I'll blame my sister for this not being as long as I had thought it might be. Or, perhaps, I'll thank her.

A coworker had a particularly rough Wednesday. I like this coworker quite a bit. I turned to him, 11ish, when it was already apparent that it was going to be a rough one: "Let's drink tonight." He nodded in agreement, and it was on. He came over about 8:45 or 9, left about 12:45, we picked up another one along the way, and everyone made it to work on Thursday. So, really, pretty successful. Upside: There was more Bell's left, though not a lot. Downside: His contribution was Labatt which is, well, not Bell's.

Two things make this notable:

1) You'll recall that, previously in this space, I've railed against this insolent cat that will sometimes stop on my patio, stare in at me, and whimper. I don't like cats. This cat is here all the time. I believe I previously wrote that I had named the cat, given him/her the most despicable name I could come up with: Hitler. I don't like Hitler the dude, and I don't like Hitler the cat.

So, not less than ten minutes after my coworker showed up, Hitler showed up. "Is that him?" "That's him." And we made Hitler jokes, mostly about how I'd stop that insolent cat from coming by if I'd just step outside and punch him in the face. (It's a pretty funny mental picture, no? Dude punches cat. Funny.) A few minutes later, "What's that one's name?" "Huh?" "That cat. It's a different cat." "There are two cats?" "Yeah, this one's black. The first one...wasn't black."

So, in fact, there are two cats that I hate. At least two. But I think I'll continue to call them all Hitler, not unlike George Foreman's children. Grown children. Except they're all George, not Hitler.

2) At the end of the evening, I foisted Dizzee Rascal, Rhymefest, and The Streets upon him. He's into the underground stuff but, once you've heard Dizzee Diz, you're never the same. Maths and English, out June 5, I think. I'll probably buy it. Garsh.

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Related to notable thing #1, above...

Today, as I was paying some bills or something, a possum/an opossum wandered by on my patio. It was huge. Like Bjork's "Human Behavior" video huge. Or, it seemed that way. But, seriously, a possum wandering by. Were I a real Ring Fingernail native, I'd've probably shot it, then eaten it. Raw.

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So, on Tuesday, I did some major self-haircutting. I'm going to give myself a solid C, where C is average, which is to say that I lost no eyes during the process. I'm not quite sure this is going to work. However, I did a nice job on my eyebrows. I fear that I'll find myself with excess bald patches.

Also, I fear that, like Mr. Belding and the bonsai tree, I'll probably trim and trim and trim and trim and just destroy the thing. In his case, it was a tree, in my case, it'd be a beautiful, beautiful head of hair.

This self-haircutting decision was made last month in reaction to a) the decision that I no longer liked the barber shop I began going to here last summer and b) the fact that my chain store haircut cost $15, plus $2 tip, which seems altogether outrageous. However, it's not. In fact, it's probably cheaper than just about every reader here.

But it's also more expensive than The Noyes Boys, I'm pretty sure. "Don't cut class. Get a first class cut." Works for me.

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I've officially got seven framed photographs located throughout the apartment. The 'friends' ones located on my bookshelf, the 'family' ones by the door, and my grandparents on a lamp/table thing. I think the next step is going to be a wall clock, to hang in the kitchen. $15 at Target, and I think it'll fit well.

This only leaves one gigantic wall in need of things. Maybe I'll just coil together some unwound wire hangers on that side of the room and hang things on it. Hopefully it'll last longer than, say, four days. Only one person will get that non-joke, maybe.

There's also a horizontal wall, the back side of the high kitchen cabinets, that begs for something. However, I can't figure out what that'd be. Maybe framed, ebay'ed gig posters would work there. Hmm...

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Related, slightly, a twilight walk behind my apartment reveals that, yes, trail-walkers can see in. And clearly. This means more clothing than planned on, say Sunday mornings. Or, say, closing the blinds. But that would just seem to be overkill.

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I haven't written anything here about Virginia Tech here. I've got no real comment. However, I'll say that the Second Amendment is dumb. "But if you don't allow law abiding citizens to get guns, the only people that'll get them will be criminals." Or people who aren't yet criminals.

I'd say just about every stat available will show that privately-owned handguns cause a lot more damage than they prevent, right? If, say, "self-defense" prevents a home robbery but results in a death...isn't the net effect far, far worse? (That is, doesn't the negative of, like, the dead guy, outweigh the positive of, say, the fact that the insurance-covered jewelry wasn't stolen?)

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The Chicago Bulls are just great. Fantastic. There was not a moment in a single game of the series that I didn't think the Bulls were going to win that single game. (Granted, I knew the result of game one as I watched it.) While the Heat are older and Wade isn't healthy, they're still basically the same team that won the title.

Entering the series, I think that the oddsmakers probably expected a Bulls win, but not an out-and-out dismantling. But that's just what it was, and it was awesome.

On raw numbers, losing Chandler (#2 rebounder in the league, young, cheapish) and signing Wallace (worse than that in terms of rebounding, old, expensive) was a net loss for the Bulls this year. When Wallace is in the final year of the deal, it will certainly be a net loss for the Bulls.

However, Wallace was absolutely the difference in this series, and not just because he made those ridiculous seven free throws in a row. He was awesome. He was an intimidator, and he never let Shaq get comfortable. I'm not sure this team even makes it through to the second round if they've got Chandler, and, if they did, I'm certain that it wouldn't've been a sweep. I'm absolutely certain that I wouldn't be thinking that they had a reasonable chance to win it all if Chandler were their starting center instead of Wallace.

Obviously, Deng's their best player, and Gordon's a remarkable scorer, and Hinrich is a strong leader, and Nocioni provides so much energy, but Wallace is an absolute rock. (With Brown, of course.)

Also, it's really fun to watch a team that tries really hard.

I didn't see more than three minutes of the Pistons-Magic series, and I only saw scores of the regular season Pistons-Bulls games, but I've gotta think that the Bulls are the better team, right now, in this one as well.

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Also, NBA games featuring either Hubie Brown or Bill Walton are absolutely a blast to watch. Walton's ridiculous, and Hubie teaches me something seemingly every possession.

I can imagine that Hubie was a truly fantastic coach. There was a great moment today, when James Posey avoided plunging into the broadcast table, and Hubie was using his coach's voice with him - "We'd've gotten you, James," or "Thanks for saving an old man, James," or something like that - and you could see Posey's happy, friendly glance at his old coach as he returned down the court. I appreciated the moment, though nobody else probably did.

Is it wrong to admit that I find NFL draft coverage strangely riveting? My post-run Saturday was delayed when I, for some reason, couldn't pull myself away. It was only a half-hour or 45 minutes, and it didn't prevent me from getting anything done, but I couldn't believe that I had been sucked in like that.

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I bought Peter Bjorn & John's Writer's Block today, after having heard the single "Young Folks" on WXRT on the drive up last weekend. "Young Folks" is pretty fantastic, and the rest of the record is nice as well. I also bought the new Arctic Monkeys record, which is too rawk to get much in the way of spins over this beautiful weekend. It was a lush, harmony-laden Swede-pop kind of weekend, and PB&J provided a nice soundtrack.

Yes, it was 70 degrees all weekend and, save for three runs and a walk, I only got out for errands. Sigh.

I think this city has lost it's only downtown bar that features outside drinking. That's a major, major loss, especially when you consider that, apparently, possums regularly wander by my patio, and I don't have anything to shoot 'em with.