We had two sets of boys in our home this week.

Rico and Diego, the kittens who are brothers and whose personalities are going in divergent directions, have taken to camping out on opposite sides of the house. Rico sleeps with us, wandering the north shore of pillows or lying down at the foot of the bed, lazily stretching out in the morning as I get ready for work and assuming the spot that I just left. He's sweet and cute and runs around a lot and everyone who visits instantly adores him.

He's also, as Rebecca puts it, "Kind of dumb. Most good cats are dumb." He chases his tail a lot, knocks things over regularly and is very good at running very fast right into doors or walls.

Diego has gotten to be fat and moody. He eats other cats' food (including Cosa's and Bennie's, another cat who is visiting). He and Rico will play together, wrestle, whatever, but Diego will whine and and complain. He sleeps in the living room or in the room where Rebecca's sister is staying. He's not crazy and vicious like Cosa, but he's not sweet like Rico, either.

The other boys staying with us this week were two 17-year-olds. One is a family cousin, the other is his friend, both in town for (get ready) singing camp.

I think it's more along the lines of choir than of, say, the musical theater camp, uh, Camp.

These boys were not nerdy, but they also were not violent thugs going to, for instance, tattoo camp or welding camp or pimp camp.

They were nice boys from the Rio Grande Valley with cool cell phones and headphones, big backpacks and a penchant for IHOP. For a few days, it felt like we'd suddenly skipped through all the parenting stuff and achieved two well-behaved 17-year-olds who, however polite they were, were still about 20 quadrillion times cooler than we could ever be at 30.

The day they arrived, they mumbled a lot (kids that age mumble when they're not singing or talking to each other), but we finally found a common language when I asked if they speak Halo. It turns out they do and four hours later, after speaking that for what seemed like forever, they learned another new language, Conker: Live and Reloaded.

They were at camp for very long hours, so we only saw them late at night when they were tired and tuckered out, as even teenagers get sometimes.

We watched TV with them. They love Robot Chicken. They tolerate The Daily Show and are curious, but not enthralled, by Stella.

We suddenly decided we couldn't watch Six Feet Under, Entourage or even Blow Out with them in the house.

We threatened to make them work on the lawn for us, but that never really materialized.

Rebecca says they sang in the car on our little mini tour to Gruene. But they didn't know some songs from the 80s, which made us sad and old.

We bought Dr. Pepper and Funyons, which we are told somehow function as nutrition for the teenaged body (a fact that boggles the mind of those of us who can't drink caffeine after 2 p.m. or digest McNuggets anymore).

Now they're gone back home, and the house feels much emptier. We're not having kids, at least not anytime soon. But for a little while, our two sets of boys made the house feel fully alive, and we very much felt like Responsible People, lying in bed in the night hoping the next day would bring no calamity to them.

My long-delayed review of Forza Motorsport is up at austin360.com. It's a good game.

I thought I'd have a few other self-authored things to link to, but that's it for now.

Space Monkeys! turns one-year-old today. No new comic this morning, unfortunately, but something new will be up tomorrow, as befits our two-comics-a-week work schedule.

Saw a sketch troupe called Think Tank last night doing a one-night-only show and it kicked my ass in the back of the head. Our friend LadeeLeroy is in it. I'd tell you to go see it, but damn, it was the one night. Catch them next time.

Let's see, what else... my dad broke his knee. He needs surgery. It sucks.

My tax lady who has failed to finish our taxes at even this very late date hurt herself, too. The injury was unrelated to my dad's, but two people I work with have also recently suffered debilitating leg injuries of late.

Watch your extremities, people.

The very funny comedian Freddy Soto is, unfortunately, still dead. Jesse Pangalinan wrote some very nice things.

That's right, y'all.

It is time.

The day is finally here. X out that circle on your calender.

MacGyver: Season 2. Out now. In stores. RUN!

Season two is when MacGyver gets really crafty.

As the poster on the Amazon page says, "What will MacGyver think of next?"

Indeed.

Check out the cover of the DVD there. Motherfucker gets out of a scrape with a hangglider! Goddamn, that's some good MacGyver.

Fry's has a "Limit 1 per customer" on their circular for the DVD, so you know there's gonna be a run on them. Rush! Go purchase! MaaaacGyyyyyyyyveeeeerrrrr!

I heard about it yesterday in an e-mail from friends in L.A., but waited to hear what happened. Our friend Gabe sent a loving e-mail that blamed heart failure. Dude couldn't have been older than 35. Heart failure? Man. What a fucking horrible thing.

We only got to meet Freddy a few times, twice that I can clearly remember. Once was seeing him perform in Austin and being blown away by how funny he was, yet how his voice stood apart from all the other Latino comics doing jokes about growing up poor in the barrio. He could be fierce and loving and hilarious at the same time, on stage. We kept trying to schedule him to come perform at one of our annual Fiesta shows and he'd either be out of our price range at that time or our schedules would conflict. But he always kept reminding us that he wanted to work with us and that he wanted to make it happen.

When the LCP did its one and only show in L.A., we went to see him later on do a showcase at a comedy club. He was amazing. He talked to us before and after, and was just generous and cool to us. He got us into the club for free that night. We talked briefly about a sketch show he was trying to get on television. He'd been working on it for a while.

The L.A. Times did a write-up and maybe someone else like Entertainment Weekly will pick up the story, too, the way they did weeks later with Mitch Hedberg's death.

Right now, we just miss him. We miss the jokes he would have written and the jokes he was already performing and the funny voice he took to the stage, inspiring all of us.

We will miss you, Freddy Soto.

New Space Monkeys! comic up this evening. We're cranking them out as if it were a real, honest-to-goodness, regularly updated comic.

Which I guess now it is. Whee!

Like it's not already hard enough to get your book published and sold.