You know what I noticed?

The moon was large, full, and a shade of red I've never seen before. As I neared the end of my commute home, it loomed ominously on the horizon, like a frame out of an old horror movie. I thought back on my day and recent events as I drove, and several thoughts came to mind.

Every day at work, for about a week now, there have been loud noises coming from the ceiling over the quadrant of cubicles where I sit. A couple of days ago rain started leaking in, and some workers came and moved the drop ceiling panels, putting our recycling buckets up there to catch the drops. One of them informed us that we were directly under the boiler room, and that this was the first building he'd ever worked in with a boiler on the roof, as opposed to the basement. The buckets have remained up there collecting water, and the noise of the workers has gotten loud. Today there was a lot of loud banging and crashing, and despite the reinforced beams we can see through the open panels of the drop ceiling, I'm hoping I don't find anything large and metal occupying my space tomorrow morning.

Needless to say, if I escaped death for the umpteenth time today when the ceiling held, several animals I encountered on my way home had closer calls. On one road, in the dark, something that may have been a possum or a cat shot across the road from left to right in front of me and leapt up on to the sidewalk at blinding speed. I was already going slow, because that particular area is a speed trap, but I braked in surprise. As I accelerated, my heart still doing the same, I reassured myself that the odds of another animal doing the same were slim. Not FIFTY feet down that same road, a calico cat darted out from right to left, escaping me as well as an oncoming car on the other side of the four lane road. I may never learn not to question the odds, but it's a mystery why.

About a mile from my home, on a dark stretch of highway isolated from both residential and commercial areas, I suddenly smelled soup, the kind of noodles you'd find stuck together in a plastic package with a bouillon cube. It smelled amazing, but I have no idea where it came from. Was someone cooking soup in the woods? Had a car driving by with an open window contained a passenger enjoying a Cup O Noodles? I may never know, but tonight is more about observations than answers I think.

”Japanese Cartoon” was the very first Strong Bad e-mail cartoon I watched on the Homestarrunner site, more than two years ago now. I think it's been about that long. The brothers that run that site are constantly coming out with new innovations, new ways to make a living selling merchandise for silly flash cartoons. Though they've already come up with 22 variations on their main page(23 counting a hidden one), today they unveiled another brilliant take on their basic structure. They update on Mondays, which is why this wasn't included in yesterday's links.

Ever wonder what happened to Pauly Shore? I certainly didn't, but for some reason I rented Pauly Shore is Dead this weekend. It featured a record number of celebrity cameos, showed he had a sense of humor about his life, and at times came off as a love letter to Sam Kinison. I was amazed when he addressed a group of college kids in a featurette about the making of the movie, and told them to rent Back to School if they didn't know who Kinison was. Even more sobering was a line from Britney Spears in which she questions, “Pauly Shore...OH, he's the guy that was on MTV before I was born.” I quickly checked and found that he would only have been 13 when she was born, so there was a little bit of an exaggeration. Very little, and I'm once more wondering where all the years have gone.

Kryptonite, irradiated fragments of his destroyed home world, is Superman's one weakness. I wonder if they'll ever have an episode of Smallville in which Clark questions the Earth element Krypton while studying chemistry. Why WOULD we have an element with the same name as his home planet? Maybe that's a dumb notion, but that show's certainly had more ludicrous plot threads...

I tend to watch details very closely. Last week, at one point during the series premiere of Supernatural, the two brothers around whom the show focuses are discussing music. Jared Padalecki questions the cassettes in the car of his brother, played by Jensen Ackles, both their content and the fact that in 2005 he still listens to cassettes. Ackles' character defends his music, holding up a tape clearly labeled Metallica, calling the group by name, and explaining why he likes them. He then pops it into the tape deck as the car peels off, and Back in Black by AC/DC blasts. If I'm understanding correctly, the show had the rights to use Metallica's name but not their music, and the rights to use AC/DC's music but not refer to the group by name. Even more frightening is the fact that the same kids who listen to Britney Spears and need to be told who Sam Kinison is, probably didn't even notice.

Leaving a laugh track off a sitcom greatly enhances it. Tonight's premiere of ”How I Met Your Mother” showed some potential, and I especially enjoyed the performance of veteran stars like Alyson Hannigan and Neil Patrick Harris, but the laugh track annoyed me. I think shows like Scrubs and Family Guy have spoiled me. I don't need to be told to laugh. If it's funny, that should be enough.

I think that's enough observations for one evening. Tune in tomorrow for something more cohesive, or less, but hopefully still entertaining.