If you brush your teeth and get your sleep and live a good, clean life, eventually your dreams can come true.

So my coworker comes in and goes "So you're going with Jeff to Mexico to see that Virtual University?"
and I said "What?"
And she looked at me and then tottered off, saying "Let me run this by him."
Sometimes I have no idea what's going on around here, but apparently I'm going to Mexico.

And I didn't even know I'd been to Australia...

and it's not even a Red Rider bb-gun.

Score another victory for Dedman. Kind of.

No, I didn't get TiVo, although I know that would be Dedman's wish. Instead, Cox Communications, the uber-glomerate available here in Phoenix, now makes video recording possible through their cable boxes. Last night Jamie went on a mission and picked up our new cable box with DVR enhancement.

I'm still futzing with it to learn how to properly use it, but I did enter in some of my favorite shows, and I managed to practice recording with Justice League and Chapelle's Show last night.

Link to Maxwell's page where she reprints a comedian talking about Bill Hicks.

It's been a while since I thought about Bill Hicks. It may be time to seek out his CDs once again.

At first I thought my car stereo was haunted, which would seem odd, as nobody ever died using my car stereo.

Inexplicably, the volume would turn down to "0", and then refuse to turn up again. Well, it's not haunted... the "down volume" button has broken and now, going over a bump is enough to convince the stereo I have my finger pressed on the button.

"You just need a new face plate," Octavio told me as I bemoaned my dilemma. Ah HAAAA!!!!

But my stereo is a Jensen, and when I went to Jensen.com (the URL my stereo flashes at me each time I turn it off), it appears that Jensen Audio is no longer in business. I am screwed.

For want of an 1/8th of an inch of plastic, I will probably end up having to buy a new stereo.

here is the data we took of Mel's path part-way around the park. GPS is a fantastic thing.

THe weekend went well.

Jason came in around 4:00, and despite a last minute bit of confusion about which flight and airline he might be on, Jamie found him and brought him over to the office. He greeted everyone, and then we headed down the sidewalk to Grilled Expedition where we holed up and had soem drinks and food (it was 6:30 his time when we got there and he'd foregone lunch). Caught Hellboy later that evening, and then went to sleep very late for my Friday standards.

Woke up at 8:00 to let out Mel, and Jason was already up (it being 10:00am his time), so I figured we should get up. Got breakfast, went and bought everyone a new pair of sunglasses, then drove out to the Apache Trail. Not so far down the Apache Trail, Jason admitted maybe the mixture of breakfast and the Lemonade he was drinking was not a good combo, and with nothing really to gain by traversing the whole trail, we truned around and headed back. Stopped at Goldfield where we realized the ghostown now offers very little but weird knick-knacks, and a tour none of us really felt like taking. Drove on home where all of us fell asleep for about an hour and a half. We woke up, went and got some dinner at Abuelo's, then returned home where we watched Zoolander for the first time. THen stayed up watching the Teen Titans/ Star Wars: Clone Wars marathon on Cartoon Network.

Sunday woke up, went and got breakfast, returned home. Collected dog, took Mel to park, strapped GPS to Mel and collected data as he ran around park. Looking forward to seeing data from that debacle. Came home, watched Tenacious D video, took Jason for lunch and then off to airport.

I went to bed at 10:20 last night, very, very tired, and I'm not sure why I was so tired.

Few things of note:

Jason got me two very interesting albums. One is by The Shins, who had been recommended to me by a friend in Seattle. The other was by Wilco, who I have always enjoyed, I just never picked up their records.

Perhaps the oddest gift came in the mail on Friday. Jim and Randy pooled thier resources and picked me out a gift. Indeed, I am now the proud owner of the Saved By the Bell Seasons 1 & 2 gift-set. I haven't gotten in to the videos yet, but I shall. While, technically, the first Season of the show was NOT called Saved by the Bell, I believe the original episodes of Good Morning, Miss Bliss are included in the package as Season 1. This is Saved by the Bell prior to the change-up of casts which brought us Jessie Spano and Kelly Kapowski as well as Slater. Originally the series was intended to be a vehicle for Hayley Mills, but at some point, Mills decided not to continue with the series, and the show about a teacher and her class (a la Head of the Class) became a show about the students and their bumbling Principal.

It is also true that as a high schooler I watched the show mostly because of Jessie Spano, which originally ruled out the Miss Bliss episodes. But I became morbidly fascinated with a show which was to showcase a well-known talent but was successfully cannibalized when Ms. Mills left the program (not since The Hogan Family....).

Anyway, here's to Jim and Randy, my own Zack and Screech.

For those of you who dig porn and sometimes and may not hold the Attorney General up as a paragon of virtue... I present this link.

***this is the first time I believe I've linked off to something falling squarely in the X-rated category, so you're on your own.****

Holy cow... no, seriously... holy cow.

Check out the new Spider-Man trailer. This is going to be so much fun, my eyes hurt.

