COLUMN: Art

Say hello to Shane, Art Conoisseur.

That's right, I'm one step away from the prententious elite: I have purchased A Work Of Fine Art. I'd better start trying to stomach wine and cheese, as I'm now one turtleneck away from joining the ranks of high society.

I've always struggled with my appreciation of art. As a life-long audiophile, I've always held a deep and substantive appreciation for recorded music. You name the album, I can likely talk your ear off for a half hour as to why it's either (a) an historically under-appreciated yet vital addition to one's record collection (see: a-ha's "Scoundrel Days,") or (b) $13.99 better spent on dog feces (see: Dion, Celine.) My opinions on music are well-reasoned, well-researched, and incredibly elitist.

Visual art, on the other hand, flies over my head on a constant basis and leaves me creatively cold. I've been to a handful of art museums, and I always leave with the same thought in my head: "Hmpf." I can stare at a painting -- even a classic one that's garnered centuries of critical acclaim and fan worship, and not have one iota of appreciation for the thing. As far as I'm concerned, Grant Woods turned pretty Iowa cornfields into ugly, bulbous cartoons. Picasso drew doodles like a child. Andy Warhol photocopied soup cans and colored them in like a Paint-By-Numbers book. The Mona Lisa? That's one ugly chick.

I can understand music. I've been around bands, I know what it takes to play an instrument and write a song. If given enough time, I might be able to do it myself. But even if I were handed the infinite amount of canvas, brushes, and time, I could never paint a realistic (or even surrealistic) bowl of fruit. It's voodoo magic to me.

As a result, my sense of home decor has been lacking throughout history:

THE EARLY YEARS: Ahh, when life was easy and the artistic essence of my soul could best be captured via posters of baby cougars and assorted wee fuzzy nature. This would be evenly tempered by the other side of my room, clad floor to ceiling in Stormtroopers and Imperial Battle Cruisers. Nothing used to rule harder than animals and Star Wars.

THE NERD YEARS: Yes, junior high, when Star Wars was joined by its nerdtastic counterpoint, Dungeons & Dragons. Orcs, wizards, and paladin rangers adorned my walls, while my bookshelf held the latest and greatest in decorative ninja weaponry. And the coup de grace? Over my Apple IIe computer hung a poster... of an Apple IIe computer. It's a wonder how I ever developed ANY social skills whatsoever.

THE ROCK & ROLL YEARS: It didn't take long to realize that, despite it being super sweet, girls just didn't seem to appreciate my replica Scimitar of +2 Undead Resistance. Besides, who needed a warlock on their walls when I had the Gods of Rock to look up to? From then on, my interior decorating skills resembled your average issue of Rolling Stone. Even in college, the first thing to grace the walls of my dorm was a beat-up picture of Pete Townshend, post-gig, looking quite serene while blood drips from his guitar-string-mauled hand. It said it all, really. Rock & roll is pain. Rock & roll is life. Life is pain. And I am one dangerous dude. Ergo, you should date me.

ADULTHOOD: It really kinda stinks that, as a proper adult, you're too old to be hanging up Radiohead posters with well-used gobs of Fun-Tak. Honestly, I'm still that same music geek -- and under my bed, you'll find about 20 rolls of band posters that nowadays serve as little more than Habitrails for dust bunnies. A while back, though, I realized that an autographed CD + a cheap frame makes for an acceptable collectable, which explains the 24 frames hanging in my living room today. I had no eye for anything else -- until two years ago.

I was returning from a vacation in Florida when we rolled in to Charleston, SC in the wee hours of the night. Hoping to scope out some family friendly culture (in the form of cute girls and dance clubs,) my friend and I got out and wandered around the downtown area. That's when we stumbled upon it. A small, unassuming art gallery housing the work of a local Charleston photographer. I peered inside. On the walls hung image after image of what I later discovered to be "landscape abstracts."

For all I know, they could be the easiest photos in the world to take, or perhaps the most difficult. Imagine a sunrise over the ocean, but manipulated and blurred to a point of near-indistinction, where every element -- the ocean, the marsh, the beach, the sky -- becomes little more than a perfect line of nature's perfect colors. The fuzzy pictures match the fuzzy memories of days gone by and fuzzy dreams of days that never were. For the first time in my life, I was transfixed by pieces of art.

I took snapshots of the studio that day so I wouldn't forget the artist's name -- John Duckworth. You can see for yourself at www.jduckworth.com. When I got home, I sent him an e-mail and told him how much I loved his work. He graciously sent me a kind letter of response and a portfolio catalog. After two years, I finally found myself in the possession of some expendable cash, so I did it. I bought one of his pieces. It now hangs in the entryway of my apartment and makes me happy every time I walk in the door.

I still don't know if I appreciate visual art on the level that I should. I don't get anything particularly "deep" out of my new acquisition. I just know I like looking at it, and that's victory enough for me.

COLUMN: Turn Signal

What? You're kidding, right? Vacation's OVER?! I need to write a new column, you say? But... I'm playing Rock Band, can't this wait? No? Sheesh, okay, fine.

Well, I suppose the first thing I should touch on is Kanye West. The self-proclaimed "brightest star in the universe" brought his Glow In The Dark Tour to the iWireless Center last week, and sadly, our paper didn't get to cover it. Apparantly, priority had to be given to the entire state of Iowa being one Shamu away from our very own underwater adventure park. In addition, Kanye's star is apparantly SO bright that no members of the press were allowed in to capture his heavenly visage.

It's a shame, too, because it was one of the most elaborate productions to ever grace the iWireless stage, and definitely a show I won't be forgetting for some time. Too bad that the most memorable parts happened AFTER the show got out.

My friends and I knew things were getting interesting about halfway through the gig. Chris Brown had just jumped onstage with Rihanna (a total surprise and the highlight of the concert) when we first started to hear the rumblings of thunder from a distant outdoors. That's when the gossip mill opened for business.

Folks around me were getting text messages on their cell phones and whispers were flying throughout the venue, each one more dramatic and catastrophic than the last: Tornado sirens were going off. Funnel clouds had been seen in Moline. Tornados had been seen in Moline. Tornados were bearing down on the iWireless Center. Mothra was destroying the entire Quad Cities.

Eventually, we decided to check it out for ourselves and headed outside for a peep -- only to be turned away by an armada of iWireless staffers and police. Apparantly, some of the hype was real. Tornado sirens WERE going off. Funnel clouds HAD been spotted. Greeeeat.

No worries, right? The professionals had assessed the situation and determined that the safest course of action would be to return to our seats safely underneath a one-ton lighting truss. As I wondered what it would feel like to be konked on the head by a spotlight at gale force velocity, I reminded myself that we'd obviously be fine. We were, after all, in the presence of greatness. I'll guarantee you that at some point in his career, Kanye West has declared himself more powerful than Mother Nature. Surely his egotism would protect us all. And hey, worst case scenario, if we DID end up going to the pearly gates en masse, at least we'd have a groovy soundtrack for the ride.

At the end of the show, as Kanye was prattling on about being bigger than the Beatles and U2 combined, we made a break for the exit. Now thankfully un-blocked, we strolled out of the concert into full-on weatherpocalyse. Rain was pelting us sideways. Lightning ripped through the skies. Cows and small children flew through the air willy-nilly. Okay, maybe no cows, but it was nasty. By the time we made it to the car, I was sopping. Seriously, I've taken showers and gotten less wet.

Once inside my ATB (All-Terrain Beetle,) we were kindly directed by parking staff onto River Drive and a foot and a half of standing water. We made it about 100 yards before the finest in German engineering went "Achtung!" und das engine went kaput. After a refreshing nature hike (aka pushing the car 2 blocks to high ground,) it restarted -- kinda -- and I was able to chitty chitty bang bang it home while giving my friends mild cases of whiplash.

I was hoping all would be well the next day, and for the most part it was. The Quad Cities hadn't blown away, my apartment was still above water, and my car started up problem-free. Then I moved it and discovered right away that my turn signals and hazard lights were done for. It was Friday afternoon. I called every garage I could think of, but was given estimates from 3-10 days and excuses like, "We'd love to help, but we're a little underwater at the moment." Stupid flood.

So I had to make do all weekend without turn signals. I flashed back to angry ol' Mr. Bunch's Driver's Ed class. There were hand signals for these moments of crisis, right? Straight out for a left turn, up for a right turn. I could do this for a few days.

A couple problems, it turns out:

(1) Sticking your arm straight out into the path of oncoming traffic is kinda stupid on the narrow streets of Rock Island.

(2) Sticking your arm up to indicate that you're turning right looks a heck of a lot like you're waving to strangers, which is exactly what every passing car thought I was doing. My hand would be saying, "Hi, I'm turning right." Their hand would instinctively reply, "Why are you waving at me, freakshow? This is awkward but I guess I'd better wave back. Wave-ity wave wave!"

So, Quad Citizens, I apologize if you were one of the folks accosted by a weird dude in a Volkswagen challenging you to a waving match this weekend. I swear I was simply trying to turn into Taco Bell. Which brings me to my final important learned lesson: When one is trying to shift, wave, steer, and eat at the same time, one's Cheesy Double Beef Burrito WILL land on one's rather expensive silk shirt.

I'm sending the dry cleaning bill to Kanye.

Kanye Sees the MOLINE TWISTER.

Check out Kanye West's official blog.

COLUMN: Parents

It's the first week of June in the year two thousand and eight, and I strangely find myself with something quite unexpected and interesting: a pretty solid prospect for a girlfriend.

That's right, ladies, you can commence weeping. Yours truly may be off-the-market for a hot minute. (Hang on to those dance cards, though. I'm certain I'll drive her away soon enough with my endless prattle about music and video games. Just wait.)

