So, while I was waiting for Tina to get around this morning, I had the girls strapped into their stroller and was teaching them to rock out. Anya, of course, was more than happy to wave her arms and bounce around, but Rachel gave me a skeptical stare before breaking down and joining the fun.

Later, as I was rolling into daycare, I spied an unusual sight. There were dads everywhere, stuffed in powder blue shirts, fingers hoisting college rings bigger than golf balls. It was bizarre. Most mornings, it’s just the moms and me. The dads all looked terribly uncomfortable, but were probably guilted into showing up by their wives so they could socialize together at the daycare’s annual Father’s Day celebration. Of course, I have nothing but contempt for all the fair weather fathers and their serious business attire, whose last appearance at the child development center was most likely during the Christmas pagent. They’re all so serious, so important and so old. I may be 31, but most of my “peers” are probably in their mid-to-late forties. Any one of them could have fathered me. All right, I know I’m exagerrating, but it’ s almost that bad.

The funny thing is, they never quite know what to say to me, the guy with the beard and the jeans and the twins. There’s always an awkward hello, but I’m clearly not their equal, someone worth shooting the proverbial shit with. That’s the thing that gets me — that either I’m treated like I’m a teenage father, or they ignore me entirely. In reality, I’m a lot more interesting than the lot of them. They should be begging me for my time. I know none of them were trying to teach their children the phrase “Devil Music” this morning.

I can’t wait to see what happens when the playdates start.

Check out this interview with Tina and me dating back from around 1999 or so. I barely remember doing it, and my responses were definitely a surprise.

Click here to read it.

Tina emailed me this morning to give me the heads up that someone has placed the first issue of the original Restaurant Fuel print ‘zine on ebay. Surprisingly, the “buy it now” price is set at $25.

Tina and I started work on Restaurant Fuel back in 1996 as an outlet for personal writing, band interviews, travel stories, and just about anything else we felt like publishing. We even ran a scientific article about two dangerous diet drugs years before the drugs were taken off the market. As much as I love blogging, doing a ‘zine was so much more fulfilling. The writing had to be sharper, and there was a lot of fun in designing and producing the magazine. We went out of our way to come up with elaborate inserts to enhance the experience. You can’t do that with a blog.

Restaurant Fuel, obviously, is now long out of print. This is really the first time an issue has been available in years. Tina and I have very, very few copies of it ourselves. If you’d like to see a bit of zine history, it may be worth bidding on.

It’s with great sadness that I must report the death of artist Tim Hildebrandt, who in collaboration with his twin brother Greg, painted many of the most iconic science fiction and fantasy covers of all time. Most notably, the original Star Wars movie poster and the cover to Terry Brooks’ Sword of Shannara.

You can read about his life here.

Well,it looks like the telecoms are all powerful — their bid to take over the internet and essentially shake down web sites for the right to use their pipes is significantly closer to passing. Net neturality, essentially what we have now — a “neutral” internet that treats all sites the same — is in serious jeopardy. Soon it may be that sites that assent to letting the telecoms extort money from them will load faster than sites that do not. I’m not sure what it means in practice, but my guess is that Restaurant Fuel and other independent blogs might cease to exist under this model. I think it’s safe to say that your ability to choose what sites you visit — especially in the ecommerce arena — may be seriously limited. I can see Barnes and Noble, for instance, becoming the exclusive online bookstore for Verizon, completely blocking Amazon from Verizon’s users.

This is the anthesis of what the internet was created for — for anyone to share information for free. The telecoms are running ads that say that Google and other companies that oppose them want to stifle innovation on the internet. This is so far from the truth — Google and Microsoft and MoveOn and Gunowners of America and a number of other diverse groups are the good guys. The open internet is what encourages innovation — it’s Verizon and AT&T and BellSouth and the other telecoms that want to stifle innovation by closing off the internet to only those who can afford to pay the big bucks.

I work as a web developer for a University. Will this jeopardize my job? Especially if my school can’t afford to pay what the telecoms want? What about every other web developer out there. If our organizations refuse to pay to be part of this, will our jobs exist. Seriously, this could kill the internet as we know it. The telecoms must be stopped.

Call your Senators, write the President (not that he would ever veto a pro-business bill). If the interent becomes privatized, all the online content and services that we enjoy today will evaporate.

Garrison Keillor, ever one of our greatest humorists and commentators, writes on the new Republican campaign to scare voters about gays and Nancy Pelosi. It’s nothing short of brilliant.

Read it here.

The first four pages of “The Alberic Heresies” #1 are now available. This is the comic book that I wrote with artist Jacob Warrenfeltz. Click on any of the thumbnails below to take a look.

The comic is available for sale at albericheresies.com.

I am sick of Iraq. It seems like every Sunday morning, I turn on the political talk shows to hear Republican politicians recite the same tired cliches about the war — we’re doing a good job, the insurgency is weakened, our soldiers are building schools, etc. I’m not sure where building schools got into the GOP talking points, but I can’t describe how tiresome it is, especially now in 2006. It’s funny, but the GOP talking points always work, even when they’re wrong. A few weeks ago I had lunch with some friends at work, and when I started my lament about war, one of them — a Republican, but as I like to call him, “one of the good ones” — started talking over me with the standard talking points. It was meant to be funny — and it was — but he also successfully shut me up.

And if I hear another Democrat start dithering when asked about whether or not they support the war, I swear I’m going to register as an independent. Fucking cowards.

“Entourage” is back on HBO next weekend. Along with “Weeds,” it was one of the two shows that helped get me through the early months of parenthood. Granted, I’ve been a fan since it debuted in the first season, but season two really brought a level of excellence. My favorite episode of the season was the one when Vince and his friends go to San Diego Comicon to promote “Aquaman” and have a run-in with a Harry Knowles-inspired online entertainment journalist played brilliantly by Rainn Wilson. Also, it was revealed thatVincent Chase’s hapless, hack actor older brother was once the star of a short-lived genre show, “Viking Quest,” and had a huge cult fan following. Drama effortlessly navigates Comicon like a seasoned pro, a star in a world unknown to Chase, Eric and Turtle. Great stuff.

The thing that works on the show, and what I think makes it resonate with people, is the unapologetic portrayal of male relationships. It really gets how men interact with each other — and does it in a way that avoids negative stereotypes. They also dispense with the usual contrived character conflicts so prevelant on television — first and foremost, “Entourage” is a show about a group of blue collar guys from Queens living big in LA. They know their success is temporary, but they’re all committed to enjoy it while it lasts. HBO ordered 20 episodes this time, and I hope the writing staff is able to keep up the quality. If you haven’t seen it yet, you should really consider catching up on Netflix.

Also returning is “Deadwood,” an old favorite of mine. But it’s bittersweet — the season reportedly ends on a cliffhanger, but series producer David Milch decided not to continue because he’d rather make a show about a surfer. What a way to get me excited about Deadwood’s third season. I’m not even sure I’m going to bother watching.

John Darnielle, aka ” The Mountain Goats, ” has been one of my favorite songwriters for many, many years. My first exposure to him was back in 1995 (or was it 1996), with “Song for an Old Friend” on a Pottery Records seven-inch. More recently, “Pigs That Ran Straightaway Into the Water, Triumph of” from the Moutain Goats’ “We Shall All Be Healed” LP is slowly making its way up my iPod’s Top 25 most-played list, even beating out tracks by The Arcade Fire (which I’ve played about 5,000 times so far).

I came across a site today that contains the lyrics to all the songs John has ever written. Apparently, there are 449 total. I probably have about two thirds of them on my iPod. Check out the complete list here.