I am night. I am vengeance. It's almost my birthday.

Despite my lackluster posting, things are going well. I've lost another five pounds or so and my wife and I are training for the Denver marathon in October (training: reading books and occasionally running). My kickboxing this week has been productive and awesome, and I'm getting to the point where I'm one of the more advanced people in the class, as can be evinced by my thunderclap-like punches. POW! ZAM! ZIFF! And so on.

It's my 31st birthday tomorrow, and my sister sent me this pleasingly Dadaist e-card:



(A lush orchestral version of "Jingle Bells" plays while you read it. Over and over and over. This speaks volumes to the fact that my ingrained silliness is in fact genetic.)

Last year at this time, I was jobless and without a drivers license, planning on spending a month in a tiny cabin in the middle of winter to figure things out a bit. I'm happy to report that things are much improved, and a lot of that I can attribute directly to this Batman project and the mentality that goes along with it, namely, "Hey, wouldn't it be a great idea if I stopped abusing my body and instead tried to treat it well? Even improve it a bit?"

Speaking of which, I'm going to try to quit smoking next week, after my retirement from being a pub quizmaster. That's sort of an important step in, say, learning to run 26 miles. Wouldn't you say?