Family Guy on DVD! - If you've never seen the Family Guy, then you don't know what you missed. Fox cancelled what was possibly the best comedy on TV. It was a cartoon, set in fictional "Quahog Rhode Island" and it was much funnier than South Park. It constantly spewed offbeat jokes and pop culture references for those of us in the 20-30 something age group. Of course Fox cancelled it - it was good!

Luckily, there is hope for those of you who may have missed it the first time around...Amazon.com: DVD: Family Guy - Seasons 1 & 2 (1999).

Wave Motion Gun - Anyone remember the wave motion gun? Starblazers? Something on Mike's blog reminded me of the Argo's ultimate weapon. It was this cute Flash animation: Icon Story. Stolen shamelessly from Curious Frog.

The Year's Searches In Review - Google has checked their records and compiled a page of "what happened in 2002" based on people's searches. The graphical timeline is a nice quick look at some telling search traffic. Check out: Google Press Center: 2002 Year-End Zeitgeist

Substandard #7 - Aren't you glad Bush isn't having sex with an intern?

Crossing Off - I tend to procrastinate, and so I eventually accumulate a long list of things that need to be done. Usualy these are annoying little things above and beyond the usual responsibilities of life. They bug me, take up my attention and keep me from being happy. So I have to make a conscious effort to resolve them. I took care of two things today - straightening out an insurance matter and ending a membership in the local gym (so that I wouldn't get charged!)

When the list gets sufficiently long it is depressiong, becasue it seems like no amount of work is going to take care of all of it, and therefore it's almost hopless. Not true, of course. Even crossing one or two things off your mental list makes you feel like you're making progress.

What do you have hanging around that you need to take care of? Is there anything you can cross off your list to make yourself feel better? It's excellent therapy.

When Bad Is Good - I was thinking about Peter Jackson, and so I decided to watch one of his older films - Dead-Alive (aka. Braindead). Wow! This film pushes the boundaries of silly low-budget gore films, and explores new levels of tastelessness. Obviously tongue-in-cheek, it's stil a wonder anyone trusted him with the money and responsibility of bringing Tolkien's books to the big screen.

My two all-time favorite movies vying for the worst "so-bad-they-are-funny" award are Circle of Iron (A David Carradine film written by James Coburn and Bruce Lee, is obviously meant to be "deep" but comes off "cheep.") and the inexplicable They Call Me Macho Woman (aka. Savage Instinct - a production with the worst acting of all time .) If you can see these movies for free sometime, it might be worth it. If you're drunk, perhaps. Or laid up.

Jackson probably earned the credibility to warrant a shot at Tolkien with his critically acclaimed Heavenly Creatures - a bizarre film about an even more bizarre true crime. Two young girls (one portrayed by Kate Winslet) invent their own fantasy world and become obsessed with it to the point of comitting murder. Heavenly Creatures is worth seeing, especially if you'd like to see what Peter Jackson was doing before he was filming hobbits.