COLUMN: Corn Chips

"The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men / Gang aft a-gley," quoth the Bard of Scotland, Robert Burns. I'm no expert on 18th century Romantic poetry, so I can't speak on exactly what's being gangly aft-ed, but I can certainly tell you that this week's column has gone horribly, horribly a-gley.

Two weekends ago, the Quad Cities saw the opening of Energy, a new dance club strictly for the under-21 sect. "O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!" thought the innocent newspaper columnist, "A story idea presents itself."

Being an alumni of the teen club crowd myself, I was happy to hear that a new place was opening in town. Frankly, it's been too long. The kids of the Quad Cities need something fun to do on the weekends, and at least MY dictionary defines "fun" as "(noun). See: Dance club."

So I was going to write a grandiose column about teen clubs and time it to Energy's grand opening.

On their first two nights, they packed some 800 kids into their Moline location. And then, like the Party-Pooping Patrol, the city of Moline swept in and shut the place down after one single weekend in business. Not that the city's to blame. It turns out that the owners didn't have the building up to code, nor had they received the proper licensing from the city, and that's a big ol' bummer. Moline no longer has a teen club, I no longer have a column idea.

Or do I? Just because Energy's closed doesn't mean I can't still take my nostalgia trip. And the guys behind the Energy club haven't packed it in -- they're scouring the Quad Cities for a new, up-to-code location, and I for one sincerely hope they find one. As far as I'm concerned, a teen age without a thumping bass beat and a dancefloor with which to potentially embarass oneself in life-altering ways is a teen age I'd rather skip, thanks.


I'm sure it'll be of no surprise to learn that I was something of a nerd in high school. I wasn't particularly downtrodden or anything about it, but suffice to say me and my drama geek friends were not exactly invited to the A-list parties. Until, that is, I learned how to DJ them. Music was my social saving grace back then, and when Galesburg opened up a teen club -- Checkpoint -- I had to be a part of it.

Now I could lie and tell you all that the club went and sought me out for my exceptional DJ'ing abilities. Truth is, from the day the place opened, I wouldn't leave the owners alone and eventually weaseled and begged my way into the DJ booth. I fear that the inside of that DJ booth at Checkpoint might be the one memory that I will forever refer to as "the best time of my life."

Checkpoint closed down about the same time I moved to Rock Island for college, and my central weekend hangout simply shifted to Bettendorf's Stage 2. While my collegiate brethren were obsessing over keggers and frat parties, I was obsessing over which Chess King ensemble to best make the scene down at the teen club. Only-child-syndrome made living on my own kinda rough -- and since beer parties really weren't my thing, the teen club was my solace. If it hadn't been for the friends and fun of that club, I don't think I would have made it through freshman year.

On any given Friday night, you could find us down there. Half of the club would be filled with the preppies and the underage social elite, and the other side -- our side -- would be packed to the brim with the folks they called... "corn chips." To this day, I don't know where the name came from or how it was meant to be derogatory. I don't know if anyone does, really. Today the labels "goth" and "punk" might apply to similar cliques, but back then we were all a bunch of corn chips.

All it meant is that we liked different music than most, and admittedly had a unique flair for expressing it. And even on the outcast corn chip side of the club, tables were chosen by high school clique: The UT kids sat over here, the Moline kids over there, Bettendorf kids had the back corner, and the table by the snack bar? That was Galesburg territory and our nesting place. The drama would play out in perfect teenaged form. One of our favorite hobbies was to wait until the DJ played the corn chip tearjerker anthem "Somebody" by Depeche Mode and take bets on the number of girls who would run to the bathroom distraught over their unrequited crush o' the week.

Like all good things, eventually my time at Stage 2 had to end. As much as we hated to leave the teenage years, we had to, fighting tooth and nail the whole way. My friend Natalie was the only person I knew who had a fake ID -- to prove she was UNDER 20 and still admissable to the teen club. Me? I knew my time at Stage 2 had reached its end when I was a junior in college and got an invitation to a fellow club-goer's 14th birthday party.

Still, that building -- now a barren Bettendorf parking lot -- was where I forged some of the best friendships of my life, met amazing people, listened to amazing music, and made me want to be a DJ for the rest of my life. Here's hoping Energy can get it together and do the same for some other socially adrift kid out there. Good luck on finding a new location, and if you ever need a fill-in DJ, I'm your guy.

COLUMN: Spinach Dip

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I don't like to use my column to dole out free advertising to area businesses. Not that I don't love and support some of our local shops, because I certainly do. But giving a business a free plug -- even one that I adore and frequent -- creates an ethical grey area, and frankly, I've never looked good in grey.

If I were to mention Company A in a column, Company B might get upset. And what about Company C who drops a dime or two on print advertising in our papers? To be fair to all concerned, it's best to leave the advertising to the pros. Except this time.

One establishment in town has discovered the necessary trick to get me to step off my ethical high horse and shout their name from the rooftops. Well, maybe not the rooftop - it IS kinda cold out. Regardless, ethics (and editors with grouchy faces) be darned, for I'm making an endorsement right here and right now:



THE ROCK ISLAND BREWING COMPANY SERVES THE FINEST FOOD ON PLANET EARTH, IF NOT PERHAPS THE ENTIRE GALAXY. You should go there for lunch and/or dinner every day. Fold this newspaper up, put it under your arm, and strut on down to RIBCO where you can read the paper and enjoy the best meal of your life. Tell 'em Shane sent ya!



There ya go. A 100% unbiased, 100% unsolicited recommendation from yours truly. Trust me. The fact that I spend my weekends DJ'ing for RIBCO's sister club 2nd Ave. should be dismissed as mere coincidence. No, I'm speaking from the heart here. The food at RIBCO is oh-so-good. Especially, in fact, the spinach dip. To be honest, I was unaware of the wonder, majesty, and pallet-quenching joy of RIBCO's spinach dip until quite recently.

Well, until this very afternoon -- when I got a phone call from Debbie Tilka, who owns and manages RIBCO along with her husband Terry. I can safely say that it was the first phone call I've ever received from someone needing to urgently speak with me on the topic of spinach dip. As it happens, RIBCO has just redesigned their menu, adding and renaming many dishes.

Their spinach dip is now no mere spinach dip. It is, as of this writing, DJ SHANE'S SHOUT OUT SPIN DIP. That's right, mortals, I've officially arrived: I HAVE MY OWN MENU ITEM.

Accolades come few and far between in this business. Well, I suppose a successful newspaper columnist might yearn to one day win a Pulitzer Prize. Not me. For one, I bet the Pulitzer judges aren't progressive enough to recognize the esoteric genius of a column devoted to spinach dip. For two, have you seen a Pulitzer Prize? It's like an weird coin/medallion thing with a dude on it who appears, in my infinite knowledge, to be doing arm pulldowns on a Bowflex. It's not my scene.

Granted, I suppose the prestige of a Pulitzer Prize might outweigh the prestige of DJ Shane's Spin Dip. Still, the Pulitzer people need to face the harsh and ugly truth that, while their golden icon may be the pinnacle of journalistic success, it simply doesn't make a nice complement to whole wheat crackers or rye bread.

So I'm setting my sights on something higher than journalistic acclaim: world domination. Here's how it'll work: If you, dear reader, decide that you'd like to dine at RIBCO and try some of DJ Shane's Shout Out Spin Dip, when your waitress comes to the table, simply ask for "the Shane." Once enough people start getting used to calling spinach dip a Shane, perhaps it'll catch on at OTHER locations.

"Would you care for an appetizer?"
"Yes, please. I'd like a Shane."
"Coming right up. We make our Shane fresh!"

And so on and so forth, until one day my name will become synonymous with spinach dip everywhere and the world will bow before me. Don't believe me? Ask my friend, the Earl of Sandwich.

But I've got to be honest. There's one thing I need to do first before global conquest can ever possibly be mine. Over the past decade, I've eaten at RIBCO approximately a bajillion times. I've ravaged their menu -- there's not a dish I haven't tried. Except one.

That's right, DJ Shane has yet to try DJ Shane's Shout Out Spin Dip. I'm certain that it's quite tasty, don't get me wrong... but, well, it's green. And creamy. And being the world's most finicky eater, one of my devout rules is that things green and creamy are likely eccchy and hence should stay away from my mouth.

But as of right now, I am rescinding my rule. I simply refuse to have a food item named after me that I myself won't eat for fear of color and texture. And I swear to you all, I've watched my friends eat RIBCO's spinach dip and go on and on about how good it is. (And that's lucky for them, as DJ Shane's Shout Out Spin Dip shall henceforth be the expected mandatory order for all of my dining companions.)

As much as I tease, I really DO get a kick out of having my name on a menu, especially at a place like RIBCO with such great people as the Tilkas. And I'm honestly touched and warm-fuzzied by the sentiment, even if the menu DOES go on to say that "it's the only thing cheesier than our resident DJ!" I can live with cheesy. I've been called worse, trust me.

