So it's been a relatively rough week at Casa de Griffith. (I say relatively, because it's not like our home was flooded with sewage and we came home to find our electronics looted and our fridge filled with rotted meat. But as things go for an upper-middle-class white couple in a liberal town, well, we've had better.)

There was one shining light though, and it turns out to be a wedding. Which is pretty surprising, because usually, I just dread them.

I don't know why, I always have a very, very good time at weddings, especially the last few I've been too. That's likely because they managed to be mini-reunions of friends as well.

Sometimes I think I'll never be at another wedding until my nephews knock up their girlfriends. When I think to myself, who's left? Really, just who do I know that isn't already hitched? I usually come up blank.

Even among my friends who aren't married, at least I know if I'm getting an invite, it won't be to wear a tux or carry a ring or have any responsibility other than to eat their food and cake.

That is true for almost all my friends except one: Joe.

You have all heard me talk about Joe. My best friend of the last decade plus, we met at the start of my real, actual adult life out of school at my first job. We've been in constant contact since, even though the closest we've ever lived to each other was at best a three hour drive. Now he lives eight states way, in the land of white pants and Geritol, the great state of Florida. But we still talk just about every day, play weekly games on the Xbox, and try to see each other once or twice a year. In fact, the wife and I plan to spend our wedding anniversary next month down in Florida hanging out with him and his lovely fiance, Andrea.

So imagine my surprise when our mutual friend Lauren tells me via instant messages last week that our boy Joseph is getting himself officially wed at the end of October... three days after the wife and I leave!

Good thing I talk to him just about every day.

Once my jaw was reattached—I used duct tape and rubber bands—I picked up the phone for the scoop. The upside is, he's following the advice I have given freely for a decade to every single person I've known getting married: Elope! He's calling it more of a "localope," because he's not running off. They're simply eschewing all the family folderol and expense that would come with long distance planning, large families, etc. God bless him for it, (even if his mother will probably never forgive him... he says she wouldn't be happy with anything less than a Princess Di style wedding). I wish the Wife and I had eloped. Oh the money it would have saved. Though it was worth it to walk into the reception to the theme from Deep Space Nine.

Still, much as I admire what he's doing, we must remember I am essentially a selfish prick. I wasted no time telling my chum that he's a nincompoop—I'm sure I was that polite about it—for not saying anything. He didn't think about it, he said—it never occurred to him. Apparently, I'm required to ask him specific, pointed questions each day about any life changes he's got planned. "Planning a sex change operation soon?" "Having any dialysis just for fun?" "Think you'll be voting republican next election? That Katherine Harris is a hottie..."

Most of all, I stressed that if he scheduled his wedding one week earlier, not only would it be on his own birthday, meaning he'd always remember when his anniversary is, a gift any male should appreciate, he's also have me around.

Here's why I'm selfish: Joe stood up with me at my wedding years ago, and I always kinda sorta secretly believed that maybe, just maybe, when he got married someday... he'd ask me to be his best man. I don't know that he would have done so even if he'd been having the wedding of the century and I would think no less of him if he didn't. I'm sure I'd have forgiven him once I stopped sobbing into a roll of toilet paper. But with my brother married, most of my other friends married, my days of being in a wedding party, let alone a best man, are done. Usually this would fill me with no small amount of glee, but I wanted to be part of this, and I'm not above bullying my way in. Not that I expected anything to come of my barbs. Joe is immune to my wit, having been ridiculed by me for years, probably starting with the time my co-workers and I found the New York Daily News picture of one of the 1993 terrorist bombers at the World Trade Center (the one's who did a shit job compared to 2001) looked a lot like him. It hung in my cubicle for months and he didn't mind. Much.

But lo and behold... Joe and Andrea talked it over and moved the date! The nuptials are now set for Oct. 21 and the attendees at this justice of the peace ceremony will be me, my wife, and... No one else. I am the de facto best man.

It has made me startlingly happy all god-damn week, despite all the other crap going on.

Of course there are worries—Squanto doesn't know what to wear, and I need to get them a killer wedding present and haven't a clue what to get... but we'll figure it out.

The next day, Oct. 22, is my 11th wedding anniversary. We newlyweds and old-married-folks plan to spend it riding roller coasters at Busch Gardens. If I hadn't spent last October on the island of Maui* it might be the best vacation plan I've ever heard.

*I'm required by the law decreed by the Wife to always make the Maui disclaimer as Best. Vacation. Ever. But seriously... ROLLER COASTERS.

A reasonably good sign that my lawn needs to be mowed from local fauna.

