Conventional wisdom

The DNC has packed up its circus tents and moved on, and it appears that Boston is still standing. I only know what I saw on the TV, because I stayed the hell away, as did a lot of people, apparently. The expected traffic nightmare never materialized because so many people were scared off by the hype. I didn't watch a whole lot of the coverage, but I did see Kerry's speech last night, which was surprisingly good. Also good was Bill Clinton's address earlier in the week, which was just a reminder of what a charismatic figure he is, especially compared to Kerry. At any rate, things will be getting back to normal around here.

If you haven't seen this yet, you definitely should. I interviewed one of the guys from JibJab.com a few years back when I was working for the Webnoize. Now they're the toast of the nation for this short, which is hi-larious.

A mere eight years after it first came out, "South Park" is going into syndication in the fall of '05. Why anyone will want to watch it in a heavily edited form (because you know it's going to be hacked to bits) is beyond me. I'll probably check it out just to see how lame it is, kind of like when "Pulp Fiction" was edited for TV several years back. Some things you just need to see in their original form. I don't watch any edited movies on the major networks. What's the point? As for "South Park," I was a rabid fan of the show for the first three or four seasons and then the movie came out, and it was awesome. And for some reason, I've never watched it again. I can't explain it. It's like I just felt there was no way they could top the movie, which was so over-the-top profane and hilarious. I could always rent the DVDs or something.

In Ronnie James Dio news, and I know you were waiting for some, the wizened wizard of metal used his broadsword to force California indie band Dios to change its name because he felt it was too close to the name of his band, Dio (duh). Dios is now known as Dios Malos, although they're not thrilled by it. In Rolling Stone (yeah, I know, RS sucks), bassist J.P. Caballero said, "It's pretty retarded...When we named our band we were thinking of God. [Dios] is 'God' in Spanish. That's what it means to hundreds of millions of people all over the world. It didn't really seem like there was going to be any point of confusion. We're up against rainbows and magic."

Apple just released the new 4G iPod. It's a little thinner, a little better, and the 20GB version is $299. I'm still rocking my 2G 10-gig iPod, which is working great for me. I run with it occasionally, but mainly I plug it into my speakers at work and enjoy the shuffle feature.

In addition to the Around the Cape 25K (15 miles for you non-metric folks) I'm running in September, I just signed up for the Applefest Half-Marathon in Hollis, NH, on October 2. I was thinking of doing the Maine Half-Marathon, but this is less of a drive. Plus my buddy Rick Johnson's running it, although he's way faster than I am.

Not a great week for dentists, both in and out of the office. Although in the first case, it was a lot worse for the patients. Yecch.