LITTLE BLOG ON THE PRAIRIE



This is Temple, North Dakota, not far from where I spent a good part of last week on assignment. It's heartbreakingly beautiful country, and this was an entirely abandoned town, complete with a ruined school, general store and church, hard along the railroad tracks that run from Chicago to Seattle.

Anyway, just figured I'd post a blog entry from North Dakota. Someone had to. (I would have done it while I was actually there, but my hotel's "business center" -- note the use of sarcastic quote marks -- was closed for my entire stay.)

WHAT THE CICADAS HAVE TAUGHT ME

In what appears to be its 963rd consecutive daily story about the ongoing cicada invasion here in the DC area, the Washington Post trots out a columnist to opine that the "half-blind bugs" (as my 5-year-old calls them) can teach us all Something Important about life. I couldn't read the whole thing without wanting to gouge my own eyes out, but I think it had something to do with cell phones, magnet schools and ajustable rate mortgage refinancing. Valuable lessons, indeed.

But what can we really learn? First, if you work for a major-metro daily, ask to be moved off the cicada beat before they start talking back to you. For the rest of us, consider this: Cicadas crawl out of the ground and shed their skins. Then they fly around lopsidedly like drunken congressmen, randomly bouncing off trees, walls and other inanimate objects. If you pick one up and toss it in the air, a few moments pass before it occurs to it that it might be a good idea to start flapping its wings. They're edible by just about everything even a notch above them in the food chain (including the French), so their natural defense is to sit out in the open like the delectable morsels they are. They don't bite, don't fly, don't even move much, and are pretty much the most passive sentient beings this side of Codependents Anonymous.

If it wasn't for the fact that they appear by the millions -- too many to all die in gruesome yet comically inept airborne collisions, too many to all be squashed, stepped on or eaten while on the ground -- their continued existence would prove Darwin wrong about that whole survival-of-the-fittest, or at least the survival-of-the-smartest, thing. Then again, the same could be said for the folks who post comments on this site (scroll down to the comments).

BECAUSE EVERY DAY IS NARCISSIST DAY

I'd like to think I'm a fairly enlightened parent, as these things go. So I read this excerpt from an upcoming book of edgy essays by hip, literary fathers, or something like that. I'm still laughing.

If I could be said to contour my life in those days around any image, I think it would be one I grew up with... the one featuring a guy with a raincoat slung over his shoulder, a guy on the verge of needing a haircut, with a quizzical, slightly weary, but (don't be fooled) absolutely thrilled look about him... In the first two or three years after my daughter was born, I went on trying to live that life, with the raincoat thrown over my shoulder and the weary, sexy, thrilled expression. I went on writing plays and seeing them produced and writing that first novel and seeing it published, and on weekends joining the other parents in Riverside Park, pushing my daughter on the swings and enduring the jostling, competitive chatter of the other Upper West Side parents.

Yeah, and I wander around with the same half-asleep, thrilled, and undoubtedly sexy expression as I write the random blog entry every odd week, or month, joining the other parents at the Reston(tm) Burger King, enjoying the jostling, competitive chatter of the SWAT team as it makes its appointed rounds.

But there's more.

One afternoon, after hoisting our daughter's stroller up the stairs of our walkup and entering the dim light of our cramped quarters, I just turned to my wife and said, without knowing I was going to say it, "Let's move."

I say that just about every day. So would life in the suburbs bring a new, marginally less solipisitic outlook? Or at least a haircut? Let's read on:

When my daughter turned 5 and started kindergarten, there was a particular lunchbox she insisted she had to have, and I remember now the intensity of the search for that lunchbox, which was, of course, out of stock everywhere. We drove far afield, in the beautiful late-summer dusk, to Ames and Caldor and Kmart, each of them a tall, beckoning, neon-lit tree on the branches of which the Holy Grail of that phantom lunchbox might be found hanging. Though I felt it intensely, it was still not possible for me to admit consciously that this quest had become more important to me than the quest to complete my troublesome second novel.

"Troublesome" is one word for it, I'm sure. Judging by the particularly purplish hue of his prose, I'd bet that "slush pile" is an even better choice of words.

