i kind of hate that i'm aging

The upcoming 30th birthday. Not excited about it. There's a desperation about me as I evaluate where I am that I suppose isn't entirely unlike a midlife crisis. Except this isn't that, because it's way too early for this to be a midlife crisis. Also, how could I have a midlife crisis when I can't even come close to affording the sports car?

When I worked at Camp Rockfish, my favorite co-worker (other than Laul Peeland) was a girl who would hang onto my every word and laugh at my every joke. Sometimes, she'd even look at me and say "you're going to be famous."

Not too incredibly long ago, I ran into one of the counselors at my high school. She asked me what I'd been up to. After telling her, she seemed profoundly disappointed and threw in a quick "I thought you'd be famous by now."

My mom is an avid How RDU Doin'? reader, and recently sent me an email telling me how witty I am and how I've clearly missed a golden opportunity if I can't find a way to get someone from the Daily Show to take a look at it.

I tell you all of this, in the sort of "woe is me" style post that I kind of hoped never to feel compelled towards ever again, to say one thing. For my 30th birthday, I'd like to be as talented as people think I am. And I'd like the stones to do something with that talent.

how do you avoid getting on a roll?

I'm making a sincere effort to leave well enough alone. This evening, I got a text message from Scott. He had an idea. An idea so perfect and obvious that I kind of hated myself for not coming up with it. We bounced a few idea back and forth and got ourselves to work. The result is big, dumb fun on the internet that you might want to take a peek at come tomorrow.

So I've officially made my contributions and shut things down for the night, eager to go to bed with Andi. Once I was there, though, I couldn't even begin to sleep. If you know me, then you know I'm in a pretty unsatisfying rut in a lot of aspects of the ol' life. So little things like the exchange between Scott and me and the results thereof end up keeping me awake. It's why I don't sleep after the SUPER SPARKLE SHOWCASE or a great show at The Worx. When I remember what it's like to actually do something I'm a little proud of, I want to do more.

So I'm trying hard to leave it be. Let what I've done sit so I can settle down and get a good night's rest. But it's awfully hard, because these moments aren't part of the daily routine.

i am going to rock the face off of 2009

I am going to rock the face off of 2009. I don't know exactly what that means and therefore I don't know how I'm going to achieve it, but it's going to happen. 2008 kind of sucked. 2009 is my time. And I know this because I rocked 2009 in while in the POWER STANCE!!!

teams played football this weekend

Wolfpack 21, Demon Deacons 17 - Russell Wilson was amazing and the NC State defense came up big when it needed to the most in this game, which will boost my expectations for next season just enough that the cycle of being a Wolfpack fan can continue when the basketball team(1-0 after avenging our loss to the mighty Privateers of New Orleans) inevitably crushes my soul. I watched this game in the rain with newly-married Mr. Shmecki McShmam (formerly Laul Peeland). State beating a top 25 team after a rough season is more fun than a little rain can stop.

Also? I've figured out State's niche for the season. Does your school play football in North Carolina? Were there high expectations for your season? NC State will ruin it. ECU? Ruined. Duke? Ruined. Wake? Ruined. UNC? On notice.

If we'd had App State on the schedule, we could have gone to a bowl...

Terps 17, Tar Holes 15 - Here's the other reason Carolina is on notice. Their quarterback seems to have left his ability to play or even recognize a football game in his other pants.

UPDATE: Sexton is now fighting for the job he earned through a string of injury and incompetence from the two guys who were ahead of him this season. I can only hope that this causes the kind of chemistry issues that can keep States in-state win streak alive.

Bears 3, Dirty Cheating Packers more than 3 - So. This is bad. Three-way tie for the division lead. It looks bad. The Bears need at least four of the next six to win the division, as I see it. If their defense continues to get ripped up, it isn't happening. Not that the offense had a great game or anything(they didn't, they had the opposite of a great game), but remember when they were the liability rather than the defense? What happened?

Eagles 13, Bengals 13 - The NFL's first tie in six years. I hate ties, but not for the reason everyone else does. I hate ties because I'll hear about how the concept of the tie is the worst thing in sports. Normally, I'd agree. But I'm cool with the way the NFL works it. If neither team can score in any way in 15 minutes with the game on the line, neither team deserves a win.

i voted today, but the political ads didn't stop

Andi says "go vote, it's fun and easy!"

don't distract me from my distraction with things that matter

Sunday night. I'm enjoying the Bears defeat of the Eagles. Or I'm dreading what looks like another second half collapse. Or both. Still, I'm watching football. Then something strange happens. Al Michaels mentions the current financial crisis on Wall St. and makes several references to the bailout.

