I'm testing the ability to blog about stuff directly from Digg.com (because that's so much easier than writing anything myself). Go watch this video.

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Hopefully this means my cellar will flood less next year.

The Ithaca Journal - Ithaca, NY

If you want to summarize the summer of 2006 with one word, you might want to start with "wet."

"Preliminary data indicates that the summer of 2006 --June, July, August --is the wettest on record," said Kathryn Vreeland, a climatologist at the Northeast Regional Climate Center at Cornell.

According to Vreeland, there have been 4.8 inches of rain at Game Farm Road (in August), bringing the summer total to 19.09 inches. The previous record was 19.05 inches for the summer of 1917...

Of all the stage plays I performed in during the time between 6^th to 12^th grade, the one I remember the least about is The Fantasticks.

Which is ridiculous, because it's the last play we did my senior year (I think... Mark, correct me if I'm wrong). My only possible excuse for such forgetfulness is that I was in the throes full-fledged "I can't wait to get the fuck out of this burg" syndrome about my home town, so I had little time anything but my selfish grand schemes of a new life that played over and over in my head. My self-absorption was such that I simply don't recall much of the production. I know who was in the cast. But the music? No. Sometimes I hear something from it on the radio and I have to struggle to place it. I can only remember the name of one character, El Gallo (and I had to look that up, because I thought it was "El Gato"), though I think there's a chance none of the characters had names. It was the only time we did a play at Hornell High "in the round" with the audience on the stage with us. I played one of the fathers, but I can't remember if I was the father to the boy or the girl character.

What I do remember is thinking that the song "It Depends on What You Pay" was a very disturbing one, as it is all about 'rape' used as a euphemism, as if the word were not one of the most negative the English language has to offer. How is that a step up?

Even more troubling for me at the time was that the song was being sung in reference to The Girl I was Obsessed With^TM (or TGIWOW^TM), who played the daughter to be abducted, or 'raped' in this context, and it was performed by a guy my friends and I had known for years who was, well, disturbing even at his best. I'm still stymied to this day how he got into a school play for the first and last time in his high school career in time to sing the word 'raaaaaape' at the top of his lungs. Perhaps he loved Jerry Orbach long before the rest of us knew Lenny Briscoe? I only know he loved John Lennon and would skip school on the anniversary of Lennon's death to stay home and play vinyl records. And he was certainly as far from an "El Gato" as can be...

Well, it turns out I wasn't the only guy who thought the lyrics were disturbing. I heard on NPR last night that the show's lyricist, 78-year-old Tom Jones (not the "What's New Pussycat" guy) was also bothered by it for the last 45 years. So he's changed the lyrics for the new Broadway revival -- he's actually edited it out more and more over the years, so its never been as bad as it was in 1960 -- and hopes that in the future everyone from Broadway to community theater will use his new approach, where El Gallo sings "Paaaaaay" instead of "Raaaaape" with such exuberance.

Usually I'm against this kind of change to a seminal work, even by the original creator -- Han shot first, dammit! -- but in this case, I don't have any problem with it.

The trailer for the creepy-ass looking movie Little Children is filled with train noises. It sounds just like my entire childhood, growing up a block away from the train tracks that were once the lifeblood of Hornell, New York (and still kinda are, I guess). You get to a point where you don't here them anymore. Tho if I spend a night there now, one train in the morning jolts me out of sleep. Ugh.

But we didn't have Kate Winslett or Jennifer Connelly in town, or I would have never left. I'd have stayed just to pump their gasoline...

Famous or semi-famous people recently did lists like this, and lists are easy, except when they're hard, so here's mine. The rules were, no mini-series, no reality series, no puppets or cartoons. Any live action show and I'm counting badguys and good guys. I only picked one per show.

• Al Swerengen (Ian McShane) of Deadwood, cocksuckers
• Vic Mackey (Michael Chicklis) of The Shield
• Hugo "Hurley" Reyes (Jorge Garcia) of LOST (though this could go to a lot of the cast)
• Lorelei Gilmore (Lauren Graham) of Gilmore Girls
• Keith Mars (Enrico Colantoni) on Veronica Mars. What a great dad.
• Doctor Who (fuck off. It's my list. If I have to pick just one, I really like #10, David Tennant)
• Jack Bauer, the only super-hero currently on TV

That's a lot of current characters.... uh, some classics.

• Frank Pembleton (Andre Braugher) of Homicide: Life on the Street
• Odo of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine who loved, lost, loved again, and then moved into a lake.
• Xander Harris (Nicholas Brendon) of Buffy the Vampire Slayer
• Winifred "Fred" Burkle (Amy Acker) of Angel
• Spock. 'Nuff said.
• Uncle Fester
• Cosmo kramer
• Chandler Bing
• President Josiah Bartlett (I'd have voted for him)
• Batman as played only by Adam West
• Arvin Sloane (Ron Rifkin) on Alias before they ruined him in the last season. Twice.
• Tristan Farnon (Peter Davison) on All Creatures Great and Small
• David Brent from The Office (UK edition, but the American version, Michael Scott, doesn't suck at all). Actually, I think I might like Gareth & Dwight even more.

