Why can't the Spiderman Musical master 40-year-old technology?

Is it me, or does the Spiderman musical, currently in previews on Broadway, seem like it's being put on by a bunch of 12-year olds in their backyard with no parental supervision? Spiderman is "swinging" about attached to huge, bulky ropes and wires that are completely visible. Just this week another performer was injured, quite seriously this time, when the "safety" rope attached to his back snapped as he leapt off a bridge set into a pit below.



Wasn't flying around the theater technology pretty much mastered over 40 years ago during the Broadway production of Peter Pan?



How is it that not one, but four actors (including children) were able to be flown safely, and relatively invisibly, about the stage in 1960, but come 2010 Julie Taymor and $65 million dollars can't produce a stage visual that doesn't seem like a kid with some clothesline, a pair of Spidey underoos and a really bad idea?

Seth Green meets his future, grown-up self.

Santa Streaking

I know, I don't update this blog enough. Yadda, yadda and yadda. Sorry.

So I ran a mile in the cold yesterday in tight red boy shorts and Santa beard. For charity. See?


It was the first annual NYC Santa Streak, sponsored by the site Why Leave Astoria?!. Modeled on the one in Boston, basically a bunch of people got together, donated either canned food or a gently used coat, stripped down and raced along side the East River on a cold and incredibly windy day.

More pictures here.

Metrocard of the BEAST!

This is really only a post that New Yorkers will find amusing.


Actually, maybe only I find this amusing.

World's Largest Jesus

Last week, Poland completed and unveiled the largest statue of Jesus Christ in the world. Manned by a specially trained super force of space explorers, it will defend us from the menacing hordes of the evil King Zarkon.

Go Voltron Jesus!

The Return of Conan... to "Conan."

Not having basic cable, I scrambled around the internet looking for a live stream, eventually finding one, I'm somewhat ashamed to say, thanks to Twitter.

I missed the excellent cold open (which I watched this morning), but enjoyed Conan's return to the airwaves immensely. Was it a brilliant show? Only at times, but it was certainly was a strong show throughout. The set is a little underwhelming, especially when compared to George Lopez's raucous, sprawling concert-style setup which followed, but I laughed out loud when the giant remote-control moon began moving across the panoramic background view of the Pacific ocean. Andy actually had the best two lines of the night, with his "Mayans are freaking out" line at the prop moon, and especially his comment regarding the Conan Halloween mask ("It smells like tears inside!") All in all, a really good show and enough to make me tune/stream in for more.

In reading a bit of feedback and reporting on the first show, however, I find it odd that, because he referred to the NBC debacle in several of his bits, people are accusing Conan of wallowing in self-pity, and that he should "get over it."

It was his first show. For him not to reference the transition from NBC to TBS would have been disingenuous, as well as ignoring a particularly large elephant in the room. I suspect the NBC references will drop off considerably after the first week, other than it's use as the usual late-night comedy fodder for being a 4th place network.

It is hard to imagine someone dealing with the NBC Tonight Show situation with more class, wit and grace than Conan did. He was never whiney, he was never self-pitying, and he always kept things in perspective; in fact, he actively requested people not to feel bad for him, reminding fans that he was a multi-millionaire former host of the Tonight Show, the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. Those suggesting otherwise either have a short memory, or never really heard or read any of the relatively few choice words Conan had to say on the whole subject. They are, instead, attributing the media and fan furor over Leno's nonsense to O'Brien himself, when, in reality, he pretty much stayed above the fray, playing music and growing his beard.

Jury's still out on the beard, however.

G.I. Joe the Movie, or, How I've Failed to Protect my Childhood

Early Birds

Early birds may get the worm, but I'll be getting vine-ripened tomatoes in October.

Where's your early planting now, Martha Stewart?!

The Wish Tree

The Museum of Modern Art here in NYC is currently showing several of Yoko Ono's older pieces. One of the more popular pieces is her "Wish Tree," which is set up in MoMA's sculpture garden. Guess which wish is mine.

Encore Godzilla Lecture @ 3rd Annual Nerd Nite Nerdtacular

Tomorrow, Friday, September 10th, I'm giving an encore presentation of my lecture, "Godzilla: History, Biology and Behavior of Hyper-Evolved Theropod Kaiju" as part of Nerd Nite's 3rd Annual Nerdtacular, at Galapagos Art Space, Brooklyn, NY.



