Well, there's no sense in trying to hide my love for Nerdcore any longer. I mentioned seeing MC Frontalot in New York. (As a matter of fact, I just purchased his new album Nerdcore Rising today.) I saw mc chris in Lawrence just a few weeks ago. (I now sport the mc chris Boba Fett pin on my Man Bag.)

Recently, I came across Bacon Shoe, a local hip-hop ensemble. I downloaded what music was for offer on their website, and have been listening to it quite a bit lately. There's no sense in denying that my sense of humor operates on an elementary school level, so of course I'm going to like a band that has a song named "That's What Happens When Your Ass Starts Flappin' And You Think You're Going To Fart But You Really Start Crappin'".

Well, I've been on the lookout for any upcoming Bacon Shoe shows in town. Since Bex has the Calendar hookups through The Pitch, she found out about tonight's Bacon Shoe Bingo. What we had was pretty much what I expected. Bingo, called by Lethal D and his hype man Toine. There were some songs in there, but tonight was all about the Bingo. (As for the songs, they played four or five, none of which are from Bacon Shoe's debut album Ass. These guys have a repertoire.)

In an hour of bingo, I won twice. Once in regular-ass Bingo, and once with a T (for Toine). My prizes were a mini Mr. Potato Head and a Pabst Blue Ribbon women's tank top. I was asked to model the tank top, but there were ripping sounds before I had even gotten it over my head, so it quickly became a gift for Bex. Mr. Potato Head, though? Mine.

Well, I feel bad writing a post about flooding in the wake of Katrina, but that's the story. My house has been officially renamed. The name "Fort Awesome" is hereby reclaimed and reserved for a house worthy of the title. 11916 is now hereby officially renamed "Camp Lick My Balls".

The friday before last Bex and I went to see The 40 Year Old Virgin. It was raining pretty hard before we went to the 10:30 movie, and we heard thunder all throughout the film. It was still coming down buckets when we got home at close to 1:00AM, and it was still coming down when I finally fell asleep probably close to 2:00.

Saturday morning Bex and I got up and I cooked a South Beach friendly breakfast. After breakfast, I went downstairs to check my email. When I took my first step down into the computer room my foot landed on something wet. Harry has been pretty good with the house training, but my first thought was that I had stepped into a rather large puddle of dog urine. When I took another step, I realized that there was a pretty large wet spot on the carpet. When I took another step I realized that the wet spot was quite large indeed. I surveyed the computer room and came to find that the entire level was swamped.

Bex was good enought to remember one of jdoublep's posts talking about how he used to lay carpet. I called him up and was told that the best thing to do was to get the carpet pad ripped out of there as quickly as possible. To do this, we had to completely dismantle our office on the bottom level, including taking apart my makeshift computer rack, and move the furniture out of that room entirely. We did that, and I had the carpet ripped up, the pad removed and discarded, and about six shopvacs full of water was dumped on my lawn.

I managed to keep Gimpysoft up by perching its server and the cable modem on the window ledge in the room, but there was no room for my computer. I moved it upstairs, but since I didn't have a ethernet cable long enough to reach, I was without a home internet connection until I bought a wireless card for my computer last thursday.

So I'm back now, but a bit too busy with home repairs and other things to do any serious posting. Hopefully I'll be back in the swing of things soon, but I really feel like I need to finish up the Bridge Studio web site before I do anything here.

So I hope everything is going well with everybody out there. Hopefully things will be back to normal here before too much longer. I certainly wish the same for those who have to deal with real flooding this week.

Yesterday I completed the most detailed Fantasy Football draft preparation spreadsheet I've ever produced. I have over 240 players, average rankings from four different sources, my personal adjustments, and swappable adjustments for the two different scoring systems in the two leagues I'm participating in this year.

Of course, this can only mean that I am doomed in my fantasy football leagues this year, particularly in the one populated mainly by beginners.

So I made it through the first day on the South Beach Diet. It's OK, but it's going to take me some time to adjust. Bex and I had our workout last night, so with a day of dieting and a day of exercise I feel pretty decent. In general, SBD seems to be kind of Atkins like, but only in principle. On South Beach, you're not counting carbs, just trying to avoid starchy foods and foods with a lot of carbohydrates and little other nutritional value.

Also, South Beach tells you to stay away from foods that you really should know aren't good diet foods. No bacon (So, you like... Bacon?), but Canadian Bacon is OK. Cheese is OK, but stay away from higher fat cheeses like brie. The array of allowed vegetables is wider, but we're still staying away from root vegetables like carrots and beets.

Bex has read the book, so she's our menu planner until I get around to reading it. Last night's dinner was a very good sounding lemon-ginger chicken breast, but it was difficult to cook fully using the technique they recommended without burning it. In the future, I'll use common sense.