Damn, this is hard.... searching brain....

• Christopher Moltisanti on the Sopranos, just for socking Lauren Bacall. Not that I have anything against her, I just thought it was funny.
• Fonzie. I once thought that short, rotund Jewish man in the leather jacket really was cool.
• Agent Dana Scully
• David Addison (Bruce Willis) in Moonlighting but only up until he slept with Maddie. It was all downhill after that.
• Sharon "Boomer" Valerii, the hottest and most conflicted Cylon on Battlestar Galactica
• Gob Bluth

I feel like I skipped four decades worth of TV in there.... I know this is a programming golden age and all, but that seems ridiculous. Who am I forgetting?

It's not enough that my new lawn tractor actually has a cup holder. It's not enough that it's got a seat more comfy than my desk chair. It's not enough that it has "cruise control" for setting your speed. It's not enough that it can mow in reverse (which, I'm told, is a big deal, even though my other tractor did that as a matter of course).

It's also got a 12 volt battery plug, like in the car. You know, the kind you used to use for a cigarette lighter, but now is used for, I dunno, powering a spotlight or a laptop! That's right. I'll mow the lawn and surf the web -- and won't deplete my notebook battery.

Because having just four ways to post stuff to my blog isn't enough.

It's no secret I have a lot of... "stuff." I grew up a packrat, raised by packrats, who would go to the packrat church and place gifts on the packrat alter, except that would mean not having their stuff, so maybe not. Not that being a packrat is about being greedy or stingy, quite the contrary, packrats love to share, they just want their stuff back eventually. For, you see, it's about "never knowing when you're going to need it." That six inch piece of metal roof flashing left over from 1997? Might need it someday. Garbage bags for leaves, even though all you've got is conifers? Might need it. 27 years worth of Popular Mechanics or Comics Buyer's Guide or [insert name of your favorite periodical here].

Might. Need. It.

My wife broke me of this habit, for the most part, years ago. Yet it lingers, especially with items that might have an actual use or are far to complicated/difficult/stupid to throw away. But still, I've come to realize they are items I do not want. So imagine our joy in discovering the Ithaca Freecycle group I've mentioned before. It's a Yahoo! mailing list set up just for people in our area to give stuff away (they exist for almost 4,000 communities, check Freecycle.org for one near you.) Over the course of the last month we've given away:

• 40 square feet of left over oak wood flooring
• 8x11 foot braided rug
• A Bernzomatic torch for burning weeds
• Rusted BBQ pit racks
• About 100 foot of garden fencing
• A .9 cubic foot microwave oven and cart
• A multi-color kids ceiling fan
• A unicycle

 And that's just the stuff I gave away. The wife -- who I call the Squantitor -- gave away a ton of old dog agility stuff and other items I've forgotten.

 This weekend we outdid ourselves. After six years of struggling with my Western Auto Wizard 14 horse power lawn tractor which I got almost for free myself from my grandmother-in-law (is that a real term?) the wife said, "we are getting you a new tractor."

She's said this before, on many occasions. Much as I always hated that tractor, I always said no, knowing I could limp it through just one more year.

But my skills are not enough to make it through 06-07's winter intact, not without one of us going down. Probably me. Plus, one of the mowing blade shafts is bent, so every pass on the lawn cuts a rut in the grass. Nice as the striped look is, I don't want it for the rest of my life.

Besides, a new tractor would be sweeeeet. One year no interest financing doesn't hurt, either.

With the new Cub Cadet 20-HP GT2542 scheduled for delivery on Monday, the choice was: let the lawn equipment guys take the Wizard away for parts (it's not worth a rusted nut as a trade in) or give it away.

In less than 15 hours, I had about 30 people on FreeCycle responding to the offer.

Some just say "I'm interested" as if that's enough to get a free tractor. C'mon people, work a little.

One guy wrote in all CAPS. Has the world not progressed past that yet?

There were several that wrote me truly great tales of why they need/want/desire the free tractor. It was hard to choose. Some wanted it for work, one wanted it to cannibalize into an ATV, some just because they can't stand mowing their 20-plus acre estates with hand-pushed mowers anymore as their nine children stay underfoot, no doubt tethered to the mower with rough twine.

I finally settled on a woman who says she needs it for her fiancé, a cancer survivor. She's on the way now to get it.

I hope she has ramps, otherwise she's lifting it into the back of her pick up herself. As the wife said the other night, "It feels good doing this, doesn't it?" and she's quite right, it does, it really does, but I have to drawn the line at my kindness. If I lose a finger or break an arm giving this tractor away, how do I pay for the new one?

No, for the love of god, NO!