So go to RIBCO. Try the Shane, it's awesome. Then hang out and listen to me spin records next door. Then read all my columns, all our other columns, and support all of our fine advertisers. Even the ones who don't name stuff after me.

COLUMN: Loose Meat

I've never claimed to be a particularly worldly kinda guy, but there's a secret part of me that's convinced I am.

I went to a liberal arts college, and that's supposed to make me well-rounded and stuff. I've travelled to at least a third of these United States. I watch a heck of a lot of TV, because I like to be aware of the issues -- or at least the latest episode of "Lost." As I type this, my web browser is tuned to a streaming video feed of a courthouse that perhaps sometime today Britney Spears may or may not walk into. See, I'm well-rounded and informed.

And as a well-rounded, pseudo-worldly cool dude, I like to stay abreast of national politics -- or at the very least find out who these mildly annoying people are who've been stumping through Davenport for the past month. As a former speech major, I'm intrigued by the campaign process and the tactics used by the candidates to gain support. Let's face it: Many, many people vote solely on a candidate's personality and NOT the issues.

Look at the famous Nixon/Kennedy debate. Polls at the time showed that most radio listeners felt that Nixon easily won the debate, but those who watched the debate on TV found Kennedy to be the clear victor. Why? Because on TV, Kennedy looked confident and unstoppable while Nixon looked like a pale, sweaty mess. To the average voter, the way a candidate comes across on camera is far superior to their message -- just ask Howard Dean, who was one "hooooooooah" away from the White House four years ago.

Anyways, as a fan of the way candidates manipulate the media, I was perusing an article in our paper the other day when something caught my eye. An Associated Press reporter was following the Clinton campaign and wrote this, in a piece we ran on January 3rd:

"Clinton put massive resources into the state over an objection from one of her top advisers who warned early on it would be tough for her. In pursuit of the Iowa prize, the world-famous senator ate locally popular 'loose meat' sandwiches while cameras recorded every bite..."

I was perplexed by this paragraph. Why the big deal about a loose meat sandwich? In fact, why the quotation marks around "loose meat" as though it were some strange Midwest delicacy unbeknownst to the rest of the world?

I mentioned this to a co-worker and was blind-sided by her answer: Loose meat IS a strange Midwest delicacy unbeknownst to the rest of the world. I couldn't believe it. I mean, I knew Maid-Rites were sort of a Midwest phenomenon, but I never had a clue that the entire concept of loose meat sandwiches is lost on the rest of the country.

Surely not. I decided to prove my co-worker wrong. As part of my work week at the paper, I routinely speak with an advertiser who lives in sun-baked Palm Desert, California. I immediately got her on the line and grilled her over the sensitive topic.

"What would you say if I mentioned the phrase 'Loose Meat Sandwich' to you?" asked the naive columnist.

"I dunno," she replied, "For starters, I'd probably go 'Ewwwwww!' What on Earth is loose meat?"

Maybe they just call it something different in California.

"It's like a hamburger but with crumpled ground beef," I tried to explain.

"Ewwwww!" again came the response. "You EAT that?"

All I could do was sigh.

"We kinda have that," she said as I felt a momentary relief. "It's like when you're grilling a hamburger and the meat accidentally breaks in two. Is that when the meat becomes 'loose'? Because I just call it 'Oops, the burger broke.'"

I tried to explain it one final time to her, to no avail.

"So it's like a Sloppy Joe but without the, umm, slop?" she inquired as I affirmed. "It's just, like, a Joe?"

"Kinda," I said with an eye roll.

"Ewwwww!" she said for the millionth time.

My "worldly" self had no idea that loose meat sandwiches are thought of as freaky by most of the continent. My friend in California, in fact, was so fascinated that she insisted I go take a picture of one and e-mail it to her. As all this talk of loose meat set a hankering in my gut for one, so I happily obliged and popped across the river to Ross'.

As I sat there enjoying the sandwich that apparantly the rest of the world considers more of a "Fear Factor" stunt than lunch, I wondered just how many Presidential candidates had choked one down for the cause. I have no idea, but I certainly hope that most of them did it at Ross'. I like to imagine countless Washington bigwhigs smiling their way through a Rossburger while staring at the bizarre mural that appears to show Humphrey Bogart mingling with Ross regulars, while I-74 is drawn as if bearing down on the restaurant itself (and is that Truman Capote sitting alongside a guy with cornrows in his hair?) Between the mural and the Magic Mountains, Ross' is a cherished institution and should be the dominant tourist attraction in town.

Apparantly we're not the only weirdos, though. My Californian friend tells me you can't find a BLT in the Golden State without avacado on it, which totally grosses me out -- though someday I'd love to walk into a restaurant and order something called a "BLAT." All I know is that I'm done pretending to be worldly. If the rest of the world can't get their head around loose meat on a bun, I'd rather stay a Quad Citizen.

COLUMN: Gossip

In Journalism 101, they teach you that the most important part of a newspaper story is the lead. You need to start off with a real bang -- something that'll lure the readers in and keep them glued to the story. Well, after a couple years of trying, I think I've finally come up with a lead worthy of your attention. Let's see if it works:

Word on the street is that I'm a sex addict.

Did it work? Are you hooked? Sadly, I couldn't even type that sentence without laughing -- but it's the truth. Well, kinda.

I work on the third floor up here at the newspaper office, and on our floor, the girls outnumber the guys by about 4 to 1. Not that I'm complaining, mind you -- there are worse fates than being surrounded by lovely ladies for 40 hours a week. But being in daily close quarters with the girl gaggle, I've discovered one stereotype that DOES ring true:

Ladies, you DO love to gossip. You're not happy unless no fewer than five juicy and/or salacious rumors are making their way around the office at any given time. I have a working theory, in fact, that gossip is what gives women their power. (Men, conversely, are powered by video games and ESPN.) If we could only harness the mighty energyof gossip, I'm certain we could cure global warming overnight.

In all fairness, I suppose I like a bit of gossip myself. I'm not immune from the lure of celebrity-skewering websites, and it's not as if I ignore those bawdy workplace rumors when they eventually reach my desk. But never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that the newspaper office would be a hotbed of she-gossip unseen since high school.

Did you hear? So-and-so is mad at So-and-so because of what So-and-so said about So-and-so behind their back! And so-and-so on and so-and-so forth, that's what I hear on almost a daily basis. But this past week, we've entered a new realm, because full-on scandal erupted! (Note: If that last sentence made you excited, congratulations -- you are a girl.)

It turns out that Co-worker X "secretly" went on a few dates with Co-worker Y. This, as you'd expect, is front page gossip. I could care less. For all I know, they're off making baby Co-worker Z's as I type. I dunno. I'm staying out of it.

All I know is that it's made me horribly jealous. Why do I have to be the mousy guy in the corner? Why can't I be the center of attention? Why can't somebody talk in hushed tones about MY exciting life? As I was laughing about this to my immediate desk neighbors, we began to get devious. One of my co-workers suggested planting a rumor that I, too, was secretly dating a colleague.

No, that'd never work. One query to my "lucky" bachelorette would likely be answered with a "Shane? Eww, no!" and that'd be that. I laughed and said it would need to be something juicier. No, if we wanted a proper scandal, it would have to be something like, I dunno, someone saw me at a support group for sex addicts or something.

How brilliant is that? It's completely tawdry, completely unprovable, and best of all, completely ludicrous. I mean, look at my picture. Is that the face of a sex addict? I have a difficult enough time TALKING to girls. Let's just say that if I AM a sex addict, I'm doing a really, really lousy job at it.

We laughed and I went back to work. What I didn't know, however, is that mere moments later, another co-worker was headed my way when she was cut off by my friend Jerri. "I wouldn't talk to Shane," Jerri whispered in hushed tones. "He's having a bad day. Haven't you heard?"

I honestly didn't even hear it happening, but Jerri spent the next few minutes giving an Oscar-worthy performance. She made up a whole story: I had confessed my addiction to only my closest co-workers after their prodding. I entered treatment only after the repeated pleas of my parents. [I liked this one a lot, only to imagine the look on my poor mother's face if I were to waltz in and announce that I was addicted to nookie.] I was in recovery and looking to make a fresh start at life. It was a magical and gifted performance.

"Well, that's that," Jerri said after the co-worker left the room. "Congrats, you're a sex addict."

We laughed, but I didn't think it would really go anywhere. Six hours later, I'm off the clock and gallavanting around town when I bump into one of my co-workers. I begin to tell her about my nefarious day when she stops me. "Oh, I've already heard allllll about it, Mr. Sex-aholic."

"Weren't you on vacation this week?" I ask.

"I got a call at home."

That's right. In less than a day, the gossip had made its way through the building and onwards to off-duty co-workers and lands beyond. Right now, someone in Uzbekistan is learning that I'm one tawdry dude.

