I don’t have enough for an entry, but I have enough for some bullet points…

• The new Garbage album, “Bleed Like Me,” is quite good. The new Kotoko album, “Glass no Kaze,” is better overall than her first album, “Hane,” but features fewer actual standout tracks.
• I may never “get” military sci-fi. I’ve tried, mind you, and will probably try again before I give up completely.
• When you try to go to a pub for lunch and one out of the first three to arrive has forgotten their ID, it’s an annoyance. When, later, it turns out that two of the five have forgotten, well, that’s a sign that the gathering needs to take place elsewhere.
• The kids are out of school, now. I expect Wendi to go absolutely bonkers in a few short days.
• I’ve seen a bit of the new Doctor Who series, now, and it’s not too shabby. On a related note, I liked the first season of The 4400 better than the new season so far.
• I have a rubber-duck-themed shower curtain now. May the gods have mercy on my soul.
• I’m very, very glad that I get paid tomorrow… and my resolve to closely track my transactions is considerably stronger now than it was a couple of weeks ago.

Good: Dawn arrived in town! Yay!

Bad: Rose Festival Grand Floral Parade interfering with transit downtown to meet Dawn.

Good: Breadsticks dipped in alfredo sauce at Pizza Schmizza.

Bad: Lousy service at same.

Smelly: Urine-soaked bus interior on the way out to Molly’s for birthday BBQ.

Bad: Forgetting about lack of allergy meds until arrival.

Good: Molly’s cooking.

Also Good: Hanging out with cool people at the BBQ.

Bad: Having unsolicited amateur chiropractic work done, resulting in hours of back pain.

Good: Howl’s Moving Castle.

Also Good: Dinner at Kells afterward.

And now, even more Good: Going to bed at the end of a long and interesting day…

Psssst. Don’t make a big fuss about it, but today is somebody’s birthday…

No, wait, I take that back. Go right ahead and make a fuss about it. Heh. (Love you, dear heart!)

And tomorrow? Tomorrow is not only another day, but another birthday…

On Saturday, I went down to see the kids at the “fun center,” a carnival of sorts assembled for the duration of Portland’s Rose Festival. Oddly enough, this marks the first year I’ve set foot anywhere near the rides. One of the last things Erica did before we left involved petting a variety of animals as well as riding a pony. Being the awesome Dad that I am, I made a point of taking pictures… which meant being close enough to the animals to come away with an allergy-induced headache and crud-filled lungs. Whee!

Yesterday evening was spent almost entirely on Lil’s living room floor. (There were other people present; get your minds out of the gutter.) Problem is, that’s where the cats spend most of their time, so once again I came away from a social event with a headache and crud-filled lungs. Extra-whee!

Last night I almost entirely failed to sleep, because I was wheezing, sniffling and sneezing for hours… and I found that I was all out of medications to alleviate those damnable symptoms. Whoopsie.

I need to stock my cabinet a bit more thoroughly, I think. I was a Boy Scout, back in the day, so why am I not Being Prepared? Hmm?

Anyway… being allergic to animals and to pollen sucks. One set of allergens makes me itch and sneeze, the other makes my lungs incapable of taking in very much air. Ugh.

A bunch of us gathered over at Lil’ & Geoff’s place to watch the first season and the season premiere of “The 4400,” another entry in USA Network’s pantheon of sci-fi-ish television shows. The basic premise is that four thousand four hundred people went missing over the course of half a century or so, and they all came back in spectacular fashion at one time… but for each of them, no time seems to have passed. It’s at least a bit about how people plucked from their lives can feel disjointed when reinserted to mainstream humanity, but it’s a whole lot about why these people were chosen, and what effects their actions have from the time of their returning onward.

Did I mention that some, if not all, of them exhibit “powers” of one kind or another?

I can wholeheartedly recommend watching the initial two-disc DVD set. I’m not so sure about the new season, given a couple of the changes. They dropped the stellar Peter Coyote as the boss of the show’s two government-agent leads (yes, we did make at least one Mulder & Scully joke). In the process the agency went from the good old DHS to a completely forgettable generic agency name that… well, I’ve completely forgotten. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was because of USA Network’s concerns over how the DHS was portrayed in at least one episode. Hmm.

At any rate, we had a good time, which is almost guaranteed when you gather the members of that household together with Lyse and Mari. And we all ate more than was good for us. When will we ever learn, eh?

The weather has returned to late-spring normal, thank goodness. I may be able to sleep comfortably tonight.

I certainly hope that’s so, anyway. I still have a very full schedule tomorrow, including a trip to work. Go, me.