I listen to a lot podcasts. This coming weekend for fun I shall give quick reviews of all the podcasts I listen to during the work week. There is only one podcast I listened to that I deleted because I found it to be extremely boring.

Here's a brief list: APM Piano Puzzler, Black Tribbles, Big O & Dukes Show, Comic Book Road Show, Cultdom Collective, DaFixers Hideout, DaFixers Presents, DCNoise, Flashing Blade, Front Page, Geek Brunch, Get Fit Guy, Happiness Patrol, Mike Omeara Show, Mostly Harmless Cut Away, Naked Scarf, NewsPod, No Apologies, Nothings On, NPR 7AM News Summary, NPR Planet Money, Nutrition Diva, Pharos Project, PKD Blackbox, PodShock, Professor Dave's Ark in Space, Radio Free Skaro, Sci Fi Party Line, Slate Magazine, Staggering Stories, Stuff You Should Know, Stuff You Missed In History Class, Stuff Your Mom Never Told You, Tardis Tavern, Tell 'Em Steve-Dave, Thinking Allowed, thoom318, Tim's Take On, Two Minute Timelord, Wait Wait..Don't Tell Me!, UKBlack & various old time radio shows.

WoW!! Just checked back at my blog and noticed my page count has hit 1 BILLION!!!

Today is tax day. Im feeling a bit down because it's raining today. Rain means I can not use my Xootr Roma kick scooter to get down to the lightrail station. I do not like to use MTA buses in the morning because they have a tendency to be unpredictable. Sometimes they arrive early, sometimes late. This is fine and dandy if you need to catch the bus to go to one place. But I am catching the bus to connect to a lightrail train that pretty much runs on schedule. Why the Xootr you ask?

It was in September when I saw a woman on a kick scooter getting around downtown. I said to myself that looks like a good idea! Then a couple of months later noticed a man with a beard on the Woodbury lightrail stop who had a Razor scooter with him. He was a regular at the stop. So I said to myself, WoW! I have seen two adults using kick scooters. Maybe it really **is** a good idea. So I decided to get myself an Xootr for my birthday. It was one of the big purchases I made with the money my father left me after he died. The other big purchase I made was a Fuji Crosstown 3.0 bicycle.

The only problem with the Xootr is that the brakes do not work that well on wet ground. The last time I ignored the product warning about the brakes in the rain I fell off the Xootr. I fell because the ground was wet and I had to make a sudden stop to avoid a car coming out of a downtown garage. I survived with a couple of bruises. After that incident I decided that I would follow the product warnings about the brakes.

Yesterday, I used the MTA and the bus arrived at a good enough time to get me to work. However, as per usual when I use a morning bus I had to run to catch the train. Hopefully, the bus will arrive at a good enough time today to get me to the train.

The only things three things that cheer me up at the moment is that last night I downloaded Corel Painter 11 and my favourite all time co-worker Arnold now owns a hoodie! The other cheerful thought is that tomorrow there will be no rain so I can bypass the MTA bus system with my trusty Xootr Roma kick scooter.

As far as taxes are concerned, I have not done mine yet. This year my tax situation is...complicated. So complicated that I will need an accountant. When my father died he left me everything. So this instantly pushed me into another tax bracket. So basically this means I probably will end up owing more money than I usually do. Thanks Dad!

Today, I decided to start doing more updates on my blog. The reason I have not blogged since last summer is because I was and still am trying to deal with my fathers death. My mother died several years ago. I can not recall the exact year she died. The only thing I can recall is that after she died I could not bring and still can not bring myself to watch the TV show Friends. The reason being is because all the parents of the characters on that show are still alive. Yeah, sounds like a petty reason to boycott a show but true.

So with my fathers death this left me feeling literally all alone in the world, like a 30something year old orphan Annie without Daddy Warbucks, or Sandy the dog. For the the first time in my life I have no one to turn to. Sure, I knew that one day my parents would die. But it was always in an imagined future where I was in my fifties, married, and had a couple of kids. I never imagined I would loose them before I hit retirement age.

TRYING TO CHEER MYSELF UP
Last evening in an attempt to cheer myself up I watched Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog. It is an internet movie writen and directed by Joss Whedon who did Firefly, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Angel. He is amongst my favourite Hollywood writers. My others are the usual suspects that geeky, nerdy people like myself are into, Kevin Smith, Russel T. Davies, and Steve Moffett.

Anyway, Dr, Horrible’s Sing Along Blog is a three part musical staring Neil Patrick Harris. By the way, I think Harris is really funny on How I Met Your Mother. The other actor in the movie is the star of Firefly and Jason Bateman lookalike, Nathan Fillion. I really liked him as Joey on One Life to Live and as Captain Mal Reynolds on Firefly. The show also has a female alum from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Felicia Day, as the love interest.

The movie comes in three parts. I watched the first two parts today the last part comes out on Saturday. Then after that it will only be available as a download for sale on iTunes. All in all its 45 minutes long. The three part web episodes are each just 15 minutes long.

Overall I have nothing but love for the movie. I found myself rooting for Neil Patrick Harris’ geeky loveable bad and hissing Nathan Fillion’s jerk of a good guy.

MORE DEATH IN THE FAMILY
A couple of days ago my cousin Grafton passed away. He had recently had hip replacement surgery that soon developed into pneumonia. That makes three family members dead in one year, my father, Aunt Josephine, and now Cousin Grafton.

I have a possibly crazy theory. It seems that every year that a Batman movie comes out a member of my family dies. The only exception I can think of is when the first Christopher Nolan directed Batman starring Christian Bale came out. That year no Willis died.

Its stupid and silly but it seems to be eerily accurate. Off the top of my head my mother, and my Uncle Stanley, Cousin Guy, and Aunt Gloria all passed away in a year that a Batman movie came out. Its like whenever its a year that a Batman movie comes out its an almost guaranteed lock that someone in my family buys the farm. Sadly, this year three Willis’ have passed away. Overall, This is shaping up to be a bad year in the Willisdom.

Despite this eery occurrence, Batman is still my favourite comic book hero. I will probably see the movie as I have the other Batman flicks.

A side note my father never liked the 60s Batman TV show. He felt it was too cartoonish. He preferred the more serious version of the character that he read in the comic books. I do not know what his opinion was of the Tim Burton or Joel Schumacher or even Christopher Nolan versions as I never asked it. But I would wager that he loathed the Joel Schumacher version and would have praised Christopher Nolans recent efforts. Dad liked his Batman to be straight up serious and no joke

MORNING COMMUTE:
This morning I am running late. I misplaced my glasses and could not find them in their usual spot. I ending up finding them in my lunch bag while I was on the light rail train heading into work. How did they get there?

For now on I will try to get to work at my usual time of 7 instead of my new start time of 7:30. Im starting to feeling too anxious and like crying. I almost broke down as I was lookin for my glasses this morning. Luckily, I found a pair of my old glasses that have not worn since the 90s. So I have those on.

LAST.FM
This weekend I finally hit the big time. I among the top Bobby Darin listeners on Last.fm My personal goal is to get Bobby Darin up to 1 million plays. Right now he is only at about 800 thousand plays. The man deserves to be up to a million like his fellow contemporaries Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin