My greatest accomplishment in the last seven days? Getting Bex hooked on The Wire. In anticipation of this fall's Season 4, I decided to review the previous seasons, starting at the beginning. Bex had gotten sucked into my Homicide side-trip, and now that we've worked through the meat of the series (skipping the last two, which all reviews say were terrible), she decided she'd humor me and watch the first couple episodes of The Wire. We started on Thursday, watching two episodes, at which point she asked me to reorder our Netflix queue so that disk two showed up on Saturday. On Saturday we watched the rest of disk one and both episodes on disk two.

At this point, Bex is little better than a straight up dope fiend, and we're forced to go to Hollywood at Home video and rent the rest of season 1, most of which we proceeded to watch Sunday afternoon. We finished up the thirteenth episode of season 1 last night.

One cool side note: When I went to Hollywood at Home, I asked the counter-dude if he has "The Wire". He points me to the center of the New Releases section. (Hasn't this been out on DVD for several years at this point?) There's a handwritten sticker on the front of the DVD case reading "To make sure that you're watching the best show currently on TV, the first disk of The Wire is a FREE RENTAL."

Anyway, DVD is how this show is meant to be watched. Those of you in KC, be sure you head out to Hollywood at Home. First one's free. Those of you not, Netflix is your friend.

A friend is trying to determine the Saddest Thing. Help him out, won't you?

Jason posts a terrific photographic review of the trail that kicked my ass last Wednesday.

What's been going on out here? Not a whole lot. My sister got married the weekend before last in Nantucket. Nantucket is an island off the Massachussets coast that is very difficult and expensive to get to. We're still recovering financially from that trip, so I missed Wakarusa last weekend. Kind of sucks, that's probably my only chance to see Cracker, Camper van Beethoven, Andrew Bird, The Disco Biscuits and The Flaming Lips this year. Oh well, I guess I'm getting too old for that stuff anyway.

Speaking of things I'm getting too old for, Jason has managed to get me re-interested in cycling, mountain biking in particular. I've swapped the road tires on my Raleigh for dirt tires, and whenever I manage to get a pedal wrench will put some toe clips on that bike and have better equipment for the many dirt tracks around here. There are some trails in Lawrence we rode after some rain. I slipped in a mud puddle, and the lack of decent pedals and toe clips meant that I was unable to pedal out (no pedal/foot traction). This Wednesday, Jason and I tried out the Shawnee Mission Park dirt trails, and those are just straight up above my skill level. Too rocky, and I fell over multiple times. I came home with a multitude of bruises, scratches and cuts. I think I'll be sticking to the dirt trails in Lawrence for now.

Even my hybrid bike has been getting some use: Last Sunday I rode in an organized ride put on by the Kansas City Bicycle Club. It was a 45 mile ride with a 25 mile option. I was going to go for the 25 mile ride, but at the last minute was talked into trying the 45 mile ride. At the 25 mile mark of that ride, I threw in the towel and called Bex for a pickup. Still, I think I want to try it again, and there are several organized rides coming up in the next few months. Those of you interested can track my progress over at We Endure.

Stat junkie that I am, I'm excited about having found We Endure. Unfortunately, it only tracks running, cycling and swimming. Just yesterday, I found Fit Day which allows me to track food, all physical activity and weight. My Fit Day Page is the new home of the Weight Chart, and can be found over on the left now. Also, feel free to chastise me for eating those Quik Trip Taquitos when you see them on there.

Other than that, not a whole lot going on. It's veggie season, and Bex and I are back in the habit of going to the Farmers Market on Saturday and planning at least a few meals around what looks good. We had an excellent cherry salad with bitter greens and some good cheese last week. Tasty. We'll see what we'll get tomorrow. The dog is being good for the most part and he has a nice short summer cut. Not a whole lot coming up other than bartending next Saturday (Come on by after Roller Derby and drink crappy beer and crappy well liquor!) and the upcoming Mac Lethal show at the Record Bar. See you all there.

Also, mark your calendars for my Birthday Barbecue Bash on Saturday July 29. If you read this, you're welcome to come by. Hope to see you there.