I’m going to be telling this story about ten dozen times in the days and weeks ahead, so let me get it out of the way now.  It’s not like 99% of people reading this will see me in real life, but it’s a “funny” story.

This evening, I raced my niece in her backyard and won!  She’s only five, so it’s not a particularly great accomplishment.

The problem came when she stopped at the “finish line” and Uncle Augie lost his balance and came to a violent stop by planting his face into the brick wall that is the back of his sister’s house.

My glasses broke and cut a small bit next to my eye.  There’s a huge abrasion on my right cheek.  The palm of my left hand has some skin scraped off of it.

I look like friggin’ Harvey Dent right now.  Warner Bros — call me now.  I’m available for your movie promotions.

The good news is — no eye damage was done.  No concussion.  Just my bruised ego, a whole lot of embarrassment, and a messed up half a face that will likely take forever to heal.  Suddenly, I’m vain.  Work is going to be fun on Monday.  And I’m heading over to LensCrafters, of all places, for an eye exam and new glasses tomorrow.  For tonight, I guess I’ll be reading some comic books at a very close distance.

I’m going to go hide in a corner for a little while now.

Forget George Clooney and look at this:

The wife of actor Bill Murray has filed for divorce, court documents in South Carolina show.

Sounds like a real find! Wait:

. . .charges that Murray engaged in “adultery, addiction to marijuana and alcohol, abusive behaviour, physical abuse, sexual addictions, and frequent abandonment.�

OK, so maybe not.

Edy’s Ice Cream is trying to pull the typical fast one now.  I love their sugar free ice cream.  It’s the brand I’ve always endorsed.  Or, at least, I would endorse it here on this blog officially if they wanted to sponsor it.  (And, again, I’ll still entertain buy-out offers for this blog.  The $2 million price tag is negotiable, people!  Meantime, Project Wonderful ads can be had for pennies a day.)

In any case, I noticed the container I picked up at the store this past week was shorter than usual.  Sure enough, they’ve knocked a quarter of quart out of their package, but still charge the same price. This is nothing new, by a long shot.  Companies do this all the time, and sometimes people notice and protest and the companies change their packaging back.  (I think it was a tampon company that got in trouble for this once, years back, and eventually relented.)

It just stinks when it happens to you, you know?  Pardon me while I grouse a little, but then spoon more delicious chocolate chip mint into my mouth. . .

Updated: I see The Consumerist picked up on this, too.

Clay Aiken Impregnates Someone! – TMZ.com

TMZ has learned Clay Aiken is going to be a daddy. [...] Here’s what we know. Multiple sources tell us the mother is Jaymes Foster, a record producer and Clay’s best friend. He lives at her home when he’s in L.A. We’re told 50-year-old Foster, who produced several Aiken CDs, is due in August. [...] She divorced a few years back and has no kids. [...] We’re told Foster was artificially inseminated. But Clay [...] will have an active role in raising the child.

Click through for more amazing details that I edited out before having to pay TMZ for borrowing so much material. . .

The whole thing sounds like a gag from SPAMALOT, really, if the Python troop had written it in 2008. .  .

I wish he was standing another six inches to the right to separate him out from that metal bit on the side of the barn, but I like him, overall.

George Clooney is a free man.

Repeat: George Clooney is a free man.

Have at him.

Let’s face it: The most exciting part about Gates and Ballmer previewing Windows 7 this week (screen shots) is the inevitable Feature Drop countdown.  Remember all the cool things about Windows Vista that never made the final release? We can restart that cycle now with Windows 7.

Oh, look, it’s already begun!

Honestly, the scenery around the penguin wasn’t much to write home about.  He really looks better in black and white.  I should play with the color contrast a little more on this, though.  It doesn’t have quite enough contrast.

This pic was taken through a wire fence.  You can make out the hazy straight lines if you see a big enough version of the pic.

An entire music based on the second season.

Yes, that includes the cougar.  You can see his pic on the website above, right next to Kim.

Why this isn’t on Broadway already is beyond me.

This might be the most insane thing I’ve seen on the internet.  This year, at least. Kim’s ode to the cougar is cracking me up as I type this. This isn’t an internet remix goof. She can sing.