But then again, what can you expect from a person whose worldview can be summed up by this one sentence:

But it really wasn't until I saw "Kramer vs. Kramer" that it all came together for me.

Funny. For me, it was Army of Darkness.

MORE RIGHT-THINKING IN THE HINTERLANDS

I have just one question about this letter to the editor which ran in one of my previous places of employment: Is it more sexist than racist, or more racist than sexist?

Either way, nice headline.

THE BALCONY IS NOW CLOSED

I know complaining about endless movie trailers and previews is about as perspicacious as, say, whining about those unopenable bags of peanuts on airplanes. So I won't. However, I can say with some authority that after carefully analyzing the more than 25 minutes of previews during my official 2004 outing to the movies, there are no good movies coming out. Ever.

Fortunately, there's always the comforting glow of the television, where I just learned that somehow this brilliant study of the human condition was renewed for yet another season. And for good reason, too, when you read this teaser for next week's episode:

Tuesday, April 27, 9/8c
"The Toilet"
Cheryl promises to take Jim's opinions seriously when she decides to remodel the bathroom, until Jim insists it include a hideous high-tech stainless steel toilet -- that talks.

Good thing there's always books. Or the Internet.

My brain hurts.

I WISH I HAD COME UP WITH THIS 12 YEARS AGO...

What, with it having become ever more selective over the years, I doubt I could get into my alma mater if I had to apply today. That's why a current student, who probably has 150 or so SAT points on me, was able to articulate the school's unique atmosphere in a way I couldn't have at his age:

"Though half of the students are probably depressed, there exists an undeniable spirit of solidarity among them."

In both good ways and bad, that one sentence pretty much sums up my four years of college.

I ALMOST FEEL SORRY FOR W....



When you lose a great thinker like Bil Keane, you've lost the heartland.

The glasses make the tyke on the left a dead ringer for Kim Jong Il, or maybe Hans Blix. But who's the little fella supposed to be? Tony Blair?

I MAY NOT BE HEMMINGWAY...

... but apparently this blog is still pretty damn masculine. Of course, that may have something to do with my recent posts extolling the virtues of paintball rifles, SWAT teams, bad hair-metal nightclubs, and, of course, monkeys.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go run with the bulls. Or maybe the monkeys.

CLIFF'S NOTES

This is disturbing. Not only did some desperate collegiate hack, undoubtedly on Double Secret Probation and hepped up on Mountain Dew, write a term paper on an article I wrote what seems like a zillion years ago, that term paper is now for sale (scroll down).

Called Online Classifieds: A Descriptive & Integrative Analysis, the term paper offers -- what else? -- "a descriptive and integrative analysis of Mark Toner's 'Online Classifieds'. Included are: author background & purpose, methodology, results & conclusions, significance and 'real-world' application." It even has nine -- count 'em, nine! -- footnotes, so you know it's well researched.

With all that, the term paper is a steal at $44.75, which is about $44.75 more than I've seen from the original article.

In the interest of helping the scores upon scores of academics busy analyzing my vast body of professional work, here are equally helpful summaries of some of my other groundbreaking reportage. (It's all free, though if you want footnotes, that'll cost you...)

• Blogs are kind of like memoirs, except when they aren't. But they're online. Which memoirs aren't.
  
• The great thing about comics is that if they're drawn well enough, they don't have to be funny.
  
• Trucks move stuff.
  
• If someone comes to you and asks you to fork over $20 million to mail free computer scanners to people who might not have computers, it's probably not a good idea.
  
• Small newspapers make their reporters write about some really strange things.
  
• People who don't like Microsoft often do like penguins. Also, Paul Revere's heroic ride for freedom and an online grocery delivery van dropping off a carton of Ramen noodles may be compared unironically if it serves a facile metaphor.
  
• Nekkid people are funny.
  

SO MUCH FOR THE NIGHTLIFE

A while back, in mentioning how I'm far too sophisticated to fall for trendy chain bars during my frequent nights out on the town (but not sophisticated enough to avoid aging ex-Monkees), I mentioned that the local Burger King had a bitchin' ball room.

It also has a bitchin' SWAT team.

Let me explain. I was there with the kids on a Saturday night, at the incredibly dangerous hour of 6:30 p.m., when no one but the toughest soccer moms and ballet dads ply the mean streets of Reston(tm) in their nitrous-boosted minivans, playing Boyz N the Hood on their in-seat DVD players. We got our sackfuls of crappy food and sat down in the glassed-off play area, and before you could say "supersize me," about a dozen cops wearing bulletproof vests with STATE POLICE, ANTI-GANG UNIT and SHERIFF’S DEPT in block lettering on their backs started pouring into the store through two or three different doors. This being anal-retentive, homeowner association-obsessed Reston(tm), I immediately wondered if I had painted the trim on my house the wrong shade of battleship gray, but they made a beeline for some other guy and pinned his neck to the side of a crappy plastic booth, then cuffed him and dragged him out. So it was serious. He must have put plastic lawn statuary in his yard.

All joking aside, this would have been frightening, except that like in some bad movie you might see at 2 a.m. on basic cable, the kids had their back to the whole scene of bedlam and were utterly and completely oblivious to what was happening. I watched the whole scene unfold over their shoulders as they scarfed down their chicken nuggets.

So to all my smug, urban friends who mock our simple lives in the outer boroughs, I say this: come hang out with me one night. You might see some stuff go down, and even if you don't, there's a bitchin' Macaroni Grill at the Town Centre(tm).

CREEPY. THE BAD KIND OF CREEPY.

Issues of taste aside, I'm thinking this guy will be getting a visit from the nice folks with the Secret Service sometime soon.

The poetry on the later pages is an especially nice touch. Though, all false modesty aside, it can't touch mine.

A DILEMMA

Here's the thing. I -- I mean, a friend of mine -- was bored one day last year and created a fake blog that was supposedly written by a semi-famous person who was in the news a lot at the time. It got linked to by a couple of hipper-than-thou Web sites, and suddenly it got lots of traffic -- lots more than this, I mean his, site.

Anyway. This particular person's back in the news at the moment, and I'm--I mean, my friend is getting e-mails from news organizations, thinking he's the actual person who's being parodied. It's not like I -- I mean he -- is the master of subtlety, mind you, so it's pretty clear the site is a fake. And if it wasn't clear, the word "parody" in the rail should have dispelled any lingering doubts. But all of the sudden he's getting e-mailed interview requests from the like of Fox News and something that the reporter called "the Newsweek of Brazil." It's only a matter of time before a real news organization drops an e-mail my--I mean, his--way.

My friend -- let's just call him "Earl" -- is kind of bored at the moment, so he's actually tempted to take these folks up on their offer and see how far he can play this prank out. I mean, who's going to know the difference in Brazil, right? Of course, by an incredble coincidence far too bizarre to contemplate, "Earl" is a journalist, too. So doing so would be, as they say in the biz, "bad."

Oh, well. Maybe once "Earl" retires and devotes the bulk of his writing to crotchety letters to the editor, he'll be able to engage in such shennanigans. But for now, this will have to remain the most closely guarded secret since this incredible conspiracy.

A VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS

There's been so much written about Mel Gibson's new movie, Freaky Good Friday, that I'm reluctant to say anything myself. While all the usual do-gooder suspects have been complaining about the movie's violence, luckily people see things differently in my old stomping grounds:

But the Rev. Jeffery Schroeder, resident chaplain at the Interdenominational Stuarts Draft Christian Home and Retirement Community, said that Gibson, no stranger to violent films or torture scenes, could have upped the gore for realism's sake.

"It didn't go as far as it could have," Schroeder said.

Funny. The only "torture scene" I remember Mel Gibson being involved in was What Women Want.

NOTE TO SELF: STOP READING NEWS

What a week. Not only do I find out that my own wife is probably a terrorist, but I'm also suddenly overqualified for a career in manufacturing, and a wacky little culture war is breaking out.

Is it November yet?



Oh, wait. Never mind.

BACK TO THE SADDEST CIRCLE OF HELL



I know I often say that The Family Circus is disturbing, but really. The mystery object on Dolly's head aside, the mind reels at just what kinds of images Bil might have hidden on his computer. In some circles, this would be called "a desperate cry for help." To me, it's just desperate.

