Midmonth Madness Redo

Due to some unforseen technical difficulties, I had to completely redo this morning's post, so let's hope it's as good the second time around.

Since I'm not always able to post every single day (Besides that cold that's subsided nicely, MrMMO and I have a darn hectic schedule sometimes), so I thought I'd catch up with a few of the less monumental (at least in terms of my capability to write about them), but still notable things that have happened lately:


R.I.P. Peter Graves. His passing is noteworthy, but I don't feel like I can really do him justice since so much of his best work was in the decades before I was born. Of course I've seen Airplane!, but I don't own it, and, in fact, don't really own much of anything Mr. Graves was in except for an episode of House.

Tim Burton is made of happy. I've not gotten a chance to see Alice in Wonderland yet, but can't wait. We live about an hour away from the nearest 3D capable theater, so it's going to take both of us having the day off, and so far that's not happened (we coincidentally have an appointment next week that we both had to request the day off for, so if it doesn't run into the afternoon, off to the theater we'll go). Until then, College Humor has tided me over with this video. It's funny and it's true, even as a Burton fan I can say that; if that kind of formula is entertaining and sells tickets, why change, right?

The past two weeks of Saturday Night Live have been really, really funny. And because sometimes I tend to turn this place into one fortress-like wall of text, I am going to embed some video, darnit.

The first is from last week's, with Zach Galifinakis. Yes, it's the one he shaved his beard off for, but it's so, so funny in and of itself. The Situation Room parody came in a close second to this one.



The second is from this week's, with Jude Law. The whole episode was great, but this particular one was my favorite, partially because I'm a huge fan of the original segment with William Shatner (I have it on a DVD that I found at a Cracker Barrel), and partially because even if you don't like the original or get the Food Network cake reference, it's still going to make you laugh.



And just to make it a little sweeter, they finally made a Digital Short for Boombox (I'll link this one rather than embed, there are some... more adult bits), which for all of us crazy kids with a copy of Incredibad on iTunes, was both a gift and a curse; now I'm compelled to go buy myself a pair of fingerless gloves.

And now, ending on a serious note:

There have been an unnervingly large number of nasty earthquakes lately. Having been through a small (5.2) and minimally damaging, but still scary earthquake just a couple years ago, I can't stress enough how important it is to be prepared. FEMA has some good resources on the web. Conveniently enough, many of the points like disaster supplies, safe locations, and family communication plans are things that you may already have in place if you're like me and live in an area where tornadoes are relatively common (By which means, it's getting to be that time of year... so be prepared for those too!). Lots of basic supplies may be found around the house, they just need to be popped in a Rubbermaid container or Spacebag for durability's sake and placed somewhere discreet but easily accessable.

While we're in the general area of disaster preparedness, and since I've already mentioned tornadoes, I also recommend subscribing to a weather app if it's available on your cell phone. Most phones, even older ones, have it available for about $4 a month subscription cost (if you have a smart phone with internet access, you could just use the Weather Channel or Intellicast's regular sites). Yes, radio's free, but with this you'll get things like radar images, which I find invaluable in that kind of situation. For peace of mind during at least one super-severe thunderstorm or tornado warning each season, I find it worth the cost.