So it stops now. I have taunted and disrespected the awesome power of the gossip machine for the last time. For the record, I am not a sex addict, and weird apologies to those of you who are. No more rumor-mongering for me. In case you hear something, I am also NOT the walrus, I did NOT shoot the sheriff, and I did NOT let the dogs out. Oh, and as for the hearsay about me & Britney? I issue a terse "no comment."

COLUMN: Best 'o 2007

I first got into journalism by reviewing records. In fact, it was a review of Bon Jovi's "Slippery When Wet" that was my first published work in high school. I trashed the album, and my locker and my house got toilet-papered for a week straight as a result. Music remains my first love, and you have to indulge me annually when I spend a column waxing poetically over my favorite records of the year.

Our entertainment editor recently published his year-end picks, and I watched as he took the usual heat from our online commenters over his choices (as I suspect I will for mine.) Many of the comments questioned whether or not the musings of an entertainment writer from the Quad Cities really matter in the grand scheme of things. The real answer: No, they probably don't. We're not handing out Grammies, and our opinions aren't being sought after by record execs.

However, we ARE hardcore music fans blessed with a forum to share our love for pop culture. If you hate my picks, big deal. I probably hate yours, too. But if one person out there reads this list and discovers a band that they like, then hey, mission accomplished. That said, bask in the glow and wonder of my picks for the Best Darn Albums of 2007:

#10 - I'M FROM BARCELONA - Let Me Introduce My Friends (EMI)



Neither a single entity nor from Barcelona, the Swedish collective I'm From Barcelona finally saw their debut record get released in the U.S. this year. If you think a 29-member band from Sweden who sing songs about chicken pox and stamp collecting might be a little silly, you'd be right. But the feel-good silliness of the band is combined with a knack for crafting perfect, sunny-day pop songs that would fit on an Archies record, if Archie were Scandinavian and had 28 friends. What could have been a silly novelty record turns out to be a joyous celebration of the spirit of pop music. You'll be humming it for days.

#9 - ROBIN GUTHRIE AND HAROLD BUDD - Before the Day Breaks (Darla/Bella Union)



(Guthrie & Budd don't make videos, but above is a clip of Guthrie playing live in Peru earlier this year.)

I have to get past the fact that I once interviewed guitarist Robin Guthrie for a music website and found him to be one of the most egotistical, arrogant jerks I've ever come across. He might be a schmuck, but there's no denying the guy's immeasurable talent. This year Guthrie hooked up with ambient neo-classical pianist Harold Budd for two records of blissed-out ethereal soundscapes. It's not their first collaboration, but it may be their best. Despite what I think of the guy, if there's a heaven, Guthrie's guitar is its Muzak.

#8 - APPLES IN STEREO - New Magnetic Wonder (Simian)



The Apples in Stereo have been leading the resurgence of psychedelic pop music for nigh on a decade now, and fans were mortified last year when it was announced that husband-and-wife bandleaders Robert Schneider and Hilarie Sidney were getting a divorce. Rather than pack it in musically, though, the band persevered through personal strife and completed the album they'd spent two years crafting, and it's a magnum opus of pop cool. Featuring a guest list of some of the greatest indiepop musicians around the world, the Apples may have their best record yet, which softened the blow when Sidney officially departed the band upon the album's completion.

#7 - JUSTICE - Cross (Ed Banger/Vice)



Daft Punk have spent the last decade making France the epicenter of cool when it comes to dance music, but fellow countrymen Justice came on the scene this year and stole their thunder. Where Daft Punk excel at hard driving robotic beats, Justice inject their dancefloor grooves with electronic emotion. Thieving elements of soul, R&B, lounge, funk, and melding them with the relentless deep bass beats that are the calling card of the French scene, Justice have made THE soundtrack for the dancefloor this year.

#6 - M.I.A. - Kala (XL Recordings)



Sri Lankan rapper M.I.A. was supposed to record her second record with American uber-producer Timbaland, but visa problems (likely stemming from the rapper's outspoken radical political beliefs) prevented her from recording in the U.S. Instead, she made the album in sporadic bursts while travelling the world, self-producing the record alongside friends. It's still the same beat-heavy, politically-driven hip-hop that made critics fall in love with her debut, but "Kala" absorbs the cultures it was recorded in, adding an irreverant world music flare to an already thrilling record.

#5 - MIKA - Life in Cartoon Motion (Universal/Island)



A record that you want to blare from your car but don't dare due to the questionable looks you'll get from passersby, Lebanese-born Mika has made the year's most flamboyant debut. Unabashedly thieving the best bits of classic Elton John while simultaneously resurrecting the over-the-top grandeur of Freddie Mercury, this record is the year's greatest guilty pleasure, and responsible for many shades-drawn dance sessions at my place.

#4 - PANDA BEAR - Person Pitch (Paw Tracks)



Panda Bear is the nom-de-plume of one Noah Lennox, best known as the keyboard noodler for Animal Collective, a band that music critics drool over but I personally can't stand. Lennox's solo work escapes the weird-for-the-sake-of-being-weird prentention of Animal Collective, and instead takes the listener into a simple yet complex world of looped guitars, otherworldly samples, and ghostly vocals. The result is a haunting epic that sounds like Brian Wilson from the Beach Boys trapped on an iceberg.

#3 - ROBYN - Robyn (Konichiwa)



You might remember Robyn as the Swedish chanteuse who reached the American Top 40 with "Show Me Love" in 1997. Modeled by her record label to follow in the shoes of the Britneys and Christinas of the world, Robyn found herself stifled by lame songs and image consultants. Instead of going along for the ride, she bought out her contract, formed her own record label, and put together her own team of producers, shunning mainstream pop for fierce Nordic electro beats and synths. The result is a snapshot of poise and confidence, and the album Gwen Stefani's been trying to make for years now. Right now, it's only available in Europe, but with a stateside release due this spring, she'll be a household name by this time next year.

#2 - BAND OF HORSES - Cease to Begin (Sub Pop)



Sometimes the best records of the year don't have to be overly-indulgent artistic statements. Sometimes all it takes it takes is great rock & roll, and that's what Band of Horses specialize in. When co-founder Mat Brooke left the band last year, most critics thought it would spell the end of the group, but in the hands of frontman Ben Bridwell, the band took on a new vision and came out with a record of mature, uncomplicated beauty.

#1 - OF MONTREAL - Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? (Polyvinyl)



The brainchild of acclaimed songsmith Kevin Barnes, of Montreal have been crafting eclectic pop gems for over a decade now... but this is no ordinary pop record. Over the past couple years, Barnes married, moved to Norway, had a child, fell into a stifling depression, saw his marriage crumble, and eventually pulled himself together and reconciled with his wife. This album, recorded mostly solo on a laptop computer, chronicles it all - from the lowest moments of clinical depression to the highest peaks of personal redemption. It's an emotional rollercoaster of dance beats and glam funk. The greatest album thus far from the greatest band making music today, period.

Honorable Mentions:

The 1900's, Cold and Kind




Tiger Saw, Tigers on Fire



Shout Out Louds, Our Ill Wills



Architecture in Helsinki, Places Like This



Caribou, Andorra



Airiel, The Battle of Sealand



Miguel Migs, Those Things



The Polyphonic Spree, The Fragile Army



Britney Spears, Blackout



(Seriously tho, for the train wreck that she is, Britney's producers made an amazing top 40 record.)

COLUMN: Retail Hell

I tried, people. I really did.

I gave it my best shot to NOT write another "bah humbug" column about Christmas this year. In fact, this week's column was to be my annual list of the best music of the year. That'll have to wait, because I need to document the soul-sucking Grinching I received this past week. I don't even care that, by the time you read this, Christmas will have come and gone. You'll have to indulge me, because I need a proper (albeit belated) holiday whine.

Despite what you may think, I'm not an entirely cynical human being. There's a spark in me that yearns for white Christmases, roasting chestnuts, and goodwill towards men. I'm all for the warm fuzzies that fill your heart at the holidays. This year, though, I think the warm fuzzies went on strike with the Hollywood writers.

As usual, I waited 'til the last minute to get my Christmas shopping done. First up was my dad. If you were to ever meet the man, you'd think he was the mildest, friendliest guy out there (which he is.) But the guy's got some weird hobbies. Chief among them, my dad likes cannons. I can't tell you how many childhood vacations involved stops to look at some kind of antique artillery. Dad, with a gleam in his eye, would try his best to tell me the history and importance of Civil War munitions; I would nod appropriately while wondering if the town had a record store and whether our hotel had free HBO.

Dad's new project is to build a replica Mountain Howitzer cannon from scratch. How one does this is beyond me -- just know that the next time you're planning on robbing a house, you might want to skip my folks'. When I asked my dad what he wanted for Christmas this year, he rapidly replied, "I'd love a 12 lb. shot put." I knew right away this was not a sudden interest in track and field. That's right, a 12 lb. iron shot put makes a spiffy cannonball.

So I scoured the Quad Cities in search of a shot put, and came up empty-handed. As you may have guessed, Shotputs-R-Us doesn't have a local branch, and I couldn't find a sporting goods store that stocked the things. My best hope was ordering online, where I discovered that if you have a 12 lb. ball of iron and you paint it red, you can get away with charging $130 + shipping for the thing.