Tuesday morning. Today. I'm trying to enjoy the SportsCenter highlights of last night's Ravens/Steelers game that I didn't watch in favor of Heroes and actually spending some time with Andi. The SportsCenter crew make what feels like a dozen more bailout references.

This has to stop. I watch sports - and I don't think I'm alone in this - to not think about what's going on in the real world. I watch sports so that, for a few wonderful moments, there's nothing more important than my team's defense coming up huge on 4th and goal or nothing more important than the offensive failures that kept that defense on the field. If my team isn't playing, there's nothing more important than the other games shaking out in a way that favors my team in the standings. If the game has no affect on my team's possible playoff future, then there's nothing more important than the stats of a receiver who's on my fantasy team. In short, sports are a distraction that allow me to get way too heavily invested in something that I can remind myself is actually pretty trivial should it go poorly.

I do not want your references to the real world in my sports. Not during the game. Not when you're broadcasting the highlights. There are at least 5 channels I could have turned to if I wanted to hear what people thought of a bailout plan and its affect on the financial future of this country. When I watch the game, I just want to think about the game.

Everything else will still be there when the clock hits 0:00.

Because I've already sullied a post about watching football with political nonsense, I may as well toss you a link to a video where Barney Frank becomes my hero for pointing out the absurdity of Republicans politicizing the failure of the bailout plan by talking about how Nancy Pelosi tried to politicize the bailout plan(via Catie Braly by way of Facebook, for full disclosure). Enjoy this more than I was able to enjoy SportsCenter this morning.

bootlegging obama merchandise is probably more fun than it should be

I was one of 18,000 people who went to see Obama speak in Greensboro this past weekend. The speech itself was another typical Obama home run and Obama got a little more aggressive than he allowed himself during Friday's debate.

"Through 90 minutes of debate, John McCain had a lot to say about me, but he didn't have anything to say about you," Obama said. "He didn't even say the words 'middle class.' He didn't even say the words 'working people.'"

The McCain spin control has countered with the already tired Palin line about Obama talking about foreign policy without saying "victory," a word that McCain and Bush love to use without ever giving so much as a hint of what victory in the broad "war on terror" or even specifically in Iraq actually means.

I'm not here to talk about whose talking point is better (Obama's is). I'm here to talk about how awesome the bootleg Obama merchandise that surrounded the rally was. Buttons, t-shirts, and rally towels were among the available options. With some Obama stuff already on the way, I was only tempted to purchase two items.

One was a button, featuring a shirtless Obama punching forward with "HOPE" tattooed on his knuckles. In retrospect, denying myself this bit of awesome was a complete misstep. Mostly because I can't find an internet image of this thing, and I'm concerned that no one will believe it existed.

The other item I found a little odd was a t-shirt featuring Obama shaking hands with Martin Luther King, Jr. It read "Dreams Do Come True." While I think that might be a little funny and over-the-top, this rally showed that Obama means much more to many of the attendees than just a presidential candidate ever could.

Hope is awesome.

if pressed, this is what i'd say hope looks like

I registered voters yesterday. I stood for two hours in front of a gas station and registered voters. Two of them. One per hour. I couldn't be more pleased with how I spent that time.

I stood next to Andi with my clipboard, held so that a sign taped to the back of it proclaiming "Register to Vote" could be seen by anyone who bothered to look, and asked passers by if they were registered. My fear that people would be annoyed seemed to be unfounded, at least in this location.* When asked if they were registered, people would respond that they were and then would tell us that they were happy to see us out there trying to make sure more people could answer the same way. Another person informed us that he had just registered and he "can't wait" to vote.

While the support was encouraging, we spent quite some time without anyone filling out the forms attached to our clipboards. Eventually, Andi and I began to wonder if our time would be better spent in a different area. We debated the pros and cons of moving our efforts and tried to figure out what alternative locale would prove to be more fruitful.

As we did this, a sixty-something black man passed by. "Are you registered to vote, sir?" I asked. He stopped dead in he tracks, looked at me, and smiled one of the friendliest smiles I've seen from behind his slightly unkempt, graying beard. "No. Let me run inside and I'll be right back out." His son was with him. The son, a registered voter, was plainly excited that his father was showing interest and assured us that he was in no rush. He would make sure his father registered.

It turned out the old man didn't need any prodding from his son. He came out of the convenience store and made a beeline straight towards me. Since he was without his glasses, he asked me to fill in his information for him.

We all joked around as the old man dictated his responses. When I asked him what party affiliation he preferred, he emphatically stated that he wanted to be a Democrat. They asked Andi and I about our affiliation. I gave a quick look around to make sure our impartiality wouldn't be jeopardized by answering and mumbled that I a Democrat as well, adding that I was "kinda afraid" of what a John McCain presidency would be like.

"Kinda afraid? We're more than just kinda afraid!" came the response.

By the time I handed over the clip board and form for him to look over and sign, the old man's smile widened even more (I have no idea how that could have even been physically possible). I can't imagine what it must have been like for him, knowing what he's seen in his lifetime, to finally be registering to vote(and knowing who he was registering to vote for, assuming that being more than kind of scared of McCain doesn't translate to a Libertarian vote).

The old man and his son thanked us, we thanked them, and they went back towards their truck. Before he got in, the old man looked up and repeated what we'd heard earlier from another new voter: "I can't wait."

Andi and I didn't say another word about going somewhere else.

*See previous post.

falconbridge shopping center's politics are more important than your rights

I didn't want to ruin a very positive post with this story, but I think it should be mentioned that the organizer for yesterday's voter registration drive was forced to stop registering people to vote in front of The Mardi Gras Bowling Center by the people that run that little strip mall(The Falconbridge Shopping Center, for those wishing to stay clear). She had nothing that identified her party affiliation or support for any candidate, she was just told that they knew she was with the Obama campaign and was forced to stop registering people to vote.

My take on all of this was that this was pretty low. No one there was trying to sell anything. No one there was pan-handling. People were being asked a simple question: "Are you registered to vote?" If the answer was yes, they were told to have a nice day. If the answer was no, they were asked a simple follow-up question: "Would you like to register now." If the answer was yes, then five minutes later they had filled out the form and were on their merry way. If the answer was no, they were told to have a nice day.

Apparently, someone found this to be entirely objectionable and complained. At least, that's the official story. My guess, since the recounting of the banishment from the greater Mardi Gras area(The Falconbridge Shopping Center, for those wishing to stay clear) included that the owner of the property was very insistent that she knew for a fact that it was Obama volunteers registering people, it had more to do with the name Obama than any customer annoyed at having to answer a question or two without even breaking stride.

So you don't like Obama. Why stop people from registering to vote? If you think that people registering to vote hurts your candidate's chances...doesn't that say something about the candidate you're supporting?

Andi had a second, and probably more poignant take on the situation. On the way home, she lamented the fact that there is no such thing as public space. From one end of Durham to the other, if you want to register people to vote in actual high traffic areas, you're doing so at the mercy of whatever developer owns the land.

With that in mind, I'd like to point out that the people at The Woodcroft Shopping Center of Durham have been more than accommodating to volunteers helping people register to vote. I shop at their Food Lion and occasionally dine at their Subway or Pulcinella's Italian Restaurant. You should do the same

how innuendo can segue into a shameless plug if you're not careful

This morning, Ross White brought me into his office and offered me a can of his cherry-flavored soda.

Then he told me to blog about it.

I feel like I owe you more than just a crude suggestion about what Ross and I do behind closed doors. So let me tell you what we did behind closed doors with Beans, Larry Larr The Wizard, and The JMatt. We got the band back together.

For those new to the scene, we were once called Destroy All Monsters. We performed long form improvisational comedy together in a time when most of the greater Raleigh area was unaware and/or unsupportive of that flavor of improv. I was later on teams that were technically better, but I never had more fun than I did with the Monsters.

D.A.M. eventually went our separate ways (with a few random shows in an ice cream parlor on "Historic Airport Road" in Chapel Hill). A few years later, The Worx started embracing long form. JMatt, Larry, and Beans all began to perform with teams formed from that change in philosophy.

When I rejoined the Worx following my nonsense-induced exile, buzz about a Destroy All Monsters reunion began(from those of us who were in it...and from no one else...but still, buzz). The only problem is that I had no desire to make myself eligible for long form at the Worx and Ross had retired from improv altogether to pursue his MFA and to occasionally say "hi" to his wife.

Recently, though, Ross graduated and a new timeslot at the Worx with more relaxed membership requirements opened up. Once an opportunity to get the band back together for a one-off show this coming Friday night at roughly 11:00 PM presented itself, it was hard for any of us to say "no."

So we practiced Monday night. Ross was coming back from years away from the stage. DSI was still doing shows at now-defunct Kings Barcade in downtown Raleigh the last time I was a part of a long form improvisational display. Still, I wanted it to be like riding a bicycle.

It wasn't.

But it was fun. It was lots of fun. I wanted to break out the improv toys that the Comedy Sportz/Worx show doesn't really allow for, and got way too overzealous in spots. We're all comfortable enough that the scenes got disturbingly dirty very quickly. And you know what? People are still going to laugh so hard they pee a little bit come Friday night.

The band is back together for one night. I can't wait.

that old guy who lives next door

It doesn't look like I'll be getting back to sleep, so I may as well tell you a story.

A quarter after 4. In the AM. I hear laughing, the clanking of bottles, and a familiar-sounding, unison chorus of "Oh!" followed by louder laughing. Andi and I have new neighbors in the townhouse next door, and they had a few folks over for some drinks. I'd heard a smattering of conversation around 2:30, but in my mind the time meant that it would probably be wrapping up soon. I rolled over and managed some more sleep. At 4:15, though, the chorus of "Oh!" coming from pretty much directly below our bedroom window woke Andi.

Andi is a sleeper. It takes a serious something to get her to wake up. I'm pretty sure that a well-placed pin drop is enough to stop one of my R.E.M. cycles, so I have no idea how she does it. I do know that I've come home after a long night of being generally up to no good(usually with The Worx crowd) to find that Andi has already gone to bed. Trying to get to the bed in the dark, I'll trip over things, knock other things over, and smack my belt buckle against the wall to make enough noise that any reasonable person would be awake and saying "Just turn a light on, idiot." Andi, though, wakes up in the morning, roll towards me, and says she doesn't remember me getting home.

If Andi is awake at 4:15, there's definitely a problem. I spent 15 minutes hoping they would miraculously quiet down so we could go back to sleep, having horrid flashbacks with each "Oh!" to living at Lake Park in Raleigh and losing whole nights of sleep to drunken rednecks screaming "I'm Rick James bitch!!! What!?! Okay!!!" in a continuous loop(one of a million reasons why I hate Chappelle's Show to this day). Something needed to be done. The noise was only increasing as the drinks next door continued to be consumed.

At 4:30, I walked downstairs and pushed open the door to the back deck. I hurled a few polite words over the storage closet that separates our deck from theirs, but it didn't get through the noise. Crap. Those jerks are going to make me put pants on. Stumbling around in the dark (why I feel like I can't cut a light on is a question I'll leave to the philosophers), I found a pair of jeans. I was on the way out the door when it occurred to me that, for dignity's sake, I should also probably throw on a shirt. I really need to start exercising again, by the way.

I walked up the stairs to their deck, and saw a collection of about eight folks sitting around with bottles of Coors Light. Some of them looked young enough that I'd believe it if someone told me that the Coors Light in question had been purchased by an unseen 9th person. I explained that I wasn't trying to be that guy, but it was 4:30 in the AM and we were basically trying to sleep right next to the brouhaha.

"Oh. I'm sorry sir."
"We can take it inside, sir."
"Sorry sir, but thanks for coming out here instead of calling the cops."

Sir? Every last one of them who spoke to me called me "sir." I don't know if I'm ready to be "sir." I thanked them for being cool about it, and was called "sir" one more time as I walked back to my deck. Like an idiot, though, I had to throw out there my objection to being called "sir."

"All those 'sirs' are making me feel old," I informed them.
"How old are you?" An honest question, deserving of an honest answer.
"Twenty-nine."
"Oh, you're not old, I'm twenty-three and I'm, not old."

Twenty-three. At least I know who bought the beer.

because forward momentum is good for the soul

Purposefully non-specific blog entry #24:

I did something this morning that I should have done last summer. This, in turn, lead me to feel much better about finally doing something that I also should have done a long time ago. None of this really means anything yet, but it will.

my wife, my brother, and i are 7 years old

Memorial Day Weekend annually compels an obscene number of Americans to celebrate those who have fought and died as members of the US armed services by running their pasty bodies across the beach and jumping into a recently-thawed ocean. So it was that Andi, Little Brother to the Stars Zack Moser, and I joined their numbers.

Sunday afternoon, the three of us traveled to Emerald Isle. After many bouts with being too wussy to jump into the freezing water, Zack and I manned up in time to realize there was no current, there were no waves, and we were basically sitting in a salty, frigid swimming pool. No fun.

So we joined Andi for a stroll on the beach. As we took our stroll, we came across a jellyfish that had been washed ashore. There was some debate as to whether or not this was actually a jellyfish, and then whether or not it was dead. In order to satisfy our curiosities on both counts, we immediately sought out things to poke and prod the subject of our inquisitiveness.

On the way up, we also found what appeared to be a dried up puffer fish. Once proper sticks were found, this dead fish would be test case for our poking sticks. All of them snapped upon prodding, except for Zack's, which seemed to be and old wooden tent stake(if the jellyfish had been a vampire, no problems).

A return to our jellyfish friend allowed us to poke, peak around underneath its mesoglea, and eventually flip it back into the ocean on the off chance that it's lack of response to our intrusive stick-maneuvering didn't mean it was dead. At least we were able to agree that it was, in fact a jellyfish.

This conclusion was also come to by a small girl who walked by it and immediately proclaimed "JELLYFISH!!!" We should have shown her the puffer fish-looking guy. I'll bet she could have identified that one quicker than we did, too.

so, what kind of last name is "struction"?

Yesterday, for the first time since the Icecaps played in Raleigh, I stepped into Dorton Arena yesterday to check out The Carolina Rollergirls in action. I've met people and had friends who have rollergirled it up, but this was my first time actually going to the event.

Andi, Mayo, and I left Durham while it was still a lovely afternoon to meet a crew from my early college years for a pre-bout dinner (and to watch the Penguins rout the Flyers in high def) at the Village Draft House. About an hour-and-a-half of laughing, eating, and commenting on a hockey game no one else was watching, it was time to go. As far as we all knew, it was still quite lovely outside. That is until, on our way out the door, our waitress mentioned that we should drive safely because the weather looked menacing.

Things started to get windy as we made our way over, either that or the road signs were also really into the The Soviettes song we were listening to in order to be properly psyched for the event. Still, no rain.

That is, until we parked the car. Then? A Tsunami. Things let up and we made the run to the back door of Dorton, only to be told we would have to go around to the other side. So around we went, just in time for the sideways downpour of rain. Andi had armed herself with an umbrella, which she held almost perpendicular to the ground for most of our run around the arena. That was good enough to keep the top half of her dry, but her jeans and sandals were soaked through. Mayo and I were soaked through from all accountable fronts. Nothing says potential fun like sitting around in wet underpants for the second time in a weekend.*

Still, undaunted, we took our seats and began reading though the program and enjoying the alter egos of the various Rollergirls(Elka Meano got my vote for best name, with an honorable mention to Trudy Struction). What I should have been doing was reading up on the rules of roller derby, which were printed over several pages in our programs.

Without a formal appreciation for the rules, to say nothing of the strategies, of roller derby, I had to go by instinct. Having chosen to root for the Debutante Brawlers based solely upon the fact that I liked their players' names more than those of the Trauma Queens, I started screaming uninformed smack talk.

"Skate! Skate like the wind! You can't stop her! It's like you're all on square wheels!" I'd scream before taking a look at the program to see little tidbits like the names of the player positions. Armed with a little bit of information, the screaming could be either more or less ignorant. I'll let you decide which shouting "Jammer! Jammer in the face!" falls under.

If nothing else, my poor attempt at engaging the sport at least served to amuse the group sitting in front of us. They just happened to be the halftime entertainment, The Durham Senior Divas, who requested that I get as excited for them as I was for the roller derby action that I was alternately screaming at and reading up on. Unfortunately, all of their routine was directed towards the opposite side of Dorton arena. This is a seating error I won't be repeating next time.

By the second half, the crankiness one usually associates with soggy undergarments set in and I started pleading for more pronounced violence on the track. Either in response to my cries or as a result of the Rollergirls' legs tiring out, we were treated to some seriously awesome and painful-looking wipe outs.

In the end, my Debutante Brawlers survived a late-game comeback attempt from the Trauma Queens to get the win. The sun had started to peek through the clouds, and it was clearly time to head home and slip into a nice, comfy, dry pair of pajamas. I'll be back to see the Carolina Rollergirls again, though. Next time, armed with actual information and a weather forecast, I expect to have even more fun.

*On Friday evening, in one of the more fun ComedyWorx shows I've ever been a part of, I received a crotch full of Dan Bain spittle as a result of his hilarious - but anatomically unsound - portrayal of a whale. I really had no idea he could put that much of the contents of a water bottle in his mouth. I saw Catie Braly for the first time in a bajillion years following that show. When we went out to catch up, the moistened undies were placed in the gym bag with my ComedyWorx pajamas while I was reminded why blue jeans and going commando have never mixed.

it's draft day, and excitement is on the clock

It's not even 9am on a Saturday. Yet here I am, fully awake. Why? It's Draft Day, kids. I can't really trace back the moment where my love for NFL football compelled me to treat Draft Day like a major holiday, complete with a dorkish giddyness in the weeks before the big day, but that's where I am now.

It's become an annual tradition of sorts to have a few folks over, order some chicken wings, open a few beverages, and waste a perfectly beautiful day inside watching Mel Kiper get worked up over some team not making the pick that he's spent the last three months assuring us was the right pick for that team to make.

One day, I'm going to get a kegerator and start calling it "Draught Day" (see what I did?). For now, I have a pretty unpredictable first round to look forward to and some good folks on the way over to enjoy it with me.

Simple pleasures, you know?

is it ________ season yet?

Ah, the ACC tourney. I should be spending today pretending to work while listening to radio broadcasts and punching up stats on a web browser. Heck, I should maybe even be pretending to work in front of a TV in an office somewhere this afternoon. Instead, I'm having to actively pursue an office in which to engage in this nonsense come the next ACC tournament.

I wonder if the games will somehow be less exciting without the secrecy and running about. I wonder if knowing that the score is 38-35 in a game will matter if it isn't being shouted over the wall of a cubicle while I'm actually working and wishing that the thing I was working on wasn't so pressing so I could be pretending to work and listening to/watching a game where only three points separate the teams.

I'm going to be working on the whole gainful employment thing while watching the play-in tourney games this afternoon. You should stop by the house and either pretend to be checking up on me so I can scramble to minimize ESPN.com and shut down the TV. Or you could call me to ask for covert game updates. Anything to bring the true excitement of the ACC tournament home to me.

March. Madness.

couples that march together stay together

Saturday, Andi and I joined up with some folks from Planned Parenthood to participate in HKONJ. This was an interesting time. When you have a far-reaching 14-point agenda, you'll see people that probably support one point much more than others. That's a given. It's a given that every group will be handing out information on their particular agenda.

What's more fun is the conspiracy theorists trying to get subscriptions to their -for lack of a better word- publications. They read your sign, try to figure out how comprehensive sex ed fits into their theory that 9/11 was an inside job, and give you their pitch. It was less than impressive, but kind of hilarious.

Also, the "vegan lobby" showed up at the end of the march. I'm not really sure I know how that's a political issue, but I was actually made more uncomfortable being identified as possibly sympathetic to their cause than I was the conspiracy theorists.

Still, it was a good time and I met some interesting folks. Not to mention, I was one of a number that might have even drawn some attention to some points that need attention*. Not a bad day.

*Some of the 14 points on that agenda are much stronger than the others. I'll leave it to you to determine which is which.

it's the end of the world as we know it(and honestly, i'm a little sleepy)

The first official North Carolina Winter Weather Freak-Out of 2007 came down yesterday afternoon. At the temporary gig, I was told to take the lap top home with me because I could very well end up working from home what with all of the winter weather that was about to smack the area.

If I had gone to a grocery store yesterday evening, I would have noticed the Freak-Out gaining momentum as people buy up milk and bread in massive quantities(I've never understood why a Winter Weather Advisory fires the thing in people's brains that signals "I must get bread and milk quickly, for there's snow a-comin'"). As I drove through suburban Durham, I noticed people strategically parking their cars in strange ways and places to avoid the embarrassment and heartache of getting stuck in what was sure to be the second ice age that was on the way.

As I drove to Raleigh to teach a class at The Worx, I noticed that the major roads had already been covered in whatever space-aged agent they use here to prevent freezing. I was actually impressed. It seems that the lessons of a few years back when the entire city of Raleigh was crippled by one inch of snow* to the point that people were sleeping in their cars and in Chili's restaurants because the traffic on the roads was so deadlocked that they couldn't get home.

Still, I understood where we are and what the weather does here(never underestimate the power of one semester of meteorology at NC State) and tried to convince he who was bestowing the lap top that it was unnecessary to be prepping me for homework no matter what Winter Weather Advisory was in effect. My friend unswayed, I took the laptop home with the battery and mouse in my jacket pockets wondering how much it looked like I was making a poor attempt at equipment thievery.

Well, it's 7:30am the next day, and I'm in slacks and a button down shirt watching the news and seeing the two-hour delays that all the schools are granting themselves just to be sure that all the rain doesn't suddenly turn deadly. If I was going to be working from home, rest assured that I'd still be in my pj's and probably still in bed and waiting until 7:59 to get out of it and start my remote jobbing. Nope, I'm going to shut this computer down, get in the car, and drive through the rain to be at work just like I thought I would be.

Because the first Winter Weather Freak-Out of the year is always useless.

*There are some who say that it wasn't the one inch of snow that caused the problem but the sheet of ice that formed over I-40. They're wrong. What actually caused the problem was the entire city freaking out about that one inch of snow at the exact same time and putting way more cars on the road at one time than we could even come close to handling. Liddy Dole and Richard Burr, however, are under the impression that there's no reason they should seek any kind of funding for public transportation for Raleigh, though. It's not because they don't believe in pork. They totally believe in pork. It's because they're idiots. And bad people.

mostly, we talked about aquaman and condoms...but not how they relate to one another

With Congress looking for the votes to override Bush's insane veto for SCHIP on the 18th, I decided to take further action than just posting Daily Show clips on a blog that no one reads. So I found myself spending my Tuesday evening taking part in a demonstration in front of the NC Republican party headquarters.

I stumbled upon a small pocket of folks holding signs that seemed as uncertain as I was about whether or not we should be seen having a good time while trying to get a rather urgent message out. After we decided that, yes, it was okay, we went about the business of interpreting the reactions from passing cars. There were a few things we noticed.

One was that no one gives a honk of disagreement. If you're honking, you support the cause. This is an interesting deviation from the normal honking of your horn, which announces that the driver in front of you has just performed a vehicular maneuver generally reserved for jackasses that can't drive. It was nice.

Next, was that you could get a pretty good idea of someone's age by the reaction from the car. If you pumped your fist and/or yelled supportive things out the window of your car, you were pretty young. If you gave a thumbs up(the most common reaction), you were young-to-middle-aged. If you flashed a peace sign, you were pretty old. If you flashed a black power sign, you were pretty old and black.

All of those positive reactions, it should be pointed out, were done with one hand on the steering wheel of the cars they were driving. The one overtly negative reaction we got was a double middle finger from one particularly angry driver who obviously hates poor children. We couldn't help but notice that in order to double flip us off, he needed to leave both hands off of the wheel for an extended period of time. This is just more proof that you're either 1) not thinking in the long term or 2) a complete moron if you oppose the SCHIP expansion.

I tell you all of that to tell you this: you can have a great time acting on your conscience. I totally did. Also, conservatives are bad at driving(which is sad because they drive such nice cars).

By the by, Bob Etheridge is being a pretty lousy Democrat/human being and not planning to vote for an override(David Price is, advantage Durham) of Bush's idiot veto. So if he's your Representative(or even if he's not), you can call to tell him to grow a set and do what's right by calling his Washington office(202-225-4531) or his Raleigh office(919-829-9122).

UPDATE: Good news from the organizer:

Page 5B of today's N&O reports that Bob Etheridge will vote for the SCHIP expansion!!! "After careful consideration, I have decided to vote to override the president's veto."

Way to go, Bob.

well, that certainly stung

I'm in beautiful Western New York, where the trees have started to change colors, for the wedding of one of Andi's college friends. This morning, I ate breakfast with some of her college crowd in downtown Ellicottville. One of the options was a breakfast burrito that looked powerfully delicious in its menu description. It seemed a manly option, much more manly than the eggs benedict option that I was also flirting with.

In the end, I went with the eggs benedict because my alma mater's football team managed to lose to the University of Central Florida. When your BCS conference school loses its opener to UCF, you just don't feel manly enough to deserve a menu option that goes by a name like "Burrito Bomb."