Came across this opinion piece on CNN regarding what "rules" of chivalry are antiquated and sometimes weird. Now check out the links within the article pointing to a website that lists all the reasons why typically chivalric actions are not only okay, but signs of affection. These notions are supported by the frequently misspelled comments underneath the CNN article who claim all sorts of wild notions like "show that [a man] is a man" and "a man should..." and "I was raised to..." and "these are signs of respect and care..."

Listen. Expecting your significant other - male or female - to perform certain actions to earn your respect is foolhardy. Pulling out a chair, helping to put on a coat, ordering food for her/him, these are all kind gestures, absolutely. When done out of pure cognizance of a social situation and a genuine appeal to do something kind, there's no harm (a good way of testing if this is the case is to see how your s.o. acts around family members or close friends). But this sort of treatment done because of tradition? Because it's demanded for a relationship? Unacceptable. These behaviors are only found in unbalanced relationships such as "chivalric" men and women and oh by the way, parents and children.

This is the 21st century. There's no reason to pretend any longer that women aren't equally capable of doing all those things traditionally ascribed to men. It's not a matter of kindness, respect, or care. Women can do just fine without any schoolhouse-pretend games of etiquette, thanks, and attempts to do so are woefully obsolete.

As if calendars flipping over to September and classes starting up today weren't enough, the weather has suddenly shifted to remind me that despite all the nonsense about "equinoxes" and "vernal" and "September 22nd," summer is already over. It's in the fifties right now, for crying out loud, and I couldn't be happier. I'm exuberant when I may wear sweaters, hoodies, and long-sleeved flannel shirts to my heart's content and not sweat like a dog in Michael Vick's backyard.

Usually, my summers go by lickety-split and when cohorts/associates/other social acquaintances ask the polite-talk question, "So, how was the summer?" I'd offer up the pithy and predicted response "Too short!" Both of us would laugh and nod and go on our separate ways. Today, I was asked several times and gave the response, "Oh, it felt about right."

Truly, I got just about everything done that I wanted to. I visited California. I read a couple books. I wrote in my novel (although I did finish up about eight pages shy of my personal goal). I even got summer classes done, despite the fact that I was bone-tired of reading Northrop Frye, Ford Madox Ford, Joseph Conrad, Toni Morrison, and all the other combined theorists and authors of the respectable English canon.

I suppose it seems somewhat unreasonable that four months should suddenly run out, but I kept myself busy enough precisely to avoid that moment where I thought, "Damn, I wish I were back in school." That's a terrible thought. The rest of my life is going to be not-school. I must accustom myself to the strange land outside academia.

In uninteresting news, I submitted my resume (pronounced ray-ZOOM, of course) to Fossil to be considered for a keyholder position. How dreadfully glamorous, I know, but hopefully I get a pay raise and a few more hours tossed my way for doing the stuff I already do.

Also, I may be going to Cleveland and Vermont (different trips) in October. Hooray!

I must depart, Eljay Land. I have some Northrop Frye and Ford Madox Ford to read.

I stumbled upon this little passage reading a book I found in a box in Sarah's stepdad's collection this past weekend in North Carolina:

"The gods were bored, and so they created man. Adam was bored because he was alone, and so Eve was created. Thus boredom entered the world and increased in proportion to the increase of population. Adam was bored alone; then Adam and Eve were bored together; then Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel were bored en familie; then the population of the world increased, and the peoples were bored en masse. To divert themselves they conceived the idea of constructing a tower high enough to reach the heavens. This idea itself is as boring as the tower is high and constitutes a terrible proof of how boredom gained the upper hand."

Soren Kierkegaard


I am fascinated by the image of the Tower of Babel. A mighty construction - to what end? And the punishment by God to confuse the tongues of man, so tangential and yet so powerful...

I wonder what other actions smack of such innocent hubris and are punished by a belligerent authority who knows not the consequences of his hand, or does know and is too cruel to care.

Kierkegaard provides an analog for the tower as a microcosmic icon for a boring world which is thus an evil world since boredom is the root of sin (desire is the root of suffering). But here, God is as much at fault as man. The Tower and its subsequent destruction are byproducts of Nature, a Nature that encompasses both man and his gods...

I don't wish to alarm you, but this country is apparently knee-deep in something called an "economic recession." I know. Scary stuff.

I've read a few articles in the last six or seven months about various chains that are in trouble due to the lack of consumer spending - places like Wet Seal, Abercrombie and Fitch, PacSun, and various other apparel-centered stores. I'm conflicted. I certainly don't want our country's economy to tumble any farther, but I also kind of want people to start to understand that $88 for a pair of pre-torn jeans is unfathomably ridiculous.

Hell, I've worked for five years in a store that specializes in selling wristwatches and leather products. Recently, we designed a line of dress-casual shoes. I can't think of too many stores less important to our survival than a store that demands you to buy accessories. I'd rather not lose my job, though. So please, buy the unessential for my sake.¹

Would it be so bad if our trendier stores took a nosedive? I'm not sure. Fashion predicates itself on duping the public that fashion exists on the first place. Once that's set up, we can be convinced that there are such things as "seasons" for clothes, that something can be "out" or "in," that X is the new black. I'm a sucker, too. I admit that I look at my wardrobe from time to time and get bored with what I already have. Maybe if we would all stop trying to impress one another with clothes....nah, that's foolish. We're always going to try to impress in some fashion. Helps us feel special, I suppose, as silly as that is.


^{1. I'm joking. Don't compromise integrity for my personal gain. I'm not married to a brand name.}

I returned from California very early Tuesday morning. It was the first time I had been any farther west than Rockford, Illinois. Briefly:

I ate a lot of Mexican food that I'd probably misspell if I attempted to relay it here. Tortillas are apparently used for everything from spackle to diapers in a Hispanic household. I swam in the Fork River, just a few miles upstream from where gold was discovered in America in 1848. Apparently, one can still pan for gold in that river. I visited Sacramento and fell in love with the old-Westy style promenades in the region of the city known as, I kid you not, "Old Sac." I am nine years old again and giggling. Driving by the state capital building, I hoped to see Mr. Schwarzenegger but was sadly let down by his absence. The aforementioned building is an exact replica of the Capitol building in DC, to the point that when Hollywood execs want to film a scene involving the Capitol they use Sacramento for obvious reasons instead of DC. I also visited Gen. John Sutter's fort in Sacramento and learned lots of neat 19th-century pioneer stuff (such as how to amputate an arm or which pelts would rake in the most cash).

Just outside of the Sierra Nevadas, I partook in my first wine tasting and got mildly buzzed. I then purchased a bottle of award-winning cabernet. An hour later, I was swimming 150 yards across a lake to a small island. Upon my arrival, I nearly collapsed, then gathered myself to jump off a rope back into the lake and to get nibbled upon by many tiny fish. Farther south and more inland, I visited some giant sequoia trees and got my hike on. I also got schooled in basketball by Adrian and his dad and developed a giant blister, which made it very hard to walk on the beach the next day when we went to Santa Cruz. The Pacific Ocean was very, very, very cold and full of giant tangles of something or other -- maybe kelp, maybe alien ocean peppers, I don't know -- but I nonetheless made sure I took a dip.

I ate seafood chowder just outside Half-Moon Bay. I ate clam chowder in an authentic San Francisco sourdough bread bowl a few days later. The Golden Gate Bridge is incredibly impressive and incredibly high above the ocean. Make sure you wear your flannel (like I did) if you plan on walking it. I was there at the end of July and it was low 50's, foggy, and super-windy. Every day I was in California I swam except for one. Nights were spent chowing on leftover food and watching either Flight of the Conchords or Stella. One afternoon, we drove an hour just to see Moon, which was an incredibly awesome movie and unexpectedly heartbreaking.

