Conversation 'twixt Alisa and I, while spending an evening at home with the Eternal Philadelphia Rainstorm going on outside:

Me: Y'know Alisa, if you want, you can stop the rain. I mean, I think we've had enough already.

Alisa: (frowning) I'm not making it rain...

Me: ...

Alisa: Maybe it's the kitty that wants to come live with us. It's going to rain until we get a kitty.

Now that's working the conversation. How can I keep up? In the distant future, when I'm out-voted (Alisa and Child vs. Me), I will not hold any cards in my own household.

I was in Borders today and I was perusing their Graphic Novels section when it dawned on me that they've actually taken the time to give them their own discrete location in the store. They are no longer the graphic lackies for Sci Fi or Horror or Fantasy. That's a good sign, in my eyes. Comics (or 'graphic novels' if you're still to in-the-closet about it, or don't read the single issues) certainly deserve the respect of any other type of book, and it's right and good that a larger bookseller like Borders recognizes this... or perhaps that they recognize that many people of many ages read comics and will buy them (they are a corporation, after all).

I tip my hat to you Borders, and to you Comics. May your children be fecund and your harvests overflow their silos.

I've watched about 98% of this movie as I write this. A few thoughts:

1) Now I know what 'feel good film' means to British people: Tell America to piss off, eliminate centuries of intense classist culture, and get your romantic mush with a spike of shagging.

2) Not too bad for a laugh (I'm big on Brit humor), but it's mostly pretty silly and ridiculous.

3) It's movies like this that encourage men to do creepy things in the name of love, because in the movies it all works out OK.

That's all.

I recently (a few days ago) had a dream about Half-Life 2. I dreamt that I had a copy of the game (only in my dreams is this game released yet) and was playing the opening parts of the game.

The specifics of the dream are unimportant, what's important is that I was dream-playing it on our current PC, which is far too under-powered to play this game. So, in my dream, I stopped playing the game in order not to spoil it for myself, in anticipation of upgrading the PC for the full experience.

So, to review: I have lame videogame dreams in which I am so lame that I can't even dream myself a decent system, and, in a bid for lamest man alive, I stop playing it because I don't want to see the game with less-than-optimal graphics...

In my dream.

Apparently, Doom 3 is ready to go for shipping, the week of August 2.

Prepare for large-scale productivity slow-down, particularly in the tech sector.

Doom 3 will require some serious horse-power, which will limit its immediate impact, but this title will definitely move hardware. Hopefully, id Software's latest release can compete with the Earth-crushing hype.

Update 7.22.04
With their exclusive review, PC Gamer gave Doom 3 a 94% and pretty much foamed at the mouth about how great it is. Sounds pretty good. Keep an eye on the Game Rankings page to get a good aggregate impression as others get their hands on it.

In Dante's Inferno there is a special place reserved for the gluttons. It is the 3rd Circle, where they lay in mud, besieged by snow, hail and filthy water, guarded by Cerebus*. I do not doubt that their moans of misery and cries of greed fill the dark skies of this region of Hell, just inside the Gates.

While I'm sure the interiors are much brighter, the inside of Toys 'R' Us sounds about the same.

I haven't been inside of one of these temples of child-targeted marketing and consumerism in a few years, at least. Perhaps it's because I buy my gaming software at EBX, perhaps it's because I'm an adult, or perhaps it's because I don't collect 'figurines' of my favorite movie and comic characters. Regardless, I've had little occasion to enter Geoffrey's domain. Until now.

The Roots just released their latest album today, The Tipping Point. After one listen through, I rate this album comparably to Phrenology. It's an uneven album, with good, solid songs and songs I just don't like and/or get. It's got some solid tracks, but like Phrenology, it's got some of that over-wrought R&B male vocal crap that drives me nuts. I understand that many people love listening to that style of R&B, but I do not. Also, some of these featured guest vocalists just pale next to Black Thought, who I'd much rather hear.

Worth a purchase? Probably. If you're a Roots fan, you'll most likely enjoy it as much as their previous album.

My favorite tracks after one listen:

- Don't Say Nuthin'
- Guns are Drawn
- Web
- Boom!

The rest are either just OK or I could do without. The Roots are still great live (at least as of this past New Year's), but I'm not so sure I'm feeling their album work as much anymore. They're definitely moving in a particular direction, so I don't think they're 'losing it,' per se. I'm just not as interested in coming along for the ride.

That being said, Things Fall Apart is still one of the best hip-hop albums ever made, so at least listen to that if you haven't already.

Have you seen as many DHL trucks as I have recently? I think it's related to their new ad campaign. Alisa and I saw it a few weeks ago and the day after I started seeing their trucks all over the place.

Now that's a well-coordinated campaign. But it's not just the coordination that's making it so effective. It's also the new identity.

I had the fortune recently to get myself a license for Whitman, a beautifully functional serif family. It’s built on a foundation of classic design structure, with a distinctly modern style. Whitman, named for the poet, is probably best summed up by the designer himself.

“While this design is thoroughly modern in its styling, I tried to instill in Whitman some of the traditional values of classic text types. I sought to create a type which, although hopefully distinctive, might appear somewhat ordinary at first glance and behave itself well in text.”

Lew is right on the money.