If you're in the Austin area, check out my, uh... likeness as Mark "Gonzo" Gonzalez tonight on the Almost Late Show With Bobby Bones, 9 p.m., ME Television (Channel 15 on cable).

I'm like a meth freak today with all the posting and being busy and writing and stuff. Somewhere in my "Sick day" I found time to post new songs, there on the left-hand wide for your auditory pleasure.

Read the song write-ups here. I think there's some especially good ones this time that you might not have heard.

New comic!. I'd try to explain it, but... well... mollusk elves.

I had a big four-day weekend for Thanksgiving and was all excited about it until Rebecca got sick and then, inevitably, I got sick, too. Seems to happen to me a lot during the holidays.

Anyway, there was a stack of things to do -- book reviews, the meal with the family, work on this ME Television thing I'm helping with, work on the comic, and a bunch of console review stuff for the paper. Even with two days off, it still ends up feeling like tons of stuff to do. Not that I'm complaining -- it's all good and I like keeping busy.

I went to my first-ever taping of Austin City Limits. It was one of those things that if I'd moved to California, I'd have really regretted not doing while I was here. The taping was for James Blunt and he was very good, although I did have to turn in my testicles at the door. My wife really likes him and it was a sort of very late birthday gift, so, whatevers. The studio is fantastic and it made me regret not getting to see What Made Milkwaukee Famous or Arcade Fire there. It also made me mad at the San Antonio PBS station, which is the only one I can get at home, for not airing all episodes of ACL. Boo, KLRN.

Saw some movies over the weekend on the PS3 in Blu-Ray. Mission: Impossible 3 looked pretty damned incredible in HD and I almost forgot it was Tom Cruise with all the snappy action. My favorite dumb moment -- Tom Cruise does the whole face mask thing to look like Philip Seymour Hoffman and they convincingly show how mask is made and how he puts it on (despite the dramatically different bone structure), then the very next scene you watch him run with his gut all flapping around, clearly showing that a fat suit would have been involved, too. If it was Amy Sedaris, I'd believe it, but Tom Cruise? Scientologist, please.

Still, it was way better than the other MI movies. But then that's faint praise, huh?

We also saw Monster House, which again looked and sounded fantastic on Blu-Ray. The format seems tailor-made for computer-animated movies like that. It's a fun movie with some great voice acting and the best extra in the movie is seeing Steve Buscemi wearing all these goofy ball sensors on his face and body and acting on a sound stage.

How good is Heroes? I mean, damn! I was going to wait until the end of the season and catch up in reruns, but I couldn't resist and now I'm so glad I'm watching. Sure, some of the dialogue is groan-inducing, but the show is so well put-together and genuinely feels like it's going somewhere that I can forgive quite a lot. And then there's Hiro. Didn't last night's episode break your heart? It's nice to see them do in one or two episodes what it takes Lost about 12 to do.

I'm also slowly catching up on this season's episodes of Gilmore Girls I agree with the people who say this season is turning all the characters into spineless shadows of their former selves, but then Sookie or Michel will do something adorable or Paris will say something bitchy and I'm right back in the fold to watch again. I do kind of hope this season is the last, though.

James Blunt, Gilmore Girls... oh, snap! I forgot to get my balls back at the end of the concert! NOoooooooo!