Caitlin leaves for camp tomorrow, which means that packing for camp started around 3:00 PM today. Packing also necessitated a trip to Staples (various art and writing supplies), the book store (Lord of the Flies and Les Miserables and a plethora of CDs; at least her taste in fiction is quite literary), and KMart (CD player and toiletries). Total damages - in excess of $600. Sending her off to camp for 8 weeks - priceless.

Books: Hey Nostradamus! by Douglas Coupland. I loved Generation X, Shampoo Planet, and Microserfs. The rest of his novels have been forgettable. This one starts off in a promising way, as so many stories do. We'll see if it can perform well through to conclusion.

Music: Trading Snakeoil for Woltickets, by Gary Jules. I've wanted to get a recording of his Mad World ever since I saw Donnie Darko, but it's not available on iTunes, so I decided to spring for the entire CD today. Have not listened to it yet.

Movies: The Terminal. The story was ridiculous (yes, I know it was very loosely based on a true story), the romance was contrived, Catherine Zeta-Jones was woefully miscast, the movie was about 30 minutes too long, Stanley Tucci was wasted as an officious prick of a bureaucrat, Tom Hanks' character's command of English varied wildly from minute-to-minute, and yet, somehow, the sum of all these imperfect parts added up to a pleasant movie with only few moments of that self-consciously precious Steven Speilberg trademark sentimentality. Oh yeah, and Tom Hanks was great as the potato-faced almost-immigrant.