Where's Mike? Not at home, that's where. I've hardly been at home over the past week... there's just so much to do in this crazy world! How can I stay home when I can go bowling and attend giant airplane hanger book sales?

I did a lot of 'hanging out' this week/weekend. I even spent some quality time w/ various coworkers outside of work. Jason and I went to two bars, with people! This weekend James and Raven's held an amazing craft party. I bought one of Raven's bags, which is made from a shirt and tie, and is quite rockin'. Also, a magnet of a giant robotic cat eating the Space Needle. I'm assuming it's a robot - why else would a cat be that big, with a perfectly round head?

Speaking of cats, Sara turned me on to the Average Joe Cat Show. While not a cat fanatic, I am fond of the little furballs. They have a video contest, and I think I have just the one to submit! And... this is sad... I recently found out that I missed Alpacapalooza, which I was really looking forward to. Maybe this will help me get rid of that 'need to touch furry creatures' need that I get sometimes. I would take an Alpaca over a cat any day.

My pal Science makes me laugh.

So - software news of the century! Adobe is buying Macromedia! Oh my God! This is crazy. This is like Dracula buying Frankenstein. Here are a few of my predictions:

- Goodbye Freehand, hello Illustrator w/ an automatic fractal button.
- The creature we know as ImageReady will become the lovechild of ImageReady and Fireworks.
- GoLive will vanish. Dreamweaver and Flash will get makeovers. Flash will be able to import things from Adobe quite nicely.
- Premiere will export directly as a Flash movie.
- Acrobat integration like nobody's business.
- Everything will run twice as slow.

I'm bummed that the two giant creative software companies are merging, since now we're completely at their mercy for future software (for the most part). I'm also bummed that the end results of their software will be super bloated. However, it will be nice to see Flash integrated into everything... God, I'm so mad at both those companies right now for how bloated their software has become. I'm still on strike against Photoshop CS.

The Adobe conference next month should be pretty interesting now. Ok, enough nerd talk...

This weekend I had a flash of anxiety about being too socially inept, as per this extremely true article. Thanks for ruining the development of my social skills, Seattle.

WaMu is pissing me off. I wrote them quite the angry letter. So did Andrea, you go girl!

This weekend I'm off to Hermiston and Wallowa... homes to famous watermelons and people I went to high school with, respectively. I'm really looking forward to this break. Clean air! The air is so clean back at home. I wish I could bottle it... wait, I can! Maybe I'll bottle some air.