Wayne and Rebecca Madsen

When I was a Junior in high school, I worked with Jacob Ames at a Dunkin Donuts on the corner of one of the two major streets in our tiny town. We would sit all afternoon in that donut shop and discuss life; and the day we saw Clerks together, we understood how art mimics life (or does life mimic art?). Sitting all afternoon in a donut shop allowed us many hours of dead time to contemplate why we were doing nothing. It brings to question a man's morale when he's getting paid minimum wage to have creamer fights.  read more »

I've known about pack-rat tendencies in the Rees family for some time. My response was to carefully comb through my personal effects as often as possible -- usually about once a year (convenient enough since that's about how often I've moved since leaving home after high school) -- and dispose of clothes, memorabilia, and other items that hadn't been used or looked at recently enough. A continual purging process. I'm not perfect at it, but I'm happy with the effort I put into the process for the most part, and happy with the result of less "stuff."  read more »

Now, I feel like I've had a pretty easy pregnancy so far. Feel free to pull faces at me now.  read more »

I was reading up on Rick Riordan to see if there was any news of how far away the next Percy Jackson book is from being released, and I came upon the saddest news I've heard in a while.  read more »

Happy Anniversary to Wayne and Rebecca. It has been four wonderful years of marriage, one sealed for eternity.

Comcast doesn't work on our computer. I call them up. They say:
"Unplug the power to your modem."
"I already did that."
"Do it anyways. Do you use a router?"
"Yes."
"Here at Comcast we strongly discourage that you use a router. Plug the internet directly into a desktop."

How am I supposed to use my wireless connection on my laptop?
There is no answer. There never will be from a company who believes that their customers shouldn't use a router.

There are artists in the world. And have been for a long time. Most people create something, some create some really good things and those are the people we call "masters."

Then, sometimes, someone comes along and does something which doesn't fit into the "hey-look-what-i-can-do" category, nor into the "i-believe-this-is-what-you-call-art" arena of creativity. On the rarest of occasions in history do you get someone like James Turrell.  read more »

We are in the process of compiling our own travel guides for places we have lived: hopefully an insider's glimpse into these locations. This list is a directory of the best restaurants in the places we have been. These are the sorts of restaurants where you cry when the place shuts down (or even if the chef leaves and it no longer tastes the same); the sorts of places our friend jokes would be "best if you could just burn down the place afterwards so you never forget how great that food was." A bit morbid, but you get the jist - good food. The sort of place you should make a cross-country trip to eat there.
 read more »

Good advice for every guy who wants to have a solid relationship AND play his video games.

1. Find out if your girlfriend has ever played video games before. She may not be a full-blown gamer, but maybe she played Mario games when she was younger. Or maybe she likes playing an Internet game from time to time. If you know her gaming history, you'll have a better chance of finding a game she'll enjoy now.

2. Remind your girlfriend that if you both play video games, you'll be able to spend even more quality time together.  read more »