Yoda falls victim to theft.

BTW – this is a prime example of why “Just the facts, ma’am” journalism both sucks and blows. The article from the AP lacks any sort of soul at all. Such as noting whether or not Mr. Noble lived with his mother. Or any notice of glasses, pocket protectors, or Jedi Robes being worn by same gentleman.

Sigh. Long live bias.

My buddy Mike has run Chicken Ranch Records from various exotic locations including Ruston, LA; Austin, TX; and Athens, GA. He’s always had some interesting bands come through and one of the latest includes some folks I met back in the day at the homestead (Shreveport, LA), so you may have met them, too. Steve Stubblefield was with the Methadone Actors back then. Tim (Timmy) Bryan infamously played with Mike in Habitual Sex Offenders (it’s not what you think, it’s more like this kind of thing, eh) and also played with Steve in Methadone Actors. Together when on tour, and including some other folks when they record, these two are the main components in Starlings, TN . They have enjoyed a lot of critical success (and I’m a big fan of their first album) and the big news is they were featured on NPR this evening.

Check ‘em out. I know you’ll like it.

The Road To Hana is a favorite journey (it’s not the destination, it’s the journey) for Maui visitors trying to escape the touristy parts of the island. This 50 mile stretch of road has dozens of spots where it suddenly reduces to one lane. Much to the constarnation of locals, us haoles tend to drive the road slowly watching around clifs, waterfalls and watery coves for oncoming speed demons.

We decided to take the road after we finished lunch in Kahului. This was a mistake in hindsight since most people make The Road to Hana into an full day-trip or even over-night it. It took us over two and a half hours to make it to Hana only making a few stops along the way. We’ve been chastised for missing several pools and waterfalls, but we did see some really nice coves along the way.

Here are a couple of Action Sampler 3.0 pictures from Mickey and Emily’s wedding day.

Ben (of Ben and Jerry’s) has gotten into politics with True Majority and has this cute little Flash movie where he decribes the Federal Budget with Oreo© cookies.

• Nintendo announced a new portable system called Nintendo DS that will be demo’d in May at E3 — anyone want to score me a high-end pass? The most exciting rumor to me is the wireless gaming interface. If it was designed conceptually like BlueTooth (but worked better) it could break portable gaming wide open.
• Rumors abound that Microsoft will drop the price on XBox this year, possibly as low as $99 by late summer. Can anyone give me a good reason(game) or two that I should go ahead and purchase one?

A platform we can all get on.

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Those wacky folks over at CMU have this little game where you and a complete stranger are trying to match up your minds over the internet. I can’t play due to my workplace’s firewall, but I’m looking forward to testing my mental metle from home tonight.

I know they are taking themselves seriously, but isn’t MovieRap.com about as pointless as MovieHaiku.com? Check out the site for rap video reviews of Movies. I particularly appreciate the review for Honey .

I’ve got some family that used to live in Conway, Arkansas. (Don’t act so surprised.) So, this little story cracked me up.

Three men were arrested on felony charges after a game of Taboo went awry at a Conway home. … A 24-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of felony possession of a controlled substance and felony possession of drug paraphernalia.

I know that Becky and I find it hard to play board games without a little smack to keep us going.

Nat’l Weather service out of Taunton, Mass, has Snow Maps for New England. Looks like they err on the side of not reporting, but that’s fine if you’re using them to figure out where to ski.

When perusing Salon today, you may be tempted to skip over this article by Molly Norton about Renee Zellweger and you shouldn’t. It’s really cute.

When I found out she had no real acting experience, I relaxed. I mean, she didn’t spend 50K on drama school to learn the Stanislavski emotional-recall technique that allowed one to cry on cue just by remembering how much she had spent on acting school.

Maybe I like it just ‘cause she’s a hometown girl, or maybe it’s kismit because the last thing I read before falling asleep last night was this piece in the Texas Monthly Bum Steer Awards 2004:

ICH BIN EIN EAVESDROPPER A German couple eating breakfast in the same restaurant as Renee Zellweger started gossiping in their native tongue about the Texas-born actress, criticizing her clothes and speculating about her height and marital status, only to be answered curtly in German by Zellweger herself, who said, “No, I’m not [married]. I’m five foot three, and I always dress this way in the morning.”