For today is my 26th birthday. Yayay! I have received well-wishes via voice mail on two different systems, via the Internet (link), in person, and in the form of lemon tarts!

There is a website, it’s called SomethingAwful, and each Friday they publish a new themed “Photoshop” contest where they do amazing things with digital imagery. This has somehow caught on like wildfire, and even become VERY funny! And I’m not EVEN joking! Just take a look at this this entry for this weeks contest, which is based around reworking strips from a popular (ne’ classic) comic graphic novel, “The Watchmen”.

I loved The Watchmen, and having the crew at Something Awful take strips out of this classic graphic novel and re-work them in a way that only Something Awful can do is just dandy.

There was a big, big cicada-killer bee-thing on the window in the stairwell at work. It was confused, but awesome. As per usual, the University of Kentucky has come through with information about the cicada killer wasp. “ The wasp stings its prey, turns the victim on its back, straddles It, and drags it or glides with it to the burrow.”. My father claims to have seen this actually happen in mid-air!

Recently rescued from Target where it was on clearance, this bonsai is being called “Bunny” and the other one “Mr. Peapod” (though the latter prefers “Young Master Peapod”).

Both of these things have their own galleries. Make with clicky on photos.

…and it opened up my eyes…

Kelly ran her first-ever triathlon today. Each year since 1981, the E. P. Tom Sawyer State Park Triathlon has been run (not surprisingly) at lovely E. P. Tom Saywer Park. The first leg is the swim, which was 800 meters. The registration required an estimation of how fast you could swim this to “seed” you and give you a start time. Kelly said “24 minutes”. What she actually did in the pool this morning was something closer to 15 or 16 minutes! Crazy. She was passing people left and right.

After the swim is a 14 mile bike ride, and Kelly’s toughest leg, at least she thought it would be. Turns out she was wrong on that, too! She finished that in just about an hour, with no mishaps, spills, or terrible accidents causing her feet to be permanently trapped in her toe-clips.

The final leg was a 5k (3.1 mile) run, which she completed smiling and “feeling great”. Total time: 1 hour 50 minutes. Not bad for her first ever! She’s hyped for future triathlons. “I wish I would have started this stuff sooner,” she says.

Needless to say, I’m terribly proud of my lil’ Kelly. Despite all her fears, she really kicked ass out there today. If you’d like to see pictures, I suggest you check the 2004.08.07 – Triathlon gallery.

C’moooooon. You know you remember The Wizard. 1986? Dwarf? Toymaker? The CIA? Yeah, I thought you did! Good to know I’m not the only one. That show was pretty awesome. Little dude toymaker gets called up by the government each episode to craft some sort of robot dog or RC helicopter or rocket-powered pogo stick. When I was 8 years old, that was my five-year plan right there, save for the dwarfism. David Rappaport, who played title role passed away in 1990, but luckily some good sport in Norway has maintained a site about just him. You can check out his The Wizard pages, too. Anyway, I thought you’d enjoy this little trip back to 1986 when men were men, and the Cardinals won the NCAA championships.

update: apparently this Rappaport chap was involved with the founding of “Frestonia“, and independent state in the heart of London in the late 70′s.

Today might have been the nicest day of the summer so far with temperatures in the mid 70s and the humidity a ridiculously low 50%. So, to mark the occasion, David, Kelly and I took a bike ride down by the river. Unfortunately, David came up lame with a ever-worsening flat. But, in the spirit of adventure, he plugged onward. Eventually, it was losing too much air and David found a good samaritan at the Bike Depot with a pump, and he got a boost. We made it just a little way down the RiverWalk before having to turn back. We got back into the Highlands shortly before David’s tire went completely flat.

To honor to the day, I took some photos. You can check them out in the Bike Ride gallery.

Kelly and I woke up this morning to find that a tree-limb on one of our two big front yard trees had cracked during last night’s rainstorm and was laying almost in the road, but not quite. It completely blocked the sidewalk, though, so we thought it best to clean it up post-haste, as there is a fair bit of foot traffic. I decided to take some photos of the cleanup effort.

It’s just important to know that trees were down. That is all. Carry on.

class="External">Time.com has a neat little photo-gallery of early photos of John Kerry taken by “Pumping Iron” director George Butler. My favorite?
Kerry built model planes after his failed bid in ’72. Obviously.

Bush fans may want to purchase a replica of the Bush/Cheney 2000 Campaign plane. A mere $35.

Behold! They grilled out at lunch-time and it was good

Also, behold the lunch-time grillout gallery.