Christensen teleports to 'Jumper' role

Hayden Christensen is starring in "Jumper," Regency Enterprises' big-budget thriller being directed by Doug Liman. Meanwhile, Regency has partnered with 20th Century Fox to finance the production, which sources say is budgeted in the $100 million range. Christensen's casting jump-starts the production, which was to have begun shooting earlier this summer but had been running idle. Tom Sturridge was to have played the lead role of David, which now will be played by Christensen, since a decision was made to go with a more prominent actor. Samuel L. Jackson, Jamie Bell and Teresa Palmer remain with the production. The movie, which Regency and Fox hope to turn into a trilogy, will now shoot at month's end in Toronto, Rome and Tokyo.

It's times like this that one has to remember three things:

Michael Keaton was once reviled as Batman before the film came out in 1989. Afterwards, beloved....

Hayden actually was really good in Shattered Glass, because he was whiney and so was the character, and Davey in the book is kinda whiney too... maybe it'll work.

Just because they make a movie of it does not mean the book it is based upon -- a book you love love love and personally tried to have made into a move years ago -- is gone. The book is still there. It still rocks. Even Darth Anakin can't ruin that....

Terrorists were stopped by the Brits from blowing people up with some kind of liquid explosive cocktail! Hooray!

Now, airlines are not allowing people to take liquids on planes. Because remember, we're all guilty until proven innocent.

In some airports, people are being forced to pour all their liquids that could go boom into a big receptacle (read: garbage can). Which is exactly where you want to put all the detonating water in the crowded airport. Mix it up. Maybe throw in a burning cigarette, just to be sure it's safe.

I applaud the TSA's efforts to protect normal citizens from themselves as they did in the past with the prohibition on nail-clippers (which are now allowed, so they were only dangerous for a few years after 9/11) and the continued vigilance against the danger of shoes.

Hey, look, through the miracle of the Inter-Webbing, I found a news story from the foooooo-ture....

DATELINE: August 30, 2007 -- Following the recent ban on wearing any footwear on planes and the exclusion of electronic devices even in the luggage storage hold, comes another prohibition: clothing.

Following the recent capture of a terrorists in Poland who planned to sew tiny bomb bits into the lining of their clothes, the Transportation Safety Authority (TSA) said today that all passengers boarding planes at U.S. airports would have to be stripped naked.

"We can't take any chances, not even with, uh, thongs. Panties! Underpants, I mean," said a sweaty U.S. Department of Homeland Security secretary Joe Lieberman. One of the alledged Polish terrorists had lined the elastic band of tighty-whiteys with the wire needed for detonating a small explosive.

Emporer and supreme leader of the American Peoples George W. Bush said, "Until the enemies of freedom no longer have a place to hide their dirty, nasty explosives, no American is safe."

ACLU president Nadine Strossen considers this a step up from the mandatory deep cavity searches implemented last January for all passengers in and out of the U.S. This was after a suspected terrorist was found with three balloons of white powder impacting her colon. Many still say she was a drug mule, but Lieberman says that has yet to be substantiated despite the unnamed woman's several months lock up at Club Gitmo, the prison formerly known as Guantanamo Bay until the recent Fox reality series that took place there changed the name officially...

I'd post more of it, but it's just too depressing.

If you know this song/cartoon, then you were a child in the 70's. If you don't know it, sucks for you.

Some kid with a lisp and a bicycle helmet came to my door just now trying to get me to donate money toward mercury poisioning in drinking water. Or maybe he was fighting against mercury poisoning instead of putting it in the water. I was distracted by his helmet, and his lisp. He tried to get me to sign on as a "citizen membership" of $60, and I balked. Then he went down to $30. As I was opening the door and going back inside, he went to $10. (I'd considered grabbing a $20 out of my wallet but he lost me with the $60 high-ball.)

I know, however, that had he been a hot co-ed showing off her midriff and batting her eye-lashes, I'd have caved like a house of cards. I've done it at least twice before. Of course, none of those young ladies wore their bike helmet's the whole time they  chatted me up for the cash. That might make all the difference.

From Cool Tools: A Pound of Fat

Looking for an effective weight loss motivator? Check out this all-too-realistic anatomically correct replica of one pound of human fat, complete with blood supply. Keep it on your dinner table and watch everybody lose their appetite. For even stronger motivation, you can buy the five-pounds-of-human-fat version.

One treadmill is useless. But eight of them....

Wondermark by David Malki !

Slate has a new article defending the use of the word "sucks," as if such a perfect word needs a defense....

Sucks is the most concise, emphatic way we have to say something is no good. As a one-syllable intransitive verb, it offers superb economy. Granted, some things require more involved assessments (like, say, James Joyce: I find his early work unparalleled in its style and its evocation of emotion, while his later writing became willfully opaque in a manner that leaves me cold). But other things don't require this sort of elaboration (like, say, John Grisham: He sucks).

holy crap, it's a series....

I think my ass just melted.