To my adoring fans

Several of you have noted that I haven't updated in a few days. So, my humblest apologies to my adoring fans.

I can't really explain my absence to the reading public, except to say that I've been to a couple of Angels games and have been doing my damnedest to fill up my 60 GB hard drive with music. (At present I have 5204 songs, which translates to 18.87 GB of disk space, or 13 days, 22 hours, 46 minutes and 58 seconds of music. That's right, I can go listen to my entire library for two weeks without repeating a track.)

My dad watches entirely too much bad TV. When he isn't force-feeding the rest of the house TechTV, I must suffer through innumerable reality shows. It's rather disheartening to see my father, a man I think has some intelligence, wasting so much time of his life on such drivel. All I can do is shake my head in disbelief.

Les NASCARs???

Evidently Major League Baseball has the solution to one of its most pressing problems. Atlanta Braves broadcaster Pete Van Wieren just suggested to his partner in the booth, Skip Caray, in all seriousness, that they purchase the Montreal Expos and relocate them to Macon, Ga.!

This would, as they point out, have the advantage of giving the Braves a natural rival. Certainly not Northern Virginia/Washington D.C. nor Portland, Ore., nor San Juan, Puerto Rico, can offer such an "advantage." Of course, how Macon would be an improvement over the stadium and attendance problems hounding the franchise in Montreal is beyond me. That is, aside from the fact that it has a better-named hockey team, the Macon Whoopee. I'm serious. Take that, Montreal Canadiens.

We now know that TBS stands for "The Broadcasters Suck."

Feeling California

I gotta get out of this place
If it's the last thing I ever do

It's becoming rapidly apparent that it's time to sever ties with Southern California. Sure, I still have family here, so I'm not just going to get the hell out of Dodge and never return. But I feel increasingly like that's all that binds me to this place. That and a couple of sports teams.

This will come as something of a surprise to my parents to hear that I don't want to hang around home anymore, but it's just reality. I suppose I could find a job here; I don't really know, as I haven't bothered looking for anything here. But despite the benefits of living at home and cutting expenses for a year or two, thus building up some savings, I have no incentive to stick around. Yes, it's my childhood home, but that's precisely the problem. I'm sort of an adult now.

I need a place and life of my own, independent from my parents. But even that's not the main issue. The fact of the matter is, it'd be stifling, stultifying to live here for another year or two. All I would do is work (assuming I find a job), then come straight home, call my friends in other parts of the country, then got to bed so I could repeat the routine ad infinitum. That wouldn't be particularly fulfilling, and I think it'd gradually kill me, cause my brain to atrophy, drive me insane. Any and all of those.

Argh.

Muse?

I'm thinking of becoming quasi-serious about writing something literary in nature, hopefully of actual literary merit as well.

Does anyone have any useful tips for how to go about this process? I'm not thinking Russian anecdote (a couple of hundred pages or so) in length, more like a novella or short play.

I have only vague ideas in my mind about the sorts of things I'd like to write about, chiefly something of a dissident nature. But I'm wondering if anyone can recommend ways of getting underway, aside from sketching out some rough ideas and trying to piece together a clearer picture. Any help will be welcome.

Blah

I just want to wake up tomorrow and have it be some day other than tomorrow. Not that I anticipate something terrible befalling me on the 22nd of July, per se. It's more that I just don't want today to continue into tomorrow and so on and so forth.

No, I'm not in a drug-induced stupor. Any stupidity is 100 percent all natural.

I just don't want to keep continuing on this journey. The destination (uncertain and intangible it may be) is worthwhile; I've started from a good place. But the means and the end just don't seem to be suiting me.

I can't seem to figure out much in terms of what I want to do for the next year or two, beyond the highly abstract "find a decent, tolerable job in Chicago and get into Stanford and Berkeley for grad school." But getting there is the battle. I don't know what that decent, tolerable job in Chicago is. Or rather, I don't know if it's available, or attainable for me.

This much I do know:

1) I want to live in Chicago. Colleen will be there, as will be Joe.

2) I want to utilize my research and writing skills, which appear to be my biggest selling points.

3) I want to live above the poverty line, preferrably making enough to tuck a little away for rainy days in grad school.

4) The jobs that combine all these aspects don't really exist. Or rather, they aren't open. And if they were open, somehow I'm not the best qualified for them because I don't have years of experience, or even a measly summer internship or two to my credit because I had to save money for school during the summer and thus couldn't afford such a luxury.

5) I'm absolutely at my wit's end with this.

