Taking a break from Movies this Week this week. Honestly? The list, except for Monty Python's Life of Brian, which you could easily rent or buy, looks pretty dismal this Friday. I'll catch you on the rebound next time when I've got a little more energy.

You're probably going to see Shrek 2 anyway. I liked the first one all right. I saw it with a group of friends who soundly reviled the film, the way you might a traitorous prisoner of war before a firing squad. I remember liking The Emperor's New Groove a lot more at the time for sheer cleverness and Mouse House animated subversiveness. For all its appeal, Shrek just didn't seem like it was all that, nevermind the bag of chips.

Subsequent viewings (or partial viewings) on cable and DVD have made the film more likeable to me over time. But, as a friend pointed out recently, the original has perhaps the most annoying soundtrack of any modern animated film. That Smash Mouth music just isn't going to age well.

Also, when did Mike Myers become a parody of himself? Remember when he was the funniest guy out there? Sigh. How quickly our heroes fall. (And turn green and animated.)

Guess who has a live performance coming up next week? I'll give you a clue. It's a show I'm going to go see and it's by an online journaler who is still funny as ever.

My short review of the Season Two DVD set of Smallville is up. I watched all the extras, but no, I didn't sit through all 20-howevermany episodes again. Recapping each one is quite enough, thanks.

More to come...

L'il Floaty Omie Head tries not to talk about TV, but that's like telling a dog to stop wagging its damn tail.

"Stop! With the wagging, would you...! No! Stop wagging! I -- dammit, dog!'

In this edition, we reveal the shameless tech bug that may never be stamped or Raided.

Since about Saturday, I've had a mild-to-annoying little headache, a pressure-point stresser at the lower center of my forehead. It comes and goes in strength, but never leaves completely. I'm told the mold levels are high in Austin right now. My allergy medicines and Ibuprofin helps, but doesn't completely knock it out. It's a dull constant, not too debilitating, but not exactly putting me in the pink daisies of daily life.

It got so bad this morning that I waited it out to see if I would have to call in sick. I came to work anyway to find other people have the same symptoms. We're all walking around and working with headaches, the tiny roar of which we just live with and accept.

It's a little pain, but it makes me think of bigger pains, of people living with awful back injuries, with healing wounds, with chronic awfulness every day. The thing about pain is that it reminds you of unknowingly happy times when you felt nothing but normal. A sniffle here or an itch there seem like good times, times when cloudy headedness wasn't the norm.

A new Smallville recap is up. It was really, really weird reading recaps of Smallville that I didn't write myself. Kim did a fantastic job, but in a weird, unexpected way, I really missed doing them. Ah well. Only one more left after this, the season finale.

Meet Pete -- Then say goodbye five minutes later, because Pete Ross has officially left Smallville. Also, Lana is stalked again by her best childhood friend (now grown up to be a teen Alanis), and Papa Luthor's criminal ass is finally hauled off directly to jail. He probably won't care that he's not passing Go or collecting $200.

Wedding photos are forthcoming, and no, that has nothing to do with the subject line up there.

Instead, here a link to Babes Against Bush, which I am neither endorsing nor not-endorsing, I just thought I'd point it out because, whoah. Lots of breasteses there.

True-life work conversation:

Co-worker: I don't know if we can run a link with that Babes Against Bush story. If you go inside the main page there's a nipple.

Omar:: WHERE!? (One fast Web search later...) Which photo?

Co-worker: The one down at the bottom. With the sign and the cigar.

Omar: I don't think that's a nipple.

Co-worker: It's not?

Omar: I think it's a shadow. Or a shadow of a nipple.

Co-worker: Really.

Omar: Wait a minute. Didn't they have this exact conversation in a movie?

Co-worker: What movie?

Omar: Boomerang! They were editing a video and there was a "Is it a nipple?" debate. And then the little old man at the editing machine was like, "That must be a nipple because I'm droooolin'."