - we've got the group back up to NINE this year (from a low of just Amy & I the past two years).

Hope everyone has a great one! See you in 2007!

Day Break: Robbed!

Like most folks, when I first heard about the mid-season "gap filler" Day Break, I thought - they made an action/mystery show out of Groundhog Day? I hope Bill Murray gets a cut.

I stuck it on the DVR list mainly because I like Taye Diggs and thought the concept was interesting, but honestly didn't hold high hopes. Since it was an afterthought, and there were so many other shows we were trying madly to squeeze in, the episodes started piling up, and neither Amy nor I were all that rushed to watch them. Lots of other more important or interesting things to fit in our limited free-time.

So eventually, a few weeks ago we got around to watching the pilot ep. I think I queued it up mainly because it was a 2-hour premiere and I wanted to get it off there to clear up some space. And what did we find? It's a good show - no, it's a great show. We got quickly hooked in, and burned through the rest of the saved eps in no time. I knew the premise sounded really interesting, but this was VERY well executed. They got a lot of the obvious stuff out of the way early: he CAN be hurt and have it carry-over from day-to-day... therefore, he CAN die. He CAN change the day, resolving a major issue which somehow influences other folks, his day restarts at 6:17am no matter what's going on or where he is -- and rather than hanging the show on the gimmick of the repeating day, it's just a part of what played out to be a great mystery show, with a pace infinitely faster than The Nine, a good deal faster than LOST, and even moving things faster than Heroes. The best comparison of pacing is probably 24. It's a GREAT show. MUCH better than LOST has been so far this season, IMO.

So... after watching last week's episode, including a really intriguing twist at the end... imagine our frustration to find it not on the DVR queue to record this week - replaced with something else. A quick trip around the Intarwubs and I find that it's gotten the big yank.

Why did the show fail? It's (IMO) easier to follow than LOST, 24, or Heroes - with the now commonplace recap-intro at the beginning of each episode - so I can't imagine that's why people didn't watch.

The thing is - every time I mentioned it to someone they had the same response I did - "Isn't that the Groundhog Day TV show?" Unfortunately, I think the "gimmick" being a familiar one is what doomed it. People just weren't interested. Combine that with expecting it to keep LOST's audience when they really aren't similar shows, and I believe most people didn't give it a chance out of the gate. Which is a serious bummer, because I think the show could've caught on. And the best part? According to the FAQ at ABC's site they ARE planning on having him solve the mystery and make it to the next day this season. Solving the mystery during the season? *gasp* I know - UNHEARD of. Sure, I don't know what they would've done to eek out another season, but still... all for naught, the show was stillborn. If it had been on it's own to start the fall season it might've had a chance, but as a midseason filler, not so much.

So it's gone, and the 2nd season question won't be an issue. But this season IS all in the can. So -- the saving grace -- ABC IS planning on showing the remaining episodes on their web site (see "Watch Day Break Online Now" on the left-side of the page). Not only that, but all the episodes they've already aired are there as well. So go watch, give it a chance - I really think you'll dig it. It's NOT just Groundhog Day with guns.

Watch my show before they shut the lid!

UPDATE 12/29: Well, it looks like they've given DayBreak the total hucklebuck now - it appears to have completely vanished from the ABC site. Despite initial reports that it would be running online for the rest of it's season, that's a no-go. A few different pages seemed to indicate this was due to "music license issues", whatever the crap that means. I guess now we hope for a DVD release to find out how Hopper's day is resolved... bastiches.

ROCKTAURANT: I Want One!

So not like I didn't already have PLENTY of reasons to be jealous of the metal fans in Scandanavia - now along comes the ROCKTAURANT. Seriously!

Basically, the lead singer of the Finnish band Lordi (they're kind of like GWAR, only not quite as intentionally disgusting, and with more of a hard rock feel) opened a horror-rock themed restaurant! Sounds AWESOME. Too bad the "distant" plans only mention the UK - I doubt something this cool will ever make it to the US.

I guess for now I'll just have to hope to make it back to the VERY COOL Jekyll & Hyde Club in NYC sometime soon. Haven't been since going to NYC with Gary, Irene & Jeremy.

Get Your Vote On!

Make sure to get out there and vote today! This is our first time using the electronic voting machines in our district today, so for all I know I'm voting for whoever Ken Blackwell wants me to, but hey, I'll at least be giving it the old college try! If you need some info on the different candidates/issues, check out OhioElects.

The new machines supposedly print out a receipt of who you voted for -- does that mean that if things don't go my way I can take it back tomorrow for a refund?

Evie gets to vote TWICE today! Er, well go with two people who are voting at any rate...

