It's not TV, it's DVD

I wish HBO would get on the ball with Six Feet Under and catch the DVDs up the current season. Season 5 begins June 6, but Season 4 doesn't come out on DVD until August. Guess I won't need to bother subscribing.

Walker, Texas Ranger

Emily has been working on walking over the past couple weeks, and she continues to improve. Yesterday she was taking a dozen steps or so before she'd plop down to the ground.




She's coming with me to work tomorrow for our company picnic. I can only imagine what sort of havoc she's going to unleash upon the office during the couple hours before we head off to Oak Mountain.

In a galaxy far, far past my bedtime

Here's the photo gallery from last night's midnight showing of "Revenge of the Sith." Not as many people in costume as I would have expected, but the theater sure was packed. A big thanks to Kelly Pratt for the photos she sent!

I've also posted my review of the movie over at Get on with Your Nightlife.

Can I graduate?

I didn't attend my high school graduation. I didn't walk at my college graduation. That sort of thing just never interested me. But I know it's an important rite of passage for a lot of people. That's why I was appalled by this story Hubie pointed me to.

Pregnant student banned from graduation walks stage anyway

Alysha Cosby waited four years to hear her name called at her high school graduation.

When it wasn't, she took matters into her own hands.

After the last graduate was asked to come forward to receive his degree at St. Jude Educational Institute's commencement Tuesday night, Cosby announced her own name and walked across the stage. ...

Her decision to do so prompted cheers and applause from many of her fellow seniors and dozens of people in the church. Some, however, murmured that her act was in poor taste and that it took away from the ceremony.

Took away from the ceremony? Give me a break! What about taking away from her ceremony?

Cosby didn't ask for the spotlight. All she wanted was equal treatment. If they'd given her that, no one ever would have noticed her. But since they weren't willing to grant her equality, she decided to aim for something a bit higher. Good for her!

Besides, graduations are even more boring than high school itself. Cosby did those people a favor by throwing a wrench into the machine.

Queue of geeks

If any of you (especially those of you in Alabama) are going to a midnight screening of "Revenge of the Sith" tonight, I have a favor to ask.

Tomorrow at work, I'll be putting together a photo gallery of fans who are dressed up waiting in line for Star Wars. If you take any digital photos of such fans, and wouldn't mind sharing them with al.com, please let me know! Thanks!

Rubbing elbows

Here are a few of my favorite photos from Bo Bice's appearance at Fox 6 this morning...










You can see the complete gallery of photos here.

By the way, these photos are all © al.com. Don't steal them.

Rare perks

Since it happens so infrequently that I get to do stuff like this at work, I'm going to take this opportunity to brag a little. Tomorrow I not only get to go to the Schaeffer Crawfish Boil to take pictures, but I also get to spend the morning tagging along with Bo Bice for his visit to Birmingham.

Since I haven't watched a single episode of "Idol" this season, I can't really say that I'm "excited," but it's cool that I get to attend the event, nonetheless.

Let me sing a song for you

As if The Killers, Aqualung, and Michael Tolcher weren't enough to convince me to go to City Stages, now they've added Ryan Adams.

Update: The Birmingham News has deleted the story they wrote (I don't know why) from their Breaking News weblog, so I've removed the link. However, Ryan Adams' web site and PollStar both list the concert.

Spyware infestation

I'm having a problem with spyware on my home computer which has worsened over the past week. Last night, it became invasive to the point of worrying me. New windows were popping up with great frequency and new icons were getting added to the desktop and quick-access bar. Many of the pop-ups were "warnings" that my computer was infected with spyware, but the close window x was disabled on them, and right-clicking on their tabs at the bottom of the screen did not offer an option to close the window, either. Since my only options were to click "yes" or "no" on the pop-up, I am led to dobut the validity of such "warnings."

I run anti-spyware software from Ad-aware and Spybot every week, but there's still stuff on my computer. What worries me is that previously when I've run these programs, there is usually a new update every week or so. However, over the past month at least, each have returned a message saying that no new updates are available. This seems fishy.

I think that the spyware folks may have found a way around the anti-spyware software. My guess is that there's something on my computer that's telling the Ad-aware and Spybot programs that there are no new updates available, when there really are. Either that, or there is something telling them to exclude certain files from their searches.

Has anyone heard of such things happening? Is there a solution?

A holiday for hanging

Rilo Kiley is coming to Birmingham June 9 for a concert at WorkPlay. Unforunately, Misty's mom will be unable to watch Emily that evening because she's having a stint put in her kidneys a few days earlier and can't lift anything over 20 pounds for two weeks. So Misty and I won't be able to go out that night.

However, that doesn't mean that I won't be able to go — and since Misty isn't a fan of Rilo Kiley in the first place, and would only be going for the sake of accompanying me, I don't need to feel guilty about going without her.

I don't want to go by myself, though. Is there anyone out there who'd be interested in joining me at the show? I'm trying to find out soon whether I'll be going because I anticipate tickets will sell out.

Details:
The concert starts at 8 p.m. Tickets are $12. Okkervil River and The Brunettes are the opening bands