I just can't convey how frustrating this is. I mean, I feel completely hopeless about ever finding a job that meets one of those criteria. It's getting to where it's not even a matter of settling for something less than ideal; I'm afraid I'm going to have to work retail or wait tables if I want to bring in some income in the next year or two. It's just getting to the point where I want to scream.

AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!

That's better. But seriously, it sucks to be a recent grad in this market. And it sucks to have made career plans that don't really involve being on the open market more than a year or two, and only as a sort of interlude between stops in academia.

My fear of failure is very real and at the moment seems quite justified. I can't even get most places to reply to me to say that they aren't interested or don't have openings for me. Even after pestering some would-be employers, I can't get this much out of them. So it's not exactly like I've been lining up interviews and making valuable contacts and coming oh-so-close to landing a job. The whole experience is making me feel like I'm hopelessly underqualified to do anything, and that's not exactly helping matters.

What if I can't get a job? What if I end up living at home for another six months, or a year, or worse? And what happens if I strike out in attempts to get into grad school? What then? I haven't exactly prepped myself for such a bleak scenario, but this nasty sort of self-doubt continues to creep into the back of mind. Counterbalancing that, of course, is the solace I can take in knowing that I'm very good at what I do academically, and that I have nothing but positive recommendations from my professors. Hopefully that will at least mean something for the grad school application process, since it means beans right now.

And so there's not a lot for me to do. Every day, I rise, I check all the listing sites I can find, I prepare cover letters and send out my resume when appropriate, I try to find other organizations, other job listing sites. But what more can I do? I suppose I could try searching beyond Chicago, but that doesn't seem particularly appealing. I just don't know at what point I should legitimately begin to lose hope, since it's a little early in the game for that now.

But it really does haunt me. These worries dog me persistently, and they won't let me feel completely at ease with myself until I can eliminate them altogether.

Unpacked

I've been back in the SoCal again but two weeks and a day, so I know you'll all be shocked to hear that I'm already unpacked!!!!

Well, almost. I still have to put away my computer speakers, a desktop foosball set and the boxes to my new computer and associated peripherals, and try to pawn my stereo off on an unsuspecting friend for a while so that its storage becomes someone else's problem. But, that's a far cry from where everything was at, oh, 3 p.m. today.

Trouble is, all my junk just sat unattended in the middle of the living room floor before today. Several suitcases and miscellaneous pieces of luggage cluttered our usually anti-minimalist living room floor. It wasn't my (or I'm sure my parents') original intention to leave my college-era crap in a post-modern arrangement prominently occupying our one area of livable space. Unfortunately, there just isn't any place for it.

See, when I graduated high school four long years ago, my paternal grandmother sold her home in Michigan and moved in with us. Her bedroom, located next to mine, had formerly been the guest room. Of course, this meant that 99 percent of the time it served as the family pile o' junk, and the other 1 percent we spent frantically emptying it of all contents so we could house actual guests.

My family had already been cramped for storage space by the time of this development. At some point during my high school years, my parents had a mini "barn" -- really just a barn-shaped shed -- installed on the concrete slab behind the house. This worked wonders, allowing us to get rid of our storage unit and move our clutter to the backyard, where it could be haphazardly piled out of site and in a place that wouldn't need to be cleared out in the unlikely event of company.

But, our hodgepodge of crap violates several laws of physics, in particular that whole conservation of matter bit, so despite our expanded storage horizons we continued to accumulate junk and with the arrival of my grandma saw the demand for our puny allotment of storage space fall grossly out of equilibrium with our ever-skyrocketing supply of junk. (Now with 50 percent more new, Michigan junk!)

My parents acted swiftly, decisively, and with tremendous courage, moral fortitude and foresight in this time of grave family crisis. That's right, they had another shed built in the backyard. This one wasn't quaintly shaped like a barn, but was more your run-of-the-mill, big-ass storage shed, erected behind the garage on a slab of concrete specially poured for the occasion. The addition of the second shed helped ease the mounting tensions that menaced nuclear war in our quiet tract home. Furthermore, this intervention even got my parents short-listed for the 1999 Nobel Peace Prize, but they got shafted as the Royal Academy opted instead to award it to Doctors Without Borders. Sure, like delivering life-saving medical treatment in active war zones trumps staving off would-be apocalypse in suburbia. But I digress. . . .

The junk/storage conundrum seemed to have reached an impasse at this point. My room, which had been so magnificently spartan shortly before I left for college, saw a steady encroachment of crap, principally my mom's quilting paraphenalia, as she'd taken to using it for a sewing room while I was away at school. That didn't prove too destablizing, however, though I resented my executive desk being reduced to such a use.

