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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.

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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.

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The "REAL" wedding photos are now posted and located HERE.

I've also taken time to arrange the various wedding photos I've found on MySpace, Facebook, etc., into the most comprehensive amateur/candid collection to date. That's located here.

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Yesterday my team at the office decided to skip out on working. Instead, we went to Lake Sammamish State Park to BBQ and play kickball for a few hours -- not a bad way to start the week.