The Answer Is Obvious!

EDIT

Ok, so predictably the link on YouTube to Hugh Laurie's "Protest Song" from SNL didn't last long... but - he DOES have it on his web page. While it probably won't be there forever, it's definitely way more stable (and presumably, way more legal) than the YouTube version, so check it out, on his videos page. Under "Saturday Night Live" clips, click "All We Gotta Do Is". And wait for it to load...

You need Quicktime, and it's pretty high quality, which means it's a longer download, but IMO, worth the wait for a laugh.

Midwest Daily Taptacular

So this afternoon I headed over to the Drake to attend a taping of the Daily Show, visiting Columbus (and OSU campus specifically) for their Indecision 2006 "Midwest Midterm Midtacular" coverage. They're here all week (which means shows Monday - Thursday).

I sent an e-mail back in August when I first heard about it, requesting tickets. Hadn't heard anything back since, so I assumed that it was a no-go. BUT... last week I got the e-mail saying I had two tickets for tonight! WOOT! Well, complicated WOOT, as Amy wasn't able to go (staying home with Evie for the neighborhood Trick-or-Treat action). Gary's sick (ubersick, I'm afraid). Jeff originally showed interest last Friday, but it's his anniversary. Randy had his own tickets (same day even!), so I went with Tyler from work. We waited in the rain outside Drake for around 1.5 hours, only to get inside and wait INSIDE (past the metal detectors!) for another hour or so before finally getting in. We were afraid Randy & Heather weren't going to make it in, and it looked like they were indeed the LAST folks in the door - but they actually got to be up behind the producer/sound table, so that was cool. (Or seemed to be anyway, I wasn't able to catch up with them after the show to see if they felt the same).

The taping itself was a BLAST. Beforehand they had a comedian come out and warm-up the crowd, getting everyone to scream & yell & shout & generally make noise, then cracking jokes with folks, calling out random people and poking fun here & there. A pretty good time. Unfortunately, I can't remember his name :( He played the Funny Bone last weekend... but that doesn't help. Anyway, he was decent, and got folks going pretty well, then Jon Stewart came out and chatted with folks for awhile, taking questions from the audience which ranged from what comedians made him laugh to what he would want to be reincarnated as (an otter, BTW). Pretty awesome to just take whatever questions from folks, and he handled them all well. The only one that was kind of stiff was someone asking him about running for president - he just said he wasn't and moved on immediately.

As for the actual SHOW portion, there weren't any retakes (or none needed that happened at the time I guess), so it went amazingly fast. It seemed kind of odd that there were pauses about the same length as commercial breaks in between segments. It's kind of funny how little actual CONTENT goes into a 30-minute show after commercials and such. The guest was an OSU professor (apparently they invited plenty of politicians, but no one was available/interested) - he was OK I guess, but it would've been nice to see LeBron yesterday or Borat on Thursday. No clue who's scheduled for tomorrow.

So yeah, watch the Daily Show tonight (or the replay tomorrow at 8)! There's an almost infantismal chance you'll see me in one of the crowd-panning shots! And if not, we'll it's still cool that they're IN TOWN. Despite the long wait in the rain, and inside, and the short actual TAPING, the overall experience was a blast, and I'd definitely do it again!

Beware The Ubersick

Holy wow... yesterday was HORRIBLE. Starting late Saturday night (or very early Sunday morning, depending on how you look at it), Amy & I both got really horrible awful sick. Needless to say it was VERY unentertaining, and lasted all night and the majority of the day Sunday. Thankfully my parents were able to come over and take care of Evie, because we were pretty much useless. Such an odd thing, as we were both fine as of typical bedtime Saturday night, then WHAM...

From the sound of things, most of the staff and older kids at Evie's daycare have had this recently. Evie has NOT gotten it, thankfully... though I think Allison might have. :( For everyone else, hopefully if you haven't already gotten it, you won't - it's the SUCK.

Meanwhile, today at work was decent (though hellabusy), and tomorrow should be a good day at work, followed by free tickets to the Daily Show taping at the Drake! Woot!

Banemite!

So apparently the US Goverment has banned Vegemite!

No, not due to it being nasty stuff (which, you know, is a pretty fair complaint) - but due to some wacky ingredient restrictions. So for all those expatriate Aussies in the US looking for their salty-black-tar fix.... NO SOUP FOR YOU! (more)

Oddly enough, I picked up a small jar at Jungle Jims awhile back, which still resides in my cabinet at home -- so I've got contraband now baby! Black market here I come!

(and yes, I know I'm still slacking.)

Slacker Ahoy

Wow, been awhile since I hit up the 'ol bloggage... at least by my standards.

