You maniacs! You blew it up!

Yes, as you can see from the pictures I posted the other day, I spent Fourth of July on the Planet of the Apes.

OK. Actually, it was a giant, inflatable Statue of Liberty head.

Still...

Take your stinking paws off of my bottle rocket, you damn, dirty ape.

(Special thanks to Flex for his Photoshopping prowess.)

Happy 4th of July

July 4th Fireworks from West Seattle, 2007

Slept until noon today. Now that's a holiday.

Time to grill some meat.

UPDATE:
Decided at the last minute to bike up to Gas Works Park to catch the fireworks tonight. Didn't have a chance to get a great spot but still got some decent pictures. Enjoy!

The Clay Aiken of Bacon Twice Takes Top Dog Over The Ichiro of, uh... Hot Doggie Rolls

ABC News: American Wins Hot Dog Crown in OT

In one of the most exciting finishes in hot dog eating competition history, defending champion Joey Chestnut today defeated six-time winner Takeru Kobayashi in overtime to keep the Mustard Belt, $20,000 and the world's fastest hot dog eater title.
[...]
But the title is his only for the year, and when Kobayashi was asked if he would be competing again, he offered a simple, yet ominous "of course."

Of course Kobayashi will be back.

He works for Keyser Söze.

(Disturbing) Update:

At least Japan is still number 1 in other areas.

The Shukan Asahi Geino (June 19) reports that Japan’s Masanobu Sato emerged as the hands-down winner in the 7th Masturbate-A-Thon, held in San Francisco on May 25.

9 hours, 33 minutes. Ouch.

There's a tie for "Best Line":

First, the Shukan Asahi Geino reminding us that that record is:

"equivalent to the flying time between Narita and Los Angeles."

Not a flight I'd like to be on.

Second, the same paper noting that:

"Sato’s right arm is considerably more developed than his left."

Ya think?

...rumble...

Actual thunder here today. The long, rolling kind, too. Loving it. (For a place known for rain, Seattle's seriously lacking in the theatrics of it.)

By the way, sorry about the sporadic posting lately. Been a busy week. (You think my posting's bad? You should see my emails.)

Hey, here's something interesting I recently discovered while trying to put together an audition DVD the past few days. Turns out that, after nearly 4 years of being paid by a major, international corporation to play a Japanese-speaking Doc Brown, I still can't do a decent impression of him in English.

Anyway, more posting soon.

5 (Free!) Ways to Make Vista a Bit Less Sucky

Well, it's official. XP is no longer being made.

So, as we wait for the next big upgrade from Microsoft, here are five little (free!) programs that helped make my copy of Vista a bit more tolerable.  In no particular order:

1. TeraCopy - Ever want to pause in the middle of copying a large file? Now you can.

2. Rocket Dock - A Mac-style app launcher that really helps keep stuff off your desktop.

3. Taskbar Shuffle - Rearrange the open programs in your taskbar by dragging and dropping.

4. CCleaner - Clean up after your web browsing. Also includes a great way to uninstall programs.

5. Switcher - an Exposé-like application swticher. Sweet, sweet eye candy.

And if you have 2 monitors, you should definitely get DisplayFusion.

Or, you could just buy a Mac...