A tiny image preview of a skit from our show, "Beanburger Hill." (It's not the real title, but I'd be spoiling a good joke if I told you what it was really called.)

Last night, there was a little happy hour for Greg's birthday. We went to the 1920s Club and it was a lovely time.

While there, we met Adam, who started a journaling site called Easyjournal. Adam was new to our online journalers gatherings, but was really open to ideas and suggestion about templates, notify lists and such. He said Easyjournal has about 50,000 subscribers and its rare that you get to chat with someone over drinks who weilds so much influence over a big chunk of online journals. Go visit with him and drop him a line.

And happy birthday Greg!

The Real Cancun: I stopped watching The Real World ages ago, and honestly, showing a bunch of boobies and slapping an R rating on it isn't going to make me likely to plunk any money down on the franchise. Maybe it's my steadily increasing age in proportion to what's on MTV, but I just can't get excited about watching 20-year-olds get drunk, hook up and kvetch about their feelings about Chip or Kira. It's just fucking exhausting you know? I remember a guy in our troupe had some romantic entanglements that we wached play out at a cast party and we took him aside (we being two of the older members of the troupe) and we could all remember what it was like to be 23 and have a crush on a girl. But just talking about it was kind of tiring. Oh, but Real Cancun? Won't be seeing it.

All the Real Girls: By all accounts, this sounds totally like my kind of movie. Swoony, elegaic, awkward. We were lucky enough to get a screener of this, so I'm hoping to watch it on Sunday.

Identity: I'm intrigued by this director, James Mangold, even though I never saw Heavy, Girl Interrupted or even Copland. He just sounds like he does smart material. The Cusack doesn't hurt either.

Confidence: Ed fucking Burns. That's the only thing you have to say to keep me from seeing a movie. She's the One so thoroughly annoyed me, I vowed not to support that bumfuck in future artistic endeavors. Saving Private Ryan excluded.

Better Luck Tomorrow: Interesting premise, and good that a film about Asian-Americans is getting some decent press. There was a good Wall Street Journal story and some decent wire copy about the director.

It Runs in the Family: Feh. I can barely stand Michael Douglas, ever since he stole the woman I was supposed to marry a few years back (things turned out okay for me, all things considered, but still. DAMN YOU DOUGLAS!) and his daddy being in a movie with him isn't going to warm the cockles of any part of my body. Fuck you too, Kirk!

Next week: X2. Bring that shit on.

I recovered from the great Sick Day '03 yesterday and came back to work to find -- the opposite of what I expected. I thought there was going to be mass chaos, admonition, fires in the streets. Turns out things went just fine without me. I have a fear of calling in sick, an anxiety, if you will. It almost makes me sicker than whatever afflicts me.

Feel like crap,
Called in sick,
Wish I'd had sex,
With Mädchen Amick.

No idea why I got a referral from this page (can't find a link anywhere on it), but it's some interesting discussion nonetheless. Every year you hear about weird laws being passed in Texas for nefarious reasons and people here (at least in Austin) collectively shake their heads and don't have to wonder at all why the world thinks this state is so backward.

I remember when I was young and I slept. It was sweeeeeeeet.

Sleep. It tasted like... oranges. Sweet, sweet oranges that dribbled juice everywhere and smelled like sunshine and then I would just keep my eyes closed because zzzzzzzzzz...

And now I'm like ACK POW BOOM GOTTA GO THERE oh no! WHUZZAT, deadline, quick eat, shower, 2:30 a.m.? what!?! alarm clock, cats scratching the bed, 3:30 a.m.!?! and then it's 9 and I'm already late and ugh, toothbrush, hair dryer, coffee machine, car, employee parking lot, ACK POW BOOM DEADLINE, edit, edit, lunch!

Sometimes at work, a wise old lady with great legs gathers us around the campire (it's an electric campfire, and you can just shut up about that, Human Resources) and we hear stories about the days before Thunderdome, about when people slept and worked reasonable hours and didn't rush to and fro. And we all chant about those days and how it is now and why we settled into this office building. "We don't need the learnin'," we chant, "we can work here."

And I drink my coffee and smell oranges and ACK POW BOOM again and again and... huh?

After some sunny, muggy days, we finally got some cloud and drizzle. The town feels like its under a blanket; everyone is sleepy-eyed and the clock moves ahead quickly as our bodies move through the day slowly.

I made a to-do list, which I always do during our 11 a.m. features meetings, just to keep my brain moving and to have a clear list of things to do once I get out of that huddle. Today, there were 22 items on the list. I'm at about #13 right now.

I want to spend an entire day at home watching movies. No video games, no Web surfing, just one DVD after another (maybe a few extras or commentary tracks to mix it up a bit). It never happens, this watching movie thing, but I just imagine an entire day of popcorn and movie-watching, of crossing off six or seven movies from my "always wanted to see" list. Movies like Gosford Park and Dog Day Afternoon, Days of Heaven and the first two Godfather movies again.

I started to make progress last year with two of the best movies I've ever seen, Citizen Kane and Double Indemnity. But it's easy to get overloaded with the 50 new DVDs that come out every week now.

The problem is I hate watching new movies (or stuff I'm seeing for the first time) alone. I love talking about movies, I love remembering who I saw a film with the first time. And the cats aren't much on movie trivia.

At long last, a new Smallville recap is up. Wing Chun tells me it's the 5,000th story posted on Television Without Pity. Yay, TWOP!

I spent the weekend shooting more LCP stuff (Nick put together a hilarious rough cut of a Vietnam War video sketch we're doing) and dying and going to TV heaven. More on the TV thing later. Let me just say that I probably won't be leaving my house much for the next, oh, year or two.

Wow. So, I guess I got cut off on that audio message. That was entirely creepy. Not sure that I'll be doing that again.