There is no day so bad a pint of Lagunitas Brewery Imperial Stout won’t make at least a little better.

School starts tomorrow (okay, later this morning). The Red-Headed Menace is pulling his first all-nighter, writing a six-page paper on Nate Silver’s The Signal and the Noise for his AP Lit class.  (In addition to reading Pride and Prejudice, he had to read a non-historical nonfiction book.) I think I need more beer.

I have become hooked on another reality tv show: Food Network’s Cutthroat Kitchen.  Think Chopped crossed with Survivor.  It’s stupid, it’s over-the-top, and none of the contestants are likable, but it’s amusing to watch posturing chefs have to butcher a turkey leg with a pocket-knife, or make their dishes using no utensils. Then, too, any show hosted by Alton Brown can’t be all bad.

I went to what is probably my last concert of the year yesterday: Straight No Chaser.  That concert — and the concerts I have seen this year generally — deserves its own post.  It was a great show.

The freezer is doing its periodic “I’m going on vacation for several days” work stoppage.  I purchased a 120 quart Coleman cooler, and dry ice, and plan to be eating dishes with ground beef for the next several days.

I caught one of my favorite movies on television this evening, Good Night and Good Luck.  I had always loved its powerful writing and nuanced acting, not to mention its unabashedly liberal sympathies (God bless George Clooney!), but I had forgotten exactly how visually arresting and beautiful it is.  I still cannot believe it lost the Best Picture Oscar to that overly-sappy, emotionally vapid Crash.

I have to remove Bejeweled from my computer.  While I will never admit exactly how much  time I have spent on it, last night after the concert I got sucked into a game which ended with me amassing over ten million points.  Yes, I have a problem.

Ah, well. Time to go check on the boy, and ask him what time he needs to be to school.

Sleep tight, and don’t let the bedbugs bite.