And as a side note, that professor in the trailer is Dr. Curt Connors (aka The Lizard) played by Dylan Baker. They seriously COULD NOT have cast that role better. Which means I have a feeling who the villain will be in Spider-Man 3, which is already in pre-production.

I will now hang my head in nerd-shame.

I'm not even sure what to file this one under...

A little something we can all enjoy...

Who is the subservient chicken? (hint: his name ends with "im edman")

Here's a helpful list to help the chicken do your bidding.

I am sorry to report the loss of Zak Serafin, Jack Russell pup and friend to Leaguer Nathan Cone. Zak was buddy to Nathan, his wife and, of course, their family. Zak passed away Tuesday after battling cancer.

We at The League send our condolences and extend our sincerest sympathy.

Superman in May...

You're on your own on this one.

Sounds like Jim is humming along with the upcoming production of his script. He's involved at a producer-type level which will be a tremendous responsibility, but he gets all the perks of getting to cast people. This means people will have to stand before him, quaking in their boots, hoping to win his approval. Damn. I should have been a casting agent.

I am working on a picture for my brother. That's what he said he wants for his birthday. Unfortunately, I draw very, very slowly, and not terribly well. I will try to scan the pic and post it here when I am done.

I think Jim has finally accepted the fact that I did not send him the Dilbert cartoon. I am not sure what the implications of this will be, but I am not certain why he thought I would maintain such a ruse, either.

The President of my university will be giving an hour and half speech today in which he will be detailing major changes to the university's infrastructure. Every single warm body on campus will be affected in some way, some of us more than others. I am sure only a sentence or two out of the speech will resonate at my office, but it's good to know what's going on across campus, and to know how things shake out for us as a distance learning unit.

Holy shit. Somehow I just remembered that a week ago was the one year anniversary of The League of Melbotis. Curiously, it was in reading that Friday marks the fall of the Hussein regime that I was reminded of my own special little anniversary.

Current readers may not be aware, but The League almost didn't make it past the first week. In fact, I deleted old posts and planned to just go the way of the Dodo. However, Jim D. saved the day, and he somehow had archived all my old junk. Yeah, he's a stalker.

For those of you who wish to visit my first post which was NOT just a test, I will cut and paste below:

Greetings and welcome to the League of Melbotis weblog. For those of you NOT in the know, Melbotis is my dog. He's a good boy and he knows absolutely no tricks. Melbotis was not always my dog, he used to live with Jenny Perkins, so if I ever track her down, I have to give credit to her diligence in bringing up such a fine dog.

This weekend I was told to create a blog by Jim Tiberius Dedman of www.jdedman.com I suggest you check out the link. Usually it's a really good site, unless he doesn't update it, but he does that very regularly.

Jim's a good guy, and against my better judgement, I've known him for several years. Anyway, I think his intention was that I blog to create some sort of dialogue about political matters. That's fine. I'm not sure how many people want to hear my side, but it seems better than generating e-mail or trying to keep up with Jimbo on AIM. It turns out that Jim types faster than me.

I'm currently living in Chandler, Arizona, which is a bedroom community about 30-40 minutes from the airport, but still considered to be in the Phoenix metroplex. I'm more or less from Austin, Texas, and I miss Guero's and Rudy's like some folks might miss an arm or foot.

In order to entertain myself out here in the desert, I read a lot of Superman comics, watch Monster Garage, and try to keep the pets entertained. Lately, I've been watching the war footage and shrieking in horror. Bombs make me nervous, even bombs far, far away, so I've decided that today I will not venture into man's inhumanity to man as a topic. Thus, I will keep my comments about Scottsdale brief.

This weekend Jamie and I attended the Tempe Arts Festival.

Scottsdale is North of Tempe, but apparently not far enough away. It's a place where really hideous rich people go to freak out and buy cars bigger than mine, leaving me insanely jealous. The citizens of Scottsdale descend on things like the Tempe Arts Festival in terrible pastels and with strollers full of kids named "Austin" and "Tyler" and "Britney". Their purchasing power has created an environment where its apparently impossible to sell or show anything resembling art at the arts fair. I'm not one who believes in high or low art, but I'm pretty sure that putting sequins on a denim skirt to look like a kitty does not qualify as even the dumbest of folkart. Nothing made with a machine bought from RonCo counts as art. Patrick Nagel fans take heed.

In investigating the tents set up along the way, I discovered that all you need to do to participate in the Tempe Arts fest is to have $400 to rent out a space, get a tent, and procure some crappy faux-Native American art, like a clay bowl or something. There are other objects'd'arte (sp?), like cuh-razy pictures of dogs and cats, and Henna art for mommies who are trying to remember when they were crazy, pissed-off undergrads. Anyway, it was a bit of a letdown. And too many pan flutes. Far too many pan flutes.

