I thought Martin Luther said this, ” “Beer is proof that God loves us, and wants us to be happy”, but that was Benjamin Franklin.

Bret was right, I was wrong.

On an elephant, originally uploaded by timbu.

The kids and I atop an elephant at the Rennaisance Festival. (I know you can’t exactly see me in the picture, but I’m there really.)

Salad of the Week, originally uploaded by timbu.

This is a picture my favorite summer time salad, Insalata Caprese.

The tomatoes were courtesy of Erin & Guido and had far more flavor than what you get in the grocery store.

Thanks.

There were two bright spots in an otherwise dismal day. One, early yesterday morning someone surprised me with a pineapple scone. Secondly, I went and saw the movie, “Little Miss Sunshine“.

It was by far the best movie I’ve seen this year. A movie hasn’t made me this happy since I saw “Garden State”, “Lost in Translation” and “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” – my personal movie trifecta of the last few years.

It’s a fantastic cast — every actor seems to have a scene or two where their character totally steals the show and makes the movie.

If one was a total snob about indie movies, you could complain about how perfect and commercial the cinematography was or whether the characters are too indie-cliche or whether the VW bus bit was too cutesy, but quickly you’ll lapsed into the kind of rhapsodic ranting that the comic book guy from the Simpson’s excels at and all your friends will be rolling theirs eyes and waiting for you to be done talking about the movie that did it better, the one no one saw and no one cares about. Yes, I am talking about you, get over yourself.

I want to wear this quote.

Irony is a dish best served up on hanes screen printed t-shirt.

Today marks my first visit to the Minnesota Renaissance Festival for a wedding. I can’t wait to see how this turns out. Hopefully there will be something to blog about tonight.

Not knowing much about this event, I checked out their web site. Their weapons policy amused me. “Axes, Claymores & Maces – Are strongly discouraged but if you insist Axes must be sheathed and peace-tied.” Really they should make every business establishment in Minnesota post their axe, claymore & mace policy in addition to their concealed handgun policy.

Dear Elise,

Almost five years ago we brought you home.

You have captured my heart in the way that I’m sure only daughters can. There is nothing better than the way you hug me and say “I’ll never let you go …”

You are one of the toughest little girls I know. You fall down more than anyone I know and you pick yourself up and keep going like you meant to do that. It is not that you are without grace but you live a little on the edge between walking, skipping and dancing all at the same time. Falling is just the price you pay for having that much bounce and spirit inside.

Your kindness towards others is humbling at times. If you have something good, like candy, you always seem to give some away, even to your brother. Speaking of your brother I can tell how much you love him and want to be doing things just like him. Is it really that much fun to aggravate him?

You willingness to go down the big slides always makes me feel so proud of you. Don’t ever stop.

The BBC reports that “There are now more overweight people across the world than hungry ones”.

Does this mean there be heart wrenching appeals for help, featuring Sally Struthers walking around the midwest showing the obese people waddling around at the county fairs. “For just $10 a day you’l be able to deny them the hamburger they had been stuffing their face with.” (This is actually how I lost the weight. A small village in a developing country pooled their money and decided to sponsor a chubby midwesterner.)

So I am posting this via Windows Live Writer. This beta  blog posting software is pretty amazing.

Liked

• spell check
• preview
• lists work like they should
• posting photos from the web works
• pure html view works
• the discovery of my blog software was perfect
• super easy to include a map (unfortunately it is a map that doesn’t work right for me)

Didn’t Like

• it always bugs me when a Microsoft product looks good and works
• the drafts aren’t saved on the server, although you can publish a draft to the server
• ugly smashed together html

Compared to other Blog posting software I’ve used I have to say this one is one of the best. There is an integration with IE like you might expect. If there was a Firefox plugin I might never use anything else to blog with.

Here is an example map.

Him: “Have you ever been in a crack house?”

Her: “No and why would you have ever been in one?”

Him: “Rehab”