Anyway, yeah I'm still here. Been up to many things:

• First two weeks of Autumn Quarter -- AKA, the busiest time of the year at work. LOTS of work to do.
• Not one, but TWO edition's of Max's Home Alone Adventure (guest starring Evie!). It's fall, which also means Amy starts traveling for work frequently. She's home all this week though - YAY!
• Got and have been playing The Warriors for PS2. Very fun game - makes me seriously want to see the movie again, since it's been so long I remember pretty much NOTHING about it.
• New TV! So far Heroes and Jericho both get the big thumbs-up, Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip gets a fair-to-middling, Six Degrees gets a middling-to-enh.
  
• Graphic novels from the library -- great way for someone who doesn't want to spend $$ on comics like me to keep up on quality funnybooks! Most recently I've VERY much enjoyed reading Alan Moore's runs on Supreme.
• FOOTBALL! OSU football and NFL both in full-swing at this point. The Browns only have one win so far, but OSU's undefeated! WOOT!
• Mike & I also hit up Cleveland last week for a concert by Kamelot & Epica. GREAT show. Very fun.
  

So yeah, staying very busy. So busy I'm missing out on quite a bit too --

• Movies - I want to see Fearless, The Protector, Flyboys, The Illusionist, Idlewild, and Talladega Nights, ALL of which are playing right now, and most likely NONE of which I'll get to see in theaters.. one or two at MOST.
• The Ohio RenFest is running through this month.
• Shadowbox's current show (FreakShow '06) AND their production of the Rocky Horror Picture Show are both currently playing.

I know, I know, being a parent and all means not having time to do everything you want. I'm cool with that- not saying my life sucks or anything (far from it!!!) but there is just a LOT going on right now that I want to do... gotta make choices choices choices!

Rock Star: 0-2

So there he is. Two years in a row now Rock Star has chosen one of the LAST people I would've wanted to win. At least last year my major complaint with JD Fortune was that he was just a major asshole... in this case, I dislike (and in some cases loathe) pretty much everything about Lukas Rossi -- or, as Rick at OnlineOnslaught called him, Lord Revlon Q. Faggenstein.

See, I think the LAST thing the music scene needs at this point is another gothed-up, whiny-voiced emoboy... BUT... I think they telegraphed the pick pretty early in this case. There was the Hollywood Gossip Blog that said Lukas had already been picked as the winner at least a month ago... there was his endless praise from Tommy Lee & the boys... and in the finale it couldn't have been clearer -- the other three remaining folks got pretty soundly panned by the band (and Tommy Lee especially)... well, until AFTER they'd been eliminated, then at that point it seems like every one of the eliminated folks is going to have Dave Navarro and the entire band-formerly-known-as-Supernova backing them. So did they really lose? Is it better to be fronting a band with pretty much no solid future?

So, anyway... I don't anticipate them gettting any of my business. But if you care, here's an interview with Rossi after the win, and they've got two songs up on their MySpace page.

Supernova Goes POP

Who's that you ask? Why, that would be the band Supernova. No, no not THAT Supernova - the original one, a pop-punk band originally from the 80s. Apparently these guys weren't too happy about their name being co-opted by Tommy Lee's projet du jour, and applied a little of the 'ol lawsuitification a couple months back. Well the (current) verdict is in, and for now, a judge says ixnay on the upernova-Say for Mssrs Lee, Clarke and Newstead.

I stress current in the verdict, as it's entirely possible something will still shake-out here to change the result -- either an appeal and overturned ruling, or some kind of buy-out or heavy licensing fees. Given the high profile of the show, and insta-money to be made or lost on the deal, I wouldn't be surprised at all to see the name remain unchanged.

Nevertheless, this only further adds to my opinion on the flash-in-the-pan side proect / shaky future of the band. There are still some performers left on the show that I'm really interested in -- Toby and Magni primarily. If Lukas wins, my interest in Supernova drops to about negative 4.3 trillion.

Of course, if the rumor mill is correct, I'm SOL. But that's just a rumor. We'll know the REAL outcome tomorrow night! Oh, t3h DRAMA~!!

Go Print Me Some Dinner!

Yes, print! So there's this restaurant in Chicago called Moto (Hello Moto), and the chef there has a specially modified inkjet printer which uses food-based "inks" (carrot juice, purple potatoes, tomato juice) to print images onto sheets of soybean & potato starch to make printed edible food! And... wait for it... he calls it a FOOD REPLICATOR!

And Star Trek geeks everywhere were rejoicing.