In the meantime, though, I'm a pretty happy guy -- but I'm having a tough time remembering exactly how to pull off this whole "dating" business. I'm seriously out of practice. There's more to it than just sitting on one's couch and going "sooo, w'sup?" when the commercials hit.

I have to remember to to open doors and pull out chairs. To NOT schedule Rock Band practices EVERY night of the week. To be, like, a gentleman and stuff. Yikes.

I'm giving it my best shot. This past weekend, I survived the ultimate trial by fire. The scariest part about dating someone new. The evening most guys dread with a lump in their gut. The night that can make or break an entire relationship:

I met the parent.

Over the years, I've walked through a lot of doors, and I've had to meet a lot of parents. From these encounters, I've learned one very important fact:

Parents either LOVE me or HATE me. There's no middle ground whatsoever. If they've got a good sense of humor, I can usually win 'em over. If they don't, I'll be bound to do something stupid and blow the whole deal.

Flashback: 1990. I was dating a girl whose parents lived in the south suburbs of Chicago. I'd only had a couple of brief run-ins with them when an opportunity presented itself to get in some quality time with her folks. My roommate at the time needed a ride to a debate tournament at a school that just happened to be in the same Chicago suburb. I gave him a lift, and in turn earned an excuse to spend a weekend earning brownie points with the folks, right?

Well, back in the 90's, there used to exist a record store in the suburbs called The Turntable. It was the mecca for hardcore music nerds like me. Never again will there be a record store as exciting, awesome, or nerd-tastic, trust me. And being in the suburbs for the weekend, I wasn't about to let an opportunity to pay homage go to waste. So after dropping my roommate off, I decided to make a quick shopping detour.

What I didn't realize at the time is that it's one loooong drive from the south suburbs of her hometown to the north suburbs of The Turntable. And, because expressways used to spook me, I decided to do it on side streets. How long could it possibly take?

The answer: ALL DAY. And some of the night. By the time I had snaked up there, made a breathless perusal for music, and snaked back, the stars were out. Not only had I managed to miss reservations with her parents for dinner, I had completely stranded my roommate at the debate tournament, to the point that he had to call HER parents for a lift to our hotel. Since I couldn't reach her folks by phone, I'm sure they could only assume that I'd chosen an odd time to kidnap their daughter and flee the area. In the grand scope of bad impressions, this was legendary.

It's the recollection of such episodes that explains why I found myself in my car on Sunday, driving to meet my maybe-girlfriend's mom, sweating like a teenager. 37 years old and my mind was still preparing scripts. "It's SUCH a pleasure to meet [whoever's in the room.]" "Ooh, this is such a nice [whatever I'm staring at.]" "Yes, I LOVE [whatever food product is being made.]" Basically anything that DIDN'T say, "Hi. I'm kind of a loser. I'll be the one corrupting your precious daughter. Hand her over."

Instead, when I got there, what I said was: nothing. I walked in the door and it was as if every synapse in my brain suddenly went on strike. I met her mom, sat down, and zoned out to the TV like a zombie. Rather than take command of the situation to make a good impression, I instead chose to concentrate fully on "America's Funniest Home Videos" as though a guy getting kicked in the groin was THE most infinitely fascinating thing I had ever seen.

I am, it turns out, kind of a loser. Happily, though, her mom ISN'T. It turns out she's really cool. She's funny, she's sarcastic, and she doesn't take grief from anybody. She's my kind of people, even if she DOES have a weird fetish for chicken-related knick-knacks. And I should talk -- just last week I bought an etched glass paperweight of a unicorn inexplicably jumping over a lobster. Compared to THAT thing, chickens are pretty normal.

The point is, whenever you're faced with a similar scenario, just be yourself, even if yourself is a bit of a weirdo. It's always a better fate to be hated for something you are than to be loved for something you're not. All you can do is try and earn respect and trust, and that's better than any first impression. Here's to you, Mrs. S. Thanks for going easy on me.

COLUMN: Shoes

Life is full of do's and don'ts.

Some don'ts are common sense. DON'T put your hand in the fire. DON'T eat the yellow snow. DON'T listen to Clay Aiken.

Other DON'Ts can only be learned by a catastrophically uneducated DO. The other weekend, i DID a DON'T (and not in one of those high-five-your-friends-later sorta ways.)

It started, simply enough, with a phone call. I was faced with the unenviable position of a trip to the mall. I've written before of my disdain for all things mall-related, but I was in dire need of new summer shirts. Rather than make the journey solo, I decided to call my friend Linn. I'm fashionally-challenged and it never hurts to have a female judge in tow to avoid me coming home looking like America's Next Top Weenie.

"Hey!" I said in the best I'm-super-excited voice that I could muster up, "Here's an idea! Wanna go to the mall and help me buy some shirts?"

"Sure," she said, "I need some new shoes for my sister's wedding. Is it cool if we stop at some shoe stores?"

Here's the DON'T.

"Yeah," I said, "I'm game."

Note to self: In the future, when a girl asks you to help her shop for formal shoes, you are NOT game. You are not anywhere near game. You exist in a game-free world. That day, I was game -- and it was a game I eventually lost. I'm kidding... kinda. Linn's one of my oldest and closest friends and it actually ended up being a fun afternoon out. But I learned more that day about the inner workings of the female mind than I was ready for.

For instance, I learned that when a girl says, "I just need to find some brown shoes that'll go with my dress," what it REALLY means is, "In my mind, I have created the ideal shoe. A shoe that, when worn, will quite possibly bring wars to a close and heads of state to their knees. It is the perfect shoe, and I will settle for nothing less."

Which brings me to Important Things I Learned Numbers Two and Three -- that it is entirely possible for one pair of shoes to be "TOO brown" and another pair to be "not brown ENOUGH." Clearly, this was no routine expedition. We were on a mission -- and I took upon myself the role of apprentice.

How about these? "Too strappy." Fair enough, what about THESE? "Too heel-y! Do you want me to fall and kill myself?" Okay, okay, HERE is the perfect pair. What? Yes, I KNOW they're neon aquamarine, see-through, and covered in glitter -- but you've gotta admit, these are some pretty stylin' shoes, yeah?

Eventually, about three stores in, I started to get the hang of it. I was the one going, "Eww, TOO brown." Finally, I spotted them. Not too brown yet brown enough, straps to a tasteful minimum, heels at what I can only assume to be a manageable level. Holy smokes, had I found THE shoes? Anxiously, I summoned my tutor over.

"Well...?"

"Hmmm...," came the reply after some thought. "Maybe."

"Maybe" involved pulling out a camera phone and holding an impromptu modeling session.

"What ARE you doing?" I asked.

"Well, it's my sister's wedding. I want to get her approval," she said while sending photos of shoes across several hundred miles of the information superhighway.

Really. Girls DO stuff like this, guys -- and my friend is NOT a prissy, shopping-obsessed stereotype in the slightest. Girls just care SO much about shoes that it takes a mall full of stores and a consortium of their peers to pick the perfect pair. And what the girls don't realize in the slightest is that we guys couldn't care less.

Ladies, you could wander amuck in clown shoes and most of us wouldn't notice. And for that small percentage of guys who DO notice feet? well, there's a vast network of intricate and astoundingly weird websites for those folks.

I'm sure I irritated my friend to no end that day. Every time she asked for my opinion, I was like, "They're nice, I guess. I dunno, they're SHOES." This would earn me an eye-roll that clearly indicated my apprenticeship was lacking. Meanwhile, whenever we encountered a shirt store, here's what I got: "These are all great. Just buy some and don't be so picky." Sigh.

Granted, she DID stop me from buying a henley with sleeves far too wee for non-muscular me. And she DID stop me from buying a sports coat that was, apparantly, icky. And she DID give me an immense amount of grief over the fact that I was clearly buying these clothes in a shallow attempt to look good for the new girl I've been seeing.

"See," she said with a grin, "we're BOTH just trying to look cute."

Women are wise indeed. Just DON'T mess with their shoes.

COLUMN: Shortage

I bumped into a friend of mine the other day who asked me a question that I've repeatedly had to answer for the past three years that I've been fortunate enough to have this column.

"Hey Shawn," he said (because all people of Earth, even human beings that I've known and worked with my entire life, apparantly have no idea what my first name actually is,) "Where do you get your ideas from every week?"

"It's easy," I told him. "Just start thinking outside the bun."

I've said it before and I'll say it again -- the source of all things humorous, wacky, and creative on Earth is your local Taco Bell drive-thru. I can't tell you how many times a quest for burritos has ended in me laughing so hard I've had to pull the car over. Some go there seeking chalupas; I go there seeking enlightenment.

There's only ONE place I've ever been greeted at the drive-thru with, "What the (expletive) do YOU want?" There's only ONE place where a drunken, semi-clad girl has leapt from her car behind me to perform a strip-tease on my bumper. There's only ONE place where I've ordered JUST a large Coke and heard, "Okay. What kind of sauce would you like with that?" Folks, the Taco Bell drive-thru is ALWAYS a good time out.

This week, however, things were different. I've always known that Taco Bell was a source for comedy, but I never knew that Taco Bell could also provide me with hard-line breaking news of a national crisis that has, until now, been wholly ignored by your local media.

I was driving around the other day when I realized that my life was lacking. Specifically, it was lacking a Cheesy Double Beef Burrito. I could see the welcoming pink bell of culinary goodness in the distance, so I made a bee-line for the drive-thru. I pulled up to the menu and that's when I saw it -- the sign that let me know that things weren't right in the world:

"ATTENTION!" it read. "WE ARE OUT OF TORTILLAS AND NACHO CHEESE -- DUE TO A NATIONAL SHORTAGE."

I sat there stunned for a moment as the gravity of the situation began to sink in. I could live with one Taco Bell's accidental failure to stock up on their products. But no, this was something far more troubling. This was, as the sign clearly stated, a NATIONAL SHORTAGE.

