the shrewdness of apes

some quick things as we re-start the assembly line here (i swear if one more person loses a finger, the insurance costs are going to ruin me):

* i've been terribly remiss in not mentioning that the wife has entered the world of online catharsis. true to family form, the updates are sporadic. at least the personal dirt on me has been kept to a minimum so far.

* speaking of the wife, she claims to have schmoozed her way to tickets to the first taping of The Colbert Report, Comedy Central's new follow-up to The Daily Show coming this fall. sweet.

* my calendar has now been marked for Sunday, October 2nd and the Fifth Annual International Pickle Day on Manhattan's Lower East Side. i've managed to miss this the past few years, but i look forward to taking in about 5000% of my USDA daily allowance of sodium on everything from pickled watermelon to kimchi. with any luck, i'll be able to snare some info to improve my own pickle making techniques (details to come in a future D.I.Y. entry).

* is anyone else enjoying the poo throwing between stalwart sports blog CSTB and Gawker-backed upstart Deadspin? granted it's been pretty one-sided so far, but Deadspin could really up the ante by asking into the friends circle of CSTB's MySpace profile. for the record, my take on Deadspin so far is that it suffers from the same blandness that can make Gothamist so tedious. which is too bad, because i have enjoyed much of Will Leitch's writing in the past.