Were it not for M*A*S*H and the original Star Wars, the 1970s would probably not be worth remembering at all. Sadly, those were my formative years, age one month to 9 years + one month, so my brain is filled with trace amounts of the 70's, kind of like mercury.

How sad is it that I never even heard of (or paid attention to) the Vietnam war until I was in high school in the 80's, but I can remember quite clearly a live-action Saturday morning tv show due to one simple fact: there was a guy on it who when ape-shite crazy every time someone said the word "bananas."

The last couple of days, friends of mine from high school have been e-mailing back and forth with kid-vid memories, trying to put names to the images in our heads. Major Bill started it, asking about some show with puppets in a rocketship. That turned out to be OuterScope, which was part of a show called Vegetable Soup (and featured, get this, James Earl Jones. Well, his voice at least). It's memorable because the rocketship had cedar shakes on the outside. Obviously that's something NASA should be considering for future space shuttle rides.

I was trying to identify this show with the crazy bananas guy and could only remember that they sang and solved crimes. Every kid's dream. Friend Mark thought I was talking about the Banana Splits, but I remember them much more clearly: they were guys in animal suits doing slapstick as they introduced cartoons like Atom Ant. Later, the Skate Birds had the same schtick, but they were all birds. On skates no less! Hilarious!

I'm serious. When I was seven, this was hilarious.

I did some searching around on some links on other shows I was telling them about, specifically spelling out how my brain remembers far to much about just about every Sid & Marty Krofft show of that decade...

You know the Krofft shows. All psychedelic acid-trip stuff for the kiddies. They made Jim Henson look like a pansy. The Kroffts's did H.R. Pufnstuf, Lidsville, The Bugaloos, Lost Saucer, and many, many more. The best were Big Foot & Wildboy, Land of the Lost, and Sigmund and the Seamonsters. The last one featured child star Johnny Whitaker, famous from Family Affair. I actually owned his album on 8-track as a kid and listened to it all the time on my grandmother's stereo on weekends. I thought Johnny Whitaker was cool. (And my god, I just found out Sigmund is out on DVD! 29 episodes of pure silly-ass goodness. I must have-- I mean, uh, my nephews, must buy it for the nephews!)

Little known fact: LOST, the best show currently in prime time, owes everything to Krofft shows as there were at least two, maybe three, that featured people in plane wrecks on islands that are then constantly harassed by villains. One featured a Dr. Strange (no relation to the Master of the Mystic Arts) and the other was the best: Dr. Shrinker. (Theme: "Dr. Shrinker, Dr. Shrinker, he's a madman with an evil mind.") He shrank people. Maybe that's what's waiting for Jack in the hatch...

As I surfed around, bless you Internetting, I found the show I couldn't identify on a page at 70's Live Action Kid Vid. It was called The Kids from C.A.P.E.R. and yes, it was teens who played music and solved crimes. What else would they do? Smoke? Drugs? One of them was super strong, and yes, he went nuts when "bananas" were mentioned. They even have an RealAudio file of the aforementioned apoplectic fits.

I'm just relieved to know I didn't dream this.

God, what a wasteland of horrible television it all was back then. I miss it so.

I had a nice long post written for the blog earlier today that was all about self-pity, which I felt like wallowing in at the time (I even ended it with " Yes, self-pity! I will fill my bathtub with your syrupy, sticky glop in which I can wallow as I see fit!") But I don't feel like posting it, it just underscores daytime depressions. Better too talk of my night-time depression, because, I just finished reading the last ever 87th Precinct novel by Ed McBain. I won't pretend it was of the caliber of previous entries necessarily -- some of his work in the 80s is utterly chilling and hilarious, sometimes on the same pages, and his latest, Fiddlers, I think only filled 257 pages because they used wide margins and a big font -- it was like reading a large print book. Still, to create a sympathetic character out of a pure racist fucktard like the legendary Fat Ollie Weeks... glorious. And it's not a bad little bit of detective work that leads five different teams of cops to the same conclusion via different paths.

Oh, and tonight was filled with good TV too: caught last night's Gilmore Girls, which had some fine George Lucas bashing; and of course the season opener of LOST. Good to know what is in the hatch. Now if we are actually told what that means, even better... but I'll gladly take my time getting there. Saw the series premiere of Invasion as well. I liked it, but it didn't floor me like it seems to have every critic out there. I'm sure I'll stick with it though. (Already shows are falling by the wayside in my watching... haven't caught SuperNatural at all, and I'm doubting I'll see Reunion again just for the sake of saving time. Best thing so far is My Name is Earl, which made me laugh even at stuff I'd already seen previewed online.)

