This is the 856th post. Just in case you were wondering.

I finished reading "The Te of Piglet" Saturday. It was alright, but nowhere near as good as "The Tao of Pooh". Most of "The Te" seems to be filled with the author's rants about the current state of society - many of the rants justified, yes, but some of them a little too random. For instance, he devotes a few pages to overly-enthusastic feminists - aka "Amazon Eeyores", as the book refers to them.

Romeo and Juliet is over now. As these things sort of tend to do, it all came together within the last week.

May starts tomorrow. That means tomorrow is May Day. When was the last time you actually celebrated May Day? You know, making little baskets to drop off at people's houses, ringing the doorbell, running away. I think the rule was that if you were caught, the person who caught you had to kiss you.

When May Day came, I wasn't stealthy. I was stealth.

Except for that one day when Bradley Dwyer decided he'd be clever. He sat on his front stoop doing absolutely nothing, waiting for people to drop off baskets so he could catch them. I gave him a basket anyway, but in retrospect, I'm not sure if such a display of smart-assery deserved a May Day basket.

Pachabel: if it ain't baroque, don't fix it.

We took a survey in school today. This time it was standardized-test-esque, full of often vague questions and vaguer possible responses: strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree, and the especially cryptic "undecided".

Number 58 was: "I think I am a strong decision maker."

I wonder how many others filled in "undecided".

I think we all can agree that this April is a very weird month.

Hey, look. The third Spanish Project is done.

Does anyone remember Mr. Bucket? Does anyone else remember Mr. Bucket sounding so...dirty?

And it ends the same way every commercial for a game used to end: one child triumphantly pumps their hands in the air and goes "I win!!!"

I'm editing the third spanish project now. I'm down to the last scene, which involves quite a bit of gun use.

It's weird, editing this all days after the Virginia Tech incident. The word "incident" makes it sound too tame.

There's quite a bit more I have to say about all of that, but I want to sleep soon.

Anyway, it's weird. The gun use isn't heavy, but it struck me as odd - sort of like one releasing a film in which a tower collapses just days after 9/11. Damn bad timing.

"That's the thing unique thing about being a musician," Jordan said. "You can do something an actor can't do. You have an empty room and you can fill it up with screaming people. And they're all screaming for you."

I thought about this.

"Maybe an arsonist, too," I said.

Sorry for neglecting you lately. Forgive me?

I wouldn't mind April ending sometime soon.
YouTube video.

It's been about six months now, but here you are: a completely-new-just-recorded-today video.

This is an ad for Power Vitamins made for a school project. It was written by Luke and Travis.

Google never fails to amaze me.

Anyway, they released a new service called Google 411. Here's how it works: you call a number (1-800-GOOG-411) from your phone and and say the name of a local business. Google gives you the place's address - or, even cooler, it can get you on the line with whatever business you choose.

It works really well and it's free (except for the regular charge you might get from your provider). Try it out.

The spring mime show was a week ago. For some reason it seems like a much more distant event than that. I'm not sure why; perhaps the experience was so emotionally moving that it didn't take very long for it to feel like a memory.

So, when did you think you'd ever hear the words "mime show" and "emotionally moving" in the same sentence?

Anyway, check out this nice article about last week's show from the Des Moines Register. I think this is the first time a picture of me has been printed in the newspaper, and it happened just like I always dreamed: lying on a bench pretending to be dead wearing makeup and tights.

I first saw these clips on TV some time in 2003 and I've been wanting to show a few of them to you ever since.

Anyway:

Dr. Phil's Words of Wisdom

1. Marital issues
2. Why to follow this advice
3. Err, uh...

I think I have two posts in the pipeline.

So, theory: the familiar + another language = entertaining.