I decided to cross off the shot put and go for the next item on his list -- something called an "air needle scaler." Dunno what it is, but it should come in handy the next time I need something scaled with air and needles. But Dad wanted it, and I found one easily enough. I celebrated with a post-shopping burrito at one of my favorite eateries. It was quite tasty, until I was leaving and glanced back to witness my bare-handed burrito maker in a full-on nose pick -- and not just a little innocent, my-nose-itches sort of manoever, no. This was a full-on nasal mining operation. Fa la la la la.

The next day was Mom. Not wanting to suffer alone, I invited my friend Linn along for the merriment. Chief on my mom's Christmas list was a new paring knife, and seeing as how I know cutlery almost as well as I know cannon-building, I summoned a clerk for help. Well, the front desk did, after I had to walk up twice and have one paged three times. Still, it was the holidays, so I let it slide.

Eventually a tired-looking clerk showed up and immediately went into sales mode, telling me that my mom deserved nothing but the best paring knife. The kind that are displayed behind glass in the store.

"Fancy," I said of the 3" paring knife being pitched our way. "What's this bad boy cost?"

"It's on sale," the clerk replied, "for only $74.99."

The look of open-mouthed horror on our faces said it all.

"Well," the clerk tried to explain, "this knife is made from only the finest German..."

"Finest German WHAT, for that price? BABIES?" Linn interjected incredulously. I was laughing so hard I couldn't breathe. The clerk was entirely unamused. But for 75 bucks, that knife had better prepare my meals, clean up after itself, AND read me a bedtime story. Eventually I settled on another nice knife (perhaps only made from sub-standard German babies,) and the clerk nodded and said she'd be back with the key.

TWENTY MINUTES LATER, she was. This was after having her re-paged twice and having two stockboys roaming the store looking for her. When she DID return, she acted put out and exasperated, offered no apologies, grabbed the knife, and walked it to the register with us. I now understand why they keep the sharp implements behind glass.

Look, I've worked retail before. I know the chaos that comes with the holidays. I know it can be stressful to wait on last-minute idiots like me. But even in my worst moments in retail, I knew how to be nice to people. I knew how to apologize for delays. I knew how to smile.

Despite my Christmas fantasies of fileting rude clerks with imported paring knives, I managed to complete my list with my sanity somewhat intact and my holiday spirit repairable. By the time you read this, you'll be full of Christmas leftovers, but as I write, it's still two days off. Despite what the world of retail wants to do to me, I still plan on having a fabulous holiday. I hope and entrust that your Christmas was bright and wish you all a happy new year -- even you, nose-picking burrito dude.

COLUMN: Panic

Alright, I know this is going to make me sound like a hack comic, but honestly -- really, truly, seriously -- WHAT IS THE DEAL WITH THE WEATHER AROUND HERE LATELY?

I've lived in Illinois all my life, and thus am no stranger to winter weather. With relevant and profound apologies to James Taylor, I've seen snow and freezing rain. I've seen frost-bitten fingers that I thought would never mend. I've seen heating bills that I could not comprehend... but I always knew one day winter would end. This year? I have my doubts.

By calendar standards, winter is only a few days old -- and I'm already rooting for its demise. If this keeps up, I may be forced to drastically alter my views on global warming.

It started a couple weeks ago with that dandy late afternoon snowstorm. I'm all for a mild whitening of things, especially this time of year, but there's one teensy little problem. As much as I appreciate fine German engineering, my Beetle is NOT known for its arctic off-roading capabilities. Add that to my apartment sitting atop a steep driveway atop the Rock Island hill, and those two inches of snow meant that I couldn't get home from work that night for several hours until the plows had done their job.

We'd barely gotten back on track from that snowfall when forecasters sounded the panic alarm once again. I usually react to these warnings with a resounding "hmpf." Like I said, I'm no wuss about winter weather. I was only seven years old in 1978, but I still remember having to tunnel our way out of the house after the record-setting blizzard of that winter. I grew up in the country, and with a dad who would have taken me to school on dogsled rather than willingly submit to a snow day. No measly frozen water is going to impact MY day.

Yet in all the bad weather I can recall over the years, the one thing that doesn't ring a bell is the phrase "crippling ice storm." But thanks to our icy surprise last February, it's at the tip of every local meterologist's tongue now. There's no two ways around it: that storm last year sucked. I was trapped without power for the better part of a day, and I was one of the lucky ones. So when word came last week that another menacing ice storm was a-comin', the Quad Cities united together for the one thing we're well-trained and talented at: PANIC.

The news was already telling us to stay home at all costs. Schools had already been cancelled. The National Weather Service was telling people to prepare their "winter survival kits." What, exactly, should a winter survival kit consist of in this modern age? A pointy stick with which to kill passing polar bears? Instruction manuals for "Extreme Makeover: Igloo Edition"? The rules and regulations of professional curling? I was dubious, but perhaps I DID need to stock up on some supplies.

I headed to the grocery store, a fine notion were it not for the other 98.53% of the Quad Cities who had the same idea. Shelves were emptying. A woman walked by carrying what appeared to be a cubic ton of toilet paper to the register. I even saw a beleagured manager attempting to explain to a customer that sidewalks would not benefit from the sprinkling of water softener salts. Based on the checkout line length alone, you would have thought Neil Kastor had called for an 80% chance of the Apocalyse.

And there I was, stuck in the middle of it all. But hey, if enough ice DID manage to plop down and cause a problem, I wanted something slightly more filling than the three packets of taco sauce and one can of tomato paste that comprised my entire inventory of provisions.

I got home and downloaded the first season of "How I Met Your Mother" onto my iPod -- if the power did go out, I still wanted entertainment options. Satisfied with my prep work, I went to bed and had nightmares of opening my window to scenes of pure winter carnage.

Hours later I awoke, took a gulp, and opened my window to scenes of... rain. Not freezing rain. Not evil rain. Not witness-the-wrath-of-Nature rain. Just rain. I drove problem-free to work and spent the rest of the day in disbelief that half of my co-workers had pulled no-shows due to the weather. Due to the rain.

And yes, before you yell, I know it was a bad storm. People died in other states, and that's awful. Even some of the QC metro area lost power. But in Rock Island, it was just some crummy rain. I didn't get to call in to work, I didn't get to see any gnarly wrecks. It was the most underwhelming "crippling ice storm" ever. I hate storms, but if it's gonna happen, it might as well shut the city down for a day or two or it's just no fun.

But now, especially after the dumping of snow we got last weekend, I'm ready for it to end. Granted, a friend of mine just got back from a trip to the Caribbean with photos of holiday palm trees and surfing Santas, and that just seems horribly wrong. Christmas should be white, chilly, and wonderful -- but on Dec. 26th? Let it thaw, let it thaw, let it thaw.

COLUMN: Kyrgyzstan Claus

I stink at math.

It's one of my dark, shameful secrets. There's just something about numbers that makes my brain switch off. I am, for lack of a better word, mathtarded. And it's not for lack of trying, either.

I'm not saying I was the world's best student or anything, but still, I gave math my best shot. I had to -- my father was a former physics major who designed and built the house I grew up in from scratch. I'm still convinced to this day that my dad lost most of his hair not due to genetics, but due to my Algebra II homework (a class I passed by the skin of my teeth and thanks only to cram sessions with an overly patient parent and a programmable calculator that learned the formulas a lot faster than me.)

High schoolers are famous for saying stupid stuff, and one of those cringe-worthy phrases often uttered by my younger self? "I will NEVER need to know this to get by in life." Well, I'm here to tell you that, for once, High School Shane was right. I have made it almost 37 years now, and can safely tell you all that I've yet to find myself in a perilous situation where I need to measure an isosceles triangle in order to survive. In fact, I had to go to Wikipedia just now to spell "isosceles." I have yet to encounter any task preceded by the adjective "Pythagorean." The cosine button on my calculator has NEVER been pressed.

I'm sure there are career paths out there that utilize math on a minute-by-minute basis. Newspaper Columnist isn't one of 'em. I suppose it would be nice to balance a checkbook or complete a tax form without the sensation that my brain is about to leak out of my eye sockets, but hey -- if you can't do those simple tasks, there's certainly a computer program and/or paid professional willing to take it on for you. It's good to know that there are competent mathematicians and engineers out there to make life easier and run the world for we mathematically challenged types.

Take the fine Nordic engineering consultants of the Sweco Group. According to their website, Sweco provides consulting services in engineering, environmental technology, and architecture. However, as a public service to one and all, they recently applied their genius minds to a phenomenon not easily grasped by we math underlings -- Santa Claus. For generations, we've been puzzled how one jolly old man and his eight freaky deer could possibly deliver toys to ALL the girls and boys. In a press release that I swear I'm not making up, Sweco has the answers.

