Well, howdy. It's been a while. Sorry about the lack of updates recently. Not too much new to report, sadly.

I dusted off my old Nintendo Entertainment System earlier this evening. It has been many, many, many years since I've played that thing. I was all eager to boot it up and play, but it took me close to thirty minutes to get the system to work. I wish I were joking. I tried all the tricks from the old days: blowing on the cart, blowing inside the machine, and using a cassette tape case to hold down the cart. That last option finally worked. But man, what a mess.

So I decided to play this game that I'm about 100% sure no one has ever played before, mainly because it's probably illegal. I wish I could ask my dad about the details, but the story goes something along the lines of this: My dad found an ad in the classifieds. It was for "1500 games in 1." Now, circa 1991, 1992, this seemed unfathomable. In fact, it's still a rather ludicrous claim today. So me and my dad went to investigate. It wasn't available in stores -- no, that'd be too legal -- so, instead, we went to the seller's house. Yeah, sketchy, right? But, again, this is 1991/1992, and, as we all know, crime didn't exist in the past. Rape and murder and stealing are only contemporary scourges. So, yeah, it was completely, 100% safe. (Shut up, all you people saying, "But in 1991/1992, that was your present, not the past.") Anyway, we went to the guy's house and he booted up the game for us. Sure enough, there's a menu that says "1500 games in 1." Each screen holds about 50 games. And he showed us a few of them. Paperboy. Tetris. Galaga. Pinball. I was in awe. This game was the motherfucking shit! Of course, a six or seven-year-old Brian wouldn't say that, but I thought whatever the six or seven-year-old equivalent is. And so my dad bought me what is surely a super illegal pirated game of some sort.

I found out later that the "1500 games" part is rather misleading. True, the menu goes from 01 to 1500, however those are not 1500 unique games. There are essentially 50 core games that get recycled. But the variations (sometimes as many as, like, 100 or 200) involve changing the character(s) in the game. So, for instance, Donkey Kong. You get the original. But then you get a version that changes Donkey Kong into a witch and Mario into a turtle. Or Donkey Kong into a devilish thing and Mario into a sexy woman. (As sexy as an 8-bit woman can look, I guess.) Or you get a basic racing game with normal cars. But then you can also race as bubbles. Or saws. Or snowflakes. You get the picture.

Lesson? Pirated shit is a bit of a sham. Still, where else can you witness an epic battle between a barrel-throwing devil and a sexy 8-bit woman?

In my ongoing effort to create bizarre contrasts while cooking: There's a thunderstorm outside and I'm baking cupcakes. Yeah, what?

The tennis season is over. We had an abysmal 2-12 record. Our two wins were against the same school. That school has now lost every single match for three seasons in a row. Ouch.

I finished my science book for March/April, Cosmos. Great, great book. There were numerous instances when I had to stop reading, look up, and just think, "Damn." It blows my mind, thinking about topics as expansive as the universe. And to think that there are people who devote their entire lives to discovering and dissecting such vastness. Also, the full extent of time is boggling. I mean, 14 billion years since the Big Bang? 14 billion years? And each of us is alive for, on average, 60-70 years. 65 years in comparison to 14 billion years. I just can't even conceive of time like that.

Bottom line, check it out. Great book. Now I have to get back to my cupcakes.

My friend Shanif started a new website: www.myownsixwords.com It's pretty cool. I've only made one post, as of now, and it's an English major joke. Look for name: BMK.

My blog posts have been very short recently. Free time became quite a commodity this past week. I preferred to do other things. But I'll be back soon.

I made this mix CD on Easter to celebrate Jesus Our Lord in all His GloRy. PlEase Do enJoy and if yoU want SomeThiNg to Listen to please do Make your own COPy.