No, the real trouble began when I returned to school for my senior year last fall. My parents accompanied me back to Chicagoland to help move me in, and on the same trip went down to Indiana to move my maternal grandfather out. He now occupied my bedroom, and while we didn't diversify our collection with a lot of Indiana junk, his arrival did inaugurate a decisive confrontation in the combat between clutter and space.

Since my grandpa doesn't squeeze in and out of tight spaces with the greatest of ease anymore, my mom decided it'd be best if he moved into my room. I didn't (and still don't) mind this much. More accurately, it doesn't bother me when I'm away from home and wholly unaffected. I don't resent it even now, when I'm living under my parents' roof again. But it does kind of complicate the storage situation a bit.

What space to expand I once had in my room is now completely gone. Access to my closet and desk have been virtually sealed off by the deployment of myriad medical supplies. And compounding this situation is that the room I now inhabit, formerly my dad's room/the back bedroom/that other room piled ceiling-to-floor with useless old crap is, well, piled ceiling-to-floor with useless old crap. And now my useful new crap has to go there, too.

Thus the delay in getting unpacked. I finally decided to show some initiative on this front today (I've been showing all kinds of initiative this week; if I wake up tomorrow and discover I've been turned into June Cleaver, don't be surprised and please shoot me). Unloading the luggage proved surprisingly less painful than first suspected. There wasn't too much crap stuffed into any one suitcase, so I made pretty good time. Problems arose, as expected, when I had to find new homes for my not-so-neatly piles arranged radially in the living room.

A scant few things made their way into my desk. The luggage was banished to the rafters and entryway of the behind-garage shed. My stereo has since discovered a hiding place beneath the table in the living room. But everything else pretty much needed to go in my new room, and that wasn't happening so fast.

Putting off the inevitable as long as possible, I finally hunkered down into the no man's land shortly after 2 a.m. Deciding that I needed more space than a narrow walkway to the bed (like an even narrower walkway along the foot of the bed), I began rearranging the room in a manner sure to make even a hardened criminal like Martha Stewart cry. My technique was twofold: first, build onto existing piles of crap, like one already occupying an entire corner; then, when unable to reach higher, toss lighterweight junk on top of the heap, repeating the process as necessary until the crap stays precariously balanced atop its mountainous perch. Using these time-honored methods, I managed to create that elusive footpath at the end of the bed and cleared off perhaps one-third of the desktop beside my bed. Good enough for me.

Eat your heart out, Martha.

Monty Python's Life of Mom

I got to play Mom today. More accurately, I learned just how much work goes into running a household for the day. With both of my parents off on Day 1 of the annual Southern California Quilters Run (a sort of tour de quilt shops), I was left in charge of the house, its two dogs and two senior citizens.

That seemed like a simple enough task. I didn't think anything special of it, since I figured it'd just involve fixing a couple of meals (if you can count microwaving frozen food for lunch as "fixing a meal") and running my grandma to her appointment at the DMV. Both of my grandparents spend the lion's share of their time in their respective rooms, usually asleep or dozing off. It seemed like I'd have a couple of chores, but plenty of free time, so I allowed myself to sleep till almost noon and thought I'd be in for an easy day.

Sorely mistaken. Sure, it got off to an inauspicious start. After I woke, I noticed both of my grandparents were in their rooms, so I came into the kitchen, grabbed a pack of Pop Tarts to eat, poured myself a glass of tea, and sat down to read the paper and do my morning Web trolling. Simple enough. After finishing this, I took a shower and got dressed. A day like any other. I was used to fixing frozen rib sandwiches for my grandpa's lunch; this would be a breeze.

When I returned to the kitchen, I saw that my grandma had wandered in and already scooped herself a bowl of seafood salad for lunch. This was even less work than I thought! I carried her bowl over to the kitchen table, poured her a glass of milk, and turned to two of my recently assumed tasks, emptying the dishwasher and making a pitcher of iced tea. By the time I finished those, my grandma had finished eating, so I cleared her dishes and when she returned to her room, staked out lunch for myself. I settled for a frozen Philly cheesesteak. Not nearly so good as the real thing, but a passable facsimile.