Taking into account factors like geographic density and the fewest detours, and working with the estimation that there are 120 persons per square mile and an average of 66 feet between homes on Earth -- and assuming that Santa travels against the Earth's rotation thus giving him an optimizing 48 hours in which to deliver gifts -- Sweco has proven that Santa has exactly 34 microseconds at each stop to shimmy down the chimney, plop down the gifts, down some cookies and milk, and be on his merry way.

In order to pull this off, Dasher and Prancer and Comet and Dunder and the gang need to travel at 12,974,400 miles an hour to get the job done. And that officially puts the kibash on the North Pole. Assuming that Santa begins and ends his annual trek from the most logistically optimal position on Earth based on population density and distance, there's only one place where Santa's Workshop can really exist: Kyrgyzstan.

That's right, Santa Claus is a Kyrgyzstani. Until now, Kyrgyzstan was best known for its woolen exports, the komuz (a fretless 3-stringed lute), a rousing 22nd place finish in the men's pentathlon at the 2004 Summer Olympiad, and being the only country whose name sounds like the noise I make when I sneeze. But now, thanks to the wonders of modern mathematics, it's home to Santa and the elves.

And the Kyrgyzstani government couldn't be happier. After word reached them of the Swedish engineering discovery, the Kyrgyz tourism board launched a contest to track down the Bearded One and his jellybelly. Given Kyrgyzstan's abundant and treacherous mountains, this might take some time.

"The state tourism agency always knew that Father Christmas lived here," said Kyrgyz tourism official Akbar Dzhigitov this week to reporters, "and finally Swedish scientists have proved it." The contest runs until December 20 and the winner will receive an award, so you've still got time to catch that flight (Air Kyrgyz?) and get a-huntin'.

Of course, another report on the internet claims to debunk the Swedish engineer's claim. It says that -- if the Sweco findings are accurate and Santa's jetting around at 12,974,400 mph -- a sleigh weighed down with presents would encounter such massive air resistance that the whole ensemble would burst into flames and be vaporized with 4.26 thousandths of a second.

Thus proving, once and for all, the truth we dare not speak: mathematicians are even MORE bored than I ever thought possible. And also proving that the greatest physicist & mathematician of all time must be Santa Claus himself, as even given these odds, he somehow manages his job. After all, the presents under the tree are irrefutable proof. My guess is it must involve a rip in the space-time continuum... or perhaps a genetic Santa cloning lab... or perhaps subterranean tunnels allowing Santa to fly THROUGH the Earth as opposed to around it...

Then again, what do I know? I stink at math.

COLUMN: Shut-In

Well, this weekend washed away yet ANOTHER one of my fantasies.

For a long portion of my life, I was a Shane o' Optimism. The kind of guy that lived in a world of chirping birds, rising suns, and the genuine belief that humanity, for the most part, ain't so bad. The Shane o' Optimism fancied himself one day living in a perfect little home (assuming, of course, that Shane o' Optimism had a limitless budget with which to hire perfect little caretakers for his perfect little home -- even an optimistic Shane isn't prepped to mow the yard himself.)

And this life would naturally come complete with a white picket fence, a charming wife, some loving children, and even maybe a little yip dog named Skipper or some such. Therein lies the problem. No white picket fences surround my crummy apartment. My dance card is woefully lacking in elegible bachelorettes. The only children in my life are the neighbor kids who try nightly to barricade my hallway unless we tenants pay something called a "Door Tax." And instead of yippy Skipper, I have neurotic sister kitties who are systematically destroying any possessions that I may otherwise choose to care about.

But this, friends, is no big deal. I was born an only child. I know how to cope. That's why I replaced my optimistic dream with one that's a little more grounded but hopefully just as fun:

If I don't get the house and the wife and kids and the dog, then at the very least I should get to enjoy life as a cantankerous hermitic shut-in whose life's ambition is to scare the neighbor kids. "DOOR TAX?!?!" I can hear myself yelling at them as I shake my cane menacingly, "I'LL SHOW YOU A DOOR TAX!" And I've already got 2 cats; that means I'm only 58 more away from the appropriate level of crazy to ensure that folks walk a wide swath around Creepy Old Man Brown's door.

And my first grand test of the hermitic, isolationist, slightly off-my-rocker lifestyle? This past weekend.

Normally, I spend my Saturdays shopping, eating out, and DJ'ing to a packed dance club until the not-so-wee hours of Sunday. This past weekend, though, Jack Frost had other plans. I'm not afraid of a little ice. But I AM afraid of pratfalling onto my fanny, and those two things tend to happen simultaneously.

Happily, for once I'd paid attention to the weather reports ahead of time. Knowing that an ice storm was hours away, I went out on Friday and picked up some essentials (2 frozen dinners, 1 bag Chips Ahoy, 4 magazines, and a metric ton of Coke Classic.) By the time I woke up on Saturday, the world was already glazed over, cars were sliding down my street, and best of all, my DJ gig was cancelled.

I had the weekend free. I could do anything I wanted... anything but leave my apartment. I was thrilled. It was heaven. How many days I had spent at work daydreaming of an afternoon of sitting around and doing whatever I felt like! Here it was. I was free. I was independent. I was... really, really, really bored.

I turned on the TV. 138 channels at my disposal. Fascinating programming options from around the world. Or so I'm told. I, meanwhile, chose to watch 8 reruns of "Frasier" in a row.

There were projects to sink my teeth into. The cupboards in the kitchen needed a good cleaning. A pile of records begged for alphabetization. And who wouldn't want to get an early start on their taxes?

Me, apparantly, as I wasted the day playing pretend Rock Band on my X-Box. The newly released rival to the Guitar Hero video game features not only plastic guitars, but plastic drums and a plastic microphone to boot. Of course, I can't actually sing a note in pitch to save my life -- unless, that is, I attempt it in the world's weeniest falsetto. You know, the kind of voice you don't pull out in front of friends. Yet I screeched until hoarse, and as of press time, am now the 106th greatest vocalist in the cyberworld. And judging by the thinness of my walls, perhaps I DID satisfy my goal of scaring the neighbor children, albeit in the entirely wrong way.

I thought I'd like being a hermit for a weekend, but I ended up with nightmarish cabin fever. Were it not for my friend Chris braving the ice to come over with a bucket of chicken and a second X-Box controller, I might have lost it entirely. Curse you, reverse psychology -- as soon the ice made it impossible to leave the apartment, leaving was the only thing I wanted to do. So I'm not giving up my flirtation with the shut-in lifestyle quite yet... but let's just say I still steal a glance or two at any white picket fence that comes my way.

Now then, I'm off to leave my hermitic lifestyle for a taco run. Anybody got a buck I can borrow? I don't know if I've got enough to cover the door tax tonight...

COLUMN: Noodles

I know how much my editors love it when I do this, but this week's column is partially little more than an unsolicited endorsement. I usually try to stay away from outright promoting a business, but this time, I don't care. My story has a point, though, so bear with.

It all started several years ago when I found myself in Boulder, Colorado for a week-long training seminar. The newspaper sent me out there by myself, and it was one of the most liberating times of my life. Finally, I felt like the Mature Responsible Adult Working Dude. You know, staying in hotels, renting a car, making appointments, finding out I was there during the Colorado state-wide breakdancing finals (yesssss!), taking awkward photos in front of the "Mork & Mindy" house -- you know, mature people stuff. Well, at least as mature as I ever get.

Anyways, one of the integral aspects of being a Mature Responsible Dude is the act of procuring food for oneself. In Rock Island, this is easy -- there are brightly lit places called "Taco Bell" and "Wendy's" that dispense food to those in need. In Boulder, it's a little more challenging.

Because of the crazy scenery out that way, Boulder city regulations prohibit big gaudy neon signs. Handy when you want to take in the mountain views, NOT handy when you're looking for the golden arches of Big Mac goodness. On top of things, everyone in Boulder is skinny, attractive, and physically fit -- I'll never forget driving to the Rocky Mountain National Park in my rental car, trying to precariously balance an order of french fries on my lap, while dudes in mountain bikes are whizzing past me doing 40 mph up a sheer vertical incline.

The point is, greasy fast food options -- the staple of my diet -- are few and far between in health-conscious Colorado. Instead, there are tofu emporiums and oxygen bars and weird ethnic cuisine featuring massive amounts of curry and pepper presumably to mask the taste of pure, unadulterated Evil. I had a really difficult time finding food to match my palate.

Until I discovered one of my favorite restaurants ever. And I ended up eating there for nearly every meal that week. And I came back and wouldn't shut up about the place to friends and family. Heck, I even wrote their corporate offices once to suggest building a Quad City franchise. A decade later, I still get warm fuzzies thinking about that place.

That place was Noodles & Company, and this week, they just opened their first Quad City location. In fact, I'm writing this column on their opening day. It turns out that I must not have been the only one excited about the place, as it's now become one of the fastest-growing restaurant chains in America. Even cooler is the fact that the corporate owners of Noodles & Company met right here in Rock Island when they both attended Augustana College.