This year's Nerdtacular is a "Greatest Hits" event, featuring other encore presentations on Disney's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea ride, the causes, treatments and science of cancer, and a discussion of race in role-playing games.

The evening will also feature "music and mental hygiene videos by indie-rock supergroup Overlord between presentations, and you’ll even have a chance to get the autograph of one of the original 20,000 Leagues crew members."

For more information on the presentations and presenters, go here: http://nyc.nerdnite.com/

And to purchase tickets, go... here: http://www.smarttix.com/show.aspx?showcode=3RD10

Cosplayers Fear Sunlight

Do they explode, or merely smolder slowly... then explode? We may never know.

An Open Letter to YouTube - "Charts"

This month, YouTube revamped it's "Most [Blank]" lists with "Charts." It's yet another pointless revamp of something for the sake of seeming busy. And so, an open letter that no one in power will read:

***********

Dear YouTube,

Why do you insist on "fixing" things that aren't broken and, in fact, making them worse?

- You now have to go through multiple clicks to get to these "charts,"
- They display LESS information at a glance than the previous Most Viewed/Subscribed/etc... format (only 10 videos/channels per page?), forcing people to go through twice as many pages to view the top 100 of any particular category.
- it wastes half the screen with blank space, which is probably part of the ultimate plan, leaving a spot to clutter up the page with Google ads and forcing users to look at twice as many.
- You still only allow access to the Top 100. What if I'm tired of the same 100 channels and want to see, say, the Top 400-500th most subcribed channel, to get a sense of what everyone else is doing?

Your layout changes in general just seem to be for the sake of moving things around, not for any practical reasons. YouTube's design philosophy should be to ADD functionality, not just CHANGE functionality. Give us MORE features, don't bury existing features in an endless hole of drop-down menus.

I realize in the corporate world, various departments have to "show their work," so they can justify their existence, but this is pointless.

At the very least, do the following two things:

1. A view-style option so that people can go back to viewing more than 10 videos per page, and
2. For frak's sake, let us see the channel/video database past the 100th; it's favoritism of the worst kind.

Sincerely,

Me

Slovenian Tango

Direct from Johannesburg, South Africa - Behold the beauty and majesty of the Slovenian Tango!

Instructions:

1) Grasp your partner, preferably American, firmly from behind.

2) Hold on tight

3) Don't let go until your partner is called for a foul, offsides and/or has their goal disallowed by Koman Coulibaly.

Now everybody try it!

Lost (in 10 seconds)

Missed the Lost series finale and don't have 2 hours to kill online? Here's the whole series in 10 seconds:

Here's the thing, I actually like Lost a great deal. And while I GET this "ambiguous" ending (all the mysteries are extraneous to the personal journey of each of the characters, blah, blah, blah), leaving major questions unanswered after SIX YEARS is just plain lazy writing. Much like Abrahms Star Trek reboot, rather than go for something complex that interweaves both revealing the science fiction/fantasy elements of the Lost world and completing the spiritual arc of all the characters at the same time, the runners of the show copped out, choosing instead to cheaply tug at heartstrings with touching flashbacks set to swelling music and a cowardly and non-committal final act.

At least we got a fight on a cliff in a storm...

The Problem with Bonding

During a relationship, you develop bonds over certain places and things; maybe you both had a favorite bar, or a street corner where you had a particularly great kiss, or a TV show you enjoyed geeking out over as a couple. People, places and things.

And sadly, when if the relationship ends, these various bonds, rather than sources of familiarity and happy memories, become sad reminders of what once was. With the advent of social networking, these little nudges of the past have increased geometrically.

I'm unfortunately having this situation in spades at the moment. Mutual friends, shared activities and interests all act as little grains of salt in the wound. I've walked this road before, but the thing that is unique and particularly galling this time around is that one of the things I perhaps bonded most with my ex over was FOOD.

Food. I might as well have bonded with her over AIR or WATER. I can't even make breakfast without thinking of the meals we've shared and prepared together. Trips to the market are painful strolls down memory lane and a wild ramps risotto or fiddlehead salad suggested by the waiter only serve to recall her love of seasonal foods. (The risotto was AMAZING, by the way...) As a result, I've only been eating either sparingly or crappily, or both. One meal a day isn't sufficient sustenance, nor is a half gallon of ice cream.

I can only hope to be in better place by next persimmon and quince seasons.