Thank god for entertainment. It makes the daily stuff seem worth it. Which it is, of course, because it lets me pay for it all.

Earlier this week, I was sitting on ye olde "comfort station." You know. Doing my thing. Your thing too, because, face it, there's no bigger common denominator to mankind than taking a dump.

A house fly had been crashing into my legs and annoying me mightily -- I need my concentration in there. It came to a landing on the floor in front of me. I grabbed a couple of squares o' TP and before it could react, I picked it up and (sorry Mr. Wipple) squeezed it into the Charmin.

Cackling, I tossed the wad of paper into the bowl and yelled, "There, god dammit, you came from shit, now you go back!"

Then I went back to reading my book.

About halfway through my morning last Tuesday, my fancy-schmancy new computer decided to pull off a death scene that would have made Cagney and Bogart jealous. It wasn't a sudden death, no, it was long and drawn out, punctuated by flailing dialogue boxes, wounded blue screens, and the death rattle only tinny speakers can make.

I should be more clear, it doesn't appear to be the computer itself. This wasn't -- as far as I can ascertain -- a hardware issue. It appears to be strictly software, specifically Windows XP. And some corrupted files maybe. I just don't know. And I do this stuff for a living. As I told my mom, "I don't know how regular people handle this stuff when it happens." She said, "They call their sons."

Now is all back in working order though, and I'm actively backing up again, and need to plan a better method of backing up my e-mail files in particular. For a few hours yesterday, a drive with some errors on it had me convinced I'd lost about six years worth of e-mail messages. I eventually recovered everything, but not without some flailing of my own.

Is it okay to have a good, maybe great day, on the fourth anniversary of 9/11/01?

I say, yes, it has to be okay, or, uh, the terrorists have won. So eff-you, terrorists! For today I had a great day.

After "sleeping" in late, I got up and had one of the greatest homemade sandwiches I have ever had in my life. Really, it was so good, I wanted another all day.

If there was any downside to the day it was finishing up the painting work started last weekened, but that went fast and easy. I got flecks of white paint all over my black Sin City t-shirt, but if anyone asks, I'll tell them it's "blood" colored just like they did it in the comic and the movie (white on black).

The wife and I went up to the campus so she could grab some files to work on and detoured up a dirt road behind campus to take Caper for a walk in the woods up there, all land owned by the college. Wish I'd known it was there back when I was a student, but then again, I probably would never have ventured in. I'd have been busy working in the dining hall. It's always more fun with a Labrador, anyway. The college even has an observatory up there, built in '98. Cool.

Back home, the wife did work and I wanted to write, but nothing was coming. The novel didn't call to me (lordy, tho I wish it would) but the need for a new short story (starring my new protagonist of choice, Payne) did. Unfortunately, outside of a couple opening scenes, I didn't know where it was going. I went outside and walked, barefoot, around my house and yard several times, avoiding thistles and pine cones, and I still managed to cut my foot, tho on top somehow. I was walking first with Siren, tossing a ball for her every few steps, and then with Caper and Kylie doing the same. I sat in the grass and stared at the sky for a while, and then I pulled my hammock out of the basement and put it on the stand and reclined for a few minutes. All through this, I turned over characters and motivations and actions and all in my head, mixed them up, moved them around, stuck in an extra conflict or two, and then I had to almost run into the house to write it all down. And there it was, on the computer: a complete plot for a new story. It felt so good, I punched the air afterwards. That scared Siren, who was sleeping next to the chair.

I made pepperoni/mushroom pizza for dinner and thought of a few more details to add in to the plot as I rolled out the dough.

All this idea stuff, it makes me feel like a writer. Even though I didn't get any writing done. That's frequently been my problem—the idea part is more fun and excitement than the actual execution of the story.

I told the wife—now watchable in Squanto-Vision!—the storyline as it stands over dinner on the back deck and she said, "I don't see any obvious, gaping plot holes in it." And if you know my lovely wife, you know that this praise is like being showered with gold and rose petals. She is, however, concerned that Payne can't really fight his way past the bad guys. Methinks his first story might have had him come off too wussy. He's no pansy, that boy. Trust me. The younger Payne would kick anyone who said so in the nads. He's just more... careful... now that he's in his 20's.

My goal is to crank out a pithy first draft by next weekend. I plan to introduce no new plot holes. As always, wish me luck.

Holy crap, is it really time for the fall TV season? Time to give up all that self-improvement through exercise, yoga and meditation! Woo-hoo!