LET'S PARTY LIKE IT'S... 2000

Okay, I realize I'm probably not the right person to be critiquing the local nightlife scene, given my last night out on the town involved an ex-Monkee and a would-be stalker. But still, this is almost unspeakably sad.

A bar, based on a movie from 2000? And a bad movie from 2000, at that. What's next? A place where the dress code includes leg warmers and headbands? (Oh, that's right -- Jaxx is still in business. Speaking of which, check out their hard-rockin' motto, prominently displayed on their Web site: "We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason." Good times!)

Again, demographically speaking, I'm probably the wrong person to be talking about the party scene. Though the neighborhood Burger King does have a pretty bitchin' ball room.

NEXT QUESTION

I've always wondered what it would be like to be in a book club. Of course, I'd actually have to learn to read first, but that's a minor detail.

Anyway. I was flipping through a book my wife was reading the other day, and much to my dismay, it had a set of ready-made questions for book clubs to discuss at the end. Which would be fine, except that many of them were questions that could be answered with a "yes" or "no," or simply had no relation to the book. I can imagine some pretty awkward discussions:

"Did you have a mother figure that wasn't your mother?"
"That's kind of personal, don't you think?"
"The book says to ask this question. Did you have a mother figure that wasn't your mother?"
"Uh.. sure. I guess."
"Who?"
"Lynne Cheney."
"Hmm. Next question."

With that in mind, I've taken the liberty of coming up with some similarly EZ-n-Fun discussion questions for one of my favorite bits of light reading:

• Have you ever worn a hat? Discuss.
  
• The novel is set in Ireland. Do you like U2?
  
• Have you ever exposed yourself on a beach?
  
• In the chapter "Oxen of the Sun," which character reminds you of your favorite doctor on ER? Discuss.
  
• The final chapter is a lengthy internal monologue. Have you ever written a sentence without commas or periods? Was it a grocery list? If not, did anyone else understand it?

I'll have my agent give Oprah's agent a call.

MAYBE I SHOULDN'T TRY TO GET OUT MORE

So I'm at a concert a few nights ago, and some random guy sees a friend's digital camera and asks if he can use it to take a picture. Once he's told sure, he can try to get a picture of himself with the musicians, he shakes his head.

"No," he says, pointing at me. "I want a picture of that guy."

Now, when you're blessed with an Adonislike physique that quite often overshadows your incredible wit, you get used to this sort of request. Still, given the setting, it struck me as kind of odd. After a little questioning, he confessed. Twenty years ago, he told me, his college roommate "used to have your look..."

Hmmm. Unless that sentence ended with "...but then there was that tragic incident with the pack of feral wolves and the overzealous Botox clinician," there's no way that's good news.

Maybe I'm just a little oversensitive. In my pre-beard days, I've been compared to Rick Moranis by small children. Now that I have a beard, I've been compared to Michael Moore by my own children. Quite a complement, I know, but the strange part is that I weigh about 140 pounds.

Lest you think this guy was trying to get a picture for a fake passport or something, he did mention his friend's name, and I did, of course, Google it. While I don't think this guy was his style-challenged roommate, it's yet another flattering comparison.

The moral of this story? Avoid free tickets to concerts headlined by former '60s idols. The things I'll do to get out of the house...

NOT A GOOD WAY TO START A MONDAY MORNING

Now I'm nominally a Democrat, which is why I feel well within my rights to point out how creeped out I was when I flipped through the paper this morning.




Yes, that's John Kerry peering into a house while campaigning in New Hampshire. Which, by the way, is a Class 2 misdemeanor in many states. Of course, it could be worse -- if he was on the other side of the door, the caption would have simply read "You raaaaanng?"

That was on page A1. Flip to the jump, and this is what you'd see:



In a lonely one-bedroom apartment somewhere in LA, a joke writer for Jay Leno just smiled.

And this was on the same page:



Now I like Dean, and they're a sweet couple and all, but this picture's just creepy. As Sally said after flipping through the Post this morning, "Every time I pick up the paper, I feel like I need to take a shower." And not in a good way...

THANKS TO THE NOT-SO-INFINITE NUMBER OF MONKEYS...

...the newest installment in a collaborative (read: bizarre) writing project I'm working on with several friends is now online. All credit goes to Tom, whose wife, CeCe, actually knows a thing or two about using monkeys to get a book published by a reputable house. Sock monkeys, anyway.