After my sandwich finished nuking, I decided that I wasn't using the defrost setting on the microwave quite correctly, so I decided to call my parents on the cell phone. They had called while I was in the shower, so I figured it'd be good to phone anyway to assure them everything was running smoothly. As my mom explained the microwave's defrost controls to me, my grandpa emerged from his morning slumber, which meant lunch time for him. I suggested the special du jour, rib sandwich, he assented, and I set to nuking that. In the interim my parents crossed into a valley and lost reception on the cell phone, though this was unbeknownst to me at the time. When the phone rang again a moment later, I answered without checking the caller ID, thinking it was them calling back. Nope. A telemarketer, of course. Someone from Verizon. Ignoring them, I returned to my grandpa's rib sandwich, which had finished in the microwave, and set to pour him a glass of milk to go with it. In the middle of that, a UPS driver came to the door. I frantically tried to finish pouring the milk in time to answer the door, but she left the packages on the doorstep anyway. Keeping my cool, I retrieved them, delivered one to my grandma and placed the other on its perch with the other medical supplies for my grandpa, and at last set down to enjoy my cheesesteak. I had been a bit rushed, but wasn't fazed by it.

After lunch I decided to be über-responsible and did a load of my laundry. Having figured out the family washer as best I could (yes, I did laundry on my own for four years at college, but the machines there had three simple, straightforward settings, whereas ours had dozens and required guestimation I wasn't accustomed to), I allowed myself some quality time with the computer, trying to mount the family desktop on my computer so I could copy over Retrospect Express, the program used in this household for backing up our machines. Of course, this showed no interest in working, and my feeble efforts to try to locate the source of my difficulty (yes, both file sharing and AppleTalk were on) proved futile. While I was at the desk checking the settings on the family machine, my grandma re-emerged, ready to be driven to the DMV, and sat in my chair at the kitchen table, denying me access to the computer. So I ferried her out to the car, a very long endeavor since she moves pretty slowly now, which is why she's chosen to give up driving and was going to have an ID card issued to replace her driver's license. I then had to rush back in the house to load her walker in the backseat of the car and race off to the DMV to make her appointment.

Now, having an appointment at the DMV is nothing like having an appointment at the doctor's office. At the optometrist, say, you might have to wait 10 or 15 minutes, but at least there's a nice air-conditioned waiting area with ample comfy chairs and a quality selection of somewhat-current magazines to peruse. By contrast, the DMV greets you with a line stretching out the door and creeping toward the parking lot. I didn't worry, as my grandma had an appointment, and we didn't have to wait in this line. I thought we just had to waltz right past those poor souls waiting in that interminable line for the directory, proceed straight to Window 38, take care of our business, strut right back out, bada boom, bada bing. As we (slowly) made our way through the sea of standees to the elusive Window 38 way in the back, we noticed a long line emanating from that direction. I told my grandma to stand in it while I checked ahead, and -- what do you know? -- that was the line for Window 37. Suckers. Of course, when I asked at Window 38, they told me their line was for road tests only (originally, I was going to take my grandma to the DMV last week so she could fail her road test, but the day of her appointment she decided to abandon the pursuit of motoring altogether, but no one had informed me Window 38 was no longer our happenin' place to be), and for IDs we would have to wait in -- yes, you guessed it -- that endless queue snaking out the door, around the corner, through the parking lot, across the plains states and terminating somewhere in Nunavut. Oh, but someone would come through the line to find the people with "appointments".

Thinking it stupid to have my elderly, tortoise-speed grandmother go all the way back out to the parking lot to stand in line for hours, I decided to scout out the person who looked like they were entrusted to locate people with appointments. When she saw that my grandmother was in no shape to suffer in that queue, she got her the appropriate form and a number (see, by "appointment" the DMV actually means "you'll take a number from a different set") and led her to a window counter where she could sit and complete the paperwork. When she finished that, the man working the window tended to her, processed the paperwork, assessed her the whopping $3 fee and sent us to the line for Window 37 (here we go again), which mercifully had dwindled to (almost) nothing in the intervening minutes. When we got there, the kind woman working the window saw my grandmother's physical limitations and directed her to the front of an already short line, had her jump through the appropriate hoops, and that was that. We were in and out of the DMV in about half an hour, which is pretty damn fast by DMV standards.

On the way back, out of evident appreciation for braving the DMV's three-ring circus and sideshow, my grandma had me stop at Dairy Queen so she could treat me to a milkshake. Of course, this may have also been so she could buy a box of sugar-free Dilly bars for herself. One can never be sure of such things.

Back at home, after switching my clothes to the dryer (much more user friendly) and with both seniors returned to their rooms (and presumably down for their naps), I decided to relax a bit and watch the idiot box. Oops! Seems my dad, not wanting to miss hours of quality programming, had set the Tivo-like device on our satellite receiver to record the hours of regularly scheduled programming he'd miss while escorting my mother to the collected quilt shops of Southern California. This meant I could not change channels without terminating his recording. Tempting though that was, I opted against spite and plied myself instead with a game of Literati against Colleen. It was a glorious game. I used all my letters to make "weakness" and nab 57 points on my first turn, and I think it pretty much just kept going like that from there.