I headed home with concerned mind and empty stomach. How could I have been unaware that our great nation was being crippled by a shortage of both tortillas AND nacho cheese? Where were the warning signs? Why hadn't rationing been implemented? Who could be responsible for such a crime? NAFTA? Global warming?

Naturally, I lay the blame on myself. After all, for as much grief as I unload on them, I do feel single-handedly responsible for the fiscal security of my local Taco Bell. Some day, science will be able to confirm that I am composed of 23% nacho cheese. Perhaps the answer to the national shortage could be found right here in my rotund mid-section. I hope you're happy, Shane. You've eaten ALL the tortillas.

I don't have much experience in dealing with the woes of supply and demand. I was too young to remember the oil shortages in the 70's or Johnny Carson's ill-fated joke that once caused toilet paper to disappear from shelves for weeks on end. Until now, the only national shortage to affect me was my inability to get a Nintendo Wii, but I eventually found one of those suckers. Still, it takes energy to play Wii Sports -- energy usually obtained from a Cheesy Double Beef Burrito. Now I can't have cheese OR burrito? Man cannot live on Double Beef alone.

I had no choice but to venture off to a supermarket and (gasp) make my own food. There I was, wandering aimlessly down the aisles, wondering if my stove still worked after all these years, when lo and behold, what caught my eye? TORTILLAS. Package after package of the things! And further down? Nacho cheese! I couldn't believe it -- this supermarket had yet to hear of the nationwide Tortilla-N-Cheese catastrophe!

I could buy them out and be set on burritos for months! Better yet, I could set up a roadside stand and engage in some good old-fashioned price gouging. I called a friend to see if he wanted to help me in my bid to make gobs of money from a frightened, cheese-less nation.

"Can't talk, dude," he said. "I'm at Taco Bell, eating a burrito."

Sigh. That's right, the Great Tortilla-N-Cheese Shortage of '08 lasted about six hours. My dreams of profiteering in times of crisis were dashed, but I could at least nurse my wounds in the loving arms of a Big Beef Burrito. As a shift manager later explained to me, the "national shortage" involved only a handful of Taco Bells that weren't expecting their new menu, chock full of new and exciting ways to combine tortillas and nacho cheese, to be as wildly successful as it's been. They just ran the heck out of ingredients. On behalf of a grateful nation, I can only say: Whew.

Truth be told, I did a Google search and discovered that there is, in fact, an honest to gosh tortilla shortage down in Mexico that's really no laughing matter. Tortilla prices have gone up some 35% in the past two years. It turns out that more and more corn is being used for ethanol production, leaving less and less for tortillas -- so, in a weird roundabout way, I guess it IS global warming's fault. I like Al Gore a lot, but he better not come between me and my quesadilla.

COLUMN: Dress Code

We've got some new employees at the day job.

As much as I tend to resist change, I kinda like it when there's some new blood around. Having to adapt to new faces and new personalities keeps you on your toes. Plus, they're pretty cool people, so they'll fit into the fold nicely.

For the past week, we've watched them dip their feet into the newspaper world and go through the usual new employee initiation rites. They've had the meeting with HR. They've had the OSHA lectures ("Don't sniff the white-out!") They've gotten lost in the catacombs of our office. And they were here for approximately a day and a half before The Topic came up. The one that's spoken of in hushed tones. The one that all employees, whether they've been here a day or a decade, have a hardened opinion of. The one that can make a manager cringe from 100 yards away.

I speak, cautiously, of our company dress code. (The sound you just heard was every employee of our company gulping.)

Okay, not really. Our dress code is, quite simply, No Big Deal. It's fair, it's not harsh, and it makes basic business sense. We're not required to wear a top hat and tails or anything. It's probably looser than YOUR workplace's dress code. Use your head, don't look like an outright slob, and you'll hopefully float underneath the radar of the fashion police. (In other words: Dear Managers, I'm not complaining. Please don't hold this column against me and my Tommy Bahama action-wear.) Still, there are a couple aspects of our dress code that cause the occasional grumblings.

For the ladies, it's something called "capris." To this day, I'm not exactly sure what they are. I think they're some kind of mutant half-pant things. I just know we're not supposed to wear 'em. Well, we couldn't wear them, then I think we COULD wear them if the leg came down to some level where they effectively stop being capris and start being pants. And now I think even those are verboten. As a guy, I could care less, but there's not one mention of our dress code that comes up without one of our female contingency muttering something about capris under their breath.

I'll let that controversy rest, because for me, it's what lies below the capris that matters. And no, I don't mean undies. (Dear Managers, have I mentioned how much I'm NOT complaining? Please don't ban my undies. Nothing comes between me and my Calvins.) I'm talking about shoes.

"Athletic shoes" are kinda frowned upon in my department. This bums me out a little, because I'm definitely a casual shoe kinda guy. As a life-long wussy-boy, I've got wussy-boy feet. They get cranky in dress shoes. If they get stuck in a hard-soled environment for too long, they blister up and I walk around in agony. I am a talking, occasionally walking posterboy for Dr. Scholl's.

I tried to explain to my boss that this policy most certainly didn't apply to me -- she wouldn't buy it, even though my well thought out argument was flawless, factual, and inarguable. It goes something like this:

Any shoe, regardless of make or model, when placed on MY feet, immediately ceases to be "athletic." Despite their best intentions, no pair of Air Jordans will ever cause me to "just do it" or "take it to the hoop." At best, I will take it to the couch. I could wander around in two-inch cleats and could still guarantee you that, shy of the building erupting in flame and me being forced to run for my survival, no athletics would be involved.

Strangely, I was still shot down. This has created an ugly quandry for me that I've had to deal with for years. See, there's an embarassing problem I've got that I seldom make public -- but what the heck, I've already admitted my underwear preference in this column, might as well let it all fly:

I can't tie my shoes.

Okay, wait -- that's a lie. I can tie my shoes just fine. It's just that, five minutes later, they tend to come UN-tied. I'm absolutely certain that it's not my fault. I'm not an idiot. I mean, two weeks ago I was enjoying a lecture on quantum physics. But neither quantum physics nor rhymes about bunnies hopping around trees has ever helped me keep a shoe tied longer than ten minutes. Maybe it's because I'm left-handed. Maybe I'm just so super awesome at tying shoes that the inferior laces can't cope with my master skill level and simply fall apart in defeat.

Regardless, for me to wear proper dress shoes at work, I have to find slip-ons that don't immediately slip-off. Usually I end up with something featuring hideous Velcro straps. I've survived the winter with some ugly slip-on clunkers made by Dr. Scholl's that are actually quite comfy. But now that the weather's getting good, I can pull out my secret weapons: Vans. The mutant offspring of a pair of Converse and some penny loafers, Vans are MY shoes. They're comfy, lace-free, most definitely NOT athletic, and even gained a begrudging work-appropriate nod from the powers that be.

I've always thought I had it rough when it came to shoes, but last Saturday, I learned just how naive I've been. That was the day I elected to go shoe shopping... with a girl. More on that next week. Stay tuned.

FEATURE: Fairfield & David Lynch

Acclaimed director David Lynch entertains questions from the crowd

during his recent appearance at the Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, IA.

FAIRFIELD

I'm a huge fan of taking daytrips to weird places. If there's an oddly painted water tower, Superman statue, or future birthplace of Capt. James T. Kirk within driving distance, I've probably been there. I dig the weird.

Well, there's weird... and then there's the 2-hour drive from the Quad Cities to Fairfield, Iowa. Weird doesn't begin to cover Fairfield. Fairfield TRANSCENDS weird.

"There isn't another story like this anywhere in the country," says Fairfield mayor Ed Malloy with a smile.

Once upon a time, Fairfield was just like any other small Iowa town. Throughout the 60's, it's shining beacon was the ever-growing Parsons College. The school had recently implemented an aggressive development program dubbed "The Parsons Plan," and enrollment had skyrocketed.

That all changed in 1966, when Life magazine published an article highly critical of the school, spotlighting the college as a safehouse for Vietnam draft dodgers. Within a year, the school had temporarily lost its accreditation and the ringleaders of the Parsons Plan were removed. In 1973, Parsons College celebrated it's 99th year by closing its doors for the final time. With the closure of Parsons, Fairfield could have become just another rural Iowa town past its heyday. Little did they know the town's future was about to be shaped by a giggling guru from halfway around the globe.

In 1974, the campus of the Parsons was bought by an organization fronted by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Iowa was about to meet a world of Eastern philosophy, Yogic flying, and "bubbling bliss."

The Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was an Indian sage who, in 1955, began teaching a technique that supposedly could develop the creative potential and quality of life of its practitioners -- a technique he called Transcendental Meditation (TM). TM is derived from ancient Indian Vedic literature -- some of the oldest sacred texts in existence. Followers claim that through the practice of TM, the mind is brought to a heightened state of awareness known as Transcendental Consciousness - the source of all thought, energy, and being. It is said that following the simple practice for twenty minutes twice a day can activate parts of the brain normally dead to the world.

TM was first exposed to the West in the late 1950's, but really didn't catch the imagination of the Western World until the Maharishi found four new fans named John, Paul, George, and Ringo. In 1968, the Beatles made a highly publicized trip to the Maharishi's ashram in India to study TM and write the songs that would later become The White Album. While the band eventually had a falling out with the guru (the song "Sexy Sadie" is widely acknowledged as a jab at the Maharishi,) the world had been introduced to the practice of TM and the Maharishi found himself a legion of followers.

That legion now includes folks like Oscar-nominated film director David Lynch, techno savant Moby, hip-hop empresario Russell Simmons, and even Jerry Seinfeld. An estimated six million people now practice Transcendental Meditation on a regular basis.

