"Four fried chickens... and a Coke."

My son turned seven on Wednesday. Some of you may remember that I was baffled and found myself caught more than a little off-guard. I'm okay now.

Tomorrow is Jack's birthday party. He and four of his buddies are going to run around our house screaming and shooting each other with Nerf guns. That's pretty much a normal day here, except that from 3 to 5 o'clock tomorrow afternoon I'll have four extra targets.

So, tonight I have to do a little preparation for the party. Nothing major, just write up a few clues for a scavenger hunt. Betsy is going to partake in the biblioscrapicus with some of her yammering gal pals and I'll have very little to do tonight. I find myself faced with a pretty pathetic, very American problem: I must choose a movie to watch.

Here's the list from which I shall choose:

So, I Married an Axe Murderer


The Jerk


something with Batman in it








The Blues Brothers ("I hate Illinois Nazis.")


Due Date


Flight of the Conchords (season one, of course)


Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark


Watchmen


V for Vendetta


or a bunch of episodes of Top Gear


While writing this post I did the following: I put all three kids to bed, read two chapters of Danny, the Champion of the World (my favorite), spent thirty-two minutes on the phone with my mother-in-law discussing children's books, and put one little girl back to bed (she fell out... I thought someone ran into the front of our house with a moped), and I no longer have time to watch ANYthing.

Thank you,
      Matt Beers