Short excerpt from "Night of a Thousand Exes"

Scene opens on a beer garden in Brooklyn. Man has just arrived from a roller derby bout where he watched an ex-lover from last year cuddling with an ex-friend in the stands, while also seeing his most recent Ex of a week ago's current lover, who is a member of said derby league. This recent Ex is also at the beer garden for the birthday party of a mutual friend. Some brief small talk occurs amongst the group before Man and Ex finally face one another. She stands and speaks...

Ex of one week ago: How are you doing?

Man shrugs sadly. She gives him a comforting hug and cheek kiss.

Ex of one week ago: (turning immediately to another friend) So this guy was just hitting on me in the line to the bathroom...

Man exits.

And scene.

Mom Logic

So before my trip to Atlanta, my mother wrote me to ask if I was bringing my computer, or if I was going to be using it a lot, because she didn't want to bring hers because it was too heavy.

She then told me she was bringing me brown rice, which I didn't ask for (nothing new). I suggested to her that if her computer was so heavy, she should leave the rice at home and bring her computer.

She decided to bring both.

This is the computer she said was "too heavy."


And this is the computer with the bag of brown rice she brought me:









Mom logic.

A Week in Atlanta - What to do, what to do...?

My, how time flies when you're not blogging. Valentine's Day, my birthday, meetings with ex's, romantic roller coaster rides: all come and gone.

But now my blog finds me in Atlanta. Arrived this afternoon (Monday) and after finally scouting out a free source of WiFi in the airpoirt (Delta fliers take note: Screw ATL's lack of free wifi and go to the Delta "Recharge" Station, where you can find both an outlet AND a free linksys WiFi access point), I easily made my way to the OMNI hotel in Downtown Atlanta via the MUNTA ($2.25 each way).

(A bit of back story: I'm here visiting with my mother, who is in town from Thailand for a conference; her birthday is this week and she asked me to come and hang out with her. I've never been to Atlanta in my adult life, so voila, mini-vacation. Hence the hotel swankiness that I wouldn't otherwise be experiencing.)

After checking in, browsing the local Yelp for food recommendations, I went to wander around Downtown a bit. I didn't get all that far, but it seems to be a bit of a cultural and gastronomic wasteland. Lots of empty storefronts and streets, and what eateries were about are designed to cater to the college and convention crowd in the area. I popped into one recommended joint, the Calypso Cafe; about average Caribbean cuisine, stark decor, moderately priced, but they seemed to be out of half the menu. I had the "spicy" jerk chicken with plantains and rice and peas. Nothing to write home about (though here I am, writing about it.)

I strolled around the area a bit more. One thing I found confusing was that it was 50 degrees F, incredibly windy, yet some people seemed to be under the impression that it was much warmer, walking around in t-shirts and spring clothing. Furthermore, no one seemed to realize that they were supposed to be cold. The residents of Atlanta really need to learn to be cold and complain about the weather more - it's positively uncivilized.

Then back to the hotel to exercise a bit in their swanky fitness/spa center, take a bath, finish reading my sugary vampire novel and wait for my mom to arrive.

Superbowl Chili v.2010

I've combined a number of recipes for this year's batch of Superbowl chili, and added meat braising into the equation. It's cooking as I type this, so I've no real idea how it's going to turn out, but so far it seems like it's going to be the AWESOME. (Or inedibly spicy... one of those two...)

Shy's Superbowl Chili v.2010

Ingredients:

1 lb ground beef

3/4 lb sirloin, cut in 3/4-1 in cubes

5 cloves of garlic, chopped/minced

2 medium onions (red or yellow or both)

1 green bell pepper, diced

1 red bell pepper, diced

1 Italian pepper, diced

1 Jalapeno pepper, finely diced

1 Serrano chili pepper, finely diced

1 long pepper, diced

2 6-oz cans tomato paste

1 28-oz can diced tomatoes

1/2 cup red wine

1 can/bottle beer

1 cup strong coffee

1 tbs Assorted dried chili peppers, ground up

1 tbs oregano

1/3 cup brown sugar or maple syrup

1 tbs cumin

1 tbs coriander

1 tbs cocoa

1 tbs chili powder

salt and pepper

1 1/2 tsp cayenne

2 bay leaves

1 tbs butter

2 tbs olive oil

cilantro

sour cream

Directions:

1. Season the cubes of meat with salt and pepper. (Seasoning just means sprinkling salt and pepper over the meat evenly. You'll get the hang of the amounts, but if you're just starting off, work with, say, 2 teaspoons (tsp).

