V and i dropped the poor doggie off at the kennel last Thursday and made our way down the 5. Her cousin Millie was graduating from the Art Center College of Design on Saturday, with a showing of her work on campus on Friday evening, so we decided to head down a day early to get settled. That settling plan never really materialized though. We got to Kevin's place in Santa Monica at 1am on Friday morning, and after catching up with him for a bit fell asleep on the couch. I then awoke at 7:45am the next morning to move our car into a non-street sweeping spot, and made the somewhat ill-advised decision to have a venti coffee with Kevin and chat rather than catching up on my zzz's. Kevin headed off to work while V and i showered and dressed, returning a few hours later to take us to the Sony employee store. We had designs on replacing our bedroom TV with a 26" LCD flat panel, but unfortunately that model was sold out. By this time i was 1) sleep deprived, 2) chock full of caffeine, and 3) starving, so i was becoming decidedly nauseous as Kevin drove us back to Santa Monica and dropped us at the Curry House near his apartment for an overdue lunch. After a brief shopping stint at Giant Robot 2 we returned to chez Kevin, where i collapsed on the couch. Matthew then popped in after the end of his work day. Although i was happy to catch up, my exhausted body was not so enthused. However as we were talking i received a completely unexpected email on my Blackberry, which i will delve into further later. We made it to Millie's art show in Pasadena, enduring a 45 minute wait in the Rose Bowl parking lot for the shuttle to the Art Center. The night was capped by a lovely late dinner at Millie and Naomi's mom's place.

Saturday was no less of an endurance test as despite assurances to myself that i wouldn't, i again succumbed to the lure of jumpstarting my morning with a big cup of coffee. We awoke at 8am to head back to Pasadena for the graduation, arriving a bit late but in plenty of time for Millie's moment in the limelight. SNL alum Rob Schneider had either a sister, cousin, or wife graduating in Millie's class, as he was seated a few rows in front of us. Although graduations generally tend to devolve into an endless recitation of names, this one was made entertaining by the fact that two video screens showed samples of each student's work as they came forward to receive their diploma. At the conclusion of the ceremony we drove over to Benihana-esque Shogun for lunch with Veronica's aunt, uncle, and grandmother, before reconnoitering to Santa Monica. Although i was thoroughly pooped and wanted nothing more than to sleep for an hour or ten on the couch, V coaxed me to get ready and drive over to Melrose for Michelle and Martin's birthday dinner at the Spanish Kitchen. I was all juiced for tapas, but apparently the Spanish Kitchen serves Mexican food. Hrm. Dinner was followed by drinks at Kevin and Martin's house, after which the plan was to hit Hang the DJ. This strategy was thwarted by the enormous line at the club, so after several revisions we finally settled on having drinks at the Good Luck Bar. I was more than happy to just have a few beers and talk with old friends. Danny, Sean, and i spent an hour or so reciting favorite recent Howard Stern bits.

"Hello caller?"
"Yeah i want to talk about Johnny Damon."
"Sure, go ahead."
"Yeah i heard Derek Jeter found worms in his stool."

Okay, i think you really have to hear that one to appreciate it.

We spent Saturday night at Matthew and Dionne's, where i finally was able to grab an extended night's sleep. The next morning we had breakfast (well, i had ribs so i guess that doesn't really qualify) at Dinah's, where i spent most of the meal watching the Suns overcome the Lakers and debating which scene in the Big Lebowski was shot here, as reported on a certificate at the door. I decided it was the one where the nihilists are ordering pancakes. Kevin joined us mid-meal. We bid farewell to M+D and took Kevin on a somewhat circuitous trip to Whittier to Veronica's aunt's house, where he gave some advice to her high school junior cousin regarding potential careers in the video game industry. I finally convinced Veronica to say goodbye to her family and hit the road at 7pm, which caused our return to RC to be delayed until 1:30am.

V drove over to Fremont to rescue the Tara dog on Monday morning while i headed into work for my regular 8:30am meeting. Returning to my office, i heard a voicemail that confirmed the bizarre email i'd received the Friday prior. I'll let you all know soon enough what it entailed ... those expecting a baby announcement will be sorely disappointed ... but suffice it to say that i've had a conspicuous strut in my step since then.

I watched the Quest on cable last night while relaxing at home as V caught Air in the city, and it got me thinking. Were Bloodsport and Kickboxer really awful films too? The Quest made no god damn sense at all. Jean-Claude Van Damme is a thief. No, he's a poor immigrant with a heart of gold stealing to support a collection of street kids. No, he's a kickboxing machine. No, he's back to being a thief. If i'd never seen Bloodsport until yesterday, would i also think it was freakin' retarded?

Not that it needs pointing out, but apparently i'm fairly dense. I wrote a treatise a while back on how i'd discovered i could use the "Album Artist" tag in an MP3 to store the artist's name in the style i'd like it sorted by (ie, Costello, Elvis instead of Elvis Costello). I then went on to comment that i wished iTunes would sort using this field without having to display it ... i'd much rather see Elvis Costello than its punctuated form. Well, apparently this functionality has been in there for a while in the form of the Sort family of tags ... "Sort Artist", "Sort Album", and so on. Silly me.

It's softball season again and the Rays began their preparations yesterday with a round of fielding drills and batting practice. Coach Fred is off to Germany next week so i will be acting head Ray for a week. Egad.

One of the fruits of our trip south was a shiny new copy of God of War II from Sony character modeler Kevin Anderson. I'm looking forward to giving it a whirl, but between Guitar Hero II and Ghost Recon 2 on the 360 and Motorstorm and Resistance on the PS3, i'm in a bit of a video deluge at the moment.

Coachella is this coming weekend, and although V and i have decided to forgo the trip south to the desert, we are instead catching many of the acts in the Bay Area on their way to or from the festival. On Monday we caught Placebo at the Fillmore, which i shall document shortly. I skipped Air last night due to exhaustion, and am doing the same this evening with the Popscene Bay Area debut of Amy Winehouse (whose retreading of Motown has me scratching my head) and mismatched gig partners the Klaxons. This weekend we've got Jarvis Cocker, the Kaiser Chiefs, and LCD Soundsystem. It's like 1995 all over again. My acquisition of new music still hasn't recovered, and to be honest i'm not quite sure how to kick it into high gear again. Perusing Pitchfork for favorable reviews or ear-catching descriptions isn't doing it for me.

I can't believe that it has been almost a year since Roger Ebert stopped writing weekly movie reviews to focus on battling cancer. My friends know well my fondness for reading Ebert's comments. Even though i don't always agree with him, i think he writes extremely well and frequently offers more insightful thoughts than the movie on which he's reporting. I wish him all the best in his continuing struggle against cancer and hope that i will once again be comparing my movie notes against his.