Seriously though, this sounds freaking awesome. You know I love to try new and different restaurants, and this is just crazy. I'm sure the place is insanely expensive with a year-long waiting list, but I'll at least have to look in to eating there next time I'm in Chitown.

Printed sushi (pictured) -- even the MENU is edible. But the printed food isn't the only cool thing about Moto. The chef (Homaro Cantu) has all kinds of CRAZY stuff going on there. Fish baking in a crazy little box right at your table, cheese literature which tells its own history, flavored packing materials... plus lots of very tasty looking and very snazzily presented other options. Check out this photo essay of a multiple course meal at Moto (about 3 posts in).

I'm so there.

Read More:
-Story at First Science
-Story at New York Times

Fall TV Comin' Atcha

So the season premiere of House was this week. It was most excellent. I'm a little torn on the ending, but it was a great episode and the series has definitely picked up right where it dropped off. Still in my top 5 shows.

Other than House and the almighty football, not much else has started back up yet, but here's a rundown on what I'm waiting on, including the announced/projected premiere dates:

• 24 (FOX): 2-hour 6th season premiere (projected) 1/14/2007 8pm
• Big Love (HBO): 2nd season premiere (projected) 6/3/2007 9pm
• C.S.I. (CBS): 7th season premiere 9/21/2006 9pm
• Cold Case (CBS): 4th season premiere 9/24/2006 9pm
• Doctor Who (SciFi): 150-minute 2nd season premiere 9/29/2006 8pm
• Everybody Hates Chris (CW): 2nd season premiere 10/1/2006 7pm
• The Ghost Whisperer (CBS): 2nd season premiere 9/22/2006 8pm
• LOST (ABC): "special presentation" (recap show?) 9/27/2006 9pm
• My Name Is Earl (NBC): 2nd season premiere 9/21/2006 8pm
• N.C.I.S. (CBS): 4th season premiere 9/19/2006 8pm
• Numb3rs (CBS): 3rd season premiere 9/22/2006 10pm
• Rome (HBO): 2nd season premiere 1/7/2007 9pm
• The Sopranos (HBO): 6th season "winter" premiere (projected) 3/11/2007 9pm
• South Park (Comedy Central): 10th season "fall" premiere 10/4/2006 10pm
• Top Chef (Bravo): 2nd season premiere 10/18/2006 11pm
• Veronica Mars (CW): 3rd season premiere 10/3/2006 9pm

Ok, so looking at that list -- Holy hell that's a lot of TV. Admittedly some of them don't start until 2007, so the specific runs will overlap a LITTLE less... but still. Clearly something's gotta give, as I don't forsee having that much free time. To make matters worse, there are quite a few NEW shows debuting this fall that I'd LIKE to check out:

• Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip (NBC): series premiere 9/18/2006 10pm
• Jericho (CBS): series premiere 9/20/2006 8pm
• Six Degrees (ABC): series premiere 9/21/2006 10:01pm
  
• Heroes (NBC): series premiere 9/25/2006 9pm
• The Nine (ABC): series premiere 10/4/2006 10pm
• Daybreak (ABC): series premiere 11/15/2006 9pm

Yeah... so as you can see, who knows what will make the cut and what will get dropped for sheer sanity/braincell-preservation. Inevitably at least one, likely several of the new shows will tank, so that will help... we'll see how things go.

The Big 3-0

So yeah, today's my b-day. I decided to have a fireworks show to celebrate. Well, that or re-use one of my 4th of July pics instead of trying to find something more appropriate. One of the two.

It must be said loudly and in clear print that I HAVE THE BEST WIFE EVER. PERIOD. Seriously, Amy has outdone herself this year - I haven't even been awake three hours yet and I think this is likely to be my best birthday ever - she's been giving me the royal treatment all morning. On top of that, she really outdid herself with her gift - she's been conspiring over the past month and, knowing my obsession better than anyone else, got me 30 CDs! She's crazy! How did I manage to be so lucky as to get a wife this awesome?

Still not sure what all we're going to do today - we both have the day off work, so it's great just to hang with Evie (and the pups), but I'm sure we'll get out at some point. At the very least we'll be out for dinner at Mortons.

In non-birthday news, we had our Fantasy Football draft (with the OIT-related gang) @ BW3 last night, & it was awesome. Even feeding 9 hungry guys, $100 of food goes a LONG way (it was part of the fantasy football package Hutch set up through Sportsline). Had an awesome time with the gang last night, hanging out, joking, eating, drafting. It's going to be a fun league - much thanks to Hutch for setting it all up.

Ok, so one last piece of b-day news: It's also Laurie's 30th b-day today. From her post, it looks like she's got an awesome day lined up ahead of her as well. Make sure to stop by and wish her a good one!