To Black Tie or Not to Black Tie.

(Actually, shouldn't that be "to black tie or to not black tie"? Whatever.)

Isn't New Year's Eve supposed to be one of those holidays where people dress up? You know, tuxedos, etc. Fine ball gowns. Too bad those days are gone. Now are the days of coffee-shop T-Shirts (of which I now own two, thanks to The Bougeoise [or however it is you spell "booozche-waaaah"] Pig's $8 sale). Now are the days of coffee spilled on coffee shop T-Shirts. Now are the days when showing up at some loser's mobile home with a bottle of Meister Brau and a paper hat that says 2003 constitute a New Year's Eve send-off.

Well, not any more.

I'm dressing up tonight.

Granted, I'm going over to some dude's apartment.

Granted, I'm bringing over a case of Meister Brau.

Granted, I'm recycling all of my New Year's Eve accountrements from years past, including my 2000 sunglasses, my 2002 party hat, and my slightly scratched CD of Prince's 1999: The New Master.

But dammit, I'm going to try to put a little style back into this holiday.

Tie goes on.

And hopefully, by putting "style" back into this holiday, I'm not also putting the "style" in "stylishly arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct and contributing to the delinquency of a minor," or "stylishly thrown in a Tijuana prison."

I may have gotten a reputation.

Hey all.

Was doing a little site-meter metering (monitoring? gazing? looking intently?) today (which is a little depressing; it's down to around 20 a day, most of which are links to some picture I linked to like, 30 years ago*). Anyway, despite all this, I occasionally get the interesting search result. Today I found that someone got to my site by typing "how to drive exwife crazy" into Google. That's right.

I have a few questions about this.

1. Why did my site come up? I mean, I know these searches are all driven by keywords and such, and I know that I've had the occasional post in the past referring to my ex, but I don't think I want to be known to the world as a premium resource into ex-spousal abuse. I mean, I'm not exactly super-fond of my ex a lot of the time, but I don't bear her any active ill-will. I can just hear it now, the little internet gnomes running around, telling each other: "hey, if somebody asks you how to stick it to their ex, you know who to call: thosewhodig.blogspot.com."

2. Who are these people? I mean, did this guy actually go to the internet, the internet to find some sort of instructional manual, some sort of guidelines or rules-of-thumb, with which to make productive use in driving his exwife crazy? A lot of stuff is out there on the internet, people. Wikipedia, and all that. I mean, wow. The internet; it's just big. But this guy needs to get a life. Go watch The War of the Roses or something, unless you have some sort of Danny DeVito phobia, in which case I understand.

*More depressing stuff: I just found out that this site is worth a paltry $1129.29, compared to some people's ~$6000+. I have a couple of questions about this. First, who can I sell this thing to to get $1129? Second, what can I do to raise my profit margin? Third, did my recent absence lower the overall value? Fourth, what the fuck?!

They chose a new form for him - that of a giant Slor.

It's been a long time, and I have quite a bit to recap. Sorry for the long absence. Stories of hallucinations and family misery follow. Be warned.

December 24th -

It was a pretty relaxing day. My sister was supposed to come by and bake cookies, but didn't end up showing up until around 7pm. Instead, Mom and I baked pies. I made a variant of my Sour Cream Cherry Pie, mostly because I couldn't find any cherries. Instead I made a sweet tart Cranberry pie. It was super good. Here's the recipie. (You can keep your piehole shut.) Sorry it's not vegan-friendly.

1 1/2 cup Cranberries (fresh or thawed)
3 eggs
3/4 cup sour cream
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
pie crust

First, add the cranberries to the pie crust; they should form basically one and a half layers on the bottom of the crust. Vary the berries to achieve that result.
Second, beat the eggs super-good.
Third, add the sour cream and sugar to the eggs. Beat super-good until very smooth.
Then add the extract and salt; stir.
Add mixture to pie w/berries. Bake at 375 for about 25 minutes or until the center of the pie is set - until it's no longer watery or jiggly. Refrigerate pie. Eat.

So that recipie worked out fairly well. After that, I had a shitload of uneaten cranberries, so I tried to make a cranberry pudding, which was the largest disaster in the history of culinary preparation. Basically the pudding was made of cranberries and molasses, which sounds intriguing until you actually taste the flavors involved. Definitely disgusting. Don't ever make a recipie that calls for cranberries and molasses. Unless you would like to bring shame on yourself and on the memories of your ancestors.

Finally, and 3/4ths of the way through Goldfinger on Spike TV, my sister shows up, ooing and aaing about a new beau that she met, like, a week ago at her new megachurch. We eat Christmas dinner and she starts throwing a fit about going to the midnight church service, which is like, waaaaaaay too late for me. Anyway, we go, and I run into some people from my high school days that I don't really say "hi" to - how rude they must think me! I tried to add the dominant 7ths to all of the hymns, which amused me, but I don't think amused any of the people sitting around me.

December 25th -

Everybody wakes up at around 10:30, which is a big change for Christmas morning. I guess when it's only three people, and the youngest one is 26, it's less important to get right into those presents. Anyway, I picked up a copy of the Herzog/Kinski Collection, a couple of shirts, the new Criterion edition of "Tanner '88", and an autographed graphic novel called "Capote in Kansas", done by Ande Parks, who lives in my little town, and is a friend of my Mom's. Apparently he also does a bunch of illustrating for some other comic books like Green Arrow, etc. Anyway, it's pretty interesting. To keep up the Capote in Kansas theme of Christmas Day, we went to Capote, which is a very well-done film, especially given the performances. Everybody's talking about Philip Seymour-Hoffman, but I think Catherine Keener deserves just as much praise as Harper Lee.

That evening was quiet. As usual.

December 26th -

Went into Lawrence to try to get a new remote for my mom's TV, one that would allow her to fix some of the display settings. No dice. However, I did buy the newly-released Grizzly Man on DVD, which I watched later that day at a friend's girlfriend's house (the movie is even more chilling the second time around; it's pretty clear that Treadwell is not only struggling for a life-project, but is also struggling for a sexual identity, and is also struggling to channel his anger in a way that reflects his mischosen life-project and sexual identity), followed by a jaunt into downtown Kansas City for a Mongolian grill-type dinner. The Grill part was quite good, but I have to say that I ordered an appetizer called "Chili Wontons", which sounded, like, super-good from the description, but which had the following, overwhelming problem: the wontons were drowning in cilantro. Like, drowning. This has a decided tendency to overwhelm the spicy aspects and make for an extreme, well, cilantro flavor. To be avoided at all costs. After this, we went back and watched football on TV, because the friend's girlfriend appears to be something of a football junky. I left after that.

December 27th -

Mom and I decided to go into KC to hit the after-Christmas sales. I bought a couple of nice shirts and a new blazer, the only accompanying problem was the french-cuffedness of the shirts, especially given that I didn't own a pair of cufflinks with which to link the french cuffs. Apparently, cufflinks run in the $25-$35 dollar range - much more than I paid for the shirts I bought. Also, I found, it's very difficult to find a tie that will go well with a turquoise shirt. I settled on solid black, which means that I didn't have to buy a new tie. After a new pair of shoes, we returned home, only to find that my sister had once again given up on pursuing a relationship with my dad. This seriously harshed the buzz of the day, given that my mom ended up in tears, as did basically everyone involved. Not to put too fine a point on it, but my dad is being an extreme pissant, needs to apologize, but continually tries to play the victim. Which is hard to do given that he's the one that started all the family problems, anyway. It was pretty depressing to think back to Thanksgiving - there were many families represented, but the only males over 25 were me, my Uncle, and my grandfather. Here's hoping I don't turn out like my dad - or any of my missing uncles.

December 28th -

Not much to tell about today, except that I had a very very strange dream, which involved Shelby playing an open-mic show in which he played two songs, one with a sort of half-guitar half-dulcimer type instrument, the other a cover of Radiohead's "Idioteque", played by him in a sound-booth consisting of several items of trash being dropped on the floor and amplified. And some rugs. I don't quite remember what the rugs did, but anyway, there were a bunch of Persian rugs involved. I also had a dream about being naked running through the Bodlein Library in Oxford trying to return books. Which is strange because I've only ever been naked running through the Widener Library at Harvard. Go figure.

I mean, I'm not an education snob, or anything,

but I don't think this:

"She is working on a bachelor's degree in management from an online program."

should ever be said about the incoming chief of staff for the governor of California.

I think I'm startin' to lose it, ooh-ooh.

Ok, so I'm going a little stir-crazy. I haven't much been out of the house in a week or so. I was supposed to go out tonight with an old friend of mine, who cancelled at the last minute in favor of cooking pasta. So I decided to venture out by meself, as sad as that seems. I don't think I'm going to do any solo drinking, but I sure feel like it. I might go see Good Night and Good Luck, which opened today in Kansas (sometimes it's nice being away from the coasts - the movies you thought were gone are opening). Or I might go play pool somewhere. Or call it an early night. I dunno. I'm slightly annoyed, though, because Friday night in Lawrence is always a, well, decent time. Maybe I'll get a glass of wine somewhere.

Sorry. I feel like I'm just complaining, when I've had a decent day, albeit by myself. I went and looked around at Half-Priced Books, which is one of the most amazing stores on the planet. I found three copies of a hardcover book I wanted for a paltry $9.98, which is peanuts in the academic publishing industry. Brand new! Never read! I like that place. Some decent CDs and DVDs, too, although I should probably hold off on buying anything like that until after Christmas, given that it's likely my family will have gotten me just that sort of thing, or gift certificates, or cash.

After that I had lunch at the Cheese and Salami Shoppe. This was nice, the sandwich was exceptionally good, but the guy working the register was a real pissant. I thought I could get by on a sandwich and no chips, and when I decided that my effort was futile and went to order the chips, he said something like: "You know, I find that it's good to each chips with the sandwich, not so much afterward." Jackass.

I wandered through what looked to be an interesting bookshop, although it turned out to be a Christian book store with a somewhat scholarly bent. That's better, I guess, than the alternative. But I found a coffee shop with wireless, and started playing a little N and working on Chapter One, which is nearly totally revised. Hopefully. I did, however, come up against an incredibly difficult N level, that I think might actually be impossible. It's level four of episode 27. Dang if I can figure that one out.

More observations

1. I think I prefer Iron Chef America to the original Iron Chef. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, Alton Brown is the host. I love that guy. Second, though I'm a relatively adventurous eater, it's usually only about 10% of the dishes I would try on the original. For the Iron Chef America, it's more like 90%. Third, and this is the most important, the comment section, when the judges are actually trying the food is not simply lauditory. There is actually a lot of criticism. "I can't believe I ate that sausage, it was so bland." "I had no expectations for the cranberries, and they met my expectations," etc. Some of the criticisms are pretty stinging. I find that much more interesting that people just ooing and ahhing the whole time. The one drawback, of course, is the chairman is not nearly as flamboyant as the old guy, but it's a small thing.

2. I've all of a sudden become concerned about the difference between vanilla extract and almond extract. How did this happen??

3. I'm spending a lot more money on Christmas gifts this year than in previous years. Perhaps it's because I have a little bit more money to spend this year, but it might also be just because I haven't been home for a year. Perhaps that's putting me in a spending mood.

4. I'm really enjoying the tawdry thriller I bought in Oklahoma City, and am now halfway through. Here's a picture:



It's pretty good, I have to say. And, I also have to say, that 250 pages in just over four weeks is pretty dang good progress for me on a novel.

That is all.

Leipzig is calling you, Leonard.

A few more notes about my town. I didn't know this as of yesterday, but apparently there's a new drinking establishment here. Which is actually quite remarkable, given that it's near impossible to garner any alcohol at all in this town - the little old ladies have seen to that. You can't buy beer within 600 yards of a church or school, and since the whole town has about a 600 yard radius, well, that just makes it tough. Furthermore, you can't sell hard booze here. You can only sell beer. Well, that's not exactly accurate. You can't really sell beer, you can sell 3.2 beer. Which, as everyone knows, is not really beer. I suppose congratulations are in order for the blue hair crowd.

Anyway, back to my original topic. The options for bar locations in this town are so limited that the new bar that went in had to be located in a former gas station. That's right. A friggin' GAS STATION. It's a bar, all right. Got the neon signs advertising (3.2) Miller High Life, and such. But it sure was a gas station, all right. It still has the pumps. The dang pumps. Not functional, of course, unless 3.2 beer is supposed to shoot out of them. Which, I suppose, would be worth seeing.

So the singles scene here is kind of limited. Just for kicks, I decided to see what the personal ads looked like coming out of here. There were a few doozies. One person (picture excluded), took the nickname: "lacksoriginality", with the tagline: "not so very interesting." Ah! Enticing! Another one: "chemgirl" declares "need to get out." Oh, I'm out, baby. I'm out. "SweetKansan" starts out her ad by saying "I'm a dirty hoe". And also, apparently, a poor speller. Presumably she meant "ho", as in slang for "whore". But instead she settled on a common garden implement. Which would not have been all that interesting in itself.

The men weren't any better. "boredku_student" says: "lawrence gets a little boring in the winter." I see. You're bored. Hmm, here's one: "ineedcandy" declares "i need candy." "Jammin9791" says "Smokin' weed and all types of ill shit." No comment.

So you can see it's, well, I don't know what you can see from all this, but it has been amusing for me. So you can put that in your gas tank and drink it.

In other news,

Woohoo!

17 degrees.

Small town life is beginning to get to me, just as it does every year at around this time. I found a pretty nice coffee shop with some wireless access to the internets, but other than that, it's basically the same town it was 17 years ago when we first moved in. Small. Desolate. Nowhere.

The streets have no sidewalks. Some are paved with bricks, which some people think is charming, but I generally regard as hazardous and prone to potholes, not that San Diego has this town beat in that regard, but I'm just saying. If San Diego's streets were paved with brick, we'd have collapsed into the ocean by now.

For a few days I've been trying to get some work done on my siddertation. I've come to the conclusion that 75% of the first chapter is unsalvagable - which eliminates about thirty pages from the thing, of which I can only see myself replacing about five. I suppose this isn't an unmitigatedly bad thing; it was running a little long in any event (in 12 point font it was about three hundred pages. Luckily I use 11 point, which has it coming in at a tidy 225). Other than that, I'm not making much progress, but I am enjoying the occasional spin of "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" on the coffeeshop stereo. (Well, I have one complaint about the stereo here - they keep playing that song "Baby it's Cold Outside," which itself is, I think, a pretty nice song, but the recording of it has some guy singing who sounds like he just swallowed an entire plate of bacon fat - like he needs to clear his throat about fifteen times before speaking to anyone, or singing, for that matter.)

On the plus side, the people here aren't as fat as they were in Oklahoma City. I don't really know what the explanation is. But nevertheless, it seems to be fact. Lawrence remains one of the great towns in the midwest; it's practically a little version of San Diego, only with a sweet music scene and without the endless miles of freeway. And with cold. And snow. And the occaionsal boot shop. And the occasional ad on TV for bootshops. And the occasional ad on TV for Farm Implement Supply stores. (Actually, this one is a little more than occasional. These freakin' stores must purchase 16 hours of advertising on TV every day. It gets a little tiresome. I tell you, I don't want an orange tractor vest!) Off topic, anybody have any idea how many miles of freeway there are in SD county? It's gotta be in the thousands. Anyway, Lawrence has even put in a new World Market, which allowed me to buy the spices I need to make a tasty plate of Aloo Gobhi for me and mom. If you try to make this, add a touch of honey at the end - quite nice.

The thing I notice most about east-central Kansas during the winter are the trees. Leaveless, of course. (KS doesn't have a lot of palms, eucalyptus, or pines.) But they're these huge, majestic trees, all grey in the winter overcast light.

Really quite striking, I think. It'd be a great place to film the beginning of a nifty film noir, if only the Coen brothers hadn't stolen the idea already in Fargo. Er, I guess "stolen" is the wrong word. Fuck it. They stole it. Jerks. You know, you'd start with a wide-angle shot, snow covered, in a clearing where two men in overcoats are walking toward each other, one holding a briefcase, as you discover as the camera slowly zooms in.

MAN #1
Is that the briefcase?

MAN #2
It depends. You have the money?

MAN #1
It's in the car.

MAN #2
Is that the car?

MAN #1
Yup.

And scene.

Budapest - by Blimp!

I have nothing but, well, decent things to say about Midwest Airlines. It's categorically impossible to give an airline a good rating, but I found that my journey from San Diego to Kansas City was not unbearable in the way an American or Delta flight can be. I had room to watch (most of) The Wages of Fear (again) on my computer, while enjoying some freshly-squeezed chocolate chip cookies. The flight only took 2 1/2 hours, so that was also a bonus. Had dinner with my mom and sister at a place called the 54th Stree Bar and Grill, even though this place was nowhere near any sort of 54th street. Closer, actually, to 154th street. In any event, they had a lot of crazy crap on the walls, so there was plenty to keep me entertained.

Not a whole lot to report, besides (hopefully) getting a draft done on a paper I'd like to send out soon. Any thoughts on the following quadlemma?

1. Would like to get professor's comments on paper.
2. Professor hasn't responded in the four months he's had the paper.
3. In order for the paper to fit on CV for next year's market, would have to go out soon.
4. Sending it out now might risk offending said professor.

What to do?

In other news, I've really been getting into Thomas Dolby lately. I've had a copy of his greatest hits for some years, but never really listened to it. Of course, it has his classic "She Blinded Me with Science," which is a bit, for me, like Devo's "Whip It." A decent song, but not his best, and known by too many people at the negligence of some of his better stuff. There's some really really great stuff on this record. Witness "Screen Kiss". Witness "I Love You Goodbye". Witness "The Flat Earth". Good tunes, all. He gets a little smooth-jazzy in places (and, in a couple of places, I recognize the distinct Prince influence, which, frankly, doesn't fit the British nerd image so well), but overall a very strong collection.

Tonight I'm supposed to be hanging out with Shelby (who is, well, a few hours late; not sure what's up). Unfortunately the open-mic night is cancelled, given that the, well, open mic night is cancelled. So no "Peace of Mind" or "Country Roads."

Take me home, baby. Take me home.

I'm not here. This isn't happening.

Another year. Another Christmas vacation with mom. It's becoming something of a routine. Arrive late at the Kansas City Airport; hour and a half drive back to the homestead. Dinner at some suitable fast food establishment. Long, restless days, and the occasional drink and smoke-filled night. Kansas, after all, still has smoking in bars. Nevertheless, despite the rampant naysayers these days, Kansas is still a pretty cool place for me to be during the break. Lawrence is so nice this time of year. Gonna go to the Love Garden. Gonna get some Juice Stop. If I play my cards right, I might even get mom to take me out to the Mass Street Deli for a sweet sandwich and some chocolate chip cheesecake. Yes indeedy.

Of course, there are those long, restless days. Mostly I'm going to try to ready a paper for publication. I think I'm one draft away. If I get that sent off, well, I don't know what I'm going to do. I'll probably bang away on the piano for hours on end. Maybe write a song or two. Probably not, though. Mostly I'll be playing Beach Boys and the occasional Queen song.

Shelby and I might try to get our acts together (literally) for an open mic in Overland Park. He was suggesting some 70s AM Gold, for which I'm down. Perhaps a little John Denver. Perhaps a little Boston. I'll keep you posted, but it will be sweet.

In other news, I finally got my new driver's license! WOOHOO! And I only had to use my passport to get into a bar once! I'd say I'm doing pretty good on this thing.

Ugh. That's all I got, people. The well's been a little dry lately, I know. But the very least I can do is offer you this really sweet picture of Prince.

I found and old dog and he seems to like me; seems to like me; seems to like me.

Damn. I spent a long time on the road this weekend, headed up to the eastern LA wasteland - talkin' to pops, etc. I don't really have much that's blogworthy, except that I think I've discovered that I really enjoy Tom Waits' Mule Variations, one of the records that my uncle gave me. His voice is so shot that he's able to use it in interesting ways, from a totally distorted, animal growl to a John Lee Hooker sings the ballads kind of thing.

Cool.

I got the moon, I got the cheese. I got the whole damn nation on its knees.

Yesterday I bought a stereo to fill out my decidedly stereo-less apartment. I haven't been able to listen to any proper music in over seven months if it wasn't comin' out of some white headphones. So I looked on Craigslist the other day and found a stereo with inputs (for the iPod and DVD Player) for a grand total of $5. So I bought it.

The journey to pick it up, however, was slightly more harrowing than actually paying the five dollars for the thing. The pickup point was in Pacific Beach which, for those of you people who haven't been there, is possibly the worst place to drive in the world. Well, maybe not the world. Actually, there are probably a lot of worse places to drive. Anyway, it's a crappy place to have to drive. Exhibit A: other drivers. Because PB is a big drinkin' neighborhood, you're likely to get someone who's a) drunk or b) on their way, impatiently, to get drunk. Either way, it's a no-win situation. And with stoplights every five feet, it's tough to get around. Exhibit B: lack of public restrooms. On my way down fabulous Grand Avenue last night, nature called. In fact, nature called multiple times. Nature really needed to get ahold of me. I was being phone-stalked by nature. I stopped at a 7-11. No dice. I stopped at an Am/Pm. No dice. Finally, as I was just about to give birth to my bladder right there in the car, I found a Wendy's that I ducked into and out of rather quickly. Of course, it was hell trying to get out of the Wendy's parking lot, because some asshole who was a) drunk, or b) on his way, impatiently, to get drunk, had blocked the exit, and the cars in the drive-thru had queued up behind him. So it took me about ten minutes to get out of there as the drive-thru line dissipated. So I had all the agony of waiting for the jerk to get done at the drive-thru, without actually getting myself a Big Bacon Deluxe Combo. (Which sort of sounds tasty right now.)

Today I finally finished the grading for this quarter. Which means that the next time I'm going to have to grade a student's work is two quarters from now! I'm on fellowship next term, baby! If all goes well, I should have a decent draft of my dissertation by the end of the quarter, seein's how that's the only thing I really have to work on. (Well, and a couple of other things, too; but this one takes the cake.) I stopped by Math Rock's place for a little chili in an impromptu celebration of the life of Dimebag Darrell, the late guitarist for Pantera. (I'm not a big fan, but, you know, it was a festive occasion.) We watched some Mr. Show and did some blind whisky taste-testing. That was fun - but I was getting tired so I left. Before midnight, even! I am an old man.

Witz a bing-bang-boom-boom-bang.

Bad day today.

