Particleman.org now has a webmaster. Not just any webmaster - but my beautiful, intelligent, and charmingly geeky girlfriend, henceforth known as CK. She got the captcha password thing to work on the comments after I failed miserably ages ago and then gave up entirely on having comments. Thank you, CK, for fixing my broken comments.

So - comment away. I guess this means I should start blogging more now.

Um, I planted grass this weekend. My legs hurt like a sonofabitch. I also saw bits and pieces of The Chronicles of Narnia, which has to be one of the longest movies I've somewhat paid attention to.

CK and I are planning a beach vacation. Should we go to Cancun proper, Isla Mujeres, or one of the other towns down the Riviera Maya coast? We're not too crazy about the touristy parts of the area, so Cancun does not score high on our list. I've been to Isla Mujeres and Tulum and liked them both, and I'm inclined to go back.

CK and I booked our beach vacation. We chose a hotel/resort/compound 30 minutes south of Cancun that seriously looks like another planet. I've been to Mexico before and I've seen the beaches, but this place just look ridiculous. They have their own jungle. I'm pretty excited.

WARNING: SPOILER (kind of)

CK and I watched The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Always the critical analysts, we discovered something of an inconsistency in the movie's theory about Benjamin's condition.

Given: Benjamin was born young in spirit but old in physical development, continuing to mature emotionally and mentally and "devolve" physically from an old man to a youth as time passed.

Extrapolated postulate of movie: Benjamin would have to die a "traditional" baby-like baby in physical development but an old man in spirit.

Actual end-game of movie: Benjamin dies a traditional baby-like baby in physical development but, rather than continuing to age mentally and emotionally with his life experiences and memories in tow, he loses his memory, suffers from dementia, and devolves into a baby in spirit.

Why the movie crew decided not to have a baby-looking baby talk and act like an old man must only be attributed to the difficulties in getting a baby to posses the speech skills of an adult. Could they really have given us a Benjamin that looked like an infant but talked like an old man? Maybe. Maybe not. They did give us a Benjamin that looked like an "old baby" but acted like a youth. Anything's possible in that context.

On the other hand, perhaps the dementia makes sense. As we age in the first few years of life, our brains make connections to hold more and more memories and make more and more thoughts. If memories and thoughts once existed in connections that Benjamin had, and he started losing connections as he physically devolved into an infant, he would lose the connections, and, with them, memories and thoughts, only to be replaced with confusion.

Turns out I'm turning 30 this October. I know. It's as much a shock to me as it is to you. I really don't deserve having a 3 in the first spot in my age. I appear to possess all of the basic attributes of adulthood, but it's really a facade: house, car, job, bills, general late 20s disillusionment and the requisite pre-mid-life existential crisis. All meaningless. All hollow. My favorite lyrics are still the lyrics to Beck's Cyanide Breathmint and Bogusflow (those are two different songs). I still watch The Big Lebowski once per month. I still write bad songs on the guitar and attempt to cross Nirvana with The Dead Milkmen with Nick Drake. It doesn't work.

I need a birthday bash idea to blow away all other possible birthday bashes. I'll put down my first idea here. It's something I've wanted to do for a long time. I don't know how much it costs, but I'm pretty sure I'd have to take out another mortgage to afford it, and it just might be worth it. Here it is:

1. Hire the Foo Fighters to play at my party. I really just want to jam out on bass with the Foos and get stupid drunk with them afterwards. Or before. Both, probably. We'd have to play a bunch of covers, naturally. Goofy ones. Or at least make fun of some classics. I'm thinking Elton John. Fleetwood Mac. Maybe throw some Danzig in there for good measure.

2. ??? This is where you come in. Feel free to suggest other ideas.