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I woke up early today to finish reading the final Harry Potter book before leaving for work.

I had to. I was just too close to the end to not finish it before my trip. No spoilers here. I say to those of you who are in Harry Potter denial: You are depriving yourself of the greatest literary series of modern times. Classifying the series as "children's books" or "fantasy" is blasphemous. Harry Potter is THE TRUTH.

Now I need to finish photocopying and packing before I apparate (via Contiental Airlines) to Zurich.

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Scary thought of the day: Matt will be teaching math and computer science to middle school students.

Congratulations, China. American education has taken its final blow, and you now have the opportunity to dominate the world economy. Americans will slowly devolve into neanderthals under Matt's supervision over the next fifty years.

I just got an email from my bank and I can withdraw money in Chinese Yuan already. This should have been a sign...

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Paolo's BIG Freakin' Weekend

It's my last weekend before I'm off to the motherland, aka Italy, to get lost for a few weeks. Am I slightly freaking out? Yes. Am I distracting myself with lots of activities, only to feed procrastination? Yes.

I probably should have started shopping for travel items yesterday, but I instead opted to have dinner with my cousin in Monroe and get a sneak preview of the new Common Market album. Both the pasta and album were quite tasty.

Tonight I'm heading south to Tacoma for band practice and a little socializing. Tomorrow the band is playing a 25th wedding anniversary party (Yes, some older folks actually like rocking out to us) and I'm going to get a round of golf in before playing another show at Hell's Kitchen that night. We're playing with a band called Point Defiance that recently released a crossover single with Snoop Dogg, though I doubt the big D-O double G will be making an appearance. Tacoma's too ghetto.

Sunday I might be heading to EMP during the day with Serg and have some dinner plans before spending most of the evening packing. That gives me Monday night to finish up packing/shopping/researching/practicing toddler-level Italian. I'm heading to Scott's right after work on Tuesday and he's making the ultimate sacrifice of getting me to the airport by 5:30 a.m. on Wednesday to catch my flight.

Did you need to know all of this? No. Did I need to list this out to maintain my own sanity? Yes. Thanks for being an audience, and Happy Friday.

in

OMFG! American Gladiators is returning! According to TVSquad, NBC is now airing commercials for a new season of the show, which previously ran from 1989 to 1997 and has since been glorified in ESPN syndication at odd hours of the night.

If you think you've got the stuff to compete in Joust, The Wall or Powerball against a new generation of steroid-infused Gladiators that go by the names of Laser, Turbo and Nitro, you can download a contestant application here.

Now, let's take a look at a highlight from the old series in which Malibu talks about a recent injury -- and inspires Scott's character indefinitely.