About midway through our game, however, it came to be time for me to undertake the most challenging and significant task of the day, fixing dinner. Having never cooked a full meal or single dish without adult supervision, this proved rather daunting. I called Colleen to get some needed guidance (like "fill the pot with water" and "turn on the stove to get the water boiling") and had her talk me through it all. I am proud to say that I succeeded in making tortellini with meat sauce, a can of corn (cursed right-handed can openers) and a plate of Texas Toast. Doing all these things at once without any physical help (as much as Colleen aided my sauce-making by phone, she refused to cross the country to set the table), along with setting the table, summoning the seniors and not burning down the house proved quite frenetic and taxing. But it turned out well. My grandma didn't even realize I had done the cooking when she first sat down, or that my parents were still gone. And both grandparents complimented me on my efforts, though perhaps they were just trying to be nice. I for one thought my sauce, specifically the meat, was a lacking a certain something, some spices or seasonings to make it just right. But it worked.

After dinner I cleared the table and washed the heap of dishes I had managed to dirty in the process. Then I retrieved my laundry and walked both dogs simultaneously. This was quite a "fun" process, as Toby likes to pull me along, whereas Doodle needs to be pulled along, so I got nice and hyperextended. But it worked. When I returned I dried the dishes and put them away, and finished cleaning the kitchen.

Satisfied with a hard day's work, I sat down in the living room to see that nothing was on, except that my dad was still recording crap, this time, to be specific, the latest installment of "Big Brother 4". It continues to amaze me how many people watch "reality" TV, and just how much of this genre is watched in my house. It's truly appalling. So, that was again a lost cause until 9 p.m., when I was finally able to watch the last half hour or so of a taped soccer match before my parents finally returned. They hadn't eaten dinner yet, so they tried some of my leftovers and liked it. I think my mom's going to die of shock if I keep doing all the miscellaneous chores around the house I've taken to this week. I'm becoming nice and domesticated.

One thing I've learned from today, however, is that being a homemaker is hard work. I really appreciate what my mom, and every mom, has to do, day in, day out, just to keep things from falling apart.

Here's to you, Mom.

All apologies

Your forgiveness, please, for not writing yesterday. (Strange, isn't it, that I'd be apologizing for missing a day when I used to frequently go a week or more between entries.)

I really meant to write something last night, but for some inexplicable reason my net connection crapped out around 1:30, and with no signs of life by 2:30, I gave up and went to bed.

Fox evidently has a new series due out next month called "The O.C.", which can only be based on the Orange Curtain, behind which I was born, raised and (regrettably) again reside. I'd like to elaborate more on this sure-to-be masterpiece of the silver screen, but Fox's site doesn't want to cooperate. So I'll speculate on what this plot might be instead.

Picture the Jack Black classic "Orange County" to get a sense of the scenery: Million-dollar homes in the hills, kids driving $40,000 cars to high school, new depths of family dysfunctionalism. This is very much true to life. Not my life, maybe, but if one were to attempt to describe the Orange County experience in 100 words or less, that would be it.

Now, since Hollywood screen writers lack a grasp of reality *unintentional reality TV pun alert* they'll ascribe to the protagonists of this fair series a level of intellect and character unbefitting of anyone actually from the O.C. So while the soap opera (and could it be anything but a soap opera in Drama Queen Capital of the World Orange County?) centers on the quest of a small group of "outsiders" (only in the O.C. can "outsiders" be popular, win election to Homecoming Court, etc.) to find teen-age redemption, the show will be doing a disservice to the rest of the world. That's right, no sense whatsoever of the utter vapidity -- it truly does boggle the mind -- that characterizes 99 and 44/100ths of the high school crowd in the O.C. In other words, people are going to think far too highly of the folks who hail from here.

Now, I might come across as sounding a bit jaded, but frankly, how can I not? I mean, I watched "Orange County" with great excitement, amazed that Hollywood would produce such a startling exposé. But in the end, I was sorely disappointed. Redemption from Orange County? Redemption in Orange County?! Puh-leese! If a movie were to be true to life, the only means of redemption in Orange County is probably to jump off a cliff into the surf of Dana Point and kill yourself. Either that or to leave town. (My preferred route.) But no one redeems themselves by rejecting the outside world in favor of Orange County. No one.

You look at all the known Orange County success stories. We're going to ignore musicians, since they're part of the dissident subculture, though unfortunately embraced and co-opted by the mainstream, and the Anaheim Angels, who really don't belong to the culture. The people who spring to mind when I think of people who've overcome their O.C. roots to attain greatness are all people who jumped ship at the first sign of land. There's the Gramulous One -- who also scores major points for being distantly related to John Reed, the only American buried in the Kremlin -- and Comrade Peter, both of whom moved away. I'd like to think of myself as another phoenix who has risen from the ashes of the Orange Curtain, but then, I'm still living here. How pathetic.

To wit, "The O.C." will misrepresent life in Orange County. Most of the people who live in the O.C. won't get "The O.C." because they're too shallow to understand "Stupid Behavior Caught on Tape 6", let alone "The O.C." Finally, because the appeal of the O.C. barely extends beyond the O.C., "The O.C." will fare miserably in ratings and fail to survive its summer of crap.

My handicap: a half-dozen shows before they pull the plug on "The O.C." Hopefully even less time till I get to pull my plug on the O.C.

Moral of the story: I shouldn't attempt cultural critiques at 4 a.m. I can be much more scathing when I have my wits about me.

There's no liberal bias in football!

Not anymore. Thanks to ESPN, pigskin fans don't have to miss out on an opportunity to bash bleeding hearts on Sundays. That's right, Rush Limbaugh will be joining the team at "Sunday NFL Countdown", ostensibly "to provide the voice of the fan and spark debate on the show".

Puh-leese.

First, if they really want to give fans a voice, why don't they got ask Johnny Sixpack at a sports bar or stadium tailgate for his thoughts on why the J-E-T-S SUCK-SUCK-SUCK. Frankly, few NFL fans outside of the Republican National Committee can identify with Limbaugh beyond blindly assenting to the drivel that spews from his piehole.

Second, most sports shows don't suffer from a dearth of debate. While no one should operate heavy machinery while listening to a couple of ex-jocks pontificate on the relative merits and drawbacks of the 4-3 and 4-6 defenses, I think most would agree that we need someone like Limbaugh to liven things up. I mean, it's not like anyone's stupid enough to tune into "Sunday NFL Countdown", expecting to see Dick Gephardt and Howard Dean going toe-to-toe on prescription drug coverage in Medicare. (Incidentally, this debate hinges on exactly the same arguments as the aforementioned 4-3 vs. 4-6 discussion.)

What ESPN has neatly done is given Limbaugh an opportunity to inject subtle -- strike that: subtlety seems a bit of a stretch for someone of Limbaugh's oratorical talent -- jibes at Democrats during a football show. Congratulations. You've politicized America's most popular sport.

It's a good thing I always mute the TV when I watch football. I always claimed no football commentator had ever said anything insightful, and ESPN has neatly substantiated my claim.

So there, did I blow this sufficiently out of proportion? :P

We distort ... and decide!

Why do the news media suck so much? How the hell can the media be termed "liberal"? Since when was it sound journalism for news programs to plug entertainment?

These are the sorts of questions I fear most Americans don't ask nearly often enough. And I worry that the erosion of the core values of society's supposed "Fourth Estate" will proceed apace, now that the patron saint of journalism ethics (and I might add a good friend and a fine human being) Dick Schwarzlose has died. But that's a tangent for another day.

I just found myself really dumbstruck by what passes for news these days.

OK, I should preface this diatribe by saying it's targeted mainly at television, though other media shouldn't consider themselves fully immune to such criticisms.

It blew my mind that I could watch the midday news on the local NBC affiliate (watching TV news is always a mistake) and see a segment with the male anchor interviewing four of the contestants (that is the proper term for someone who competes on one of these ridiculous reality TV games, no?) from "For Love or Money 2", which, not coincidentally, happened to have its season debut that same night on that same network.

Now, I realize cross-promotion is an inescapable fact of life in this era of the great media octopus where a handful of corporations control all of the media outlets known to Average Joe. But what I saw later on this same "newscast" (there didn't seem to be a particular emphasis on "news", so perhaps "variety show" would've been a better moniker) truly horrified me. OK, the male anchor interviews four bachelors; it's fairly innocuous. But then for the segment on getting your junk food fix without blowing your diet, they had the female anchor interviewing the woman diet expert in studio. It just frustrates me to see such an endless perpetuation of age-old sexist gender roles. And what's even more bothersome is that maybe a handful of other people watching the show, if that many (I hope anyone else with enough sense to make the same observation didn't bother watching), likely noticed how there was something offensively stereotypical about the woman being concerned with maintaining her cover girl physique.

By the way, I couldn't tell you anything about what went on in Washington today, or a single major international news story. But I now know that if I'm craving a candy bar but don't want my tummy to pay for it, I should choose Three Musketeers because it's only 8 grams of fat. Or better yet, share it with a friend and get just 4 grams of fat!

I feel much better informed of what's going on in the world. Don't you?