1. Neko Case - This Tornado Loves You
2. The Anniversary - The D in Detroit
3. Blueline Medic - Swan Song
4. Boy Sets Fire - My Life in the Knife Trade
5. Tom Gabel - Amputations
6. The Mountain Goats - Sometimes I Still Feel the Bruise
7. Austin Lucas/Chuck Ragan - Sun or Snow
8. Ben Nichols - Toadvine
9. Manchester Orchestra - I Can Feel a Hot One
10. Margot & the Nuclear So and So's - Broadripple is Burning (acoustic)
11. Against Me! - Borne on the FM Waves of the Heart
12. Okkervil River - The President's Dead
13. Joey Cape - Errands
14. Austin Lucas - Go West
15. The Avett Brothers - Swept Away (Sentimental Version)
16. Bon Iver - Skinny Love
17. Iron & Wine - Trapeze Swinger
18. Hot Water Music - Radio

One of God's greatest gifts to man is the USB turntable. Putting records on your computer so you can listen to records on your IPod really makes me feel a lot less like a luddite for liking records and a lot more like hip, cool loser.

Just a few notes to catch up on today, since I've been MIA for the past few weeks. I'm pretty sure I'm getting sick right now, which sucks. But you guys, are you scared shitless of this swine flu? I'm so scared. There have been over 245 people in the country get sick with this thing. TWO HUNDRED AND FORTY FIVE! That's practically .0000008% of the population of the country! Head for those nuclear war bunkers we built when we were sure the world was going to be ended by nuclear war with the Russians. Or when we were sure the world was going to be ended by accidental war in the horrifyingly accurate Y2K ordeal. Or when we were sure it was going to be SARS or bird flu or whatever the fuck Christians think is supposed to happen, or whatever the fuck Muslims think is supposed to happen, or whatever the fuck anyone else thinks is supposed to happen. I've got a good feeling about this one though. After all, it's comforting to know that the WHO (not the band) is just as susceptible to crazy fear mongering as the crazy homeless man on the street corner. PANDEMIC!

Anyway, if you're not dead from the swine flue and you're still reading this, I want to wish a happy belated 4/20 to all you filthy pot smoking hippies out there, and I want you to know we're all with you on this legalizing pot thing. We saw how well prohibition worked out back when we tried it on alcohol. I'd say it's working just about as well for weed now. Lots of innocent people in jail, a missed revenue stream by the government, the act of procuring weed much more dangerous than it would be were it legal, the act of smoking whatever crazy shit you got from your dealer a lot more dangerous than it would be were it legal. Yes folks, we're totally winning the war on drugs. Just look at how no one is in jail for doing drugs, no one dies in vicious violence spilling over our borders from Mexico, no one is in rehab, and no one even does them! Isn't it amazing what making something illegal will do? Just like how were we to make abortion illegal, that spike in deaths from botched back alley coathanger abortions would be totally coincidental, because obviously no one would be getting abortions since they'd be illegal! Just like how no one speeds! I love laws, man.

The movie Adventureland surprised me by being the best movie I've seen all year. It was very funny, but above that, a much better movie than I expected, and a much better movie than most comedies. Too bad I have the feeling it slid under a lot of people's radars.

It's also been 10 years since the Columbine killings. Not the first school shooting, not the last. But I remember exactly where I was when I heard about it, and it was one of those moments when your worldview is shattered as a kid. No one is safe anywhere, there is pure evil in the world, and goth kids are whiny little bitches. I still can't look at anyone wearing a trench coat without wondering what the fuck they're thinking.

Cool,t alkt oyo ulate r.

Is it inherently sad or inherently awesome that I'm drinking a glass of wine while making macaroni and cheese for dinner? Either way, it's inherently something.

Seriously, CNN, what the fuck?


So I check CNN.com yesterday afternoon, and this is what I see as the main story. First of all, Bush? Really? Who the hell wrote/edited that headline? And second, the picture has Calderon on the left and Obama on the right, so it'd only make sense for it to read "Calderon and Obama huddle over flu," no? Or, if we're going to go with the U.S.-centric headline of "Obama and Calderon," could we at least change the order of the pictures? Finally, (and this has nothing to do with CNN, but I'm going to rope them into this tirade anyway) Firefox should update its spell-check software. Obama is still considered a typo. I keep getting the red dotted line underneath it, saying, "No, you mean Bush, right?" Maybe the CNN writer/editor is also the one to blame for this spell-check foul-up.

(If you look closely at the picture, you'll notice that the other tab open in my browser is one explaining how to take a screen capture. That's professionalism!)