Tonight's dinner is Tandoori chicken breasts. (On the grill... I have not yet installed a tandoor.) Tonight's exercise I guess will have to be a short bike ride.

In the spirit of my diet, please read this Slate article on Ranch Dressing.

You may have noticed that the weight chart is no longer over there on the left. That's because it's honestly a bit embarassing right now. No more screwing around, though. Bex and I have moved to The Beach. Today was day one. I am not yet wowed, but lunch was good, and dinner for the next few nights sounds great.

On the exercise front, we're walking a bit with Bex's folks on Sunday, and I'm trying to get back into riding my bike. After a short ride on Saturday I think I've convinced myself that I am not yet ready for the Katy Trail. I was using the wrong bike, a smaller one, but even on the right one I don't think I'm there yet. I think Bex and I will be joining a 24 hour fitness this week, so I'll be able to get started lifting weights again, too.

Anybody have any good diet/exercise tips to share?

Well, the birthday was last Friday, but the Birthday Date is tonight when Bex takes me over to Lawrence to see mc chris.

Thanks Bex, you certainly know how to make a nerd happy.

Since I can't seem to find enough fantasy football leagues to join, I've started up a Gimpysoft Football Pick 'Em. No money on the line, just bragging rights against other readers. Anybody who's interested is welcome to sign up, just head over here and register. Once you're registered, choose "Join a private pool", then select pool name "Gimpyosft" and password "gimp".

You're picking all 16 games each week and you're picking straight win/loss, not picking against a spread.

Come one, come all. Glory awaits.

Wasn't it awesome how Hiram caught almost all of the sticks that Ruth threw at him?

Coming on October: Liberality.

Set in a dystopian future in which hate speech legislation has forced all right-slanting media off the air, a secret cadre of brave conservatives (G. Gordon Liddy, Sean Hannity, Oliver North) fights the good fight against George Soros' Liberty International Broadcasting and the wishy-washy liberal led US government (President Chelsea Clinton/VP Michael Moore, natch).

This appears to be very real. Sample pages can be found here.

The Conservative Persecution Complex is an amazing thing to behold. I will read this series.

(Found over at This Modern World.)

Hey! Steve Kimock has new dates announced, and he's coming to Larrytown for the first time in a few years. I'll be at The Granada on October 3.

It looks like he's got a pretty good lineup going, too. Steve is joined by the Greatest Drummer In The World Rodney Holmes, Mitch Stein on guitar (who I am finally coming around on), Reed Mathis on bass, and Mookie Siegel on keyboard.

I've always liked the band with keyboards, and I was very impressed with Reed the one time I saw him play with Steve.

Well, if marc is doing it, I guess I have to join in. To repeat the requirements:

List ten songs that you are currently digging ... it doesn't matter what genre they are from, whether they have words, or even if they're no good, but they must be songs you're really enjoying right now. Post these instructions, the artists, and the ten songs in your blog. Then tag five other people to see what they're listening to.

Now to see if I can come up with ten songs.

1. Eels - Hey Man (Now You're Really Living)
2. Squirrel Nut Zippers - Ghost of Stephen Foster
3. Jolie Holland - Old Fashioned Morphine
4. Talking Heads - (Nothing But) Flowers (post-apocalyptic entry #1)
5. The Postal Service - We Will Become Silhouettes (post-apocalyptic entry #2)
6. Chase - Love Is On The Way
7. Eels - Old Shit/New Shit
8. Air - Kelly, Watch The Stars (Really, I listen to all of Moon Safari almost every day)
9. MC Frontalot - Romantic Cheapskate
10. The Flaming Lips - Race for the Prize

I don't think there are five people with blogs who read this site, so if you read this and have a blog, consider yourself tagged.

Apparently Grady Jackson's being a baby, but Javon Walker is back in the fold. Both showed up to camp, but after friday's practice Grady Jackson stormed off to the locker room and Javon stuck around and answered questions from the media.

What he had in store for reporters was a level-headed message: Walker had made his wishes for a new contract known, and his arrival in camp meant he was ready to put the issue aside for the season. Like Jackson, he made it clear that he still wants a new contract. But unlike Jackson, Walker came off as someone willing to be a patient Packer to get it.

"Talking it over with my family and my agent Drew Rosenhaus, [coming to camp] was the best decision," Walker said. "I knew I wasn't going to miss any time from football [with a holdout], so it was best to get into camp and get ready for another season. Talking it over, it was better to be in camp and try to work things out – and keep it in-house – than trying to make it a whole public argument."

I truly hope Javon has a great year and gets paid well next year. Grady Jackson showed up too fat to practice.