3146 and counting

I rather like my new computer.

My parents got me a brand-spanking-new 12-inch PowerBook (the Yao Ming model) for graduation, and it finally arrived this week. Now, I know you're all saying that I should've been posting to my blog more, not less frequently, since having this beautiful new beast of a machine presumably would facilitate that process. But, having a nice, ass-kicking, 60 GB hard drive to fill has proven quite a challenge, one that has (and continues) to occupy much of my time.

I spent three days ripping my entire music collection -- about 225 CDs and another 100 or so mp3s acquired over the years. Why, you might ask, didn't I just copy the mp3s I had ripped of everything in my collection at the end of last summer? Because iTunes 4 supports AAC, a fantastic new file standard that compresses slightly smaller than mp3, and with slightly higher quality. So, the 3146 songs I packed in my collection occupied a whopping 11.2 GB of my monster hard drive. That is, of course, almost 2 GB more than the whole hard drive of my iBook could hold, but has left only a modest dent in my new one. Heck, for what it's worth, I haven't yet managed to fill half the space on my new iPod, which weighs in at an awesome 30 GB. I love it! I'm relishing the fleeting moments when I essentially have the biggest, baddest laptop on the market (I'm going to overlook the PowerBook models with larger displays, and don't consider PCs to be part of this special niche). It won't last, but I love it!

Long time, no write

I suppose I have some explaining to do.

My prolonged layoff from these pages has a perfectly valid reason. Really. Life has just been crazy and hectic and busy and difficult beyond belief lately.

Things were already less than golden about three weeks ago. Presumably I've given some indication of that in this space (I don't remember and don't feel like checking to see what I last wrote), but for miscellaneous reasons things could've been quite a bit better.

Then, Dick died. He was the best teacher I've ever had, and also the only educator I've really related to on a more personal level. Dick was "Mr. Ethics" -- the authority on media and journalism ethics and integrity, at least in this country, and around the world, so far as I could tell.

But Dick was also down to earth and accessible in ways other teachers aren't. I've never so much as had a cup of coffee, let alone lunch or dinner with another teacher or professor. But meeting for dinner or lunch was something I did with Dick at least once, sometimes twice a quarter. And he always bought. No matter how often I or my other friends (namely Joe and Billy) insisted, he wouldn't let us treat him, just once, or even pay our own way. The last time we had lunch together, he wouldn't let me treat him, even though I really wanted to do so, saying something about how he had plenty of money and we were all starving college students or struggling to make it on our own, and somehow, it just didn't seem right to him to let us pay when he could afford to do so without batting an eye. That's just the kind of guy he was.

Another thing that differentiated Dick from all other teachers was the way he sincerely valued students' opinions on everything. When we had lunch that last time, he grilled me to know where I got my news, what Web sites I read regularly to stay informed. And he was perpetually asking my opinions about current issues in the media or politics, often he'd scribble notes for his own reference. He kept his pulse on things better than anyone. And, I'll definitely miss shooting the bull or sharing my two cents with him.

The news about Dick came while my cousin Kyle was visiting from California, making good on his longstanding promise to visit me a college by showing up for the week before my graduation. Hosting Kyle was fun; it was probably the best time for him to visit since I didn't have class or work and wanted to see and do a lot of stuff in Chicago myself. But, it contributed to the chaos in my life.

It was fun, though. We went to a beer garden on Navy Pier that kicked off Senior Week (the beer garden sucked, but at least we got transportation to and from and some free food). We also went to a White Sox game, then hit the Adler Planetarium, the Sears Tower and Pizzeria Due, all fine Chicago landmarks (and other that Due, places I'd never been myself, though the service at the pizzeria sucked).

Compounding this madness, my 12-year-old cousin Andrew had surgery right before Senior Week to correct the curvature of his spine. His back surgery went well, but he experienced complications later that night, and only got worse. I flew down to Indianapolis one morning to visit him, and he didn't look good. He had all kinds of tubes and machines connected to him and was badly puffed up, apparently because his kidneys had stopped working and he was on dialysis. At that point he was showing signs of improvement, however, so everyone was optimistic that he'd make a full, albeit long and slow recovery.

I drove back up to E-town the next morning with my parents to begin partaking in all the graduation stuff. There was Honors Day and the history department's reception, where I learned I didn't win the department thesis prize, but evidently came in second. It was some consolation, though I could certainly have used the $400 cash prize that came with it. Friday was commencement and Saturday was convocation, where I finally got that piece of paper I'd been working toward the past four years, or so I thought. Turns out, because I had several grades not released till days before graduation, they hadn't expected me to finish with honors so high as I had: magna cum laude, thank you very much. So, I have a diploma and await a new one with full honors in the mail.