MAYBE PAUL KRUGMAN CAN HELP EXPLAIN THIS

It's been a long time since I've mentioned my archnemesis here. But looking at the paper this morning, I was rendered dumbfounded (and we all know how painful that can be):



I know Bil's not exactly the master of the inscrutable, but really -- what in the hell are we supposed to make of this? (The radio waves emitting from his chin aside, I mean.) "Improving finances?" What, did Bil split his $300 tax refund among his ill-mannered brood? Or is this a manifestation of his repressed fears of growing old and penniless, and winding up sleeping in a dumpster? (Given this earlier panel, that's not all that far-fetched a theory.) Or, in some twisted fantasy world, has he made his wife's mother (yes, I know how to tell the Keane grandparents apart), a kept woman?

The mind reels.

UPDATE: Oh, I see. A few days ago, he drew a cartoon of the precocious Keane Kidz(tm) plotting in secret to demand a raise in their allowance. That lends creedence to the "kept woman" theory, which just creeps me out to no end.

MOVE OVER, WOODWARD AND BERNSTEIN

Always eager to prove that I am, first and foremost, a Serious Journalist, here's a couple of recent examples of my work. First, a serious and high-minded comic book. No, really. And, as if that wasn't enough, there's this: a probing investigative expose of nekkid people holding flower pots. (Note: Free registration probably required, but after that build-up, how could you resist?)

Thank you, thank you, thank you. I'll be waiting for my Pulitzer to come in the mail.

HAVE YOURSELF A GENERIC LITTLE CHRISTMAS...

Here's a sentence I never thought I'd write, be it online or elsewhere: I actually entered my company's holiday decorating contest this year.

Of course, as is the case with many competitions, I play to lose. This is what I managed to come up with, in the span of about 15 minutes, including brainstorming, printing, and decorating proper:



The theme? "A Generic Holiday." After all, nothing gets folks into the holiday spirit like sloth and sarcasm...

TREASON ABOUNDS

These headlines are starting to look a little like an Ann Coulter book signing, but still, I must ask: Why does Google hate America?

TREACHERY IN THE HINTERLANDS

Those bastards!

TOO BAD THE BOOKER'S ALREADY BEEN ANNOUNCED...

The newest installation in the nightmare collaborative novel I'm "writing" with a couple of friends, penned by yours truly (or, at least, by the half-dozen monkeys we keep locked up in the basement with a crash-prone Megtron(tm) PC and a copy of Xywrite) is now online.

In true post-modern blog style, the most recent installment's at the top, meaning you need to read from the bottom of the page up for it to make any sense. Except, of course, that it still won't.

GUESS THE BLIND PEDESTRIAN PLAYKIT'S BEEN DISCONTINUED

I realize this makes me a callous, uncaring parent, but the names of these toys always make me laugh.



Hard to believe that a periscope could cause eye injuries. Or that toy nunchucks could cause "blunt impact." But mostly, I feel sorry for poor Ribbets.

THEY KNOW THEIR AUDIENCE

Consider the ad at the top of a weekly e-mail for journalists that just came over the transom: "You have adult acne.... Will anyone ever find you attractive?"

Yes... and no.

METRO FOR RED-STATERS

One of the gazillion associations in the DC area has written a painfully retentive guide to the metro. "After one trip, you'll be a pro!" the breathless copy reads. Especially helpful -- the detailed instructions for purchasing a farecard, and I quote: "1. Put your money in the slot."

The only thing they forgot to add was not to get scared when the train goes under the Potomac, since it doesn't get wet. (I once worked at a newspaper where the publisher didn't quite grasp the concept of a subway, but that's another story for another day.) All I know, if I was thinking about coming to DC from the distant hinterlands, the level of complexity this suggests would have me out on the shoulder of 395, hitchhiking.

(Shout-out to DCSOB for pointing this one out.)