In the summer of 1974, the former Parsons College was relaunched as the Maharishi International University, now known as the Maharishi University of Management (MUM). A fully accredited college, MUM offers twelve undergraduate programs with a focus they call "consciousness-based education." Alongside a standard college curriculum, the university's students also learn and practice the daily art of TM. All meals are organic and vegetarian. Smoking and drinking are forbidden on campus. Students are encouraged to have lights out by 10 p.m.

The Maharishi passed away earlier this year, but the college carries on his work and even takes things to another level -- namely, quantum physics. Behind the leadership of noted physicist Dr. John Hagelin, the University has applied ancient Vedic Science to the quantum theory of the Unified Field -- what Hagelin refers to as the "universal field of intelligence in nature," the primordial sea of everything that exists. When a practicioner "dives deep" into Transcendence, it is claimed that they touch this Unified Field, creating ripples of positivity not just for the meditator, but for the universal intelligence of all mankind. Through TM, the university hopes to accomplish nothing less than world peace.

Quantum physicist Dr. John Hagelin lectures about the Unified Field to the crowd at the 2008 David Lynch Weekend at the Maharishi University of Management, Fairfield, IA.

The university's impact on Fairfield is hard to miss. Fifteen ethnic restaurants surround the small town square. Everywhere in town, the roofs of homes are topped by an ornamental golden domelet called a kalash. The smell of curry is almost inescapable. It is the ultimate marriage of Iowa charm, Eastern philosophy, and progressive thought.

"The cultural diversity of the school spills out into the community," explains Mayor Malloy, himself a practitioner of TM. "There's an entrepreneurial culture in Fairfield that has everyone discussing new ideas, thinking boldly, and being unafraid of risks."

From the mid-80's to the present, 400 companies and 3000 jobs have been created in Fairfield. In 2003, the National Association for Small Communities dubbed Fairfield the most entrepreneurial small community in the nation. It's a reputation the townsfolk wear with pride, and the advances keep coming.

Just to the north of the city limits is the newly incorporated village of Maharishi Vedic City. Created by followers of TM as a model of ideal city life, every home in the small community is built in accordance to Maharishi Sthapatya Veda design "to promote health, happiness, and good fortune." Each building faces east and has a central silent space called a Brahmasthan. At the heart of Vedic City is The Raj, a luxury health center and spa based on the Maharishi's Vedic approach to health.

Just a short drive from The Raj is the construction site of the Abundance Ecovillage, a project separate from the school but definitely impacted by its teachings. When the Ecovillage is complete, 30 modern state-of-the-art homes and some 100 residents of Fairfield will live entirely off the grid -- powered by the sun and the wind, cooled by earth tubes, heated by fireplaces and home-captured methane, and fed by co-op farming and filtered rainwater catch mills.

"TM gives us the direct experience of how things in life are connected," explains Lonnie Gamble, the project's co-founder. "The Ecovillage gives us an intellectual application of how things in life are connected."

Gamble is also a faculty member at MUM, where 60 students are currently enrolled in the world's first undergraduate degree program in Sustainable Living. Students can choose course tracks in renewable energy, architecture, or agriculture.

"The overall idea is to give students the know-how to design, build, and maintain sustainable communities," says Gamble.

Mayor Malloy touts the town's credo of "buy fresh, buy local," and recently created a Commission on Sustainability to discuss expansive green programs for Fairfield.

"It's something for everyone to get together on regardless of views," says Gamble. "We want to make sustainability a thread that runs through our whole community."

It shouldn't come as a surprise that a town as liberal and diverse as Fairfield also plays host to an astonishing arts scene. You almost need a database just to keep up with the town's calendar of events. Every day and night, you can find concerts, art exhibits, poetry readings, and live theatre. The population of Fairfield is only 9700, yet the town boasts over 300 working artists and 22 art galleries.

Fairfield's art walks, held on the first Friday of every month of the year, attract visitors from around the globe and was named the Iowa Tourism Event of the Year in 2005. June's upcoming event pays homage to the food, art, dance, music, song and games of Italy around the Central Park square green.

The jewel of the town's art scene, though, is the newly constructed Fairfield Arts & Convention Center -- a 32,000 square foot center devoted to serving the diverse culture of the town. Housed inside is the state-of-the-art Stephen Sondheim Center for the Performing Arts, the first theatre ever to garner the name and approval of the famed composer and lyricist.


The proscenium theatre boasts 522 seats and plays host to a smattering of local and national theatre and music productions. We were able to catch a recent production of "Godspell," complete with a climactic scene featuring an illusion donated by the estate of legendary magician (and TM follower) Doug Henning. The show was top-notch and brought the house down. Future summer events include the Iowa premiere of "Open Heart," written by and starring 80's film icon Robby Benson.

As we left Fairfield, my mind swirled. In one short day, I'd been exposed to meditation, philosophy, quantum physics, conservation, culture, and, well, some pretty weird vegan food. I don't think I've said the word "wow" more times in one day in my life. Fairfield seems intent on expanding people's minds -- instead, they simply blew mine away.

DAVID LYNCH

One of the most well-known proponents of Transcendental Meditation and the study of ancient Vedic Science is acclaimed film director David Lynch. Such a proponent is Lynch, in fact, that his foundation just donated a cool million dollars to Fairfield's Maharishi University of Management to help defray the costs for students to learn the TM technique. During the university's recent David Lynch Weekend, we were able to sit down with the three-time Oscar nominee to find out more about his passion for meditation.

You're one of our nation's most respected directors. Yet instead of hob-nobbing with the Hollywood elite, you're in smalltown Iowa. Why is Fairfield so important to you?

Well, I love transcendental meditation. I started in 1973, July 1st, on a Saturday morning about 11:00. And I've been meditating twice a day for over 34 years. This university is the flagship school for consciousness-based education. Education which develops the full potential of the student -- enlightenment. And the way to do that is to experience that deepest level of life -- the Transcendent. The technique of TM will get you to that level -- easily, effortlessly, first time, every time. It's a beautiful, beautiful blessing. And so I was asked to join the Board of Directors for this university. It's a very special place. I think it's the future of universities. I don't see self-centered, tormented, stressed, anxiety-ridden students. I see very strong powerful brilliance. And so I like supporting this university and I like supporting the peace-creating groups here in Iowa. I think it's the future, and a bright future. So I'm with it.

Are you seeing changes in the public's reception to TM?

The receptivity is changing. As human beings, we get into certain rigid patterns. Anything new coming along is not always welcomed with open arms, and a lot of misunderstandings can arise. Misunderstandings about meditation are going away. It's not a religion, and people are getting hip to that. It's a mental technique to open the door to the deepest level of life -- the eternal level. And life gets better when you experience that deepest level.


Have the ancient principles of Vedic Science adapted in order to evolve into the new millennium?

No, no. The new millennium has evolved into it. "Veda" means total knowledge. Vedas are the laws of nature. How the un-manifest manifests into everything that is a thing. Vedic Science, the science of consciousness, explains it in the greatest detail -- surpassing physics, surpassing quantum cosmology. The Vedas can be interpreted many different ways, just like the Bible can be interpreted many, many ways. But hiding in there is the truth, and this is where enlightenment comes in. An enlightened human being is living the truth. And it's possible that it's our birthright. We're going to one day unfold the whole thing. It's waiting for us. It's just a question of time.

In the course of this, you've sort of become the de facto recognizable celebrity face of TM. Is this a role you're comfortable with?

I don't like being in the public. But like I said, I believe in these technologies for peace and enlightenment, so I find myself talking about it.


The school seems to emphasize community. In your life, do you find that you're able to do this as part of a community? Or is meditation for you more personal?

What I love about TM is that you don't need anything but the technique. You can meditate anywhere -- you don't need to join anything, you don't need to be in a community. You meditate and you go about your business and you will start to see things get better and better and better. This is what happened to me. If it hadn't, I would've quit meditation. You'll get all these benefits, and it will feed your work. What I like about Fairfield is that every day, just like ancient India, people come together and meditate as a group. And that's a very, very powerful cosmic beautiful thing. Major beautiful. And in this community, if you go around and meet people, they're absolutely unique individuals. You like sitting with every one of them. They're bright eyed, they're eager to listen to you, and there's a big understanding and appreciation for life. It's very special. But this is in all human beings. Get rid of that cloud of stress and you just become more and more yourself. A strong self. TM brings you to a place that's more and more self-sufficient. The Big Self. It's beautiful.

In terms of the global picture, do you consider yourself an optimist?

Total optimist. I'm an optimist because of this beautiful Unified Field. You know, that big ocean. And because of these Vedic technologies to enliven that, I'm a big giant optimist.

If you'd like to learn more about Vedic Science and the technique of Transcendental Meditation, visit www.TM.org or call 1-888-LEARN-TM.

TRANSCENDENTAL MEDITATION

While there's no debating the positive impact that Transcendental Meditation and Vedic Science has had on Fairfield, the practice is not immune to controversy:

• Finding enlightenment may also find you with an enlightened pocketbook. Basic TM training costs $2000 -- and that's after a recent reduction in fees. While the price seems a bit exorbitant by modest standards, TM officials claim there's a reason.

"It's really important to commit to the technique," explains Dr. Wally DeVasier, Director of the Maharishi Peace Palace in Fairfield. "Making a financial commitment leads to making a meditation commitment."

While a recent donation from the David Lynch Foundation has created student scholarships to help alleviate the financial burden, the costs may be too prohibitive for some to experience "bubbling bliss."

What does your $2000 get? Private instruction, 2 hours a day, for 4 days.

"After the four days, you'll have enough info to meditate on your own for the rest of your life," explains DeVasier.


• Advocates of TM frequently affirm that practicing the technique doesn't conflict with any world religion. In fact, the group's website states that it will "enhance your religion... [TM] is a technique, pure and simple. It involves no religion, belief, philosophy, or change in lifestyle."

Some disagree.