It started off badly. Checked my email and found out that I didn't get a fellowship I, and several department members, thought I was a shoe-in for. Back to the drawing board, both career-wise and financially. Being an associate instructor is pretty much a crappy deal, compared with being a research assistantship. You get paid three grand for the summer, which, superficially, is not all that much less than a ra-ship, because the ra-ship's only $3600. But the ra-ship gets doled out in three separate installments of $1200 a month, which means that your tax withholding is not that much, for me it was like 20 bucks. In addition, however, an ra-ship only gets FICA-deducted (this stupid stupid thing where if you're not enrolled, you have to pay roughly ten percent of your income into a pre-tax retirement account) for TWO paychecks - $2400, because the third paycheck arrives when you're enrolled. So that's only a pre-tax takeaway of $200 for the summer, compared with $300, because for teaching a class you only get ONE paycheck, and it arrives when you're not enrolled. Add that to the tax withholding on a $2700 paycheck, and we're talkin' big bucks here. I did some calculations, and if I were to get an RA-ship, it would be something in the range of $3400 for the summer. Doing an associate instructorship is more like $2400. Bites. I'm of course going to do it, because it looks good on the ol' CV, but I'm going to be eating franks and beans basically all summer. (Sorry for the technical financial language.)

Then I realized I've become addicted to this video game, courtesy of Math Rock. It's called 'N', and it's basically a clone of Lode Runner. I can't stop. It's eating away at my soul. Check it out, if you get a chance.

The acrid odor of vomit.

I am not really a football fan, even less a college football fan, and even less a fan of 9-page articles on the New York Times website. But this is an extremely interesting article, written by Michael Lewis, the author of Moneyball.

You behind the wheel, and me the passenger.

Awhile ago I bought an on-sale copy of the special 2-DVD set of "Depeche Mode 101". I'm dissatisfied with this purchase for two reasons.

Reason 1:

The second disk was supposed to contain the whole Rose Bowl concert from which the "Depeche Mode 101" CD was taken. It does not. Rather, it has some of the songs, but manifestly out of order, and in no particularly different versions than were actually shown in the "Depeche Mode 101" documentary. There are too many shots of the audience, and furthermore, they run "Never Let Me Down Again" after "Everything Counts", which, as everyone knows, is a horrible mistake, given that Depeche Mode always closed shows of that period with "Everything Counts". Ugh. No "Things You Said" - no "Shake the Disease". No nothin'.

Reason 2:

"Depeche Mode 101" is a lot more boring than I remember. Some of it is really interesting, like any bits where Alan Wilder is explaining how the band goes about doing things, or where the accountants are talking, or where the band is hanging out in the Country/Western music store in Nashville (Clerk: "Do you guys like bluegrass?" Martin Gore: "What's bluegrass?"). All that stuff is interesting. What isn't interesting are all these scenes with a bunch of miscellaneous fans on a bus getting drunk. And there are a LOT of those. Totally stupid. Why did they even have those people? It's almost half the damn movie! I guess in my recollection, I sort of erased the boring stuff. But let me tell you, there's a shitload of boring stuff. I'm convinced that D.A. Pennebaker, who made the film, did an astoundingly bad job.

NEW TOPIC!!

There are some times when I really develop a strong hatred for undergraduates. Not all the time. Most of the time I only think that the segment of undergraduates that are, well, let's just say "unmotivated", are worthy of hatred. But today, dang. These kids have no understanding of anything going on around them. I am trying to get from point A to point B in the middle of a crowd, following this one girl with an immense backpack, she's on her cell phone, and at one point she stops dead. I, of course, run into the monstrosity of a backpack she's got on, she turns, still on her cell phone and says: "Hey! Watch it!"

Ugh.

Also in the middle of this incredibly dense crowd of people was some jackass trying to ride his bike. He was trying to weave around people, essentially requiring everybody to get out of his way, lest he end up killing people. I can't stand this. Why can't people just get off their damn bikes, or, alternative, stupid cell phones?

Do I sound like a crotchety old man?

I've been trying to avoid that lately. And I think with a topic like this I come across too much like Mr. Wilson, or somebody complaining about kids these days. And, well, I am complaining about kids these days, so I guess you got me there. And what we me downloading all these records from 1993, it's possible that I am living up to that stereotype. I guess now all I need is a girlfriend significantly younger than I, and I can properly be described as "dirty" along with "old man". Here's shooting for the moon.