We went out the breakfast this morning at a small restaurant in the small town nearby. It's usually deserted and quiet, and I always get the sense that they're on the verge of going out of business. This morning it was packed and we nearly had to wait for a table. This coupled with the balloon sightings combine to foretell the Dow Jones rising above 10,000 again soon.

Books: The Witching Hour is dense and detailed and intricate. In other words, I have to pay attention and not just float along top of the words, unlike many of the books I've been reading lately.

Music: Caitlin insists on making fun of Gillian Welch's music, particularly "the Elvis song", as she calls the Elvis Presley Blues. I resist the urge to poke fun at her penchant for the songs of a duo called, I kid you not, Bitch and Animal.

Movies:
1. Van Wilder (first half). My Netflix queue is filled with movies picked by aliens. They are not only contacting us, they are messing with my movie selections. Otherwise, what would have possessed me to rent this piece of juvenile trash?
2. Secondhand Lions. Robert Duvall shines in this movie about family and beliefs and living life to its full potential. Michael Caine's Texas accent was annoying and needed work. Haley Joel Osment always tries a bit too hard for my tastes. The lion was well-cast. The movie had a good heart, but wanted to be something it wasn't, and included a few out-of-place touches (the dungeon was the place of 1437 tortures and had signs on the walls indicating "tortures #1323 - 1400 ->") that would have been better suited to a Monty Python movie.

Cats: Xena continues to hiss at Hercules for no apparent reason whenver he comes near her. He gives her a puzzled look as if "What did I do?". He knows more than he's letting on.

Dreams: I didn't write them down this morning so they've melted like ice cream in a freezer with no electricity.