THINGS I WISH MY KIDS WOULD ASK ME
Editor's note: Barry Courter has a 21-year-old son who is a junior in college and a 16-year-old daughter.
Q: Dad, how will I know when it is the right time to get married?
A: This one's a toughy. One thing is if it feels like you are rushing, or being rushed to hurry up and get married, you might want to take a non-emotional, non-hormonal look at why. I don't know a sure-fired way to know the time is right, but you will get your first positive clue on your first wedding anniversary. You'll have a better idea on your tenth, and you can feel pretty certain you made the right decision on your 50th. That's not meant to be as cynical as it sounds either. Marriage is a huge decision.
-- Barry Courter
BLOG WATCH
Wirefly, a site that sells cell phones and plans, recently announced the winners of its first blog awards. The site says it created these kudos to recognize the smaller sites serving "as the front lines in educating and informing consumers about wireless industry." More than 15,000 people voted for their favorites across five categories. The winners are:
* Best Android blog: Phandroid.com
* Best BlackBerry blog: Crackberry.com
* Best cell-phone news blog: TmoNews.com
* Best cell-phone review blog: PhoneDog.com
* Best WindowsMobile blog: PocketNow.com
SCREEN SCENE
NOW SHOWING: "MacGruber"
It's been awhile since the last Saturday Night Live-inspired movie and it could be a whole lot longer until the next one if MacGruber fails to blow up at the box office. (That means that all of you jonesing for a Gilly movie had better buy a ticket to MacGruber on opening day.) Will Forte reprises his role as the clueless crime-fighter who is tapped by the U.S. government to battle an evil genius played by a bloated Val Kilmer. Kristen Wiig and Ryan Phillippe co-star. -- Ethan Alter
-- McClatchy Newspapers
POP PICKS
ARTIST OF THE WEEK: LCD Sound System, "This is Happening" (CD)
The King of the Indie Dance Floor completes a remarkable triloth style and smarts, crafting an album as spellbinding and addictive as anything he's released in the past while taking ardent liberties with the approach he uses with his familiar-by-now manic dance-punk hysteria. Indeed, James Murphy has created an album that may in fact go on to help surmise and define the outset of the decade in popular music. -- Anthony Lombardi
READ: "Captain America: Who Won't Wield the Shield?"
With characterizations of Eisner-Award winner Ed Brubaker as mistaking colleague Jason Aaron for the coffee-guy (in the slick, unplugged Hollywood-operator kind of way), the insertion of Matt Fraction's Ditko-esque vision of Cap as Doctor America, Occult Operative of Liberty pastiche, and Stuart Moore's 'reboot' of Deadpool as the Golden Age anti-terror operative "Veapon Manji" (the reversed swastika), "Who Won't Wield the Shield?" is just good clean fun. Jason Aaron has penned what is conceivably the funniest satire of Marvel writers, editors and fans yet. -- shathley Q
-- PopMatters.com
TECH TALK
One of the most fascinating trends right now is the movement of many folks to prepaid cell phones. Where once any cell phone plan was expensive and a bit hard to get, you can now get a perfectly fine cell phone and prepaid service for as little as seven cents per minute, including reasonable costs for texting. One writer on zdnet.com recently made the point that even prepaid plans will eventually offer extended web access and other features not available from them today. -- Donnie Jenkins