It's a metaphor for life, man!

To demonstrate how well my experiments went today, here is a cat flushing the toilet.

Haven't you seen my movies?

Someone in our extended UCLA network suggested we all go to the 10pm Thursday show of Snakes on a Plane. The Internet buzz has been inescapable, and we're Samuel L. Jackson fans, so we thought this was a great idea.

There were snakes. On a plane. The extra gore and boobies, added after blogs took this idea and ran with it, were worth it, I guess. The whole package did live up to the hype as an enjoyable throwback to B movies.

Most of that enjoyment was the crowd, though: snake toys thrown around, lots of hissing for dramatic effect. It is weird to hear a tag line from a film we all had never seen yelled at the screen in unison, even if it was born from the Internet and only added to the film in post production because rabid pre-fans demanded it.

Go see this over the weekend, but try and actually find the annoying crowds of audience hooligans for once...

Ouchies!

Last Sunday was fun. We had some friends over for a little brewing (belgian double style again = yummy!) and barbeque and merriment in the early afternoon. At least that was the plan. Then I decided to wash the serrated carving knife in the kitchen sink. Guess why that slightly postponed things?

Yep, I slipped and managed to slice my right index finger. I almost passed out assessing the situation, so it was clearly emergency room time. Phooey. There was lack of mid-afternoon traffic, so we made it to the UCLA hospital in no time, and it was a slow enough day that we were in and out in about an hour. Hooray for health insurance!

It could have been worse... it was about a half inch long and (I think they said) 3 mm deep or so. Three stitches or surgical superglue were the options. I decided on the superglue, since I wouldn't have to return to have the stitches removed. I scar impressively either way. The "water-tight" seal, though, meant that it got fairly gross as healing began, and two days later broken open a little and got all gooey.

I went back to the ER and had it looked at once more. The oozing was pronounced as a normal thing to have happen, although I was given some high-octane antibiotics (5 doses per day for 5 days!). This turned out to be the same brand that Roland the Gunslinger needed in the Dark Tower novels. At least I didn't have to lose a few fingers to mutated lobster-things.

Everyone was fine to start later in the day than we had planned, too, so there was grilled meat after all and there's a beer burbling in the closet again this week.

Oh, and tetanus shots suck a lot.

"If we're going to drink like the Germans, we're going to need a little help."

Mark your calendars, kids. There's a new Broken Lizard film at the end of August, Beerfest. This time, the premise is a secret international drinking competition.

It's not as cool as the idea of a mockumentary covering a beer festival, as I originally thought when I saw the poster on campus, but this one will do nicely.

The knees are evil and must be punished

We ran the San Francisco half-marathon last weekend. I've never wanted to murder a hill before. My right calf still has a nasty muscle knot of doom in it five days later!

Still, my time was only about 7 minutes slower than the Long Beach Half last year. Hills be damned, I'm in better running shape this time. Must continue this trend!

Jen posted an amusing accounting of the rest of the weekend.

Eggs with their own cooking timers

Those crack British egg scientists have devised a method to label each egg with invisible ink that changes color when the egg is boiled to the desired consistency. You need to buy a full set of soft-boil or hard-boil eggs, though.

Why not just do a little cross-marketing or coupon deal with the makers of those egg timer doohickies, instead?

(from the Boing Boing)