2. Heat a large, over-proof pot over medium-high heat, then add butter and 1 tablespoon (tbs) of olive oil. (Hot pan, cold oil, foods won't stick.) Brown the cubed sirloin for about 8 minutes or until done on each side, then remove meat to a plate and then brown the ground beef. Remove ground beef to plate when done.

3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

4. Add remaining olive oil and saute garlic and onion for 5 minutes, then add peppers and saute for another 7-10 minutes, stirring often.

5. Return meat and any juices to the pot and stir, then add tomatoes, paste, beer, wine, sugar, coffee and spices. Cook on stovetop for another 10 minutes or so until liquids reduce a bit, then cover and put in oven for as long as humanly possible, stirring occasionally.

6. Turn off before bedtime.

7. Wake up, turn oven back on to 325 degrees F.

8. Right before game, take out of oven, season with salt and pepper to taste (this means TASTE it, then add more salt and pepper). Serve with freshly chopped cilantro and sour cream.

9. Pass out.

10. Send Shy thank-you note.

From 60 to 59: One less excuse.

Now that Democrats, through their hubris and inaction, have lost their in-name-only "Supermajority" in the Senate, they may think they have one more excuse for dragging their heels on the Progressive domestic agenda: meaningful health care reform, responsible regulation of the financial sector, environmental management, etc...

But in reality, they have one LESS, because the plain fact is Democrats NEVER needed a Supermajority to accomplish the goals of an effective public option. Because while creating a government organization from scratch IS vulnerable to a filibuster from Republicans (who, on a side note, I always felt were bluffing), expansion of existing programs, such as Medicare, is NOT and can be accomplished through reconciliation with a simple majority.

The lesson of the Massachusetts election is clear - Democrats need to get off their asses and get this accomplished before the midterm elections or they really WILL be in trouble.

Video Recording's a Bitch, Isn't it Jay?

Jay's 2004 Announcement - watch more funny videos

So either he was a disingenuous liar in 2004, or an out of touch hack here in 2010.

Actually why choose one. Leno's both. Sad.

Another Annoyance About the NBC Thing

Just thought of something annoying: NBC is SO rock bottom that they pretty much don't have anywhere to go but up. And any uptick in their fortunes after this Conan debacle is going to be used by the parties responsible (Jeff Zucker, NBC, Jay Leno) as evidence that they were doing the right thing in letting Conan go and moving Leno back to the Tonight Show.

It's like doing a rain dance in January and saying it's responsible for rains in April. It's just something that was going to happen. NBC is increasing it's number of new pilots from 11 to 20, and has signed deals with a variety of big name producers (J.J. Abrams, Brian Grazier, etc..), so they're rushing to restock their stable of narrative dramas. This will result in a resurgence of the network audience, hungry for substance after four months of Leno Spam.

But mark my words, if Zucker keeps his job (and he really shouldn't), when the NBC's fortunes do start to turn, however slightly, he'll be the first to point to the bonfire he's been dancing around and take credit.

New Dominos: Worst Pizza Ever.

Let me preface this by saying that I'm actually a bit of a food snob, and wouldn't normally eat this so-called "food." But I also take a kitchy pleasure indulging in junk and fast food from time to time. And so...

Anyone watching TV these days has perhaps seen Dominos Pizza's new advertising campaign, a mea culpa to the public where the company's management admits to previously having bad pizza. Having been bombarded with these ads over the course of the past several weeks, my roommate and I finally succumb to our curiosity and went by a Dominos to pick up two medium pies and give it a shot.

It's hard to express in words what a bad idea this was. (But here goes...)

Even before my teeth sank all the way through my first bite, the pizza was already nauseating, though I wasn't able to identify why until my second bite. At first, I wondered if the green peppers had gone bad, but, while they were lifeless and seemed as though they had been frozen, they weren't the source of the real problem. There was a rotten, artificial odor that pervaded the surface of the pizza. And then I figured it out: the crust.