THE SMOKING GUN

I spent a few years living in Germany during my teenage years -- a few years which just happened to fall during the mid-1980s, so I missed quite a few cultural milestones. MTV? We'd occasionally get a videotape someone would bring back from the states, which would make the rounds of my friends until we had the 2 hours of music memorized*. Cabbage Patch Kids? Luckily, I missed that one until recently, when one of my daughters was given a vintage one by a great-grandmother. Smurfs? Well... actually, they came from Germany, though they were called something like "Schlumphs," which is precariously close to an unflattering German term for a young woman of questionable virtue.

But I digress. When I returned to the states, I had a lot of catching up to do, culturally. And one of the things I never quite got was the TV show Alf, which came and went while I was overseas. Allegedly. I summarily refused to believe that a sitcom starring a stuffed furry alien could possibly have become a prime-time hit, even in the 1980s. And yes, I had seen Knight Rider. It was huge in Germany. In fact, I accused many stateside friends of being part of a conspiracy to convince me that Alf was real, then chuckling at my gullible self behind my back. Even years later, I was never quite convinced.

Flash forward two decades. While visiting the in-laws last weekend, we stumbled upon this.



I'm through the looking glass, sadder and a bit wiser. Sadder, mainly, as had my kids not gleefully colored all over the sucker, I could have made a fortune on eBay.

(*) Back in the day, MTV aired short-form movies that were intentionally synchronized with popular songs of the time, called (I believe) "music videos."

THIS COULD BE ME...

Apparently this is where some journalists wind up during these trying economic times.

It certainly has a lot more panache than the Maytag box I've been eyeing of late...

THIS JUST IN...

... I have no life. I scored a 109.5 on this test. Pity me.

The most embarassing part, aside from the fact that I precisely remember the lyrics to a freakin' Toto song from two decades ago but can't recall what I had for breakfast this morning? I identified lots of songs generated by hair bands. Bad hair bands...

BOO!

OF PUMPKINS AND PAINTBALLS

It's fall, which means it's time for our family's annual trip to the pumpkin patch out in the country. Well, not so much in the country anymore--it's now surrounded by a gaggle of vinyl-clad Northern Virginia McMansions, all with extensive decking so their owners can enjoy an uninterupted view of the moon bounces, the plentiful parking, and all the cheerful examples of copyright infringement the proprietors have plastered on everything that isn't orange and/or organic.

Still, it's fun. Pumpkins, moon bounces, slides, hayrides, and, this year, shooting at targets with a high-powered rifle equiped with a sniper-style scope.

No, really. Okay, so it's paintball, but it still seems like an odd choice for the under-6 crowd.

Now don't get me wrong -- I'm not one of those freedom-hating, Dear Leader-mocking types you see all over the blogosphere. I learned to fire a rifle in high school ROTC (don't ask), and have, in the course of undertaking journalistic research, participated in a paintball battle pitting our hardened newsroom of seasoned reporters against a bunch of Shenandoah Valley locals, who brought their bulletproof vests, automatic paintball rifles, and boundless enthusiasm to the match. I still have the welts to prove it.

At the same time, though, at a pumpkin patch? It's a bit embarrassing. Especially when I caught myself shouting at my daughter, "NO! AIM FOR THE HEAD! NOT THE CHEST--THE HEAD!"

Or not.

MY NEW CAREER...

...as a film reviewer. Scroll down to the review entitled "A stunningly prescient rumination on Euro-American relations," and enjoy.

The balcony is closed.

YEAH, BUT OTHER THAN THAT, DID WE GET ANYTHING WRONG?

A classic correction from The Washington Post:

A Sept. 21 item in the Metro in Brief column about a woman fatally shot in Prince George's County and a child who was wounded incorrectly reported the woman's age, the child's sex, the child's location at the time of the shooting, and the street on which the shooting occurred. A correct account of the incident appears in today's Metro in Brief column.

Guess the editors were busy fact-checking the Page One story about the all-you-can-eat steak.

THIS JUST IN: CULTURE IS DEAD

I wouldn't believe this if I hadn't read it myself: Evidently piqued at the thought of his wife being groped by a treacherous Frenchman, our august president wrote her this lovely, nuanced poem:

Roses are red
Violets are blue
Oh my, lump in the bed
How I've missed you.
Roses are redder
Bluer am I
Seeing you kissed by that charming French guy.
The dogs and the cat, they missed you too
Barney's still mad you dropped him, he ate your shoe
The distance, my dear, has been such a barrier
Next time you want an adventure, just land on a carrier.

