Sidebar Update!

Hey, it's time for the beloved (and originally weekly, then monthly, now whenever I get around to it) Sidebar Update! It's only been four months or so since the last Update, so I'm right on schedule.

As always, we lead off with the current Object of My Affection: Maggie Gyllenhaal. Certainly I admired her in The Dark Night, but I've been infatuated with her for a good long while, most especially since her funny, lovely, sexy performance in Stranger Than Fiction. Here's a bonus picture for you to enjoy:


Reading Fred Hembeck's massive Omnibus, as I recently mentioned. This should keep me occupied for quite some time, which is just fine by me.

Watching the first season DVD set of Adult Swim's hilarious Squidbillies. The animation is crude, and the humor is even cruder, often resulting in hideous violence and mutilation, but that's just part of the show's charm. Kind of like Metalocalypse, with country music instead of heavy metal. And more squid creatures.

Listening to Weezer's new album, Weezer (or, as it's come to be known, the Red Album). This is Weezer's third self-titled release. Geez, what are they, in a competition with Peter Gabriel to produce the most eponymous albums? Anyway, this was part of my birthday gift from my sister, and it's quite excellent.

Hating: I give up. There's no one and nothing more deserving of my contempt than the monkey running this country into the ground. So I'm not going to bother trying to find a different target of hatred to put in the sidebar until Dubya is forcibly ejected from the White House next January. For the next five months, President Duh gets the dishonor of remaining under the "Hating" heading full-time. And as a feel-good extra, I've included a countdown timer ticking away his last days in office.

And finally, the Lyric of the Moment is from Weezer's "Pork and Beans," off that new album. Turns out, behind the goofy title, it's a song about rejecting advertising and peer pressure and being fine with yourself the way you are. What a surprisingly sensible message for a pop song!