More specifically, the new "garlic and herb" coating they've added to the crust. It had the taste and smell of artificial butter topping and slightly rancid oil, mixed in with stale garlic powder. A quick visit to Dominos' ingredients page confirmed my analysis:

Enriched Flour (Wheat Flour, Niacin, Iron, Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavin Folic Acid), Water, Malt, Sugar, Whey, Malted Barley Flour, Yeast, Soybean Oil. Zzesty Blend: Butter Flavored Oil (Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, Soy Lecithin, Artificial And Natural Butter Flavoring, Vitamin A Palmitate And Beta-Carotene for Color), Imitation Parmesan Cheese (Water, Modified Food Starch, Casein And Or Caseinate, Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, Cellulose Powder, Salt, Sodium Phosphates, Stabilizers [Mono And Diglycerides, Guar Gum, Carrageenan], Natural Flavor, Lactic Acid, Sorbic Acid [As A Preservative]), Onion And Garlic, Spices, Salt, Lactic Acid, Butter Flavor, Tomato Powder, Bell Pepper. Dextrose, Citric Acid, Extractive Of Paprika And Lemon And Orange Oil With No Greater Than 2% Calcium Silicate And/Or Soybean Oil Added to Prevent Caking, Corn Meal (used in preparation).

Not one, but TWO forms of artificial butter. "Zzesty" blend? What, because you were afraid of being liable for using "zesty?" How pathetic.

Aside from that nauseating topping, the crust itself was doughy and flavorless, the sauce sparse and under- seasoned, and the cheese thin and lacking any punch. The pepperoni should have been called "meat rounds" - it lacked any discernible taste and had the consistency of plastic - and the vegetables were just sad. The only topping which even remotely had any flavor was their Italian sausage, but even that was only just mediocre - no spice at all.

And when I say "nauseating," I'm not being hyperbolic. I felt sick after eating the pizza, which I only finished because I was 1) really hungry and 2) hate wasting food, even when it's only "food." Even now, hours later as I write this, I still feel sick and lethargic.

The sad thing is, they had a real opportunity here. It's been well over 2 decades since I've had a slice of Dominos pizza, but this new ad campaign was so refreshingly "honest" that it actually made me curious enough to give it another try. Even though we KNEW it was going to be awful, we wanted to see if they had made it slightly more palatable.

But instead of simply improving the product by using higher quality ingredients and preparation methods, they decided to go with a gimmick. Herbed crust. And in doing so, they actually took a step backwards, made their pizza worse, and ensured that I, and undoubtedly others, will never eat Dominos again.

And some of us will even go on to blog about it.

(Hashmarking #newpizza sends your Twitter comment right to their "Pizza Turnaround" webpage. Like so!)

NBC Still Believes the Emperor Has Clothes

One can only shake their head at NBC these days. The degree to which their executives are unable to accept responsibility and see the obvious is truly astonishing. Rather than coming to the simple realization that Jay Leno isn't anything special and should be let go, they're going to continue attempting to put a square peg in a round hole.

Back in 1992 they screwed up royally by not giving The Tonight Show franchise to David Letterman. The end result was that they split up their monopoly on late night. So while Leno may have been "winning" the late night wars against Letterman and Nightline, at best he was only ever capturing just over a third of the viewing audience, an audience that had been overwhelmingly watching The Tonight Show exclusively when it was the only game in town.

What followed was 17 years of mediocre, middle-of-the-road comedy. Ironically, during Leno's early, lean years, he and Jerry Seinfeld purportedly would sit around and make fun of the very sort of pablum he churned out night after night. Meanwhile, Letterman was proving his worth by being able to create and maintain a competitive late night franchise at CBS from scratch. The only good thing to come out of the Leno Tonight Show was the arrival to the scene of Conan O'Brien, a virtual unknown at the time who ended up, after a rocky first year, creating cutting edge, absurdist late night comedy that appealed to a young audience, and paving the way for the likes of the Farrelly Brothers, Todd Phillips and Judd Apatow.

On to the present, and NBC's complete lack of class and common sense. As of today, according to some sources, they have to decided to give Leno back the Tonight Show and fire Conan. To make matters worse, they are now blaming Conan for the ratings failures of the Tonight Show, refusing to lay any of the blame at the feet of the IDIOTIC decision to replace hour-length narrative and reality programming with 5 nights-a-week of Jay Leno. Even though Leno's show clearly was going to dilute the appeal of The Tonight Show from the get go by presenting what was an identical show an hour and a half earlier. Plus, Leno was a complete disaster, revealing that he is, in fact, simply not funny. The audacity of this revision of history makes one's head spin.