Awww... They're just like two schoolkids, aren't they? I'm going to try calling my wife a "lump in the bed." Then I'm going to try getting used to sleeping on the sofa downstairs.

THE MOVIE OF THE YEAR

When critics use that phrase, it's usually hyperbole. For us, it's literal.

Ever since we had our first child, we've seen exactly one movie -- no more, and no less -- in the theater each calendar year. Between the relative scarcity of babysitters, and the desire to do something other than sit in a dark room when we're lucky enough to find one, we just don't go to the movies much any more. In fact, we haven't been the movies yet in 2003.

Good thing, too. Had we already squandered our movie for the year, we would have had to wait for this to go to video.

WHO NEEDS THE NYT SUNDAY BOOKS SECTION?

My well-documented love for this comic meets my penchant for fair and balanced book reviews.

Maybe we should pass this title along to Mssr. Limbaugh.

IT DOESN'T GET ANY META THAN THIS

Here's the first longish thing I've written for Teacher -- an article on blogging. And now here I am, blogging about an article about other people blogging. It's enough to make your head spin.

It doesn't end there. One of the great things about the Internet is that when you write about people who write on the Internet, they write back about being written about. Journalists have a tendency to "file and forget," so it's kind of refreshing to get feedback, both good and bad, without having to fish for it. Here's one of my interviewees using the title of this entry to poke fun at my short description of him in the story. Hey -- I never claimed to write for the New Yorker.

Another person I interviewed tried to read the article at work, but -- and this is a first in my storied writing career -- her school's Internet filter blocked it, presumably because the article quotes a blog that uses the f-word the way most people use commas. More specifically, the Internet filter had this to say:

This page will not be displayed because... it has exceeded its tolerance of questionable words.

Exceeded its tolerance of questionable words? Funny, I get that from my editors all the time.

GOOD GRIEF

More fair and balanced commentary from the hinterlands.

I'm glad I'm not the person who had to edit this one down into (semi) coherent sentences..

THOUGHTCRIME!

So, you'd think a good way to blow off some steam would be to go hear some live music, right?

Think again.


This is us at a recent concert in oh-so-hip Arlington, where we lived before we became boring suburbanites obsessed with shiny wallpaper and homeowner association-mandated paint colors like "Beachwood." Looks like we're having some good, clean, Right-Thinking fun, right?

Think again. Examine the circled part of the picture carefully. Here it is again, enlarged for your convenience.



Uh-oh. Something tells us our names are on a list now.

ARE YOU READY FOR SOME... HAIRBALLS

So, the Redskins won their first game of the season the other night, though based on what I've read about the NFL's "celebration" on the Pepsi Vanilla(tm)/Fritos(tm) National Mall(tm), good taste was the real loser of the night.

I'm a long-time Redskins fan, having endured a decade-plus of medicore teams, embarassing owner gaffes, and revolving-door coaching. I've even had the, um, luck of attending some historic games, like the one where Gus Frerotte (remember him?) gave himself a concussion by high-fiving a concrete wall with his head, and the bitterly cold, windy December game that led to the sacking of Norv Turner (remember him?), and... well, that's about it. Come to think of it, most of the rest of the past decade's been a blur. A mediocre, turnover-prone blur.

But you read it here first, folks: They're going to the Super Bowl this year. No ifs, ands or buts.

How do I know? Because, after nearly a decade, I found out this summer that my name had finally come up on the season ticket waiting list. Of course, I found this out days after one of our cats wound up having to spend a week at an animal hospital, and the bill came to virtually the exact cost of the season tickets--almost to the penny.

I'm trying to maintain some perspective. After all, as I've been saying, our cat probably won't lose nine games this season. Though come January, if the Redskins are still in the hunt, Sushi had better stay down in the basement on Sunday afternoons.

UPDATE: I just got another e-mail from the Redskins notifying me that good season ticket seats are still available, which is pretty much unheard of in these parts. Either people aren't buying that first win of the season, or a lot of people had sick pets this summer...

I ALWAYS KNEW THAT WHOLE POLITENESS THING WAS A FACADE

Yet another reason not to trust the Canadians.