Now, I'm not going to turn this whole column into a free ad for the place, I swear. Suffice to say, if you're the kind of person who gets excited by noodles, it's worth a stop. Honestly, I'm kind of scared to go there now -- after a decade-old fuzzy happy memory, the reality might not be as perfect as my brain recalls it to be, but that's a risk I'm going to take. I'm going to go check out the Davenport location as soon as I finish this column. But it's not really the food that scares me the most -- it's all you other Quad Citizens.

What is it about this area that compels every man, woman, and child to rush out and try every new restaurant that comes along? The opening of a new restaurant in the Quad Cities is so often treated with the hype and crowd rush of a Hollywood premiere, and I just don't get why it's always an Officially Big Deal.

Case in point, we recently got our first couple of Sonics in town. When I heard on the news that they were opening, I thought, "Hey, a burger sounds alright tonight. I think I'll swing by there." So I drove all the way out to northwest Davenport to claim my burger... only to find a line of cars SIXTY-TWO DEEP in the drive-thru (yes, I counted.) Come on, people. I'll be the first person to tell you that Sonic cooks up a mean burger and some tots, but is ANY eatery worth that kind of a wait?

Who knows, maybe it was 62 other people who also thought, "Hey, a burger sounds alright tonight." But I have a sneaking suspicion that for some of those people, it was an Event. People who had been sitting at home, ticking off dates on a calendar and getting REALLY excited at the prospect of stuffing their faces somewhere new and different.

Maybe it's a Midwest thing; my hometown of Galesburg was even worse. There's a reason why many chain restaurants use Galesburg as a testing site for new products. We're willing, chubby guinea pigs for it. "Grab the kids, honey! You won't believe it, but McRIBS ARE BACK!" If our entertainment options are such that the opening of a new fast-food joint requires police presence to monitor traffic flow, perhaps we should sit back and take stock of our lives.

Of course, every time I sit back, all I can think about is a bowl full of noodles. So I bid you all adieu and bid myself bon appetit, and I cross my fingers that less than 62 of you have the same idea.

COLUMN: Marla

This one's gonna be tough to write. Maybe the toughest one ever.

See, it's normally my job to find life's little inanities -- you know, the unavoidable crummy bits to the daily grind that get under our skin -- and skewer them. I like to poke fun at myself and my problems, and maybe even you and your problems.
But what happens when something comes along that you CAN'T poke fun at? What happens when life throws such a curveball that you can't make it all better in the confines of a newspaper page? It's where my skills as a writer stop, and it's where I find myself this week.

This week, we unexpectedly lost one of our own -- Marla Angelo, one of our classified telesales reps here at the paper, passed away at the criminally young age of 54. And there's nothing I can do or write to make it cheery or distract me from reality. There's no right thing to say. It just hurts. It's unfair, and it sucks.

I've read so many eulogies in our papers over the years that you'd think I could just blurp out the appropriate sappy prose. But what happens when you simply want to pay tribute to someone who lived their life on the quiet side -- never hurting a fly, never standing out in a crowd, but always there for you no matter what?

For 26 years, Marla worked here at the paper, and I've had the pleasure of sitting beside her for the last 12. If you've ever held a garage sale or sold your car through the classifieds, there's a good chance you've talked to her. She's been a rock to our advertising department, and the fact that her corner desk now sits empty makes me numb.

It's no wonder that the photo used in her obituary was taken right here with her trusty telephone headset in place. The woman had a work ethic that I had never been exposed to, nor will I likely see again. She came in every morning and buried herself in her job, coming up for air only for lunch and quitting time -- and many a night, it would take the exasperated prodding of a manager to get her to put work down and go home.

Frankly, her devotion to her job drove some of us batty on a regular basis. Even the most basic of tasks would take Marla forever to get done. But it wasn't an issue of poor time management; it was her constant and unwavering drive for perfection. If you were a client of Marla's, you could expect a barrage of questions, faxes, and phone calls until your ad was absolutely perfect. And when her devoted clients would call in while she was out of the office, the usual response was "let me have her voicemail." They didn't want OUR help; nothing but the original would suffice.

The only time Marla would ever get distracted at work was if one of us had a problem -- in which case she'd tell us about an even greater problem she once faced. If you had a headache, she'd tell you about her near-stroke. If the roads were bad coming in to work, they were nearly impassible in her native East Moline. Sometimes her one-upsmanship would leave you bristled, but for Marla, it was more innocent commiseration. It was her way of saying, "Don't worry, I've been down that road, too. I know how you feel." And if something were truly wrong, you could set your watch by her phone call to your house that night to check up on you.

More than anything, the woman never uttered a bad word about anyone as long as I knew her. Right after I started at the paper, the brakes on my car went out. After catching me complaining about the ungodly price estimate I'd been given, Marla insisted that I bring the car by her house for her team of mechanics (her husband and sons) to look at. I'll never forget walking into her living room and seeing her tiny frame there, glasses on, surrounded by a pile of work she'd brought home from the office. Other than this weekly column, I've never taken a lick of work home in 12 years. Not only did her family fix my brakes, she insisted on feeding me home-cooked meals each time I was over.

Recently on a golf outing, a co-worker returned to the parking lot to find a flat tire. Not only did Marla wait with her for the tow truck, she followed her for miles to an out-of-the-way garage and kept her company until the tire was fixed. She probably never thought twice about it. She was always there for us.

And at her visitation, we got to see photos of a different Marla -- rock climbing, inner tubing, sled racing. It was good to be reminded of her full life outside of work, and her loving kids and grandkids are testament enough to that.

As we try to make sense of it all, I've been talking to so many co-workers this week. And they ALL say the same thing: She was SUCH a nice lady. And when you stop to think about it, could there possibly be any better legacy than that? She was a nice lady, a colleague, and my friend -- and I'm going to miss her like crazy. Rest in peace, Marla.

Marla G. Angelo 1953-2007

No updates this week in honor of my friend and co-worker who left us WAY too early.

COLUMN: Strike

"IT'S ABOUT TIME!" I yelled when I heard the news. Immediately I threw down my work and told my boss where he could stick it. I ran home, grabbed a can of paint and made up my protest sign. Then I remembered that I wasn't in the Writer's Guild of America, and I wasn't going on strike. Phooey. Just when I was about to go all Norma Rae on the newspaper and everything.

It's no fair. Even if I wanted in, the Writer's Guild of America is only for broadcast and theatre writers. So we lowly newspaper hacks continue to slave away at the keyboards while TV writers get to kick back and relax in an angry picket line. I want to picket something, doggone it. Unfortunately I don't really care about any of the issues, plus I'm perfectly happy here at the paper. I just want to be in the mix. I want to take a stand.

Problem is, I don't know where to stand. At the core level of the WGA strike, you've got a bunch of scriptwriters trying to make it better for themselves. As an occasional writer, I'm down with that -- especially when it comes to movies. Writing is the most important part of making a good flick. If you don't believe me, go watch "Clerks." Great writing + bad acting + bad directing still equals great movie.

But the Guild's big beef with the major studios is that writers aren't getting paid for online distribution of their work. So if you go to NBC's website and watch an episode of "My Name is Earl," the writers for Earl aren't getting a cut of any profits.

The problem here? To my knowledge, no one's figured out a profitable model for online TV yet. Prices are always fluctuating on iTunes, and the networks can't figure out how to go about selling ad space for the web-surfing community. It's a cluster-coitus. Technology evolved before its accompanying business model, and the networks are still playing catch-up.

So where does that leave us? If the strike ends, we'll be paying more money or suffering through more ads in order to get our internet dose of "30 Rock." If the strike keeps going, the networks will fall back on writer-free reality shows and we can look forward to a future of "Spelunking with the Stars" and "America's Next Top Farmer." It's a no-win. But I've got a plan.

See, there's one thing that the Writer's Guild of America didn't count on: ME! Here's my offer, major television studios of America: hand your show's writing over to me, Shane the Scab. I have all the necessary qualifications: I watch a lot of TV, I have no scruples, and I work cheap. So hire me. I'll write for every show for every network. Ideas just pour out of me. Every show will be a hit, guaranteed. Here's what I'm thinking:

* Tonight, on a very special "ER", tragedy befalls County General when a sudden explosion rips through the hospital, killing every doctor, nurse, and assorted minor character. The end. A grateful nation applauds.

(Let's face it, "ER" is the worst show in the history of shows, plus it's been on the air about ten years too long. It'd be a mercy killing, trust me. Oh, and House? You're next.)

* This week on "Desperate Housewives:" Okay, so there's the one kinda hot housewife, right? Well, she gets into a fight with the OTHER kinda hot housewife. Naturally, the altercation moves to their newly-installed backyard mud wrestling pit. For, like, an hour...

(Okay, fine, I've never seen an episode of this show. Wanna know why? 'Cause I'm a guy -- and this show's made for girls. Advertisers like reaching ALL demographics, right? Well, bring on the mud wrestling and the guys WILL watch.)