Special thanks to Matt H for pointing this one out:

Liv Tyler and her husband, British rocker Royston Langdon, have decided to separate, her rep confirms to PEOPLE.

So if you’re into chicks who let you eat animal crackers off their stomachs, here’s the girl for you!

You lose a lot of the fine fur detail in this smaller version of the pic. As always, click through to see more:

This pic was taken through a glass wall. Thankfully, it was clean enough that I could put the camera right up to it and not get blurs in the final pic.

Yesterday’s pic, I should note, was shot through a fence, but you didn’t notice the wire in the shot, did you?  The trick is to open up your aperture as wide as possible.  They’ll fuzz out to nothing, so long as your auto focus doesn’t lock onto them.  THAT’s the trickiest part. There’s another trick to help take pics through fences without seeing the fence that I’ll have to go over next. . .

We all love Twitter.  We all want to burn Twitter to the ground.  It’s been a few days since I could access Page 2 of my Twitter messages.  Needless to say, this means I barely follow the people I think I’m following.  It also means I can’t access Page 2 of the Twitter messages I’ve posted.

So, uhm, here are a few Twitter posts from the past three days that I can access:

• Dear Amazon – I’d use more of your banner ads if you had one that WASN’T animated. UGH (I signed up for Project Wonderful. Don’t think that’ll be much better, but we’ll see.)

• Holy crap! Wizard World Philly is happening next weekend. Did anyone know? Did anyone care? (It starts in three days.  Still, I haven’t read anything about it.  Sad.)

• Organizing comics. (Now reading all the cool stuff I found that I have.)

• Went to the zoo. 260+ pics to process. Got through them pretty fast. Uploading family pics now. Will upload animal pics to Flickr later. (See this blog throughout the week!)

• And went baby furniture shopping and bedroom furniture shopping today. Didn’t like anything. Not a good start.

• I’ve never played Guitar Hero sitting down.

• This week’s Pipeline: Yes, comics are too expensive. I agree with you. And more.

• In case you all missed the highlight of So You Think You Can Dance: http://tinyurl.com/3v3vwk Pop and Lock XTreme

• Side street here is lined with fire engines, boats, etc. for the parade. I’m such a boy — I keep staring out at them. Next year: Pictures!

• Two Memorial Day BBQs today. 400 pictures. Probably 30 good ones. Gotta love photography! I know I love digital!

• Tonight’s annoyance: Ironing half a shirt before realizing it’s inside-out. Whoops.

I’m sorry to admit it, but I’m not entirely sure what animal this is. A moose? Let this be a lesson to all of us — when shooting at a zoo, snap a pic of the sign before shooting the animal. This way, you’ll keep everything straight.

I love those fuzzy-looking antlers.

I also wish this section of the blog were designed to be a little wider, because these pics are a bit too small. Please do click through to see the full-size version of these images. The colors on the parrot from yesterday pop out much better that way.

Soft week.  Slow week. Not much to talk about.

It’s a week, after all, whose big release is friggin’ RAMBO.

• Rambo

That’s how bad it is this week, folks.  Interestingly enough, the DVD comes with a free digital copy on it.  Or, you can buy the Blu Ray edition.

• Cleaner

Samuel L. Jackson and Ed Harris star in some kind of cop movie I’ve never heard of. Eva Mendes provides eye candy.

• Holocaust

Uplifting title, eh?  Stars Meryl Streep, James Woods, and Michael Moriarty. It’s actually a TV mini-series from 1978.  Ian Holm (one of those Hobbit folks) is even in it.

Next week: Lots of Incredible Hulk TV episodes.

With American Idol now over and me still watching the finale in bits and pieces, I need something to fill up the lost inches of screen space on this blog.

This week, it’s a special photography themed week. I visited the Turtle Back Zoo in West Orange, NJ over the weekend. Each day, I’ll post a new pic, starting with:

I’m not going to sit here and debate zoo practices. I see those arguments come up in photography magazines and on-line forums anytime a pic from a zoo shows up. I’m just here to share pics. That said, this parrot looked pretty ticked off, and eyed everyone suspiciously.

On the other hand, it’s a parrot. Perhaps I’m over-anthropomorphizing him. (Or her.)

Perhaps I should have just done a pirate joke here.  Arrrrr….