Home of the Soul Cookie

Somewhere, Physics and Logic are sharing a beer, crying.

A panel devoted to The WB’s Smallville will be staged at Comic-Con International in San Diego, Comics Continuum reported.

The panel will take place on Saturday, July 19 from 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. (PT) in Room 6B, which will be considerably larger than the room for last year’s Smallville panel.

The panel will feature main members of the cast, to be announced, as well as executive producers Al Gough and Miles Millar, supervising producer Mark Verheiden and consulting producer Jeph Loeb.

The presentation will include producers’ picks of the top 10 Smallville moments of all time, a question-and-answer session, limited-edition posters and a sneak peek at other new WB shows.

After the session, the panelists will be signing posters in the DC Comics booth for one hour.

Pioneer Set To Introduce Recordable DVD + TiVo

Pioneer Electronics said Wednesday that it will introduce a DVD recorder this fall that will combine TiVo’s personal video recorder technology, thereby allowing users to record programs either temporarily on the unit’s hard drive or permanently on a DVD disc. In a statement, Russ Johnston, a senior marketing executive for Pioneer’s home entertainment division, commented, “Consumers will not see this type of innovation from any other manufacturer in the near term.”

Parse this, buddy: http://www.fridayfive.org/

1. How are you planning to spend the summer?
Working, mostly. I’ll be taking a few days off to go to Comic-Con International in San Diego in mid-July, but that’s about it.

2. What was your first summer job?
I’ve never really had a “summer job” per se; my job at Carl’s Jr. started in the spring of my senior year in high school and stretched on for nigh on a year.

3. If you could go anywhere this summer, where would you go?
The Bay Area, New York City, Scotland. Pick one. Heck, pick ‘em all.

4. What was your worst vacation ever?
Went with the ex (back when we were still married) to spend a few days with her mom and stepfather in the DC area. We saw the sights in the capitol, but the entire vacation was a big, strange non-event. Very little of the trip stands out in my memory as noteworthy. Don’t remember what any of us talked about, and I had to struggle a little to remember what we did as a group (which wasn’t much). I woulda had more fun just staying at home that time.

5. What was your best vacation ever?
Flash-forward a little bit, and the ex’s mom and stepfather took us with them on a two-week trip to Scotland (where he was from, BTW). It was incredible. Check out some of the pictures (listed under “UK/Scotland Trip, April 1998″).

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

Got it Saturday. Finished reading it Sunday night.

Good book. Very good book.

Still eminently readable, it does a superb job of making Harry’s world even more complex and thrilling.

Tomorrow, a bunch of us are going to the Salt River for an all-day river-tubing trip.

Should be fun.

Found a squished cockroach carapace…

…on the toe of one of my socks that I’d been wearing all day.

…

That’s right: I apparently didn’t notice a slight squishing/crunching noise/feeling as I donned my shoes yesterday and walked around with pulverized roach guts all day long.

Ick.

Check it out: http://www.fridayfive.org/

1. Is your hair naturally curly, wavy, or straight? Long or short?
Short, a little bit wavy when I let it grow out too much.

2. How has your hair changed over your lifetime?
Distressingly little. I’m got quite a few grey hairs now, but that’s about it.

3. How do your normally wear your hair?
Parted on the left, brushed back when wet after the ol’ morning shower.

4. If you could change your hair this minute, what would it look like?
Something less boring… I dunno. Brightly colored? Spiky and mod?

5. Ever had a hair disaster? What happened?
The day of Scott’s wedding, my ex-wife was giving me a haircut with a home hair-trimming kit. She got distracted in the middle of the process and sheared off a big triangular patch of hair over one ear.

Scott sent me a link to a report on CNN’s site about a 21-year study that found mental stimulation - reading, playing word games, whatever - actually wards off dementia.