So who or what is to blame? Back to some history. When Jeff Zucker took over as Entertainment President in 2000, NBC was the number one network, and now it's in fourth place. Plain and simple, the buck stops with Zucker.

In the 9 years since, Zucker failed to create and grow a single, lasting narrative program, maintained only one reality show, The Biggest Loser (developed by Ben Silverman, who NBC then fired) and allowed their other successful programs, Fear Factor and The Apprentice, to whither and die on the vine. He had numerous chances to try to develop long term shows to replace exiting ones (Friends, ER, West Wing), and even had a handful of critical hits which could have done the job, such as Kings and Studio 60 (which ironically predicted the network's woes during it's run), but promptly cancelled them all after single seasons. He failed to acquire A-List shows such as Mad Men, letting other broadcast and cable networks pick them up and run with them, choosing instead to develop clunkers like the Friends-spinoff Joey and the meandering Las Vegas. Even going back to the proverbial well he failed to deliver, taking recognizable commodities such as Knight Rider and The Bionic Woman and creating properties that were, respectively, less than B-movie quality and mind-numbingly pretentious. And of course, recycling Leno at 10pm proved to be his most public failure to date.

It's easy to understand why Zucker has been such a poor choice to head NBC. He spent 12 years at the Today Show, where he helped make that brand a dominating number one morning show. Good for him. However, after 12 years of producing people talking about soft news and entertainment, that's ALL he was qualified to do. He hadn't the faintest idea how to create interesting and narrative programming. And because he produced a daily "news" show, he didn't have the attention span to understand that shows that rely on stories rather than sound bytes need time to develop an audience.

But Zucker's not solely to blame here. Jay Leno bears a huge share of this burden. Because "Emperor" Leno isn't wearing any clothes. He's NOT FUNNY. His 10pm show was even weaker than his Tonight Show in terms of content, and no amount of band riffs can cover up his over-reliance on typos, viral videos and making fun of unexpecting people on the street.

"Oh yes, Jay, show us how stupid people are by asking them simple trivia questions - you're quite the everyman. But don't attack the people in power who have created the educational void that's led to that ignorance - no, no, that would rock the boat! Comedians don't do that, right? "

Even the opening of his new show was unbearably egomaniacal. A montage of clips of Jay Leno growing up? Are you SERIOUS? Where was the ending shot of him awarding himself the Congressional Medal of Honor?

Meanwhile, back in the present, Conan O'Brien has been conducting himself with poise, humor and dignity, releasing a brilliantly worded (and quietly hilarious) statement of his position. And in response, NBC executives, Dick Ebersol in particular, have started hurling dirt at him, trying to scapegoat O'Brien for all of NBC's late night woes. Truly school on a Saturday boys... school on a Saturday.

But why? Why is NBC screwing over O'Brien so badly and not standing by him to try to maintain both the Tonight Show and NBC brands? It hardly makes business sense - the sanctity of the brand is far more valuable a commodity than short term ratings and revenue; it's obvious NBC understands this as they plan on losing $200 million on the upcoming Winter Olympics.

So why? Well, and this may be a stretch, I think it's personal. When Jeff Zucker was at Harvard he was editor of the Harvard Crimson, the school's newspaper, where he encouraged competition with the Harvard Lampoon. The Lampoon was always funnier, better written and more popular than the Crimson. And the editor of the Harvard Lampoon? Conan O'Brien*.

For Jeff Zucker, revenge is a dish best served pathetic.

Join the "I'm With Coco" movement on Facebook!

* Zucker and Conan both majored in History (Conan also majored in Literature). Conan graduated magna cum laude. Zucker... did not.

Sometimes Causes of Insomnia...

I'm a night owl/insomniac for several different reasons. Sometimes it's addiction to video games, sometimes it's procrastinating, and oft-times it's because I don't want to go to bed having not accomplished anything all day.

But tonight it's one of the really bad reasons. Because tomorrow is the inevitable. And I really don't want to have to face up to this particular bit of inevitable. Because of the inevitable which follows this inevitable. Because, despite it's ups and downs, I really enjoyed the bit before the inevitable. I, in fact, loved the bit before the inevitable. Very much.

Yet sleep must claim my weary eyes eventually, and, once rested, they shall feast on sorrow and water themselves... blah, blah, blah.

Happy New Year, indeed...