The art fair made me wonder what all the millions of art majors are doing once they graduate from college. Are they all at these fairs hawking rusted copper yard ornaments in the shapes of kitties? I don't know where the art majors go, but I suspect they end up doing tech support at Dell. That's what I think us failed film majors are up to.

In the end, I did get a bag of cinammon roasted almonds, which made the trip actually not seem completely wasted.

Jamie (the little lady) and I took Melbotis to the park on Saturday. It was a fine time and we flew the Justice League kite I bought at the gas station for $2.50. Given the price I paid to see XXX, I think the $2,50 was a much better investment. Typical of Chandler, Tumbleweed Park is a sprawling grass something or other watered by sewage, an investment of millions of dollars, and completely devoid of any actual patrons. Well, this week there was a children's birthday party going down, but instead of using the acres and acres of grass and park, the parents had rented a moonbounce. All the kids out here rent moonbounces on their birthdays. Every Saturday there's one of these atrocities sticking up over somebody's cinder-block fence, accompanied by the shrill partying of seven year olds.

I do occasionally enjoy the punch drunk feeling of thirty minutes in the Arizona sunshine. I miss Central Texas sunshine more, but Arizona does have a few good things. Anyway, the park is a good thing, and I secretly hope nobody ever finds it. Melbotis and I like it a lot. We hope to spend many more Saturdays there before people come in and ruin our public park. My goal now is to teach Mel to carry the ball all the way back to the car by himself.

No political commentary here, per se. Maybe next time. Anyway, I hope this is okay.

My, how far we have come. Okay, maybe not. But it's fun to look back and realize the past year of my life has been a stale, boring mess.

God bless the web.

My childhood may officially have an ending date.

Lucasfilm announced the release date for the final Star Wars movie. It is to be May 19th, 2005. 6 years from the release date for Episode 1, Episode 3 will complete the 6 film cycle, wrapping up a narrative which has implications well beyond the confines fo the screen.

Whether Lucas will continue with another trilogy seems unlikely, but it could happen. I am certain he has planned out the fates of Chewbacca and Salacious Crumb in minute detail.

After a lifetime of fanhood, I officially gave up on Star Wars with Episode II, so maybe May of 2002 was really when it all went downhill (which also corresponded with my move to Arizona, btw...). I will certainly go see Episode III so I can get some closure, but the likelihood of me attending the midnight show, waking up and returning for the 9:00am show seems fairly low. Yes, I did this for Episode II. No, it was not a good idea. Yes, the afternoon at work passed with no small amount of hilarity as I was working on 3 hours of sleep.

Things I will not do:

1) I will not buy the DVD set of Star Wars until it contains the original movies, and not the remade, goofier versions
2) I will not dress up, nor coerce my wife to dress up for the film's premier.
3) I will not buy any toys of vehicles from Star Wars III, no matter how sorely I am tempted.
4) I will never put the word Jar twice in a row again.

Anyway, we have a countdown to disappointment.

Things of note:

1) Jim is still under the impression I sent him the Dilbert cartoon. I do not know why. I guess it's like most conspiracy theories... I can't prove I DIDN'T send him the cartoon, so he is fairly certain that i must have purchased and sent the cartoon. If only Mystery, Incorporated would resolve the situation.

2) Randy has sent me a disk of Teen Titan episodes ripped from his TIVO. I have notyet watched the cartoons, but given it's American Idol Results show tonight, I may well get my chance.

3) I suppose as a bizarre thank-you for the cartoon I did not send him, Jim located and sent me a copy of the 1989 album by They Eat Their Own, a short-lived college rock act I once enjoyed in high school. Thanks to Jim for locating and sending this rare item of college-rock's crippled past.

4) My parents actually sent a present this year for my birthday. It's not that they don't usually send a present... it's that they usually send a shirt and pants which I then exchange. This year my parents sent the Season 3 box-set of Futurama and the new David Byrne album. I am in no small way shocked. Also, I now have seasons 1 and 3 of Futurama, but I do not have Season 2. My life is now a meaningless void.

5) Daylight savings time is for suckers. Viva la Arizona! We don't need no stinking Daylight Savings Time.

6) I mentioned to my co-workers yesterday over a causal lunch that I was a little down on myself because I used to work to live, not live to work, and I feel like that's no longer true. For some reason this seemed to anger one of my co-workers. Which is weird in a state job. Anyway, it's not that I don't try to do a good job, but it's that this isn't exactly my life's passion, you know?

7) People continue to believe Jamie is 18 or 19. I must look liek a dirty old man, because people here think I'm somewhere in my mid to late 30's. I personally think that's awesome.

8) I am in a campaign to convince my pregnant pal that she should name her kid "Ryan 2". I think I am slowly wearing her down. it's a good name, though, isn't it?

9) I am thinking, once again, of a new dog. I have been campaigning for a thoroughbred, possibly a Great Dane. I do not know if that will happen. I am also fond of dogs intended for hunting, like labradors. Mel needs a buddy.