I don’t know much about clas­si­cal music, but I know what I like. I’ve always liked “In the Hall of the Moun­tain King”*. Last night, I was dri­ving home after see­ing Wanted**, I heard “In the Hall” on the radio. Then it switched to this: It was awe­some. Thanks, Randy Bach­man! You made my night. _____________ * If …

I love to read. But some­times, I start a book, and it sim­ply does not cap­ti­vate me. If it’s still a slog by page 100 or so, I’m done with it. The Lord of the Rings—I know it’s the defin­i­tive heroic fan­tasy tril­ogy, the one that every­one in the Uni­verse cribs from, but some­where around the …

It was a Dodge Cal­iber, and it looked pretty much exactly like this: It was orange. Its speak­ers were woe­fully inad­e­quate. I like my music on the loud side, and I enjoy the bass. This would let me do nei­ther, trag­i­cally, with­out sound­ing like all four speak­ers in the car were blown. Every­thing from Bare­naked Ladies …

EDMONTON—Everytime I say “I’ve never seen Big Trou­ble in Lit­tle China” I get an aston­ished gasp from my brother-in-law or from my friend the Space Cow­boy. I tell peo­ple I’ve never read Lord of the Rings* or The Hob­bit and they give me that side­ways look like a quizzi­cal dog, as if to say “How …

Eat ‘em with a lit­tle salt and pep­per. Make a sand­wich. Make salsa. Make soup. Make salad. Make pasta sauce. Take pho­tos of ‘em. Fail to come up with some­thing clever for #8. Throw ‘em at peo­ple you don’t like. Per­form div­ina­tion based on the pat­terns of their seeds. Dye cot­ton. Make ketchup. Repeat list, because you planted a dozen …

13 weird things that I enjoy: Primus. I first heard Tommy the Cat on the sound­track to Bill and Ted’s Bogus Jour­ney, and I was instantly hooked. Crushed-up soup crack­ers in choco­late pud­ding lends that needed extra crunch. How I miss Freaka­zoid. Top of the Food Chain–one of the fun­ni­est spoofs of Golden Age SF movies …

Things that make me smile. Rea­sons to be cheer­ful, as they say. My dar­ling wife: This one’s a lit­tle image-heavy, so I’ve added the “Con­tinue Reading” link.

Sep­tem­ber 13th is my anniver­sary. 13 Engines’ Per­pet­ual Motion Machine, alt-rock from 1994, rocks. Half of the Fri­day the 13ths that fall are pay­days for me. The other half are not. But that’s okay because my wife’s pay­day is off­set from mine by a week. Her­cules, a well-known and easy-to-find con­stel­la­tion in these north­ern lat­i­tudes, con­tains the glob­u­lar clus­ter M13. …