As if I stopped watching TV.... the summer has been filled with just about every show on FX -- Rescue Me, The Shield, Over There, 30 Days, Starved, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia -- which is quickly become the best network for quality shows as a whole. We're currently watching the first two seasons of Nip/Tuck on DVD, to catch up before Season 3 starts. Mustn't forget to mention Entourage and Six Feet Under on HBO. And the ultimate glory that is the reimagined Battlestar Galactica on SciFi. That show is so good it makes me weep.

But, yes, the regular networks are back now, and its time to plot out the watching. Luckily, my TiVo does half the thinking for me, and I certainly don't watch any of these programs at the times they're slotted. Anyway, here's my list o' shows I expect to watch for the new season, based on what I saw in Fall Preview issue of TV Guide -- the first Fall Preview issue that I've enjoyed in years, probably because there's more shows with potential this season than in a long time...

Sunday:
8pm; The Simpsons
9pm: Desperate Housewives, Family Guy, Extras (on HBO, with Ricky Gervais!), Sopranos (when it comes on)
10pm: Grey's Anatomy (but only for Sandra Oh)
Occasionally there's a good Mystery! on PBS, too, usually stolen from the BBC.

Monday:
8pm: Arrested Development
8:30pm: How I Met Your Mother (new with Allyson Hannigan), Kitchen Confidential (new with Nicholas Brendan) -- Buffy alums fight!
9pm: Prison Break
10pm: Medium

Tuesday:
8pm: Bones
9pm: Amazing Race, My Name is Earl, House, and Supernatural (maybe)
9:30pm: The Office
10pm: Nip/Tuck (or whatever is on FX. For me they own that timeslot)

Wednesday:
8pm: 70's Show
9pm: LOST (I'd watch Veronica Mars here too if I got UPN, but I don't)
10pm: Invasion (has good buzz so far)

Thursday:
8pm: Alias, Survivor: Guatemala, Smallville (maybe Joey if others have repeats. I have misplaced Friends loyalty.)
9pm: Reunion, Night Stalker (maybe)
10pm: ER (still watching after 12 years.)

Friday:
9pm: Threshold (good buzz as well... need more wacky sci fi shows!)
10pm: Numb3rs (maybe), but definitely: Battlestar Galactica

Saturday:
Do the networks put shows on Saturdays anymore? TV Guide Fall Preview doesn't show any new shows for that evening. Wacky.

Every damn night:
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and soon the companion show The Colbert Report (pronounced coal-bear re-poor) with the one and only Stephen Colbert.

Of course, some of these will fall by the wayside. Tho not enough. I'm so lucky not to be sucked into the CSI and Law & Order franchises.

And I still miss Buffy, Angel, Farscape, Once and Again, Wonderfalls, Futurama, and others too numerous to remember, let alone mention.

Not shy dogs... but big ass coyote dogs. CoyDogs. Dogotes. Whatever.

We saw one dead by the road not a mile from the house the other day, and not five minutes ago as I type this sentence (1:47 am), there was an eruption of them howling and screaming outside the windows of my house.

I walked out on the deck and my motion light clicked on, but this didn't show anything in my yard (whew). I grabbed my MagLite and walked to the south edge of the deck, close to the large area next to my house that is completely overgrown rainforest by this time of year, drought or not. The noise of the animals was very close... they were in the brush, no more than 30 or 40 feet from me, screaming like banshees trapped in bear traps. I stomped my foot a couple of times and swung the light beam around, and they quieted eventually. I saw nothing.

Seeing as I still won't watch The Blair Witch Project six years after it came out, going to look made me feel brave. Still, the hair on the back of my neck was alive and moving on its own as I went back in. I locked the door.

Right now, sitting in the living room, the front porch motion lights -- yeah, I got all the fancy techno-geegaws, huh? -- have gone on and off a couple of times. I've seen that happen as deer have come close to the house looking for sustenance in the winter. Hopefully it'll be enough to keep the ky-yotes away. Or maybe they'll just stay off chasing deer.

For all I know, that keening was a mix of a coy and a deer they were dragging down... I've heard that deer barks and screams are pretty bad.

Stupid feral canines. Keeping me up at night. Isn't it enough that my own domesticated canines will have me up in four hours?

Why am I up so late? Because I just finished going through edits my beloved Wife (who is Squanto-llicious!) made on my latest short story (which is NOT A BOOK. For the love of Dog, people, 45 double-spaced pages does not a book make!).

I was pretty damn happy with this story before -- which is saying something, because I'm pretty down on my own work most of the time -- but now that I've got her cuts and improvements worked in officially, I like it even more.

