come early saturday AM, tommy and i, with an assortment of other bloggers and non, will head off to the wild reaches of the outer banks, land of the pickup truck and sonic. beer will be drank, boogie boards will be ridden, and dead dolphins will most likely be poked. in the spirit of making you all SO JEALOUS, here are the pictures from last year, including a totally awesome one of "young prodigy" matthew yglesias spraying a ginormous fountain of lighter fluid absolutely everywhere while puffing away on a cigarette.

aren't you jealous of us cavorting on the beach with other bloggers? aren't you? BE JEALOUS.

sigh.

like everybody else in the blogosphere, i lined up like the good nerd that i am to see star wars on thursday night. so, okay, whatever, it was pretty fucking awesome (at least the last 2/3). but something's been seriously bothering me since i left the movie theather. no, not lucas's depiction of how a man turns to evil; not how lucas made natalie portman look seriously ugly (a feat more amazing and impossible than the entire star wars franchise); not why did badass samuel jackson have to die?

nope. it's got to do with anakin's hair. i present to you a side-by-side comparsion.

now i know my comprehension of the star wars movies is seriously limited, but doesn't star wars 3 take place directly after star wars 2? perhaps i'm mistaken in my chronology there, but if not, that is a serious continuity issue. maybe hair grows at six million times its normal earth growth in the star wars series (that could explain the monstrosity that appeared on portman's head in about every scene); maybe a space badger attached itself at some point to anakin. i dunno.

NEVERMIND! i just asked tommy about this, and he reminds me the rather-awesome star wars cartoon takes place in between the two films, and thus we have the crazy hair. i still don't think it's a good look for anakin, but hey - at least he's not bald.

the new york times and washington post out-retard each other in simultaenous, lengthy articles about the new hotspot regions of italy (tuscany is soooo over). the new york times annoints le marche; the washington post annoints puglia. the post must be late to the game, because i was raving about puglia back in '03. i have never been to le marche, but jackie of the long trip home lives there and often blogs appealing entries about the town of macerata.

if there's one thing i can't stand, it's articles that a) try to discover the "new tuscany" and b) claim the best part about a region is that there are no tourists and it's undiscovered, then publish their articles in a newspaper that only gets about 2 billion readers a day. NOT TO MENTION the post also does a blurb on matera, which i also visited in 2003. you can read my account of the town here. you know what really gets my goat? back in my too-ambitious days of attempts at freelance writing, i queried the post with an article about matera. of course, nobody ever contacted me back. so they can go shove a a big ol' trulli up their butts.

well, charlottesville was wonderful, the graduation ceremonies were wonderful, and my brother is now officially an ensign of the U.S. navy, which is also wonderful. i have to warn you that my overwhelming pride and the fact that i was denied computer access for three days may result in this post being full of incredibly shitty prose, but anyways...

Yesterday, as part of our post-fire agreement with our landlord, we assisted in the partial demolition of our deck. So as you can see, we currently don't have much of a railing, and in fact have added a few rusty nails to the equation.

"But Tom," you're saying to yourself, "What does this have to do with me? Surely you don't think that I, a sophisticated, intelligent, lovely and/or virile young person, would be so foolish as to consume alcohol, go outside for a smoke, and tumble fifteen or so feet onto the bricks below?"

Well, yes. Certainly you wouldn't do it. We've talked about it, and everyone agrees that you're a promising young person with a bright future ahead of you, one filled with days of wine and not falling off of things. But I can't help remembering my friend Rob Zalkind, with whom I was sharing a chairlift when he leaned forward and, well, kept on leaning, falling thirty or forty feet^*, to the considerable surprise and dismay of his mother (motivated only partially by one of her skis getting knocked off in the process).

Anyway, Rob was fine. When we got down to him he was lying on his back, laughing and repeating "I'm so dumb" over and over. But in fact he went on to get a perfect score on the SATs (for which I will never, ever forgive him). So there you have it. Rob Zalkind: objectively non-dumb, yet still entirely capable of falling off of things. Maybe we'll put up some rope or something.

^* this is not an exaggeration

Wandering around the internet last night, desperate for something cheap and/or electronic on which to waste money, I came across this intriguing offer. Restaurant.com lets you buy certificates to a variety of eateries for less than their face value. Their DC list is mostly uninspiring... but wait! Ben's?!

Yup. I was amazed when Catherine pointed out that the place featured online ordering. But apparently the Chili Bowl's online strategy goes even further than that. You can get $10 certificates to Ben's for $3 per. The catch is that they're only good after 5pm and the minimum purchase for your order is $15. But that's not bad -- for just 8 bucks you get $15 worth of deliciously blistered sausage and transcendently bad chili (also available by the gallon, by the way). That makes these certificates worth ordering and keeping folded up in your wallet, I think.

the washington socialites, cleveland park mens club, and, indirectly, DCist and DC SOB hit the pages of the express. i'm a bit late on this as i was in charlottesville and didn't get a chance to see the article until today, but i'm not quite sure what to think. it's kind of awesome...right? it's also so insider it sort of makes me want to projectile vomit everywhere. i can't decide whether i'm excited or depressed that the popular kids have taken over the blogosphere. can't they just leave us inhaler using nerds our internets??