The last time I checked, this property was listed for $90k.

Also fair to mention: after falling in love — hard — with JWER’s place, I’m considering taking up the TechBalt challenge and moving to Linden Avenue. (Maybe)

this photo is a link, click it

Hitchhiker raked in $21.7 million, according to box office tracker Nielsen EDI. That’s almost $2 million more than expected and made the movie a surprise No. 1

I guess that means a movie about people sticking their thumbs up so big starships would pick them up just got a thumbs up from the movie going audience. Eff yeah!

Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was, in a single word, fantastic. If you haven’t seen it already, you should make plans to go — it totally rocked.

As it was, my dream of a Baltimore Blogger Movie Day fizzled and died. JWER and Messy Hair Girl showed, and that was it. Which was fine, because the rest of you all suck. Suck, I say.

After the film, the three of us drove into Remington, then walked to the Hopkins’ Spring Fair to say hi to BaLtiMoRe RoLL, aka Seadragon. On our way to where she and Brain Coral had staked their position, we happened to bump into Fool and Jason. They hadn’t seen Seadragon, who had apparently gone wandering off in search of sushi. So we parted ways, and me, JWER and MHG sort of parked ourselves a few feet away from the photo tent, when who should come walking up? Yep, Seadragon.

So there was a great deal of hellos and handshaking and then Seadragon showed me a photo she’d taken of that cluster of three-high brick-faced rowhomes on 30th Street. I was all, woohoo, although I do think that last home needs a brighter door - green, maybe? Chiaroscuro apparently wandered through looking at photos, but was then gone super quick. We also got to meet Seadragon’s Mysterious Mister J., who was also super friendly.

After we left the fair, the three of us drove down to see JWER’s rowhome - yes, I brought my camera. Waiting at a light, JWER started squinting at a car two lanes to our left. “That looks like David and Rob … hey, wait, that is David and Rob!” He promptly called David and chided him for not showing up to Hitchiker’s.

JWER’s house is awesome - in need of work, yes, but awesome none the less. And for all that I go on about wanting a parking pad, if I had as beautiful a backyard as he does, hah! No parking pad for me!

No, really, his place is excellent. There’s a huge room to your left when you first enter, and a hallway leading to the kitchen. There are pocket doors - pocket doors! - leading from the large room into the kitchen as well. Stairs run up the right-hand wall. His place is huge, and I was getting a little dizzy on the third floor looking down. What I could do with that space!!!!

Anyway, JWER had to drive down to Annapolis to rescue his brother from the firing squad, so Messy Hair Girl and I headed back into Remington for a late lunch at Dizzy Issie’s … actually, I guess it was nearly four by this time. So we ate, then went upstairs and she totally kicked my ass at pool. I scratched like, thirty times. And if anything, I’m under-exaggerating that.

After a walk around Remington and into Charles’ Village, I drove Messy Hair Girl back to her car and we parted ways. I told her I was going to do some cleaning - yeah, right, who am I kidding? I’m going to play some Battlefield 1942 and watch tv. (Glad I’m predictable!)

“Oh, uh, hi, yeah, no, just … very clean sheets … yes, they’re great to … no, I wasn’t rolling over! I just … fell, yes, that’s it. I fell … well, I don’t know whose cat fur that is, why don’t you ask Guy? … Guy doesn’t have gray fur? Are you accusing me, sir? Are you accusing me, sir?!”

The U.S. military informed Japan that North Korea may have fired a short-range missile toward the Sea of Japan on Sunday morning, Kyodo News service and national broadcaster NHK reported.

The U.S. Embassy in Tokyo and the U.S. military both refused to comment, and an official at the Japanese Defense Agency said he could not confirm the report. The South Korean defense ministry also said it could not confirm the account.

Two defense officials later said that U.S. intelligence analysts believe North Korea is several years away from being able to mount a nuclear warhead on a missile that could reach the United States from the Korean Peninsula.

And as reassuring as that is, let’s all remember how wonderfully accurate U.S. intelligence was on the amounts and whereabouts of Saddam Hussein’s WMD. One has to wonder — if, say, John McCain had been elected President in 2000 — would we have invaded Iraq at all? - after all, Saddam didn’t try to assassinate McCain’s pop - and, if he had to choose one of the Axis of Evil nations to invade, would he have chosen the one that not only is evil but also has as its leader an insane madman rantin’ and ravin’ and claiming to have nukes?

Well, right now, I’m pretty fucking glad I don’t live in Japan.

So this summer, as zombie movies go, we’ve got Tobe Hooper’s Zombies, George A. Romero’s Land of the Living Dead, and now Undead. Excellent.

Some people budget themselves by income, and to an extend, I do that too. But the most important budgeting tool to me is the calendar. There are certain dates by which I must have certain bills mailed, because if I don’t, I’m shortening the window I have to collect for the next batch of bills. See? Like, I mail my credit cards by the 20th — they’re all due between the 26th and the first day of the next month, so by mailing them on the 20th they’re all where they should be before they’re due, and I give myself plenty of time to get money together for the next two dates - the 1st of the month, when I try to mail in my rent and as many utilities as I can, and the 10th of the month, when I mail in my car payment and whatever else I couldn’t get on the 1st.

Bill wise, I’m in great shape this month - or I should say, it’s shaping up to be a good month. It’s May 1st and the only thing I have to worry about is that my rent is due no later than the 5th, and my car insurance gets withdrawn from my account on the 3rd, and I’m about $150 short of what I need to cover them ($835 total) - no worries, I’ll play it safe, mail rent on the 3rd … that way, if I don’t have it covered, I don’t have to fret about getting my insurance cancelled, and only have to pay a measely $32 to the bank for paying the check.

Once I’m over that hump, I’m looking at five-hundred in BGE, phone, cable, and car bills to pay (plus the $100 I owe to my savings account for the last two weeks) — and I hope to have all of that paid for and taken care of by the 10th, at which point I start my drive for my credit cards — I want twelve-hundred smackers to send ‘em.

Here’s to paying down debts, and never-heeded advice from my dad: “Credit cards. Don’t need ‘em, don’t want ‘em.”

Last reminder for those of you not reading blogs this week: Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy at the Rotunda in Hampden, 12:30pm. Hope to see you there.

Bring a towel…