The title of it is "Stabbing Payne." It's a pun, but on several levels, none of which you'll understand without reading it. Sorry.

Tomorrow, it's time to send this out to some folks for a quick read to make sure they don't all hate it, which is entirely possible if I love it this much, and then I'll try to sell it and make meeeeeellions.

Today... well, yesterday, since it's 1:30am... was my parent's 37th wedding anniversary. Since I'm going to be 36 in December, that gives you an idea of exactly how many months they got to enjoy before squealing brat (me) was on the ground to disrupt everything. But, apparently they liked the kid thing enough to have another 10 months (yep, TEN MONTHS) later. True Irish Twins, even though I think we're actually more Welsh. Anyway, I told them this on the phone the other day, but happy anniversary to MaD (Mom and Dad).

Gifts exchanged: Mom gave dad a wood chipper, suitable for hiding the bodies. Dad is taking Mom to the Buffalo Bills game on Sunday to sit in a luxury skybox and be served a sumptuous repast while they watch grown men pummel each other. There's a lot of untapped violence there... probably from two many years of having kids.

Today is the three year anniversary of taking possession of my house here in lovely Ithaca, New York. And you know what that means:

Time to sell!

Hopefully, I'm kidding. The wife told me she talked today to our former buyer agent at the local realtor conglomerate and she said that homes like ours in this area have gained around 10% of their worth per year in recent years. Real estate is like free money, yes indeed... If you're willing to put all your belongings in boxes every few years.

I was going to write a long-ass post here about how the Wife and I celebrated Labor Day by doing hard labor (painting both the back deck and the front porch, and other stuff). I'm too tired.

Instead I provide you with this link to what is perhaps the greatest invention since the paint brush. I've used one in every painting project of substantial size I've done in the last two years, and bought a second one today. This thing made a potental 7 hour ordeal into a three hour job -- and that includes multiple coats, because the paint dried in the sun so fast.

Now, I must go to bed. Tomorrow, summer is over (we all know it, just accept it) and its back to the basement.

I wonder if there were weeks like this for adults when I was a kid. Filled with nothing but devastating horrible news completely out of your control. In the last few years, 9/11, the Indonesia tsunami, and now Hurricane Katrina and the flooded aftermath seem to have set the stage: every few months some part of the world will spiral out of control and you can't do fuck-all about it.

(Did people feel this way about Mt. St. Helens? Kent State? Watts riots? They all seem trivial to me in comparison, but then again, I wasn't aware of most of them... well, I asn't even alive during the last two. Still, in '92 during the L.A. riots, I didn't know they'd even happened until a friend told me four days later while at lunch at Pizza Hut.)

I plan to make a donation, probably through Amazon or PayPal, soon, but in the meantime as I hear the tales of the survivors in NOLA, the squalor, the horror, the loss, the violence, I find myself thinking just how this is all going to look in about two or three years when Hollywood gets its hands on it.

Seriously, as a mini-series -- because this is to big for any movie, but (hopefully) too finite for an open-ended television series -- this story would have it all. Picture a cast of big names, mostly black actors, some of whom will be lured away from the big movies back to TV because this could be the biggest thing for African Americans on the tube since Roots. Assuming there's any kind of uplifting ending for most people. What am I saying, it's Hollywood! They'll make one up.

Denzel could be the courageous father trying to keep his kids alive after losing his wife to flood waters. Mekhi Phifer is the thug kid who sees this carnage as his way to ascend the ladder of the city, rule for a while until the troops come in. Alfre Woodard is the driven mad after watching her 25 cats killed when she leaves the house for Friskies and can't return before the wind and water hit. Etc.

Depends on what network goes for the story how gritty it gets. The major networks won't touch the tales of backed-up toilets and child rapes emanating from the convention center or the SuperDome or wherever. HBO or FX would though.

I'm not sure whether to be disgusted by the thought of this as programming, or if I should look forward to it... I probably would if it was on HBO or FX, god help me.

Rest assured if I've given it some thought, there's meetings going on right now in the backlots of TinselTown planning how to bring this to a screen near you. They'll want to recoup whatever they might donate... if they bother.

Yesterday was a unique day -- a Wednesday off to spend the day with the Griffith side of the family, specifically my folks, my brother and his wife, and their two kids, so we could all go to the "great" New York State Fair up near Syracuse. It rained from the moment we set out until the moment we got back, sometimes torrential, other times just enough to put a chill down your back. The kids were the most immune, didn't seem to even notice when they were being deluged inside their two-kid baby stroller.

Highlights of my day at the Fair: