"...it's like they're saying, 'Here, you throw this away.'"

Am I overly annoyable through my daily commute, at the tourists who consistently block my passage off of the train, at the escalator leftstanders and the hogs of egress, at the pedestrian meanderers, and, perhaps most troubling, at the leaflet and newspaper distributors? They are mother birds on PCP, more than eager to jam their found pablum into you. Here's a restaurant you should try. Here's some stuff on newsprint you should read. Here, you throw this away (thanks, Mitch). Today there was some falun gong dude handing out pamphlets inside the Metro Center station. Well, it was either falun gong he was selling, or it was miso. I don't know because I have a general policy of neither accepting nor offering anything whilst I'm in transit. I'll pick up an Express from time to time, but that's it. I'm not giving you money or whatever the hell you just mumbled to me about, and I'm not taking your little pieces of paper. I'm thinking of printing up a little sign and wearing it on my hat. The sign would say, "I Accept No Fliers. Thank You." And, if these people keep being pushy about it, on the other side of the sign, it would perhaps say "Piss Off, Already. I Said No."

Identity Crisis

There is a stapler in my office that someone has labeled "Fax Machine Only."

I Just Cleaned My Cat's Litterbox

I got to share the magick of Sage Francis today. My buddy Griffy was saying at a Pool of Car fiesta Friday how much he loves hip-hop, and I knew what he needed for his birthday today. He got the new Sage Francis CD. So Jay marinated and grilled a humongous mess of meat. Did it well, too, damn it was good. I am convinced that there is something orgasmic about a medium rare steak and a good red vino. Mmmmmmm.

iPod Mini Fix?

I don't know if this helps anyone, but I'll share anyway. This morning the iPod mini was doing the weirdest thing. I was trying to listen to the Rachel Maddow Show, and it was stuttering. I tried fast forwarding it, but it only kept stuttering. So, I paused play and THEN fast forwarded while it was paused, then unpaused it. No more stutter. Damn I'm good.

How's It Feel To Want?

So I think the host at Bennigan's was a little retarded. We walked in after having seen Batman Begins. We had eaten only popcorn for dinner. We were hungry and just this close to grumpy. And so we walked in and said two, nonsmoking. And he looked at us and appeared to have some problem understanding that there were two people who wanted to sit in the nonsmoking section, as if he thought there were four of us. Then, he told us to wait a minute because all his servers were on the floor, which was odd because he could walk and there were a lot of empty tables in the restaurant. So then, as he was seating us, he asked us if we wanted a booth. Sure, we said. That would be great. Oh, he said, well, we don't have any booths. Would you like to sit at this table? I think this kid may be in the wrong business.

duhnuhnuhnuhnuhnuhnuh...

Ebert and Roeper nailed it right on the head regarding Batman Begins. This is the one where they finally get it right. I loved Burton's first one with Nicholson as the Joker. I loved it, but I couldn't help but feel that they hadn't quite gotten it right. They tried too hard to walk the line between the two camps of Batman aesthetics, is it the campy campy of Adam West and Burt Ward, or is it the hard gritty "bats-no-shiv" of Frank Miller? The compromise was interesting, and fellow Kent State alum Keaton surprised the heck out of me as an effective Batman/Bruce Wayne. But the first Burton effort and all the subsequent movies insisted on keeping the camp. Batman Begins approaches the myth with the goal of making it as plausible as it possibly can. Sure, you have to suspend disbelief to some extent, but it's not as wide a chasm as has been with the Batman movies of the '90s. This movie more effectively drums up the most obvious theme: He's not imbued with superpowers given to him by a new yellow sun or some horrific freak accident. He's just a man with a lot of resources and a drive to do what's right. This superhero gets his super strength by doing a lot of pushups. Even if you're not a fan of the Batman story, you probably should go see Batman Begins. One advantage of successfully humanizing Batman and Wayne is that it makes this the most accessible of Hollywood's efforts to live-action it. This isn't just a Batman movie. It's a movie, and when you come out of the theater from it, you'll feel like you're supposed to feel when you've seen a movie. You'll feel tired, full of popcorn, sticky-shoed, and a little stupid. And, for at least ten minutes or so, you'll be convinced that you can leap across rooftops and fight injustice in Gotham City. So, um, you might want to have someone watch you for a little while.

Marvin Hamlisch ROCKS!

Just got back from Wolf Trap seeing Marvin Hamlisch direct the National Symphony Orchestra through a ton of Broadway classics. It was fun. That "Morales" song always makes me choke up. We took a bunch of wine and buckets of chicken. Before the show started, Cousin Jane saw the dude tuning the piano onstage and recognized him. She borrowed a cell phone and called him. Yep. Called him while he was onstage tuning the NSO's piano. That was cool. If you saw the piano tuner waving to the crowd before the show, he was waving to us. It wasn't bad either that we got VIP passes because Aunt Kathy knows somebody. I mean, that little ticket gets you a close place to park, a clean, close place to pee, and free wine. Mmmmmm, wine and chicken and Broadway. It's a nonstop week this week, with Grandma Pryor in town. More family doos tomorrow night, then other things. Go, speed racer!

IMHO

I think that impact font should be banninated forever. It is illegible, and you can't read it very well, either.

Lookit the Size of those FEET!

Meet Sherman Petey Wheatstraw.
No, he's not mine. I wish.

The Ocean Breathes, Um, Salty

The strangest thing I've seen in a long time occurred at the Modest Mouse show at DAR's Consitution Hall Thursday: Several songs in, Issac and company launched into "Ocean Breathes Salty," and two of the four or five frat boys who were in front of us high-fived. Something mad wrong with that. Wronger was how a few of these boys hung on each other through the show. I'm guessing there's been at least one drunken unintended blowjob among them. You know. "Oh, man. I was so drunk..." Unless, of course, I misjudged, and these were actually some very, very out gay boys, likely to be heading for Chaos right after the show. Just wasn't the vibe we got. Boys. Admit it. Come on out. Really. Fry-day morning got out of bed and had a nice breakfast with my woman. We then ran home and she watched me pack. Yes, I'm a procrastinator. At least, I would be, but I reckon it can wait until tomorrow. Then I ran her home and zipped up to Seven Springs for the Mitchell Family Reunion. Seven Springs is lovely, people. Just lovely. And, it was both nice AND weird to see all these cousins. 'Specially Ms. Carrie, who was one of my few adopted summer siblings. She is as sweet and nice and incredibly unjaded as she ever was. In fact, I think she was more jaded when we were teens. Does that mean that she went and grew up, while I didn't bother? Probably. I ate a lot and drank a lot of good wine. It was good. I'm trying to whisper family reunion success secrets based on my experience with reunions on the other side of the family. But, there's a basic difference: That family reunion involves Pryors. However, I have got one basic truth forward regarding family reunions. Have them annually only if you want them to fail. Once every two years, baby. That's the trick. Once a year is too much, and besides, it doesn't give people enough time to build up their stories. Well, here's to hoping this is the start of a new, longstanding tradition. Sigh. I have to go to work tomorrow.

Narcolepsy Is Funny. Daschunds Are Funny.

A narcoleptic daschund? That's a HOWL. Speaking of funny, on this board of geeks I'm on (yes, totalfark.com), someone posted the following query: "What is your favorite joke? Difficulty: Must be G-Rated." So, someone posted this excellent joke: Two muffins are in the oven, baking. One muffin turns to the other and says, "Man, it sure is hot in here." The second muffin replies: "HOLY COW! A TALKING MUFFIN!" So soon a bunch of weisenheimers are posting lame evolutions of said joke. So, I couldn't help but pitch in. So, there are these two beef anuses in an oven, that is, two anuses that have been butchered out of two cows, because, you see, in some parts of the world, broiled cow anuses are really where it's at. And so the one beef anus says to the other beef anus, "Man, could life get any worse than this? Not only did our portion of the embryo grow to be the anus of a cow, but then it turns out that some guy comes along and saws us right out of that cow's ass and slaps us onto a cookie sheet and into an oven. Man, I don't know how our lives could be any more disgraceful." "Well," says the second beef anus to the first beef anus. "You could be Colin Powell arguing President Bush's case for war in Iraq before the United Nations." Whereupon, the first beef anus says, "Oh, sweet merciful Jesus, you are correct. There but for the grace of God goeth I, bitch!" Two minutes later, I chimed in with, "Wait. I think I told it wrong."

Movie Pitch

I'd like to see a movie like Freaky Friday, only they're identical twins, so neither one of them learns a damned thing. Update: I reckon this is somewhat a good line. My housemate Karen didn't get it, but it nearly made beer come out of Jessica's nose. It's nice because for some reason I just woke up with it. I woke up and there it was. Unfortunately, you only get one of those every six months, and that ain't enough to let you sit at the wall wit' a notepad. However, if any of you fokkers wanna buy it, drop me a line. Five dollah. LMAO

What Makes Sandy Balls So Special?

See for yourself.

Movin' Fast, Movin' Slow

On a liberal listserv I'm on, someone recently asked, as a general polling question, if we "believe in UFOs." My reply was something like this: Strictly speaking, the question itself is inaccurate. If you see something traveling in the sky but you don't know what it is, it is, by definition, an Unidentified Flying Object. There is, actually, no question that UFOs exist. They do. Technically speaking, the Frisbee® you don't see coming is a UFO until it bonks you in the temple. A question can be raised only if you suspect that the UFO in question might actually be piloted by little green men. The question, "Do you believe in UFOs," and the adoption of the term "UFO" to directly refer to space visitors is a prime example of linguistic evolution through lazy thinking. What folks actually want to ask is "Do you believe that aliens from faraway worlds visit us periodically?" Meanwhile:

• Look! It's a picture of George Foreman playing ping-pong!
• R.I.P., Mrs. Boob
• Necrophelia Today for the low-brow set: Girls and Corpses

Long Live The Dead Guy

I don't know if I was trying too hard yesterday to be the jaded city fella and former newspaper reporter. I think maybe I was trying too hard. Probably. I mean, it's not every day on your walk to the subway that there's a dead guy lying on a bench. I assumed he was dead. That would explain the white sheet the cops had put over him and all the yellow tape. It would also help explain all the people gathered around looking at him. I refuse to rubberneck. No matter what. I don't rubberneck. In my little life I've had an adventure or two that have managed to drive that need right out of me. Nothing major or anything, you know, a loose nutball shooting up my college campus, a sheriff's manhunt, being told on any particular day to run out and photograph a car accident, crazy Elvis impersonator insisting on doing karate for ya, stuff like that. Besides, poor fella. It's bad enough he died like that, he doesn't need a bunch of strangers hanging around gawking. So, I kept walking. What the hell, it's good blogfodder.

Make Up Your Mind Already

I am working on an ideer that might allow me to keep my URI here at adventuresintothewellknown.com. Uh, stay tunered.

Fire Good. Meat Good. Good.

Last night as we did the week before to celebrate the remembering of our warriors, my people and I, we made the fire, and we lay meat on the fire, and we let the meat cook on the fire for awhile, and then we removed the meat from the fire, and we ate the meat. The meat was good. Grunt. (The fact that we had a nice shiraz with the meat, tabouli and slaw from Whole Foods with the meat and creampuffs for dessert kinda takes the caveman right out of it, doesn't it?) After the eating of the meat that had been cooked on the fire (on an official Simpsons Weber grill, no less), we watched Saved. It was the second time I'd watched this fine film. It was nice. Weekend good. Grunt.

Big Bad Bill Is Sweet William Now Even in a place as big as Washington, you tend to run into people. Just yesterday, I ran into my ol' buddy Justin whilst I was gearing toward the subway turnstile. I'm amazed I heard him, I had my Rachel Maddow show playing. "I have news," said Mr. J., who has apparently decided to no longer let the man tell him he can't have his long hair, good for you, brother. "I'm engaged." Well, now I had to have a beer or several with him that night, which I did. Got to meet her, too. She's great. It is, truly, truly, truly amazing how life can get a lot better with a good woman in your life.

God-damnit, I don't want to know the identity of "Deep Throat." I've already just this weekend learned why Darth Vader has to wear the mask. If I know who "Deep Throat" is, what mysteries are there left? The refrigerator light thing? Airline food? Is he or isn't he Zach's Dad? Sorry. It just doesn't compare. Suck the suspense out, why don'tcha?

Many of you will soon be given this spiffy new Blogger URL for the Adventures blog. As is perennially the case with most blogger-folk, I have decided to make some drastic changes in how I run these things. This sort of started when Dreamhost wrote and said I was using too much of their system sources. I have tended to use a lot of PHP scripts and such, but I didn't think it were that many, for goodness sake. I don't want to have to worry and fuss around with all of that. So, I hatched a plot to start moving all of my stuff back to free services. Might as well save myself $20 a month and fix Dreamhost's wagon whilst I'm at it. So, this is where this will reside for awhile. I rather like the notion of not paying for it. Besides, Blogger has improved a lot since I was using it three years ago. What it can't do is run PHP, so I'm sort of one-handed here regarding online sorcery. What it can do that Greymatter didn't do is to make users register to post comments, thus disallowing bot-spamming. Yay! P.S. I am digging through archives and adding blasts from the past. You can do that with Blogger. : )

If It Wasn't For My Horse... Have you ever actually read the evacuation instructions on the Metro? This is the first sentence you read: "Leave wheelchairs, stroller, bicycles, or other bulky items on train." ::pausing. pausing. pausing.:: LEAVE WHEELCHAIRS?! What am I supposed to do if I'm in a wheelchair and the subway train is evacuated? Crawl off like a seal? And, notice, if you will, that those items are not listed in alphabetical order, so I assume that there is some sort of priority system involved here. First, leave the wheelchairs. Then, the strollers, and then, the bicycles. Screw the handicapped first, then the babies, and then, only then, should the fully able-bodied cyclists lose their stuff. W.T.F.?

Woo-Hoo! I just heard Rachel Maddow, as a guest host on AAR's "Morning Sedition," give up a little "woo-hoo!" while trailing to a commercial break. Isn't it wonderful that we now have an entire generation of folks who now use that particular Simpsonesque exclamation regularly? I use it all the time, along with the more negatory "D'oh!" I find that the latter is useful in helping me avoid using curse words at the office. Also, it is useful in defusing whatever the hell it is I'm upset about because it makes me think of Homer, which makes me laugh, or at the very least helps me see how stupid whatever it is that's got me pissed is. My weekend, my gods, please, can all of my weekends be like that? Please? It was perfect. I want another one.

An Early Review �Revenge of the Sith is, quite simply, fucking awesome. This is the Star Wars prequel the haters have been bitching for since �Menace� came out, and if they don�t cop to that when they finally see it, they�re lying. � � Kevin Smith

How To Save The World And Look Hot Hot Hot I went to the luncheon today just to see. It shames me to admit it because it's oh so shallow, but I did. I went to the luncheon today just to see what it was like to be in the presence of such outlandish hotness. It wasn't bad. It didn't kill me. I didn't have to avert my eyes. And yes, good people, Angelina Jolie is every bit as beautiful as she looks on that little box in your living room. As you might expect, she's also rather interesting. She was at the Press Club today to speak about her work with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. She said that she always thought she was a rather well-educated human being until she filmed in Cambodia, and they told her not to wander around over there because of the landmines, and they told her about the refugees. She eventually adopted one of those refugees. When you grow up in this country, you do make certain assumptions, one of which is that children are always safe and shielded from horrible things. Jolie has created a second career for herself in reminding people that it ain't always true, that sometimes, refugee children in the United States face tribunals, large rooms full of strangers, and are expected to recount stories of violence and persecution to them. There are an estimated 5,000 kids like this per year in the United States. One of UNHCR's aims is to find pro bono legal help for these youngsters, through the National Center for Refugee and Immigrant Children. Hearing Jolie speak about these things made me consider my first interests in global politics, which came from reading about Stephen Biko. It's easy these days to think that the world's only tragedy is happening in Bush's Mess O' Potamia, but it's good to be reminded that the world is much bigger than that and that there are places like Darfour and Cambodia and...um...Detroit. Someone asked Jolie if she'd ever consider parlaying her acting career into a job in politics. Her reply was amusing: "I think I have too many skeletons in my closet for politics." Interestingly enough, she thinks Colin Powell would be a good choice to head the World Bank. And, I don't know how many Americans can casually say, "We have a home in Cambodia." Interesting woman. And, yes, I am pleased to report: She is hot. Well, back to my study of iMIS Content Manager. :: Snort :: > : )

Yeah...um...sorry about that... On the first day of Black History Month, Sen. George Allen (R-VA) will introduce a Senate resolution apologizing for the Senate's filibustering of House-passed anti-lynching laws in the 20th century. Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) will join in offering the resolution. This will be the first time Congress has apologized to African-Americans for past atrocities.

Beer Is Not A Toy Hooray for drunk skanking monkeys! Hooray for a monkey licking a window! Hooray for an enormous squirrel! (Hooray, b3ta!)

Good Kitty

My kitty just threw up while I had the State of the Union Address on.

A guy walks into a bar and ends up attending a wake. Wait, it's not a joke. That was me on Tuesday night. What a strange week. R.I.P., Neal, you old barfly, you.

Johnny's always running around trying to find certainty. He needs all the world to confirm that he ain't lonely. Mary counts the walls. Knows he tires easily. Johnny thinks the world would be right if it could buy truth from him. Mary says he changes his mind more than a woman. But she made her bed, even when the chance was slim. Johnny says he's willing to learn, when he decides he's a fool. Johnny says he'll live anywhere, when he earns time to. Mary combs her hair. Says she should be used to it. Mary always hedges her bets. She never knows what to think. She says that he still acts like he is being discovered�scared that he'll be caught, without a second thought. Running around. Johnny feels he's wasting his breath trying to talk sense to her. Mary says he's lacking a real sense of proportion. So, she combs her hair. Knows he tires easily. Bye-bye, Mr. Smooth

Obligiatory "Death Of Domestic Canine Companion" Post, or "Farm Purchase Eyed By Dog" Many many years ago, my father remarried, built a new house, and settled in for the rest of his life. He and his new wife soon adopted a short-legged, charasmatic little pooch they'd noticed wandering around the neighborhood�er, more specifically, they adopted him when they noticed him wandering around Lee Highway. They named him "Marion Barry." Quoth my Dad: ...we named him for the Mayor of Washington D.C. whose nocturnal peregrinations were not unlike those of this small black dog who enjoyed visiting the group house behind us in search of smoke. Some might take offense at the name, but with this dog in this city at that time, the name was perfect. Today is Marion Barry's last day with us. He is in most everybody's estimation too sick to keep going. He is approximately 17 years old, damned ancient for a dog, and he's arthritic and blind and his liver doesn't work. It is, sadly, time to put him down. Marion has spent his last years rather happily on a large farm estate in Rochester, N.Y. Though he bore the rather obvious signs of a dog going unhealthy with age, the cloudy eyes, the greasy coat, the little mole growing on his snout. As I recall, however, he never lost his personality and always seemed to refute his advanced age. I will genuinely miss seeing the old boy when I go up to Gonfalon Farm. Good doggie.

Edinboro

I always forget how beautiful it is, Edinboro, Pa., how the lake is just the right size, how the little narrow Lakeside Drive is but a ribbon wrapping it all up, how good it smells, and how wonderfully life slows down there. My Grandmother is quite the trendsetter in Edinboro. Always has been. Many years ago, she and her husband Bernard came to this little place that at the time was, I believe, pretty much just a hole with water in it surrounded by some land. They bought a lot and just camped on it for a few years before they started building the Cottage. The little place, built with strictly non-union labor (read: they pretty much built the place themselves), was where I would spend a large part of every summer as a kid. There are few places better to sleep when you're that age then in the top bunk of a small room that is lined exclusively in knotty pine. I can still smell that house just by thinking about it. In the mid '80s, Grandma and Grandpa decided it just wasn't enough room for them anymore. They swapped a lot they owned across the lake for the one adjacent to the Cottage and built their dream Edinboro home, palacial for Edinboro standards at the time. Here, the first Edinboro settlers became among the first to build a full-fledged residential dwelling. Now, of course, everyone's doin' it. My Grandpa died in '86. He rests across the lake from the house at Edinboro Cemetery. His plot was among our stops on this visit, a final footnote to an eye-opening weekend. It's easy in one's 20s, I think, to forget, ignore, or take for granted one's roots. How valuable it is that my elders found this little spot, fell in love with it, and dug in. How extraordinary it is that I was offered such an ideal and happy place to play and learn my way to adulthood. How enormous it is that everywhere I go and everything I do, I carry millions of minutes of life experience with me earned at this little lake. It is mind-boggling, and I thank my Grandparents profusely for giving it to me.

January 27, 2003 Change When you grow up with a person, you can have a conversation in an instant, without words, one that you've never had before and will never have again, one that preludes a moment that changes everything. I sat on the sofa downstairs watching the Super Bowl with the same bit of interest as usual, and heard my aunt ask my Uncle Jay if it was time to go snap some pictures. The comment did not pass my brain's triage, so I sat and kept watching the game with the same bit of interest, hoping one of those funny commercials would come on again. Then, I had to pee. So I went upstairs. What should have clicked in my little brain when my aunt said that was that Jay was getting ready to document where he is in his transition. By the time I got upstairs, he had removed his sweater, and my aunt had her digital drawn. This is what he said to me, not in any words, not even in gestures, just in one milisecond of hesitation: I'm about to take off this T-shirt, and you'll see for the first time ever what I look like after top surgery plus a few short weeks of healing. For me, there's no turning back, there hasn't been since I had this done. For you, that point of no return is right now. After this, you will not know me any other way. I will no longer be your aunt in transition�I will be your uncle. That scares me a little, and it should you too, and so I'll wait for just one second to give you a chance to leave the room before I take off my shirt and change both of our lives forever. So, what do you think, nephew. You ready? I didn't flinch.

Revelry We had all but give up on Whitey's. I had for some time considered to to be "my bar." It is a wonderful place. Unlike many bar-n-grill types of places, it is spacious. They grill up the best burgers in town. Generally, I like the ambience. Generally. It was one Friday night in July. I was to meet Jay and Jessica there for the usual night of revelry. Usually, I look forward to cracking open that wooden door, stepping out of the heat and sitting down at the bar and having a nice, cold beer. On this early Friday evening, though, I stepped into hell. They had this deejay there, and the air conditioning was broken. This deejay was playing songs and yelling trivia questions to the audience, which mostly consisted of overly-testosteronated, whooping military types. We sat in one of their booths just to be farther from the blaring speakers, and at one time told the guy that we were finding it hard to have a conversation, and could he turn it down just a bit? Eventually, they turned the lights down and started moving the pool tables and putting up signs that read: "No Moshing Or Aggressive Behavior." This, to us, was a sure sign that it was time to split. We did, and we swore that we'd never be back. (We ended up at Galaxy Hut.) We weren't, until last night. The plan was to go bar hopping in Clarendon. We'd start with some billiards at Whitey's, in the early afternoon before the hell began. Well, it never did, or at least, not that I remember. So, we never left. This morning I'm feeling a bit sluggish, but it's good to know that the bar formerly known as "my bar" hasn't entirely lost its mind.

A Horrible Reenactment

September 20, 2002 A Horrible Reenactment Hey, boy. Yeah, paw? Let's us rush the field and beat the shit outta that bald guy. Whut? Yeah, let's us rush the field and beat the shit outta that funny lookin' bald guy. Why for, paw? 'Cuz he looks funny. I think he might be mixed. Mixed, paw? Aw, come on. Well, mixed or funny or something. He don't look right. Sigh. C'mon, you big sissy. I betcha we can take 'im. Yeah, but paw, it'll be on teevee and all. All my friends'll see. Boy, tell you what. You jump out with me an' beat the shit outta that bald guy, and I'll buy you a six pack of the Rock when we git home. Yeah? Yeah. How 'bout a pack o' cigarettes? Mmmmmmm, boy, you drive a hard bargain. And rubbbers, paw. I really need some rubbers. You know how Colleen is about me wearin' them rubbers when we're a' bumpin' rugs. Will you buy me some rubbers, paw? If you go down into that field with me and beat the shit outta that bald guy, I'll buy you some rubbers, boy. All right, paw. You got it. Okay, boy! I knew you had it in you! Let's go get that mixed motherscratcher. Yeah! Hey, paw? Yeah, boy? I love you. Shuddup, boy. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Another Way To Look At It My Dad, on the bizarre attack on Royals coach Tom Gamboa: I think the good news is that there are still some fans left out there who care... who really really really care!!

BOOOOO! Just as a surgeon is finishing up an operation, the patient wakes up, sits up, and demands to know what is going on. "I'm about to close," the surgeon says. The patient grabs his hand and says, "Oh, no you're not! I'll close my own incision." The doctor hands him the needle and says, "Suture self."

The Fishin' Hole

Tuesday, May 28, 2002 In my office, every day at approximately the same time, one of my co-workers starts whistling The Fishin' Hole, also known as The Andy Griffith Show Theme Song. This is a new development, and a bit strange. You see, a few years back, I met Barney Fife. Well...sorta. I met the man who is probably the most effective Barney Fife impersonator in the country. His name is David Browning, and he's as close to the "official" Barney Fife impersonator there is. Even Mr. Knotts approves... Browning came out to a Cracker Barrel Restaurant in Johnston County to help celebrate its opening. He was funny. Very effective as the bungling lawman. He had the car, the hat, the buggy eyes, the awkward stance...and yes, Virginia, he had the bullet in his pocket. It was a brilliant performance, brilliant enough to make my front page that week. (Sure, it was a slow newsweek. ALL of them were slow newsweeks in Johnston County.) And, frankly, brilliant enough for me to become a fan of the show and a novice trivia buff...(quick, why'd Fife decide he could put an "M.D." in front of his name?) Sometimes, I miss Raleigh so damned bad. I miss the incredibly lush quality that the foliage has there. I miss REAL barbecue. I miss being a stone's throw from Chapel Hill. Hell, I miss Fuquay-Varina, believe it or not. And I really miss it every time I say "hey" to a stranger in this particular metropolitan area just to be walked through like I'm a ghost. So much as open your mouth in some parts of Carolina, and you've just shot the next 45 minutes on friendly conversation. But I can't ever deny that my spiritual home is D.C. I began the process of adopting this place when I was 13 years old. Visits with Dad showed this generally medium-sized-college-town youngster what the metropolitan life could offer. There's no decent Thai food in Kent, no expansive art museums where you might actually see a Dali, no public transit. Of course, there's not much chance that an airplane will end up flying into Brady's Caf�. I guess a large part of life is picking your dangers. Proximity to the dastardly deeds of terrorists, or, um...boredom? Yep, I think I've pretty much made my pick. But, goddammit. I really wish they'd stop whistling that.

A bit for you today regarding how my mind works, as if you might find this topic fascinating... As I have slightly lamented in this particular column, I have recently moved from a Nice, Big, Windowed Office into a less nice, smaller, windowless office. As I have said, I must say again: I am pleased as hell to have an office at all, or, for that matter, to even have a job and the wits with which to perform it reasonably well. ::kicking dirt:: I still miss my damned window, though. Anyway. When I was in my bigger office, and after I inherited the additional responsibilities as Webmaster for my organization, I had to do some detective work, which meant I had to spend some time cleaning out the office belonging to the previous Webmaster. (I didn't ogle anything personal, bro'. Don't fuss.) Now, personally, I'm not sure how this lad ever got anything done. He was buried in paper. Piles of it, reams of it, acres of it, everywhere could find it, there was paper. I think he had the entire Webmonkey Cold Fusion tutorial printed out twice (it's several hundred pages long). So, I pitched about half of it, kept the receipts and some of the stuff that looked like it would contain vital information, and I dumped those papers onto an empty tabletop in my nice, roomy office. As I had time, I would sort through the mess of papers, pull out the 5 percent of what was worth keeping, and recycle the rest. Despite my best efforts, deadlines were my real priority, and I didn't mitigate but perhaps a third of the pile. Of course...in my new office, there's no tabletop. No room for one. So all that pile of stuff that I haven't gone through, it's on the floor in front of my desk. Oh, I could put this pile in the drawer of the filing credenza. There's enough room there, and it would remove this unsightly mess. If I do that, though, what will be my incentive to actually clean the mess up? If it's out of sight, it will be out of mind, and it will continue to be an unmanageable stack of obsolete paper. If I leave it where it is now, and I get enough "tsk tsk" noises clucked at me, I will have a grand incentive to actually send pounds and pounds of this useless paper packing. Do I think too hard?

Marketing Push Just Beginning For Rukeyser By Serge Colonblow (ABP)--Don't feel bad for Louis Rukeyser. As it turns out, when Rukeyser was told to step out on his long-running television show, "Wall Street Week With Louis Rukeyser," he stepped onto a veritable money truck. CNBC knew a good thing when they saw it--the cable network immediately snapped up the popular finance guru for a show of his own, on cable, with a few rules of its own. The show will not be commercially supported but will be underwritten, as was Rukeyser's PBS program. "I insisted on this," said Rukeyser. "These days many, if not most, of my viewers do have access to cable, but many do not. They h all of my viewers have access to cable, but many do not. They have been...extremely loyal to the program, and I wanted to make sure it was available to them." Rukeyser denied inside rumors that the show was originally to have been titled "Rukeyser's Bitchin' Budweiser Financial Hour"; nor would he acknowledge the rumor that producers had been negotiating with former "Happy Days" star Erin Moran to appear on the show, possibly actually wearing money. He was jubilant, however, about the Louis Rukeyser action figures. "Check this out!" said Rukeyser. "He's got a cape!" Expect also a Saturday morning cartoon series, merchandising tie-ins with Burger King, and a hot dog fryer bearing the Rukeyser name.

My senior year in college, I worked as in intern in Washington, D.C. No, not one of those kinds of internships. I spent two days a week at a little media group that tended to work with leftish non-profits, or not-for-profits, or whatever you call 'em. When I worked there, I formed one notion of what I wanted to achieve after college: A job in Washington, D.C., an office with a big window, and a reasonably comfortable life. I was essentially shooting for a job as a newsletter editor and a nice place to live in Northern Virginia. You know what? For awhile, I had all of that. Today, though, I lost the office. I now reside from nine to five in a smaller, danker office without a window. And...um...well, there's this STENCH... Yes, friends, life just keeps getting better and better. And better. ('Sokay, ya'll. I got my eyes on the prize. I'll get there someday.)

Have you ever gone to type the word "Superfund" and had it come out "Superfunk?" If so, did you find the whole thing as incredibly amusing as I am right now?