Okay Grandma - its your birthday. Time to admit what Ive been telling you for years. O-L-D. Ancient. Grab your cane and take it to the porch - your rocking chair is ready.

I hope today treats you well, and that 24 is better than any of the years preceding it. Youve got some good stuff on the menu already this year, right? I know theres a trip out this way in your future, anyway.

Have a good SuperBowl party this weekend - well have one too, and Ill make everyone have a beer in honor of your advancing age. Everybody - if youre in NYC, go buy Katie a drink!

FHM is doing a pictorial on sexy sports fans and the Eagles are seriously under-represented. And by under-represented, I mean NOT represented at all. Not good. At all.

As sexy as I may be, I cant be in this particular fan round-up, so I appeal to you to find or become a Philadelphia Eagles fan that can get up on that site. Its a matter of team pride, here, people - we need more scantily-clad women proclaiming their devotion to the birds. Hell, the Cowboys even managed to get a fan on there. This can not stand! This MUST NOT stand!

Thank you for your understanding.

Late last night, Emily & I got back from Wayland, the Sylvas and Uncle Russ memorial service. The service itself was simple and unassuming - a very nice remembrance. People got up and told a few of their memories of my Uncle after Jareds moving eulogy, and then we mingled downstairs with friends and family before moving back to the house. I said something awkward and off-the-cuff because Nana & Papa couldnt be there, despite how much theyd loved Uncle Russ. It felt to me as if by telling a story that involved them, regardless of whether I butchered the story.

I know how hard it is to lose a father, a mentor and a friend all in one, and yet I also understand just how personal the experience of that loss can be. Andrew, Emily and I lost an uncle, which is turning out to be yet a different kind of loss. Having loved ones die is tough.

Anyway, it was good to see and spend time with my aunt and my cousins - nothing can erase the loss, but warm memories can give context to the pain. Even Justin & Trish made it over from the Emerald Isle (or is that Britain?), which, despite the loss of their luggage, was great. Its weird - whenever I travel for the weekend, I feel like Im operating at like 60% power because I spend so much of the time tired from losing sleep on the flight over, but even at 60%, its always so worth it to see people that I love.

New week begins. Time to make the best of it.

Andrew found this online and sent it my way - brilliant. By the guys at MonkeyFarmFrankenstein, this is a remix of various Evil Dead movie sounds and video clips and its amazing. Download it from this link, or off their myspace page from the link that says "MFF vs Evil Dead now DOWNLOADABLE!" under the blog section. Great stuff.

The way they use audio pitched up or down, the fact that all three Evil Dead movies are in there... excellent. Thanks to Drew for finding it and thanks to the MFF crew for making it.

I cant update again without mentioning that Uncle Russ passed away on Thursday after fighting cancer for more than two years. Ive been vacillating about whether its appropriate to post this here, but given the nature of the site (ramblings about whatevers on my mind), I feel that itd be dishonest to leave out the biggest event to happen to me in a long time.

Another big part of our close-knit family is gone, and while I can empathize with what Aunt Kip, Jared and Nat are going through, I know that grief is an intensely personal thing and that its different for everyone. I spent Friday researching and buying tickets so we can be in Boston for the memorial service this coming weekend, getting rooms and cars, and generally trying to get things organized as best I could.

Spending summers at the Cape always included time on Uncle Russ boat - learning how to launch a boat from a slip, what it meant to "come around," how to tack, and the joys of letting the sail drop and just floating on the open ocean. Diving from the back of the boats in the later years made a neat bookend with the earliest boats that rode to the Cape on top of the minivan. I was too young to even help lift that boat off the roof rack.

Ill miss you, Uncle Russ, and I just wanted to say that my thoughts are nowhere as strongly as they are with the rest of the family outside of Boston in this tough time. I wish I could be there sooner and stay longer. I do look forward to getting there on Friday - I wish I could do something more, but I understand that theres nothing else. I love you guys.