The day after convocation, I rode back to Erie, Penn., with Colleen and her parents for a week of vacation and fun. It was a long drive, but not too bad, considering that the van's electrical system and air conditioning were not working at full capacity. There was a nice reward at the end of the journey, though, namely some delicious deep-fried turkey and the experience of being put under the microscope by innumerable aunts, uncles, cousins, parents, grandparents, etc. But, Colleen's family all seem very nice, and I at least think I avoided embarrassing myself or somehow earning their eternal enmity, both of which are accomplishments in and of themselves.

Monday was nice and laid back. We slept in late (a hallmark of a truly nice, relaxing vacation), ate lunch at Arby's drove to a beach on Presque Isle, saw some of the landmarks of Colleen's life in Erie, then headed home to relax for a couple of hours. That night, her grandparents took us to dinner at a nice seafood restaurant, Smugglers Wharf, where I had some delicious beer-battered perch and we had a nice meal and conversation. We walked around the pier, went up to the observation deck of the Bicentennial Tower (or whatever it's called; I'm not sure I'm not just making that name up).

Tuesday was tremendous fun, as Colleen and I drove to Cleveland to see an Indians game, or more accurately, so I could see Jacobs Field. It truly is a beautiful ballpark, and the most fan-friendly sports venue I've ever seen. We also had some excellent seats, in the lower boxes along the left-field line, where we almost got killed twice by foul balls, but also enjoyed a great perspective to watch the game.

I can't remember what we did Wednesday or Thursday, other than that we got some pepperoni balls (an Erie specialty) and watched some quality TV and movies. I also took advantage of ample access to the family Xbox and FIFA World Cup 2002, which was quite enjoyable.

Friday night we went to Pittsburgh with Colleen's youngest brother, Zach, to see a Pirates game (or, again, really so I could see PNC Park). We got to the stadium a couple of minutes late, and since there was a fireworks spectacular scheduled for after the game, it was actually sold out, though we managed to get three standing room tickets. It wasn't the best way to appreciate the park, but it was still a nifty place. There's a gorgeous view of downtown Pittsburgh and the bridges over the river right behind the stadium, which was just fabulous. And, the fireworks lived up to their billing. I think that's an excellent way to see a ballpark for the first time, but having it illuminated by fireworks. And we got to see a pierogyi race, which I believe trumps the sausage race in Milwaukee, if only because the six-foot-tall parrot mascot of the Pirates leapt from the stands to tackle three of the four racing pierogyies, leaving the fourth in the clear for a victory.

Saturday we headed to Niagara Falls, which marked the first time I'd been to the state of New York. The falls are pretty impressive, and I definitely enjoyed the voyage on the Maid of the Mist, a boat that takes we tourist folk up close to the bottom of the falls, and gets them nicely soaked, despite the spiffy trash bags that pass for ponchos they provide. There were some nice rainbows, and not so nice soakings. But, it definitely cooled us off on a hot day.

After that, we walked across the Rainbow Bridge to Niagara Falls, Canada, where we ate dinner at the Rainforest Cafe and visited the RCMP (that's the Mounties, for those of you unfamiliar with the north-of-the-border parlance) and Hershey stores there. Then we returned to the U.S. side (sadly) and watched the falls at night, when they're illuminated in a rainbow of colors and truly awesome.

Sunday was kind of a nice, lazy day. We hung around the house most of the day, then Colleen and I went back out on Presque Isle and got some ice cream before retiring for the evening.

Monday was a sad, awful day. It began with having to go to Cleveland to leave Colleen for an indefinite time. It may well be two and a half months before we get to see each other again; hopefully not so long, but we can't be sure. And it just got sadder and worse from there.

Instead of going from Midway to O'Hare in Chicago so I could fly home to Los Angeles, as originally planned, I instead had to go to the bus station to get to Indiana because Andrew was fading fast. He had gotten worse the previous week, and by the weekend it became apparent that he wasn't going to make it. I made it to the hospital with my aunt, uncle and cousin a couple of hours after I got in, we said goodbye to Andrew, and I was in the room with my mom, uncle and his mother when Andrew finally died. It's been really sad and difficult these past few days. I just can't convey how difficult it is to have someone close like a cousin die at such a young age. 12 years old. I wouldn't even want to try to convey to someone else how painful this is. The visitation, funeral and burial are all tomorrow. I'm serving as a pallbearer, and it'll be difficult for everyone in our family. I don't know what else to say about it, other than to say that it sucks and this has been the most difficult, trying time of my life.