Armed with the digital camera, a short walk around the neighborhood today revealed this: The scary thing is that on the other side of the hill at the end of this idyllic-looking street, there's a VA hospital where they filmed scenes for The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension. What you don't see is that about 2 seconds after I snapped this pic, the homeless guy walking out of the Coffee Bean's sitting area gave me the finger. There was a small festival going on in the 'hood today... In some countries, forcing your kids to go up on stage for a cute photo op and making them look as miserable as some of them did while they were playing their tambourines and maracas is a violation of the Geneva Convention. A drag racer for the over-75 crowd. Here's one of them Orthodox Jews trying to teach some guys sitting at KooKooRoo about the miracle of Christmas -- I mean Sukkot, which is the celebration of the harvest festival. "Oy, we planted and tilled the soil for so long..."

My boys are gettin' it done. My only wish is that I really wish I could be in Boston for this series. And I'm hoping to see a Cubs-Red Sox World Series given the fact that it would be the Underdog Series of the Millennium, despite the fact that it could get ugly since I'm dating a Cubs fan. Stephen King says, "In a Cubs-Sox World Series, it'll be tied at three games apiece, and just before the seventh game begins, the world will end." View image

Since it's been an... interesting... few days/weeks, I'm going to post a short list of things that are making me happy right now to remind myself of all the good that's out there. - The Matrix Revolutions comes out in less than a month - Audioslave - Wendy, Fran and Eve - Making a particular someone happy - Singing - Roadtrips - When people read my writing for work and e-mail to say it's funny - My friend Sam, who is blogless - Amy Lee, the lead singer of Evanescence - When a kickass song comes on the radio unexpectedly - Family Guy, Futurama and the cards Cartoon Network puts up between commercials during "Adult Swim" - A sunny day - Going to Disney World in less than 2 months - Taco Bell beef soft tacos

I've been looking through some websites of the various California recall candidates... and I may have to vote for Arnold Schwarzenegger tomorrow. It pains me to say so, but he's the only one who seems to have any plans for the state and doesn't just make some vague promises about turning things around. Hell, I spent 15 minutes looking through Cruz Bustamante's site, and I couldn't find any of his campaign platform stances. How much more of a laughingstock will this state become if Arnold is governor? I can only pray he does a better job than the current administration.

Me (upon seeing an ad in this week's Sav-On Drugs circular): They're making Halloween Peeps now? I thought there was some kind of federal mandate limiting them to Easter. Roommate: No, I guess they're making them for every holiday now. Me: New! Ash Wednesday Peeps! Available in delicious grey! And given that tomorrow is Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement when most Jews spend the day fasting (that's no eating and no drinking for those of you playing along at home), many Jews have big-ass dinners the night before. Therefore, I've been invited to join Jenn at her mom's house for a huge dinner tonight. My world-famous chocolate peanut butter squares are cooling in the fridge for me to bring tonight.

Feeling rather uncreative. Need to recharge, and I definitely need to sort out everything that's running through my head. But I think, most of all... I need a haircut.

Okay, so here's where President Moron gets to look like a damned hypocrite. With very flimsy proof of their possession of weapons of mass destruction, he rides off on his high horse and decimates Iraq. Where's the weapons of mass destruction, Georgie? "Uhh, well, we might have gotten some bad intel." Riiiiight. Now we've got North Korea, who is telling us straight out! that they're using spent nuclear rods to make plutonium bombs. We don't even need any intel on this, they're just up and telling us! But I'll bet you dollars to donuts that we are not even going to go anywhere near setting foot on their soil, which, while I support not going into North Korea, is incredibly hypocritical of our Fearless Leader because he set precedent with Iraq. North Korea is so much more dangerous to us than Iraq ever could be, because North Korea has the delivery system to launch nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction at us -- and reach the U.S. mainland with them -- while Iraq could basically fire its peashooter Scuds at Israel and that's all. So, why the double-standard, eh? C'mon, Georgie... what's the deal? No, don't run away and hide behind your national security blankie and cry...

Some of you know that part of my job is writing part of a daily fax that has a bit of a smartass slant. My co-worker and I who write the fax affectionately refer to it as "our big, dumb stuff fax" because we cover all the really stupid things that are going on in the industry and that people may or may not have intentionally done. But I actually received fan mail this morning for a piece I wrote in today's fax that references Long Duk Dong, Exchange Student At-Large. In honor of that, I'm making today "John Hughes Day." What's your favorite John Hughes film dialogue line?

It was one of those days where someone got mad at me for reasons that I and others couldn't understand, where someone made me laugh so hard I couldn't breathe, and someone proposed something to me that threw me into so much of a tizzy that it's been hard to concentrate on much of anything else since that conversation. It was one of those days when I wish I could fall asleep and wake up a month later. It was one of those days when I wish I could stay up indefinitely so I could take care of everything I want to do right now.