Websites like trancenet.net, devoted to critical analysis of TM and run by a former follower, claim that several aspects of the meditation training and technique borrow extensively from Hinduism, invoking and making offerings to Hindu gods. This, it can be argued, could be at odds with the tenets of Judeo-Christianity and other religions.

• Some have even harsher words for the practice.

"In my opinion, Transcendental Meditation fits the criteria of a cult," says Rick Ross, Founder of New Jersey's Ross Institute for the Study of Destructive Cults, Controversial Groups and Movements (www.rickross.com). "TM is a personality-driven organization. People are blindly following an absolute authoritarian leader -- The Maharishi Mahesh Yogi -- and his patentedly absurd claims."

• In 1994, a 24-year-old student at the college, Shuvender Sem, stabbed and killed another MUM student in the college dining hall. Sem was later found not guilty by reason of insanity. The family of the victim filed suit against the University, claiming that the practice of TM was dangerous for a mentally ill student.

"If the practice of TM causes an energized field that creates peace and calm," asks Ross, "then why was there a murder on campus?"

• One of TM's most outspoken proponents, quantum physicist Dr. John Hagelin, is no stranger to controversy.

While Hagelin touts his theories of the Unified Field of Consciousness on his vast network of websites as fact, many members of the scientific community aren't buying it. "What the Bleep Do We Know," a film featuring the theories of Hagelin and other physicists, was recently labeled "pseudoscience" by the American Chemical Society, while a public letter published in Physics Today says that "most laypeople cannot tell where the quantum physics ends and the quantum nonsense begins."

Undaunted by criticism, Hagelin has mounted three unsuccessful campaigns for the U.S. presidency under the Natural Law Party. Recently, he has turned his attention to the creation of the "U.S. Peace Government," a "complentary" government whose website claims will "rule the country at the fundamental level of consciousness." Hagelin is President of the U.S. Peace Government.

"It's not a nefarious scheme to rule the world," says Ross. "It's just another attempt at dividing up the world into fundraising sectors."

• Money seems to be at the root of much criticism of the TM movement.

"Ongoing Fundraising Forever -- that's the Maharishi's real mantra," says Ross. "The Maharishi was superb at one thing: the accumulation of wealth. At the time of his death, his estate was estimated to be in the range of $5-$9 billion dollars. There are a labyrinth of money-making corporations that the group presides over."

At the end of the day, it's hard to pick sides when you're dealing with an intangible concept like transcendent consciousness. The practice of TM could be right for you but wrong for your neighbor. There's plenty of information available online from both sides of the TM debate. We recommend that you do a little research before determining if TM is right for you.

COLUMN: Vegetarian

I will never be one of the cool kids.

Most obviously, I suppose I'm not a kid anymore, as much as I try to block the fact. But age aside, I still don't qualify for hipster status. I don't waste time cultivating any kind of image. I thoroughly enjoy some genuinely awful movies. I'm horribly, embarassingly unread.

But more than anything, there's one profound truth that will forever bar me from full acceptance to the I'm-Cooler-Than-You club: I love a good cheeseburger.

I definitely surround myself with artsy types -- it's just the clique I usually have the most in common with. My friends are authors, painters, musicians, and thinkers. Lately, though, another trend seems to be cropping up among my social circle. More and more often, I find myself surrounded by vegetarians. And for a lifelong carnivore like me, it's a learning experience.

For the most part, I'm sympathetic towards their cause. I get the vegetarian thing, I really do. I grew up in the country, and I can safely say that no cow ever did me harm. They're quite docile creatures, actually. I kinda like 'em. But it's NOT MY FAULT that I kinda like 'em with a sprinkling of garlic salt and some Heinz 57.

Just as it's not my fault that 80% of Earth's vegetables taste icky. When it comes to veggies, I'm a simple guy. Lettuce, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, corn, beans, potatoes -- all acceptable items to enter my mouth. Step outside of that comfort zone, though, and vegetables start gettin' freaky.

For a while, I tried joining one of those diet plans where they deliver a week's worth of pre-made meals to your door. I beamed with pro-active, healthy pride -- until I cracked open one of my first meals to find these strange plant critters staring back at me.

They looked like the sort of thing you'd find growing on Mars -- an alien life form seconds away from releasing an army of toxic spores. They were a sickly green color, and emitted a smell that clearly said, "Hi, Shane. We are absolutely, positively not for eating." Still, I'd thrown down a chunk of change and it wasn't going to waste.

That's how I ended up attempting to consume my first brussel sprout. The next week, I cancelled the meal plan. The smell turned out to be only a mild appetizer to the taste, which was kind of like rancid cabbage meeting rusty metal. Clearly, brussel sprouts were not designed to be a food product. At best, it is home decor, and kind of ugly decor at that.

I'm not designed for the vegetarian lifestyle, and never has that been more clear than this past weekend. The newspaper sent me out to Fairfield, IA to write a story on the Maharishi University of Management. It's an ultra-progressive school that believes one of the basic building blocks to a top education is the ancient practice of transcendental meditation. It's one of the hippest, most liberal schools in the world, and the fact that it's stuck in the middle of Iowa cornfield no-man's-land is amazing.

I had a blast in Fairfield except for one critical part of the day: lunch. As a guest of the school, we were graciously provided a huge luncheon spread, and our escort for the day had arranged for us to spend the lunch talking with the mayor of Fairfield. It was a great opportunity to learn more about the place, and I was totally psyched -- until I walked to the buffet.

That's right. It was a 100% organic vegan luncheon. There I stood, attempting to be an Important Journalist Dude with no less than the mayor of the whole darn town in tow, and I was staring at this cacophony of wholly nutritious evil. I looked for ANYTHING I thought I could stomach. Ah, a potato, sign me up. And rice -- hey, I can do rice. But no, the rice had friends - odd black and white bean-curd looking things mixed in, and did I smell curry? Eww -- I'd better take a pass. I spied some little square patties at the end of the line that looked to be some kind of bread pudding or pancake, that'd work.

I returned to my seat and the mayor was eager to talk up the town. As we listened, I absent-mindedly forked off a bite of this pancake patty and put it in my mouth. DANGER! This was no pancake. It was kinda slimy. It didn't have a taste, per se. More like an aftertaste, and not a good one at that. What WAS this stuff? As I tried to focus on the mayor, my mind kept flashing to scenes from Soylent Green. Yet I had to eat most of it. I had to be appreciative -- this was a free meal, and I bet somebody had to work hard at making these mushy, gelatinous, nausea-squares.

Eventually, the mayor excused himself and I spun to my colleague. "What the (expletive) have I been eating?" I whispered.

"Tofu," he replied. "And shut up. It's good."

THIS is tofu? This is the modern vegan's idea of a tasty protein? Are you KIDDING me? Well, cross this off my list of life experiences. I ate tofu, and despite possibly being haunted by its evil slimy grossness for the rest of time, I suppose I lived.

The cool kids can keep their tofu. And if you're a fan of the stuff, sorry if I've caused you to bristle. Look on the bright side: one day you'll likely be able to dance the Vegan Shuffle on my cholesterol-laden grave. Me? I sought solace the only place I could -- the drive-thru window of McDonalds.

Idle Time

Hello again, idle time!

God, how I've missed you.

For the past two weeks, I've been mired. A couple weekends back, Friend Jason and I made a daytrip to the Maharishi University in Fairfield, IA.

Why? To perform my sworn duty as a journalist, of course, and cover the important, groundbreaking, and world-peace-creating endeavors of the Transcendental Meditation movement.

Okay, I lied. We went out there to meet David Lynch.

Mission freakin' accomplished. It was a high point in life, even if all the guy wanted to talk about was TM. I'm a shallow guy and I just wanted to shake the hand of the guy who made Twin Peaks, the second most devastatingly brilliant TV show of all time (Lost has stolen the crowd, I'm afraid.)

But in order to share the same air as greatness, I DID have a job to do. Not just anyone gets an audience with David Lynch. You've got to either be extremely cool (nnnnope) or a journalist willing to hear out the wonders of the TM movement (yep.)

So I talked to the powers that be at Castle Dispatch/Argus and they were down with the idea of a story on Fairfield, Lynch, and the Maharishi University of Management.

For the past two weeks, I've been trying nightly to piecemeal that story together. For a guy who usually gets paid to write snarky comments about stupidity, this was an epic task of proper journalism.

See, Fairfield is a crazy place. Some of it is crazy cool. Some of it is just plain crazy. And I came home with a day's worth of interviews and countless questions about the practice, the validity, and the truth of the TM movement.

The folks from Fairfield believe that Transcendental Meditation is the key to world peace. The folks at trancenet.net and a host of other websites believe that Transcendental Meditation is a dangerous and money-hungry cult.

This becomes tough to balance in an article. There's great things going on at Fairfield -- the Ecovillage in particular, where a whole neighborhood exists entirely off-grid (wind and solar power, coop farming, recycled rainwater, the whole 9 yards -- the director of the place drives a car that runs on - I kid you not - recycled massage oil.) The new theatre in town is spectacular. The culture and diversity is mind-blowing.

At the heart of it all is the University and their belief that meditating touches the very fabric of the universe. Is it hocum-pocum? A realist like me has serious reservations. Their "science" seems sketchy at best.

Yet these are some of the nicest people you'll ever meet. Everyone at the university seems to be an optimist with a world view of helping society. It's not a cult - people are free-willed & come and go as they please.

At the end of the day, NO, I don't believe that some dude meditating in the middle of Iowa can help bring about world peace. BUT, that said, if a person feels that meditation helps them reach their creative and cognitive zenith, I'm all for it. It hurts no one (except maybe your pocketbook - learning TM ain't cheap.)

So for the past couple weeks, I've had to balance the good with the weird and attempt to do my best to put a nice feature story together. I've been able to interview everyone from Lynch to the Fairfield mayor to a national expert on cults -- and hopefully what I've come up is a fair representation of the whole deal, pointing out the good bits AND the controversial bits.

At its base, transcendental meditation is an intangible, spiritual concept based deeply on personal experience and unprovable yet undeniable theories. So who are ANY of us to judge whether its right or wrong? It's simply a case of Believe It Or Not. Hopefully that's the angle my story presents.

Keep your fingers crossed - I turned it in today, and if all goes well, it'll publish this Sunday.

In the meantime, I'm SO happy to have idle time back where I'm NOT researching quantum physics and/or cult leaders until the wee hours.

Two simple weeks and I'm already out of the pop culture loop -- Mariah got married?? To Nick Cannon?? How's Lindsay doing? Has Miley shown any more skin????

Thank God I can get back to serious work again. :)

COLUMN: Quake

We did it, Quad Cities. We made it.

If you're reading this now, it means that you're one of the survivors. The gods of fate have dealt us a terrible hand, but we've yet to fold. The challenges over this past week have been nearly insurmountable, but we as a people refuse to give up. Heck, the fact that our newspapers continue to circulate in these harrowing times is testament in and of itself to the undefeatable nature of the human spirit. Curse my naivety, I never thought it would be this bad.

So take pride, dear readers, for we are the survivors of the Great Midwest Earthquake of 2008. The damage has been done. The only thing left now is to pick up the shattered pieces of our broken lives and somehow find the courage and strength to move on. It will be a tough row to hoe, but I must have faith that one day, life as we know it will return to normal.

Some folks have had the gall to declare the quake "no big deal," that it was barely noticeable. These people are obviously in Stage 1 of coping with the aftermath of a terrible event of terrifying terror: DENIAL. If you encounter one of these hapless souls, be kind. Entertain their non-sensical notions that the earthquake was anything less than the Most Awesomely Awesome Event of our lives. Only in our understanding and compassion will they evolve out of denial into grief, acceptance, and, eventually, sheer and utter panic.

Those of us better skilled at coping cannot deny the horrific truth: At 4:37 a.m. on Friday, April 18, 2008, our peaceful towns were rocked by a quake of such might and fury that some of us actually woke up for a second or two. I know, I couldn't imagine what it must have been like to be in their shoes (or, in this case, PJ's.) I was one of the lucky ones who made it through the night unscathed and asleep, but every one of us knows someone touched by the epic rumble.

"I woke up all of a sudden," one of my friends recounted. "And I didn't know why. There were dogs barking everywhere for a minute. Then they stopped so I went back to sleep. I don't know why you're making a big deal out of it, Shane."

Oh, the horror. Can you imagine it? Enjoying a proper night's sleep when suddenly you're ripped from slumber by the sound of baying hellhounds?

"I woke up, too," another of my friends explained through his suffering. "I just thought I had to pee. Are you sure we had an earthquake, Shane?"

"STOP ASKING ME ALL THESE STUPID QUESTIONS!" said yet another friend, clearly irritated. Yes, irritability is but one of the many tragic symptoms of sleep deprivation. That's what happens when your REM cycle gets momentarily interrupted by the mighty forces of nature.

I, too, feel their pain. I may have missed the night quake, but at 10:40 the next morning, our world was rocked again by a 4.5 magnitude aftershock. There I was, minding my own business, as I bounced twice and my office chair scooted 2.5 inches forward. That's 2.5 inches I will never get back again, stolen by the cruel hands of fate. I can barely bring myself to talk about it. It's through true willpower and the comfort of a well-stocked vending machine that I made it through the workday alive.

And where, might I ask, is the government in all this? I try to keep politics out of this column, but when, may I ask, is the President arriving to survey the damages and tell people that it's alright? Where is FEMA? Where are the network news vans and my fellow trusted journalists, the only folks smart enough to sensationalize this story to the levels it deserves?

The truth is harsh: the world has forgotten us in our time of need. All we have to rely on is our wits, our neighbors, and an ample supply of Red Bull for those who might not have gotten their recommended eight hours of sleep.

The way I see it, there's only one person who can help us. One voice capable of easing fear and returning our quake-riddled midwest to normalcy. One man with the legacy and experience to help us make sense of this nightmare and begin the long road towards healing.

That's right, I'm talking to you, Bono of U2.

You've fed the world, you've opened free trade, and you still haven't found what you're looking for. We humbly beseech your wisdom and guidance. I've lived through the horror first-hand, I've been on the street talking to townsfolk, and clearly what will best serve our communities right now is a balding, self-important Irish master of the overblown song lyric.

I'm thinking charity single. Maybe an all-star cover of "You Shook Me (All Night Long,)" with proceeds going directly into the hands of Quad Citizens. Because, hey, nothing soothes rattled nerves quite like cold, hard cash. I'd never fear another night quake if I slept in a protective padded cocoon of hundred-dollar bills. Come on, Bono, won't you please lend a hand?

All I ask is that the charity single somehow involve Ashlee Simpson (though preferably not in a singing capacity.) Because, and I may be speaking out of line here, but the next best thing to cold hard cash is hot cute celebrities. Through perserverance, faith in our fellow man, and perhaps a nice dance number from a skantily clad Gwen Stefani, we WILL survive.

Best Sitcoms Ever?

The fine folks at AOL have tried to come up a list of The 50 Best Sitcoms Ever. Your thoughts?

MY thoughts:

• My #1 would simply have to be "Frasier." There's never been a smarter, funnier show on TV.

• Though it aired for only something like what, 9 episodes, it's a crime to list the best sitcoms of all time and NOT include "Fawlty Towers." The John Cleese masterpiece, while definitely a BBC sitcom not intended for the funny bones of us Yanks, was almost the perfect blueprint for all sitcoms to follow.

• The AOL list doesn't shy away from the cheezier sitcoms -- "Gilligan's Island" made the list, for !*&#'s sake -- yet we don't get "Three's Company" on the list anywhere. I'm not saying that it's cinematic genius by any stretch, but "Three's Company" was the catalyst and greatest purveyor of one of the easiest ways to get a laugh: Put 4 characters in a room, have 1 of the characters overhear a conversation but misunderstand what they overheard, and let the antics begin. Totally puerile stuff... but if you think about it, it's the same plot device used almost every week on "Frasier."

• No "Mork & Mindy"? You've gotta admit, it was a wildly inventive show for its day, though most of the laughs were merely the world being introduced to Robin Williams, a guy who we'd sort of like to forget nowadays.

• Other shows I'd consider: Reno 911, Futurama (a show I find infinitely funnier than "The Simpsons" on average,) The Young Ones, Home Movies, and the criminally short-lived Undeclared.

And their 1-50 order is totally wrong.

That's MY take, at least. You?

COLUMN: Banned

(or, the column where Shane ticks off half the Catholics in town.)

Time for a quick quiz: Name three things in history that have been banned by the church. Go!

Okay, let's see. 1) Abortion. Hmm, lemme think. Oh, okay: 2) Harry Potter. One more to go... umm, something banned by the church, eh? OH! I know. 3) ME.

That's right, folks. I am officially a Bad Boy. You read correctly -- lil 'ol me has been unceremoniously banned from an area church. The way I see it, I am one motorcycle and a temporary tattoo away from being an official menace to society.

It didn't even take much, either. I didn't have to bite the head off a bat or anything. Heck, I didn't even get a chance to bear false witness. Truth be told, I was banned from a church for reasons quite trivial.

Unless you've been living under a rock, you've probably been exposed to the recent wave of charity trivia contests happening around town. What started as a small monthly gathering at the Blue Grass Community Club has evolved into an outright local fad. If it's a Saturday night, you can almost guarantee that somewhere close by, teams are gathering together to test their knowledge and raise money for a host of worthy causes.

I'm part of a team that plays in trivia events nearly every weekend. In fact, there's a good chance you might actually hate me. See, my team has this nasty habit of winning nearly every event we attend. I look at it not as a stroke of luck or a triumph of skill -- it's more like a testament to the pitifully embarassing nerds that we are. If you get beaten by my trivia team, don't feel bad. Pity us and take pride that you've had better things to do with your life than let piles of useless knowledge stack up in your brain.

My teammates are weird trivia junkies. We met one another at various trivia functions and joined forces to become a giant, 8-headed nerd monster. We're not undefeatable by any means - in fact, we've had our egos handed to us on many an occasion. But if the questions line up just right, we can be unstoppable.

We've got a geography guy, a history guy, a sports buff, a lit junkie... heck, we've got a 14-year-old on our team with more book smarts than the rest of us put together. And then there's me. I am our team's go-to guy for the most useless of knowledge: pop culture. I fit in nicely, as my smarty-pants teammates tend not to care a whole lot about Paris Hilton.

Most importantly, we make each other laugh -- and that's what we were doing the other night at a trivia event held at a Davenport church when all heck broke loose.

It wasn't the first time. At the same church last year, we were in the middle of a round of questions when one of the event staff came to our table and demanded that we immediately remove our notebooks. Our BLANK notebooks, mind you, which we use to scribe out and debate answers around the table. We were stunned, but obliged -- only to have the same dude hover over our table with a wary eye for the rest of the night. They never said it out loud, but the inference was loud and clear: someone suspected us of cheating.

Really? Come on now. Cheating at a charity benefit, especially one at a CHURCH, in hopes of winning the grand prize of $20? In the great list of Reprehensible Acts, that would be somewhere between baby-stealing and beating up Santa Claus. My teammates were flabbergasted and some vowed never to return to that church.

Me, I could forgive and forget. And besides, this church held great events. So we put together a new team and signed up for their contest last weekend. We even brought nine players, since we had routinely seen other oversized teams at their past events. We had something to prove, and this time, we left the notebooks at home.

The game went our way. There was even a Beatles category for me to salivate over. We won handily and felt redeemed. All in all, it was a great night out... until the organizers declared that our team had to forfeit due to our extra player. Never mind that 9-person teams could be seen all over the room and that a TEN-person team had won there last year. Never mind that they gladly took the entry fees from all nine of us without complaint.

Our team captain was livid and went to complain. We didn't care about taking home a prize, we cared about respect. Eventually, they begrudgingly credited us with the win. But as we packed up to leave, things escalated. Suddenly, there was the event organizer quite literally SCREAMING at our team captain, calling us "losers." Calling us things I can't print in a family paper. And -- in the middle of a church, mind you -- yelling at us to "get the (expletive) out and never come back." Not that I'd dream of returning.

It's stupid to get worked up over what's supposed to be a fun game for a good cause. I suppose it was stupid of me to write complaint letters this week to everyone from the church pastor to the head of the Davenport Diocese. And maybe it's stupid of me to whine about it in a column. But being called a loser and getting banned from a church wasn't exactly on my weekend "to-do" list, so I think I deserve a whine or two.

In the meantime, I guess I've got to get used to my newfound bad boy image. Join me next week, when I take candy from babies and rip tags off mattresses with wild abandon.

Yowza!

Okay, here's where I deserve to be slapped around a bit, as I've spent the past month righteously neglecting this blog.

The GOOD news, though, is that I'm making up for it by posting the last 4 weeks worth of columns all at once. They should be below. I'll be more diligent in the future. Which reminds me, diligent is a funny word. Diligent diligent diligent.

COLUMN: Fiction

A few weeks ago, I wrote about my absolute lack of concern when it comes to fashion. I wouldn't know what trends are in vogue even if I was looking in Vogue while listening to En Vogue.

Still, I've apparantly got enough fashion smarts to recognize one thing about myself: I look terrible in green.

One of my closest friends spends her off hours writing books for the demographic I believe you're supposed to call "young adults." And she's great at it. She's already managed to woo a big city agent and is hopefully on her way to a publishing deal.

Happily, whenever she finishes a new book, she lets me have dibs at reading the first draft. This makes for some spirited lunches, where we ponder such questions as "If you were the main character and in 9th grade, and you were kinda cool but not SUPER cool yet somewhat intellectual, would you listen to Beyonce?" (Answer: Beyonce isn't cool no matter WHAT grade you're in.) The wait staff at Ross' must think that we're certifiable.

She just finished her new one, and it's fantastic. It's truly a page-turner, despite the fact that it's clearly written for people half my age, more specifically GIRLS half my age. I didn't care. I got sucked in to her story line regardless, and by the halfway point, I was sitting there going, "Omigod, she had BETTER find a boyfriend before the big Homecoming dance!"

It's so weird that every character, every line of dialogue, and every word in this book came out of the brain of one of my best friends. I'm so happy for her, and so hope that she finds success in such a difficult market to break. That said, the whole scenario is also turning me an icky shade of green.

I can't NOT hear the evil voice in my head that goes, "If SHE can do it, YOU can, too!" That's not to say that I fancy myself a better writer than her, but I mean, heck, the newspaper donates a page for my drivel every week, ergo I must be a Super Awesome Talented Writing Dude, yeah? Fiction for kids -- how tough can it be?

Answer: Very.

Over the past few weeks, I've put pen to paper (okay, who am I kidding, fingers to laptop) and tried to muster up a Work of Fiction For The Ages. Specifically, the ages of 12-15.

This isn't my first stab at cracking open my laptop and hoping that the Great American Novel will pour out. Writing a classic novel involves a level of intellect I simply can't muster up. Think back to your lit classes in high school. Powerful fiction involves symbolism and imagery and poetic narrative and all that other stuff that bores me to tears. I don't think like that, and I can't write like that.

Maybe my problem, though, is that I've been setting my sights too high. I could write 10,000 pages about grapes, and they'd never end up Wrathful. My Gatsby would not be Great; he would be The Mediocre Gatsby at best.

Kids, on the other hand, don't need symbolism. Dr. Seuss didn't write allegorical morality tales about mankind's struggle against societal oppression. He wrote about cats. In hats. This is more my speed.

In fact, I've got a few ideas for a kid's adventure book that could theoretically work if someone with talent were to piece it together. Unfortunately, I decided to do it instead. Bad move. After writing a few pages, I sat back to re-read the beginnings of my epic tale. Annnnnnnd WOW do I suck. What I was convinced would be a future career move turned into the fastest-deleted file in the history of my laptop.

Apparantly, I'm incapable of writing in ANY voice other than the one you're reading now. What I created was no less than five characters who were all, umm, me. Everyone talked, thought, and acted exactly like I would in their situation. My young protagonist hero already had a sarcastic pessimism and a sailor's mouth. The girl of his dreams was a sarcastic pessimist in Katie Holmes' body. The parents could have been locked up for child neglect, whom they neglected in a most sarcastically pessimistic way. The underlying moral at work appeared to be "Well, kids, life's a hopeless suckfest, might as well make fun of it while you can." It was not a good start.

I needed help, so I turned to the mecca of children's adventure lit: I went out and bought myself a Hardy Boys book. In the great pantheon of kid-lit, no heroes were truer to my heart than the brothers Hardy. I opened the book excited to relive my youth.

One small detail the 8-year-old me must have never picked up on: it was written in 1927! I'm somehow supposed to use THIS as inspiration? Seriously, these are lines in the book like:

"Say, we fellows should search for my jalopy after we dine on this Welsh rabbit!" "That's a swell idea, chum!"

Greeeat. Then we can all watch a new-fangled talkie and do the Lindy Hop down to the speakeasy while we oppress minorities and give women subservient societal roles! That'd be the bees knees! Sigh.

So I'm back to square one: a half-corked idea and a writer with a loooooooong way to go. J.K. Rowling I am NOT. Still, I'm not giving up quite yet. Maybe there's a novel idea of a novel in me yet. I'll still keep plugging away at the laptop, though I've changed out of my envious green into a more comfortable embarassment red.

COLUMN: Spooky

Well, it's official. Spring has sprung. In little to no time, birds will be chirping. Skies will be blue. Leaves will grow, flowers will bloom, hills will be alive with the sound of freakin' music. It's the happiest time of the year.

Which, of course, is why I've been surrounding myself these days with gloom, doom, and things that go bump in the night.

I don't know what the deal is, but every time I've turned on the TV this past week, I've been sucked into random shows about ghosts and ghouls and witches and aliens and any assorted hodge-podge of hocum-pocum. I don't understand why these shows are attacking our airwaves in such fury this month, and even more baffling, I don't know what my strange compulsion is to constantly watch them.

I'm no fan of being scared. While many of my nerdling friends made heroes out of Freddy and Jason and Michael Myers, I was having none of it. In early high school, I came up with the brilliant idea of asking a girl to one of the "Nightmare on Elm Street" flicks. Not a bad idea, right? Freddy kills somebody, the girl goes "eek" and seeks comfort in the strong, brave arms of her ruggedly handsome teenaged escort.

As I sat there in the theatre watching this thing, I should have been concerned about getting to second base. Instead, I was concerned about trying not to pee my pants every time Freddy jumped out. That was my last in-theatre trip to a horror flick.

And those movies are super corny compared to the monstrosities that play in theatres now. Just sneaking up on some hapless victim with a hatchet is SO 1985. Today's horror movies don't stop rolling until the hapless victim is fileted, dismembered, and if you're especially lucky, eaten. And frankly, theatre owners should put a stop to it, as you'd assume there MUST be a negative correlation between the number of full-screen disembowelments and concession sales of hot dogs.

The point is, I hate being scared. I hate movies where everything is nice and peaceful and calm and BWAAAAAAA LOOK OUT FOR THE HATCHET! I get no entertainment value out of elevated blood pressure. On the OTHER hand, if something can be eerie and creepy without being downright scary, sign me up.

I dunno why, but I've always wanted to believe in ghosts and aliens and paranormal whatzits, provided they keep their hatchets to themselves.

When I was a kid, I saw an allegedly true story about a group of lost hikers somewhere in the desert Southwest. Those hikers would have died, had it not been for the kindly ghost of an Indian tracker who led them all to safety. Neat story until I went to bed that night.

See, my aunt had recently given me a large stuffed dog. I mean, LARGE. The sucker stood taller than me and took up a third of my bedroom. And when my mom would tuck me in and shut off the lights, all you could see at first was this dog's huge plastic eyes. Except, after watching that show, it wasn't a dog.

Nope, it was the Indian tracker ghost. He was stuck inside my dog, he was staring at me through those soulless plastic eyes, and he was anything but kindly. I'm pretty sure he wanted to eat my brain. So every night, after my mom would tuck me in, I would silently creep out of bed, remove the covers from my pillows, and flop them over the dog's eyes so that whatever lurked inside couldn't spy on me. I did this for YEARS.

So a good ghost story can have an impact. That's why I'm addicted to stuff like Sci-Fi's "Ghost Hunters" and A&E's "Paranormal State." I want to find out if there's even an iota of truth to the paranormal, and these shows, while admittedly campy, at least try to use some semblance of science to seek answers. Sure, usually it's a team of people going, "Ooh! What was that banging noise?" followed by an hour trying to establish if it was something banging or SOME THING banging. Most episodes end with a question mark and no conclusive evidence, but at least once a season, they manage to capture some seriously spooky audio or video that makes even the biggest of skeptics raise an eyebrow or two.

I'd love to be a firm believer in the paranormal, but I'd certainly prefer my ghosts to be of the "Casper-the-friendly" variety. I'd like to hope that, should an afterlife exist, I'd prefer it involve more than floating around my apartment for all of eternity spooking any new tenants. If your only job is to make the occasional banging noise in the middle of the night, you'd think that would certainly equal a lot of post-mortem downtime.

Still, I'm fascinated by it all. When the Iowa Paranormal Advanced Research Team investigated an area haunting about a year ago, they let me tag along to write a story for the paper. IPART is the region's only investigators recognized by TAPS (the folks behind the "Ghost Hunters" show,) and they take the job seriously. After the article ran, I became a member of IPART. I don't have many weekends free to go spectre sleuthing, but I still love to take part in the evidence analysis and their efforts to prove the existence of the supernatural. Laugh if you want, but there are weirder hobbies out there.

So, hey, if you think you've got an undead buddy lurking in the shadows of your house, shoot me an e-mail and I can pass it on to IPART. Unless they're chasing you with hatchets, in which case I'll wish you well and take a raincheck.

COLUMN: Toilets

As I was leaving work last Friday, I bumped into Sean Leary, our entertainment editor. Sean's mere days away at this point from becoming a first-time dad, so his life has been a whirlwind of home remodeling and baby-prepping.

"How're things going?" I asked. "Did you get the place all baby-fied?"

He then spouted off a checklist of accomplished renovations. Room redesign, nursery creation, wall painting... the list went on and on while my head swam. Here was somebody of similar age and mindset to myself -- yet all grown up, mature, and doing things with his living space I couldn't dream of. He's putting up wallpaper. I, meanwhile, still get jittery when I have to change a lightbulb (Am I using too much force? Is the bulb going to shatter? Should I wear an oven mitt?)

I've got to face it. When it comes to fix-it type stuff (and, well, most things related to independent, self-sufficient survival,) I'm pretty much a flunky. Yet this week, I accomplished my most challenging feat of home improvement yet. And it started, as most good stories do, sitting on the toilet.

There I was, deeply engrossed in some pretentious music magazine's list of The World's Greatest Albums Ever. What? How could they ignore the genius of The Kinks' 1970's output? Any music critic with half a clue would tell you that -- KA-BAM!!!!

-- And I was falling to the floor.

My natural instinct was to assume that I had been shot. Obviously, a pack of toilet-raiding banditos had broken into my apartment, crept into my bathroom with ninja-like stealth and precision, and offed me at point-blank range. And that's where they'd find me, pants around my ankles, just like Elvis. LIFE OF COLUMNIST TRAGICALLY FLUSHED AWAY BY BATHROOM NINJAS, the headline would read.

But I wasn't shot. Not even grazed. In fact, the only thing wounded was my pride. So what the heck happened? That noise -- the ear-splitting, heart-stopping bang -- was the sound of my toilet seat snapping in two. Half was still attached to the toilet, the other half on the floor with me.

This would normally be a clear-cut sign that it's time to lose some weight -- or, at the very least, introduce fiber to my diet. In fact, it would have officially Freaked Me Out, had I not known it was coming. See, during my last home improvement kick - Installing A New Shower Head - I tried a fancy manoevre involving standing on the toilet seat for leverage. Leverage I did NOT attain, but cracking the toilet seat I DID manage to pull off flawlessly.

That was four years ago. In the epic battle of Laziness vs. Toilet Repair, lazy won out. I had learned to live with that crack through the good times and bad. You know how annoying it was when your grandmother would come up and pinch your cheeks? Well, it's kinda like that -- if grandma was a toilet seat and she was pinching an altogether different set of cheeks.

Still, I made do, and just assumed that one day, it'd break. And that day, it broke. I needed a replacement post-haste. But where does one turn for toilet seats? I'm a total novice here. Is there a Toilet Seat Emporium someplace? A catalog I could peruse? Shockingly, the Yellow Pages had no section for Toilet Seats.

Ergo, I went to one of those 24-hour-Super-Mega-Conglom-O-Marts. "Welcome," said the greeter, "can we help you find anything today?"

"Sure can," I replied with a chuckle. "You won't believe it, but I sat on my toilet seat today and broke the thing in two!" In the world of Too Much Information, this was perhaps a record-setting statement. Despite looking at me as though I were there to lure small children into my unmarked van, she dutifully pointed me to the toilet seat aisle.

And I mean aisle. I was expecting toilet seats, but I certainly wasn't expecting a wall of them. Blue ones, pink ones, ones with little palm trees and ocean vistas so that every trip to the potty is like a tropical get-away. Happily, though, I was able to whittle away the selection right away. Why? One word -- "cushioned."

In my day-to-day activities, I am a fairly well-cushioned individual. I lead a padded life, from my poofy desk chair to my overstuffed sectional, from my padded pillows to the padded cell they'll probably lock me in one day. I'm a guy who appreciates cushions. That said, one place where cushions NEVER belong is the bathroom.

I never want to sit on a toilet and hear "koooooooooooosh" as the seat deflates. And let's not even dwell upon the awkward issue of trying to stand up while the vinyl seat is adhered to one's nether-region, as if the toilet itself were clinging to its only companion for dear life. Fact: Padded potties are just gross.

Finally I found a sturdy, no-nonsense, run-of-the-mill replacement seat. And I brought it home and installed that sucker all by myself (though the deceptive pop-top screws almost threw me for a loop.) Yes, my hands had to touch parts of my plumbing that could be legally classified a level 3 biohazard, but I got the job done. I am a Mr. Fix-It after all.

So good news, ladies of the Quad Cities. I'm apparantly mature and stuff, which means (at least according to my grandchild-pleading mother) that it's time to procreate. Step lively, the line forms to the left.

COLUMN: Clothes

If there's one thing out there that I tend not to give a hoot about, it is -- as my friends can likely attest -- fashion. On any given day, my wardrobe usually consists of a funny t-shirt, khaki pants, and a pair of cheap Vans. If it's a work day, I'll have an ugly polo or sweater temporarily hiding the funny t-shirt o' the day. And if you catch me on a particularly high-fashion day, maybe -- just maybe -- I'll have on my Greek fisherman's cap.

Long ago, I realized that my brain simply isn't in tune with fashion sensibilities. I get a kick out of watching that show "Project Runway" -- the kid who won this season is a show unto himself -- but I've NEVER understood it. Every episode builds to the climactic runway show, where the wanna-be designers parade their outfits down the catwalk to the assorted ooh's and eww's of the judges.

And I can never tell the difference. An outfit can stroll by that I think looks fairly decent, and then you'll see Heidi Klum making a concentrated effort to restrain her gag reflex. I've just never taken much stock into what people are wearing. God forbid I ever get robbed one day:

"Sir, can you describe the assailant? What was he wearing?"
"Umm... I'm pretty sure... yes, I'm positive that he was wearing clothes."

The truth is, you could safely come up to me dressed as a rutabega and I probably wouldn't take note of it. My brain is simply not programmed to notice these sorts of things. The only way you could get me to remember your outfit is if you forget to wear it altogether. Naked people I remember well.

So naturally, me and clothes shopping don't get along. I'm not a fan whatsoever, and when I DO have to do it, I want to bring home enough clothes that I don't have to do it again for a really long time. Lately, though, I've been running into a problem.

That problem? My wallet. You would think that my problem would entail my wallet being too empty to shop for clothes. Au contraire. The problem is that my wallet is too full. Acquaintances from decades past, enough insurance cards to provide medical coverage to most of the Quad Cities, little slips of paper with phone numbers that may or may not be of crucial importantance -- my wallet is the centrifuge of my life.

The downside, though, it that it does bad things to pants. In the course of the past month, I have managed to put holes in the rumps of no fewer than three pair of older khakis, all due to the strain of trying to cram a hard drive full of information into my back pocket.

There's only one thing I hate more than clothes shopping, and that's laundry. Less hole-free clothes = more trips to the laundry. More laundry = more wear and tear on my shrinking pants collection. It was a losing cycle, and I had to admit that it was time to (gulp) shop.

One place exists that caters to the fashion ignorants of the world. A store where everything is so fashion-free that it's a safety zone for shopping idiots like me. A store where everything pretty much matches everything else. In fairness, I won't say the name of this store in print -- let's just say that it rhymes with Old Gravy.

Now, I won't give Old Gravy much grief, because it truly is a Godsend. Admit it, the store is so generic that it might as well have a blue and white sign that just says "CLOTHES" in front of it. And I'm perfectly okay with that. I'm all in favor of a store that lets you leap in, buy some cheap pants, and leap out uninterrupted and with sanity intact.

Only one problem, it turns out. It appears that I am now OFFICIALLY a walking freakshow, as I now require a pant size that's an endangered species in and of itself. I know I'm an out-of-shape, roly-poly mess, but I didn't quite think that I was the ONLY out-of-shape roly poly mess in the universe. Apparantly I am, as my pant size was practically non-existant in the racks of Old Gravy.

In fact, I went through every stupid pair of khakis the store had and discovered exactly SIX pair my size, and I bought the lot. Of those six, four of them actually fit when I got home. I know, I know. Shoulda tried 'em on at the store, stupid. But I can't wrap my head around the fact that a waist size should be a waist size should be a waist size, right? It's a measurement, it shouldn't be open to debate. Yet it appears that those little waist numbers mean a vast variety of things in the language of Old Gravy.

Still, I made do, and even picked up some more polos and sweaters to cover up my burgeoning mid-section as best possible. Maybe my two non-fitting pants will be a catalyst to get off the couch and shed some of this belly. And these cargo pants even look big enough to hold the overweight cargo I call a wallet, so maybe they'll last a while. Sadly, though, my word limit for the week has reached its end, which means I can no longer use this column as an excuse to avoid doing laundry. Wish me luck.

2 Hours of Life Lost

Okay, so there are bad movies.

And then there are REALLY bad movies.

And then there's "Next" with Nicholas Cage.

BAAAAAAAAAAAD OnDemand choice, Shane.

I'm just sayin'.

Sorry for the lack of updates, I've been forgetful. New columns coming in the next day or two, promise.