The flight there was uneventful and the drive from San Francisco to Live Oak took forever, although I did get to see the Bay Bridge (even bigger and longer than the Golden Gate!) and some orchards. The weather was supremely hot -- over 95 every day -- but I really didn't seem to notice as much since there was no humidity to speak of. My skin noticed and got burnt, which it does every year regardless of sunscreen protection. I was most amazed by the lack of cloud cover in the sky. It's so. freaking. BLUE in California. I ate a fruit that looked and smelled and peeled like an orange but tasted like a lemon. I don't know what it's called. The flight back was mostly uneventful, although we almost got delayed several hours during our layover at Atlanta. We arrived in Lancaster at 4:15 AM and I promptly woke up four hours later to work an eight-hour shift at Fossil, huzzah.

Strangely enough, there are parts of California that reminded me of Pennsylvania. There were parts that were discernibly better (did I mention no humidity?) and some parts that weren't (everything is so freaking spread out away from the coastline). Now it doesn't even feel like I was there. The memories are crystal but since they're not immediate and I've fallen back into such a routine...it's like looking at a postcard and trying to imagine yourself there.

Anyway, the day I got back my car promptly decided to break down. $1,002 later, my car has a new timing belt and water pump and my credit cards take a hit. Ebb and flow, so it goes.

I know some of you - OK, like two - have been inquiring as to what kind of creative projects in which I've had my grubby little fingers swirling. I used to post excerpts of stuff I was working on or had recently finished. Well, since most of my time is spent either in class or working on my novel, I don't have a lot of finished products to show you (mostly because I don't really want to show a work-in-progress).

HOWEVER.

I can elaborate on a side project I've been working on with my friend Nate. Introducing BOAR, a new comic. It's a teenage melodrama for mature audiences, but with zombies!

We've been storyboarding and developing characters for the last two weeks and by this time next week, we should have a (very) rough draft of the first 25 pages.

I hope to show you a lot more of this as the summer progresses.

I've recently returned from my second sojourn to Salisbury, North Carolina. Sarah's mom lives there and that's where she went to high school, so most of her friends are from that area. From Newark, Delaware, it's roughly an 8-hour drive without stops. Naturally, I stopped for Chick-Fil-A, since Lancaster is a freaking dead zone and doesn't have one. You'd think with the incredibly high rate of Christians in the area, we'd have a goddamn CFA, but no. They're introducing a peach milkshake this summer and I want one super bad, but I digress.

On the way back, I stopped and got KFC's grilled chicken for the second time. It's surprisingly as good as advertised. I don't get it. Oh wait, you don't want to hear about what I ate on my vacation. Don't care - there will be more about food later.

Moving along unchronologically, I helped Sarah move both out of her dorm and into her new house. It reminded me of moving into my first house with Timmy and Levi (ha! I often forget how horrible of a roommate he was, with his steady diet of Wendy's french fries, cheese pizza, and anally-inserted recreational drugs). It seems like it's gonna be a great place to have parties, and also, it's within walking distance of: a pizza place, a Chinese place, a movie theater, Rita's, and a place where you can combine all sorts of cereals and toppings to make your own crazy concoction. See, I told you there'd be more about food.

My trip to the South this year did not include nearly as much Jesus and NASCAR as last year (probably because I avoided going to Cook-Out) but did include a lot more alcohol. Sarah's mom was pretty determined to load me up with wine and Belgian lambics on a nightly basis. We also found time to do minderasers, which are not as tasty when served barely colder than room temperature, I found.

Watched a couple movies: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid because I love Paul Newman and westerns and the two when mixed creates awesome-plus, Frost/Nixon which was better than I expected and made me a fan of the guy who played Frost (and the head Lichen in the Underworld series!), and El Orfanato because Sarah likes scary movies and because I felt Guillermo del Toro deserved another chance after boring me to tears with Pan's Labyrinth. I found it tense and well-crafted, FYI.

Sidebar - this album I'm listening to, The Faint's Fasciinatiion, has way too many I's in its title but is otherwise free of blemishes. I don't even know why I love it as much as I do, since multiple songs blatantly rip off of a couple 80's New Wave synth riffs (arguably one of the worst musical movements in history, along with 80's hair metal, and the 2003-8 fetish of spelling shit in pop songs). I didn't even know the album existed until last month despite it being released in like September of 2008, and by Jove, it makes up for every single mistake on Wet From Birth. It's like they got bored of singing about being horny (I make the case that after manipulating Trent Reznor's lyrics in their "Meet Your Master" remix for the Y3ARZ3R0R3M1X3D to make him say "I'm going to make you cum faster," they realized they couldn't top that and decided to tackle other topics) and thought they'd give a shot at being a little more political and social. It's not unprecedented (see: "Violent" and "Paranoiattack") but they give their best effort in this album. I'm going to stop working myself into a lather and suggest you try these tracks: "The Geeks Were Right," for its David Lynch look at the future; "Machine in the Ghost," a glitch-rock anthem dedicated to agnosticism; "A Battle Hymn for Children," a surprisingly touching polemic against the indoctrination of violent culture.

The day before I left Salisbury, I tried North Carolina barbecue. I felt this was something I needed to do, after complaining about the poor flavor of the barbecue I ordered in Nashville. The BBQ I got in NC (before I continue, I should inform anyone who isn't aware that in some of our more country-music-loving states, "barbecue" is not an adjective nor a noun describing a party featuring grilled meats but instead a noun describing shredded or pulled pork) was doused in a red vinegary substance and quite tasty. Apparently, I was supposed to eat the sandwich with a smattering of "slaw," a glob of cabbage also soaked in red vinegar and whatever else they found on the counter, but because it looked like brains and tasted like poop I elected to eat the sandwich meat-only. I apologize for going on about food once again.

If you ever drive I-95 through Virginia, be on the lookout for two things: 1) the incredible on- and off-ramps outside Richmond which remind me very much of water slides and look like the most fun a car can have on the East Coast and 2) signs that say "SPEED LIMIT ENFORCED BY AIRCRAFT," demonstrating America's awesome waste of technological prowess.

My favorite store in Salisbury is "OK Wigs," a store which Sarah claims never has a single customer inside but has been open five days a week for years now. If it's not a drug front, which it has to be, then they really need to work on their marketability. Your wigs are just OK? You're pretty much the only shop in the wig market in a fifty-mile radius, but you don't have to push your mediocrity on us poor saps. Give us a little hope that the wigs we're purchasing are of fine quality.

I watched G4's coverage of E3 while I was there, and I have to say that Microsoft had my eyes at full-mast when they announced their Natal project. Then, Sony showed me their wand thingy and it was game over. Not to mention, GOD OF WAR 3? Any game where I can effectively destroy a legion of centaurs by disemboweling them with chain-mounted blades and stomp on their quivering intestines within the first three minutes of gameplay automatically has my vote for Video Game of the Decade.

It's 2:10, what's up with your friend? Five points to anyone who can remember that reference. I'm out - work tomorrow morning to sell a bunch of watches to Indian people obsessed with black dials/gold finishes.

I was going to write something in here tonight. I promise.

I realize I haven't put anything on here in over 5 weeks. I feel a little overextended, writing on this, Facebook, two sports blogs, and a novel-in-progress. I am also trying to re-learn German.

Diners and happy hours take up a decent part of my week.

Going to North Carolina next week with the boo, so that means even less of a possibility of a more interesting update. I apologize.

Does anyone anywhere actually understand the rules of cricket? Or do you think it's the only game less confusing than Calvinball?

This is data from an actual matchup between South Africa and Australia today, a game which was delayed by a "floodlight failure"...

I've bolded my favorite parts.

End of over 42 (13 runs) - Australia 188/5 (102 runs required)

JR Hopes 37* (38b 3x4) WD Parnell 7-0-33-0
CJ Ferguson 50* (59b 4x4) DW Steyn 9-0-38-0
41.6 Parnell to Hopes, 1 run, driven through the off side for a single
41.5 Parnell to Ferguson, 1 run, shifts outside leg stump, follows him with a full delivery, whipped to deep midwicket region and that's his fifty. The crowd applaud and his team-mates too celebrate. The batsmen get together in the middle.
41.4 Parnell to Hopes, 1 run, low full toss, chipped towards long-off for a single
41.3 Parnell to Hopes, 2 runs, fuller, on the middle, driven between deep midwicket and long-on and they will pick up two runs. Good start to the over by Hopes.
41.2 Parnell to Hopes, FOUR, Follows that with a good ol' across-the-line swipe. It was short in length and he was cramped slightly but dragged it to square leg boundary
41.1 Parnell to Hopes, FOUR, full pitched outside off stump and he backs away to crash it through extra cover. Fine shot that. He picked the gap superbly

GDI stands for "God Damned Independent," if you weren't sure. That was a title bestowed on me during my lovely little stay at UCF. It referred to my refusal to join the Greek system, and curiously provides the notion of independence with a particularly pejorative connotation. Once I transferred to Pitt, the overwhelming presence of sweatshirts emblazoned with thick Greek letters diminished greatly. My identity crisis stemming from not being a member of a fraternity was dismissed.

Flash forward to the end of my first year of graduate school. I work as a graduate assistant at Millersville University in the Student Programs department. I help to plan events for the community of the university as well as the surrounding area at large. For the most part, I feel like I do a pretty good job. My co-worker assists in this endeavor, as well as managing the Greek system here at the university. Often she suggests that she doesn't have enough time or energy in the week to co-manage such a large organization as UAB (University Activities Board) and the Greek system. Looking at her schedule, I tend to agree.

Today, I was told by my superior that the University needed to have a full-time Greek adviser--this was necessary in part due to a reformulated Greek assessment system for Pennsylvania. They were going to make the graduate assistant the new Greek adviser. The problem for me is that I have no experience whatsoever with Greeks. The department also felt it would be inappropriate to give my co-worker the sole task of managing the Greeks and giving me the full responsibility of managing UAB, as that organization is appropriated over $250,000.

Essentially, I was fired.

Now, I have three weeks left to finish out here. I made a call to the Graduate Studies office to put my application back in circulation for other departments to peruse. I e-mailed the English chair and asked him to consider me for any GA openings in his department. That's about all I can do except hope that someone else thinks I'm worth hiring for a year. Without an assistantship, I can't afford the tuition to go here, which means I'm not getting my Master's degree. Which means getting a real person job to pay off the massive pile of student loans I accrued.

All of this is happening rather quickly. I'd like to stay in school and finish up my degree. Now it appears that other influences might prevent that from happening for the immediate future.

I recently read an essay defending the simplicity and concise nature of the short story (as opposed to the hulking, expansive novel). In an age where short stories seem to be a fading medium for narratives, I'm unsurprised to have found in a rudimentary Google search no real "top 100" short story list or something resembling it. I thought, Hmm, I have a lot of literary-minded friends in the blogosphere, let's make our own!

Why not? It doesn't have to adhere to any formula and really, it's more to make a list of things that a bunch of us find powerful, engaging, and beautiful. Not to mention, it'll condense in an area a bunch of stories I love to read and have yet to read.

I have omitted those narratives which veer toward the range of the novella. For that reason, I have not chosen some of favorites such as Kafka's "The Metamorphosis" and Stephen King's "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption."

My entries are below. Please add in the comments your favorite short stories of all time, in any genre, from any time period, from any nationality. I only ask that you suggest one story per author in an attempt to create a diverse catalogue (but, of course, if you disagree with one of my entries please substitute another!).

(These are in no particular order.)

"Sea Oak" by George Saunders
"The Apocalypse Commentary of Bob Paisner" by Rick Moody
"A City of Churches" by Donald Barthelme
"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson
"The Cell" by Jean-Paul Sartre
"A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" by Ernest Hemingway
"The Fall of the House of Usher" by Edgar Allan Poe
"A&P" by John Updike
"The Library of Babel" by Jorge Luis Borges
"How to Tell a True War Story" by Tim O'Brien
"Guts" by Chuck Palahniuk
"Happy Endings" by Margaret Atwood
"The Swimmer" by John Cheever
"The Necklace" by Guy de Maupassant
"Bullet in the Brain" by Tobias Wolff
"Kaleidoscope" by Ray Bradbury
"The Ledge" by Stephen King
"The Gift of the Magi" by O. Henry
"The Wife of Bath's Tale" by Geoffrey Chaucer
"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce
"The Toughest Indian in the World" by Sherman Alexie
"Brokeback Mountain" by Annie Proulx
"Who's Irish?" by Gish Jen
"People Like That Are the Only People Here" by Lorrie Moore

My brain hurts from thinking. Fill up my comments page with suggestions!

Every once in a while, I'll get a thought or three in my head that sounds more interesting than the others. While I have a free moment, I thought I'd put them on LiveJournal, just in case any of you find them interesting, too. Don't feel obliged to read these or comment, but you are more than welcome to do so regardless of my disclaimer. These are not in any way meant to be narrative in form or compile a sort of codified "theme." At the very least, it's not another silly Facebook meme.

• I have recently become semi-obsessed with apples. Yellow Delicious, Macintosh, Granny Smith: 'sall good to me. Someone told me that they have as much "caffeine" in them as a cup of coffee. I doubt this, but maybe the fructose in an apple provides as much energy as a cup of coffee. Anyone out there know the answer?


• Also, do we still have to wash produce before we eat it? I know it used to be a big deal to wash off all the fruit we ate just in case it was doused in buckets of DDT at the grocery store, but what is a quick rinse under tap water going to do against salmonella outbreaks? It may have been possible to avoid that peanut butter problem from a few weeks ago if we had just thought to rinse our cracker sandwichers under the faucet for a second before eating.


• Why the hell do "fat chance" and "slim chance" mean the same thing? What weight is required to increase probability?


• I've brought this up to a few people already, so apologies if this is a repeat...you know how the best gasoline at a pump is called something like "Ultra" or "Premium," then the next tier down is usually something like "Super" or "Plus"? What's the deal with the bottom tier? "Unleaded" is the best we could come up with? Why not just rename that type "Gasoline That Won't Damage Your Car" or "Just Barely Good Enough Petrol"?

Ah, gotta go. Car's waiting for me outside.

CPAC roars approval when yet another Republican wonders aloud if Obama is an American citizen.

This time, we have the added bonus of Obama being called a Communist! Let's get it straight, Cliff Kincaid. Barack Obama is not a Communist. Our president might be a liberal, an idealist, a radical, a Communist, but he is NOT a porn star.

Leaving the university today, I saw a sign that said "Happy Faustnacht Day! 40 cents, fresh baked!" Ignoring the adjective-adverb confusion for a second, what's a "Faustnacht"? Is that like a fasnacht? Would you sell your soul for one?

The subject line is one of many, many horrible "Southern" jokes found emblazoned on T-shirts, shot glasses, and bumper stickers in Nashville, where I was for the last five days. I can only imagine a room full of men wearing trucker hats and boots laughing like "gig-gig-gig-gig!" to these jokes.

But I get ahead of myself. Despite my predisposition to be wary of southeastern United States, Nashville greeted me with sunniness and promise. At the very least, the hotel where I stayed was awesome.

The city was underwhelming, particularly because it was so freaking obvious. Of course the main stretch of downtown Nashville is going to be littered with bars. Of course, the bars are going to be lined with toothless men. Of course, the house bands would never dream of playing a set that did not include a) a Johnny Cash song and b) "Sweet Home Alabama."¹ Of course the only black people I saw were panhandlers. Of course downtown Nashville has several stores devoted to the discount selling of boots, hats, and belt buckles, but is strangely devoid of any bookstore or coffeeshop.

It's sad when a stereotype is lived up to.

I was told I didn't go to the "cool" parts of Nashville², which might be true. I can only imagine what someone would think of Lancaster if they only visited the outskirts of the county - oh wait! People already do that.³ That having been said, I was thoroughly unimpressed by Nashville.

"Music City" is a pretty misleading nickname when country music or a derivative thereof consumes at least 80% of the discussion.

I think Southern people can just tell if someone is from the North, even without anyone saying anything. My admission of being from Pennsylvania was elicited with one of two responses: 1) cheery hospitality or 2) icy paranoia. Maybe #1 was just a mask for #2.

The BBQ in Nashville was pretty poor. The meat itself had no flavor (but high marks on the sauces -- Nashville can make a mean sauce!) and the price was disproportionate.

What are your impressions of {Nashville, Tennessee, the South, other}? I'd love to hear them!

<sup>1. In the running for the worst song ever written.
2. By Katie, who has an admitted bias toward loving Nashville.
3. Including, remarkably, a group of four middle-aged people sitting at a table in a restaurant where I ate dinner Monday night. They said they were from Pennsylvania and I responded in kind. They asked where I was from, and when I told them, asked if I was Amish. Instead of responding, I turned around and ate my sandwich.</sup>

So long, John Updike. Thanks for the wonderful stories.

In regards to mental health only, is it worse to:

always pursue a pharmaceutical solution
OR
refuse all pharmaceutical solutions?

I've posed this hypothetical to both close friends and family as well as people I have just met, and I'm always pleased with the level of thought that goes into the answer. I suppose it was inevitable that I eventually posted it on LiveJournal. Here goes:

Imagine that some nefarious fiend has kidnaped you and is holding you hostage in a giant 6x6x6' plastic box. He (or she) is quite insane and sadistic but not necessarily bloodthirsty; an escape is possible. He (or she) presents you with a scenario - you pick a food, any food at all, and the box will be rapidly filled with that food. You will then have the opportunity to eat your way out of the box. Keep in mind that whatever food you pick will not be refrigerated or heated - it will be served at room temperature. Also, you will be unable to drink anything (apart from liquids contained within your food) while inside the box. Which food do you choose?

I've rummaged through this hypothetical for a few years and have come up with what I think are pretty good answers, both to satisfy the parameters listed above and to my own tastes. I won't post them here so as not to bias your answers (plus I want to see if anyone comes up with the same things), but I'll put them in the comments.

Happy eating!

I watched probably the most post-modern film since Adaptation last night: Funny Games. I really can't give anything away, since the "twist" is really quite clever and unique and intellectually deep, but suffice it to say that the entirety of the movie left me feeling both enriched and greatly uncomfortable. I will never again trust anyone wearing all white.

Go rent it. It's at most Blockbusters and the acting by everyone involved - Tim Roth, Naomi Watts, Michael Pitt - is superlative.

I had an adventure a couple weeks ago. After driving to Collingswood, NJ on a Thursday to help a close friend of mine say goodbye to her dear father, I traveled back to Lancaster to work Friday and Saturday. Saturday night I drove to Newark, DE to pick up Sarah. We then drove across Maryland to Hagerstown to rendezvous with Adam, Katie, and Adrian. From there, we traveled even FURTHER west to Shepherdstown, West Virginia for a crazy little party. There was much cigarette smoking, moonshine drinking, and dancing to acoustic versions of rap songs. We drove back to Hagerstown for lunch the next day, then after taking a scenic detour up through Chambersburg, PA, headed east through Carlisle and Harrisburg back to Lancaster Sunday evening so I could get to a store meeting. Sunday night I drove Sarah back down to Newark and Monday morning I drove back to Lancaster so I could shower and change before work at 1 PM in Millersville. Phew! Well worth it, though.

Who are Adam and Katie, anyway? Why, they are my good friends, of course. But furthermore, they are the creators of some mighty fine music. Do you like Bob Dylan? Wilco? Thom Yorke? Bluegrass, blues and folk?

Then perhaps you'd enjoy checking out their webpage. Only one song is available for listening right now, but it's a doozy and oh-so-fun.

Come on, support these adorable people: