indulge in some quiet time

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Better yet, cartoons seem to have grown up right along with our generation. There's no need to regress to a six-year-old's comprehension level by sitting through the actual Saturday morning cartoon fare served up by the major networks (though hey, if you want to do so, by all means enjoy). Smart, funny animated shows like The Simpsons and Futurama are readily available on DVD and in reruns; buy every volume if you're a serious fan, add a few discs to your video rental queue, or put your TiVo to use. Meanwhile the Cartoon Network's Adult Swim lineup offers a daily block of new cartoon programming aimed precisely at our demographic. Yes, Adult Swim runs during the evenings, but hey, that's what your personal video recorder is for. And even if you don't happen to have cable, chances are good you have buddies who do -- get them to go old-school and tape record your favorite cartoons for you.

Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, this summer, the boy and I snickered our way through the entire first season of Adult Swim's stop-animation series Robot Chicken, a delightfully nutty show that features action figures and claymation creatures doing all sorts of hilariously twisted things. The series normally runs late at night, but as it turns out, Robot Chicken makes for excellent Saturday morning viewing for the quasi-adult set, as its short, sketch-comedy-inspired format means you don't have to pay attention for too long a chunk at a time (good when you're trying to concentrate on your pancakes). Having watched all the Robot Chicken there is to watch, we've now moved on to Samurai Champloo, a quirky anime samurai epic with a hip-hop beat, whose four currently released DVD volumes (with two more soon to arrive) will no doubt keep us happily entertained for quite a few Saturday mornings to come.

Yes, I know, there's something terribly indulgent about spending an entire morning of your precious free weekend time doing nothing more than sitting on the couch. But really, that's the best thing about it -- it's one of the rare moments during each week of our crazy lives where we can let ourselves have a time-out from the real world. So if it's been years since you spent a weekend morning lazing about with breakfast and cartoons, trust me: it's time to revisit that slice of your childhood, and renew the ritual now that you're all grown up.

o

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