* CSI: Davenport. Crime scene investigators are summoned to town when information about a business moving to Iowa gets leaked to the press. Blame falls on an eccentric city council member, who becomes shunned by the town's mayor and city manager and loses his bid for re-election. Our team carefully puts the pieces together and comes to the stunning conclusion: No One Cares. (This story is fictional-ish. Any similarities to persons living or dead is purely coincidental-esque.)

If that's not enough, I've even got a great idea for a new series, loosely titled "Shane's Ultimate Fantasy." Katie Holmes stars as a happy-go-lucky girl finding her way through life. But here's the wacky comic twist: she's completely allergic to clothing! Hilarious hijinks ensue as she tromps around town naked! Oh, and since it's my ultimate fantasy and all, there should also be some ninjas in there someplace. Ninjas with lightsabers. And a talking car. And maybe the A-Team. I'm looking for a two season commitment.

Whether I'm involved or not, I just want the strike to be over so I don't lose the mind-numbing goodness of my boob tube. If the next season of "Lost" gets strike pre-empted by "When Animals Attack 4," I may not be responsible for my actions. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to hop online and watch some TV.

COLUMN: Toys

There are times in one's life that occasionally stand out more than others. For me, that time usually happens every Sunday morning at 3:00 a.m.

That's when the club that I DJ at shuts down for the weekend. At 3, we herd the spirited masses out the doors and close up shop. My role in this process is to sit around and wait to get paid, which can't happen until the tills are meticulously counted. That's when it flashes back to junior high.

The bartenders gather at one table to count out and swap stories. The burly security guys sit at another. Me? I usually plop down with one or two of the club's sound engineers, where we debate such things as the merits of speaker wire or the ideal mp3 compression rate. It's the cool kids vs. the jocks vs. the nerds all over again, just with a slightly smaller personal fear of getting a wedgie. I'm cool with it, though -- for the most part, sitting at the nerd table is a time-honored and comfortable position in my book.

This week, though, my ears perked up. The security guys, who incidentally are all great and I'm glad they've got my back every weekend, usually converse on a myriad of topics -- provided those topics include cute girls or not-so-cute football players. This usually excludes me, as I'm (a) woefully lacking when it comes to cute girl stories, and (b) still for the life of me clueless as to just what a "Big Ten" is. Last night, though, the conversation turned in a direction that made my nerd hairs stand on end.

It turns out that one of our security guys recently went shopping and stumbled upon a remote-controlled toy helicopter that you can actually fly around your apartment. And that is, as we nerds say, pretty sweet. Suddenly I wanted the scoop. How is it powered? (Lithium battery.) Can it hover? (Yep, if you're good enough with the controller.) How much? (Only TWENTY BUCKS!!)

Oh, miniature toy helicopter, you WILL soon be mine. Let's hear it for modern technology, for continually coming up with new and exciting ways for me to torture my cats. If my feline friends think a laser pointer is captivating fun, wait 'til they get an aerial fly-by from Chopper Shane. Finally I will have something to guard the perimeter of my entertainment center next time Bez (also known as "Baaaad Kitty, Down Kitty!") decides to jump on the speaker.

But as much as I'm obsessed about picking up one of these bad boys, it really got me thinking as to a part of my adolescence that I just never got into: I was NOT a big toy-lover.

My folks sure bought a lot of 'em for me. I had the Evil Knievel bike that you wound up and sent spiralling across the kitchen floor. I had an armada of Hot Wheels. And thanks to my construction-minded father, I had enough Legos and blocks and bricks to build -- and potentially power -- my own Death Star. But on the whole, toys didn't exactly cut it for me.

I always thought Silly Putty was kinda gross. Stretch Armstrong was, and shall always be, creepy. I lived in perpetual fear of putting a kink in my Slinky. And those dumb plastic action figures? I always thought they were kinda, well, dumb and plastic. I was already into stereos (true fact: I could change a record at 18 months old) and books and computers. And the toys that I DID really enjoy weren't really toys at all.

Case in point: the Green Thing. I don't even know how to describe it. I don't even know what it was. My mom doesn't even know its given purpose to this day. It resembled a tiny green plastic briefcase, handle and all, but with tiny interior egg-shaped compartments. If I had to guess, the Green Thing was created to hold and carry six small eggs. Like possibly for camping or, well, any other reason you may have to stylishly transport six eggs. Why it exists? Beyond me. How it came into my possession? A mystery. All I know is that I loved that thing. I would put marbles in it, Hot Wheels in it, any toy with a general egg-like physiology, I would cart around in the Green Thing.

But not even that holds a candle to my all-time favorite childhood toy: a run-of-the-mill tire pressure gauge. I could play with one of those things for hours. To a kid, it's a multi-purpose fun zone. Stand it on end -- presto, it becomes a satellite dish for my Martian Hot Wheels outpost. And with one swift flick of the wrist? Instant lightsaber. Happily, I just called my mom to find out if she ever discovered the purpose of the Green Thing (no.) But in our conversation, she fessed up to having had a drawer full of contraband tire pressure gauges when SHE was a kid. Therefore, this one I'm writing off to genetics.

That's when it hit me. I like toys, sure, but I equally like non-toy weird things. Which makes me? A cat. I buy my cats every toy under the sun, but invariably they end up far more taken by the boxes and packages that the toys come in. Maybe we should all take a cue from my cats and try to find the fun in everyday living instead of seeking out the toys. Don't get me wrong; I'm still gonna go buy that helicopter. But maybe I'll pick up a tire pressure gauge, too.

Happiness is NOT...

...finding out that the dude who lives next door to me just had his apartment ransacked in a robbery last night. During a time frame that I was sitting next door in front of my computer. I should've heard it. I should've been able to stop it. Instead, I heard *nothing*.

Nothing like a little paranoia to make the evening go so much more smoothly... is MY place next? I'm installing all new locks when I get home tonight.

COLUMN: Box Set

You're not getting some throwaway, flippant foo-foo humor column outta me this week. Heck, no. I'm a hard-hitting journalist, and we hard-hitting journalist types bring you the facts. Look, here's one now:

FACT: On November 20th of this year, Rhino Records is releasing on CD "The Brit Box: UK Indie, Shoegaze, And Brit-Pop Gems of the Last Millennium."

ANOTHER FACT: This is causing me to have a near-stroke.

Once upon a time in college, I was cool. Okay, scratch that, I was never cool. But my record collection sure was. It's easy to pigeonhole people based on their musical tastes, right? Goth, metal, country, rap, jam bands, polka -- stereotypes aplenty. The music we listen to helps define us as people, and how we're defined as people helps solidify our musical taste. It's a symbiotic relationship: man hand-in-hand with his Best Buy Reward Zone card.

Well, I was certainly definable in my college days. But not as a goth or a metalhead or a hippie. No, I was FAR more evolved. My music? Brit Indie. You might not even know it was a genre, and heck, that's okay -- the music's just probably cooler than you.

While most of my college brethren were caught somewhere between Guns 'n' Roses and Nirvana, we were driving hundreds of miles to see our favorite UK indie bands play rare American appearances. We were staying up until 4 a.m. to call record stores in London to place orders. It was a passion, a way of life, and some of the best tunes to ever grace the inside of a CD player.

And now it's been assembled into a tidy nostalgic box set in stores soon for $50. The music that meant SO much to me, the genre that I was a part of and identified who I was as a person... is now retro chic and bargain-binned up for the masses. The music of yesteryear. Which makes me OLD. Outdated, irrelevant, and most of all? Horribly, horribly uncool. I can't believe it, but a $50 box set has officially triggered a mid-life crisis.

Ever since I read about its release, I've been moping. I'm now at least two generations away from cool. This weekend, I looked around the club I DJ at and realized I was by far the oldest person in the room. I'm not saying I'm cob-webby, but clearly, my days of even pretending ineffectively to be cool have passed right on by without me even realizing it.

I needed a recharge. I needed to do something stupid, to feel young again. I needed the warm, sweet embrace of pop culture. I needed... Guitar Hero III.

That's right, the sequel to the video game that both ruled and ruined my life came out last Sunday. And carpal tunnel or no, it was a must-own. Mature fuddy-duddies my age might wait until their next convenient errand run to pick up such a time-waster. (Actually, mature fuddy-duddies have better things to do than play video games in the first place.) Me? I'm hip. I'm happening. At least I wanna be. Hence, I ran down to a 24-hour supercenter place at 4 a.m. after the club closed.

Supercenters at 4 a.m. are the mecca of humor columnists. Let's see... sketchy drug deal-esque event going on in the corner of the parking lot? Check. Trashy family lugging around sleepy looking 5-year-olds in the pitch middle of the night? Check. Serial-rapist-lookin' dude pacing menacingly and muttering to himself at the front door? Check. Awesome.

Eventually I found an employee with the magic key needed to open the video game display case. Only trouble? He was just shy of a thousand years old. Greeeat. Nothing against the elderly, but this guy looked like his idea of a video game was the glaucoma test at the optometrist.

"I need to purchase the game 'Guitar Hero 3,'" I said in a polite but I-know-you-won't-understand voice.

"Yep, you and the rest of the Quad Cities," said the old guy. "What platform you need? X-Box has been selling out tonight. We're out of wireless controllers, though, so you'll have to settle for the standard model. I've heard the battery life in the wireless units is pretty weak, so you're probably better off."

I couldn't believe it. Here I was, stereotyping this clerk like he was an escapee from Shady Acres, and in one breath, he proved what an idiot I was. And just like I stereotyped him, my biggest fear is that one day I'll be stereotyped by some young punk who thinks I'm the old, lame one. I smiled at the clerk and we talked video games all the way to the front of the store.

That guy doesn't realize it, but he didn't just sell me a video game. At the price of being a little humbled, he sold me my optimism back. I don't need a video game to prove my youth and I don't need a box set proving that I'm out of touch. I just need to be me, period. Now excuse me, I've got a guitar solo to go wail on.

COLUMN: Organization

The problem with being a published columnist is that sometimes, when you least expect it, it goes to your head. No, I don't mean that I walk with pride or that I get a big head about things (my head, incidentally, is big enough on its own. When I was in marching band, they had to custom make my XXXL hat. I'm neanderthal-skulled, apparantly.)

But because some of you people graciously take time out of your week to read my silly column, occasionally I get the notion that I am capable of having intelligent ideas and making smart decisions on my own. This, clearly, is not the case -- and recent events have proven it beyond a reasonable doubt.

Here's the scenario. You guys know that I'm a bit of a music nerd, right? I live in constant fear for the well-being of the spritely old man who lives in the apartment below mine, because I'm pretty sure that I'm about one Jay-Z album away from my floor collapsing under the weight of my record collection alone. When people ask me if I'm planning for the future, I'm not lying when I tell them that all my money's invested in CD's.

Anyways, a couple years back, I stumbled onto a free treasure trove of vinyl records. It's a long story, but basically they were leftovers from an estate sale that were en route to a dumpster when I intervened. They didn't know what they were in the process of throwing out, as the collection held some of the greatest and most priceless dance and club tracks of the past thirty years. For a part time DJ like me, it was akin to winning the lottery. The problem is, winning the actual lottery would've been a lot easier.

See, we're talking about roughly 4000 records. Add that to my EXISTING collection and stick it all in my tiny one-bedroom apartment, and you start to see the trouble. I now have records in every nook, cranny, and crawlspace that my humble abode offers.

Here's where my two-pronged stupid idea comes into play. Idea #1: "You should really catalog these records, Shane, so you know what you've got." On the surface? Smart idea. Insurance needs a record of these records, and I need to be able to pull out a list the size of an encyclopedia in order to validate my pathetic life by shocking and awe-ing mere mortals who tragically exist without any all-consuming materialistic hobbies.

The reality, as it turns out, is that it's not so much fun to catalog 4000 records. Ergo I slacked on the project until about 8 months ago, when I was struck with Idea #2: "Pull out all the albums, put em in the middle of the bedroom, and you'll get so irritated you'll get it over and done with."

This is why I've slept on the couch for the past 8 months. My bedroom has turned into a wasteland for record albums and a giant scratching post for my cats. I needed to reclaim the bedroom, so I turned my final vacation of 2007 into a week-long effort to clean and organize my living space. Willpower vs. epic laziness: What would prevail?

SUNDAY - Got vacation off to a good start by going to Target and buying a new lamp and DVD player for the bedroom. My productivity level swells. Great things are afoot. I am a lean, mean work machine. I celebrate by giving myself Monday off.

TUESDAY - All prepped for a day of work, I stick in a Friends DVD and fire up the catalog program on my laptop. By night's end, I have cataloged 30 albums and watched 24 episodes of Friends. This is not the ratio to success.

WEDNESDAY - I catalog a couple hundred albums by noon and note that Drew Carey is a pretty crummy "Price is Right" host. I start to discover that under the piles of albums are piles of debris and dirty clothing from decades yore. As these are much less fun to organize than records, I give up and go club-hopping with friends of the lower-case F variety.

THURSDAY - As the bedroom gets tidier, the rest of my apartment goes south. Rather than tidying, I begin to realize I'm simply displacing junk from one room to another. I give up and go club-hopping by myself.

FRIDAY - My last proper day of vacation is spent with more upper-case Friends and cataloging the last album. Progress has been made, but it now looks like my apartment has been ransacked by the authorities.

SATURDAY - I pick up piles of clothes, wash them, realize I'm out of hangers, and throw them right back on the floor.

SUNDAY - I am the living heir to the throne of Pathos. I decide to kick back and wait for the health inspector to arrest me. Then I channel-flip into bad romance movie, "The Holiday." Sudden enlightenment. If Cameron Diaz and Jack Black and their astonishly bad acting skills can both find love and happiness in two hours, there's still hope for me. I buy hangers! I do laundry! I make a milkshake! (Hey, it sounded good.)

As I type, my apartment looks once again human. I can reach my bed. I can sleep in my bed. Life is good. Except my DVD's. Those should really be cataloged. I bet if I pull them all down...

COLUMN: Scenic Drive

The Spoon River valley is truly a picturesque place in autumn. Waves of rolling hills sport leaves in the most majestic of fall colors. Country roads wind breezily through the bluffs, lazily guiding their occasional passengers from one historic town to the next. When the trees occasionally part, you're awarded with breathtaking views of the plains created by the hard-working Spoon and Illinois Rivers. Norman Rockwell and Grant Wood could only dream of capturing such beauty.

Sadly, there's no time for that. Not when elephant ears are a-wastin'.

I started obsessing about it weeks ago: The Spoon River Valley Scenic Drive. Annually one of the most ambitious festivals in Illinois, the Scenic Drive is put on by over a dozen communities in east central Illinois. For two weekends each October, the towns on the Drive fill with vendors, events, and activities for all ages.

When I was a kid, going on the Scenic Drive was one of the high points of the year. We'd pack the car up, set out in the wee morning hours, and drive from town to town, making it home sometime around sunset, bellies full and feet worn. But that's the thing about childhood memories -- the more time passes, the more diluted (or perhaps deluded) they become. Either that or the Drive's changed a tad since my glory days of youth.

I had wanted to go on the first weekend, but that was the Saturday it reached 95 out, and that's not Scenic Drive weather one bit. Scenic Drive should be breezy, chilly, and a bit overcast -- you know, the kind of weather where looking at gourds and drinking apple cider sounds pretty awesome. The second weekend did not disappoint.

With my friend Linn in tow, we set out for the heartland last Saturday in the wee afternoon hours (hey, no matter how much I may like something, it always turns out I like sleep more.)

Our first stop was Maquon, where my grandparents and great-grandparents used to live. I remember the Maquon town square as hustling with food and vendors. This year? A few tables of junk and a dude selling corn dogs out of a trailer. We tried to stop at the fire department, which always had the BEST food, but alas, they had already closed for the day. Given the meager attractions, though, Maquon still had quite the crowd of shoppers. And more than any of my other deflated childhood memories, that's what weirds me out the most.

I remember the Scenic Drive as a hustling epicenter of hand-crafted commerce where friendly, farm-fed folk would sell homemade knick-knacks and treasure troves of antiques. Now that I'm older, I realize what Scenic Drive really is: the mother of all garage sales.

I looked around the tables in Maquon with a wrinkled brow. This wasn't a treasure trove. This was junk, and lots of it. Some of these vendors were trying to sell stuff that I bet they found in their basements, or perhaps the family dog found while digging up a bone. Dirty, rusty debris. As long as it was old, it was fair game to put a price tag on. I was tempted to make a sign and sell off the mess in the back seat of my car. Surely there's a french fry that's bordering on antique status back there someplace.

I guess I'll never understand the lure of antiques. I'm just not one to dawdle in the past. I don't get the appeal of frilly, old, Victorian stuff. Sorry, but the way I see it, if a product was made 100 years ago that's NOT made now, it's because a NEW and BETTER product came out to replace it.

Antique furniture, for instance, may look all quaint and dainty, but try sitting in it. Your great-great-grandpappy may have carved it out of a tree himself, but I'll take my poofy, scientifically designed, ergonomically correct, space age polymer blend chair any day over that chiropractic nightmare. Plus I like the sleek look of modern design better anyways. I guess I won't be happy until my apartment looks like the set of "Barberella," and hey, THAT'S an antique now itself.

So forget the antiques. No, the one thing I was concerned about on Scenic Drive this year was finding myself an elephant ear. That's right, the death pastry itself. Take some dough, throw it in a deep fryer, glaze that puppy up with sweet icing, and I'm in heaven.

I finally found my elephant ear vendor in the tiny town of London Mills. When I saw that sign and marched up and ordered my elephant ear, I thanked God that it wasn't too late. As it turns out, I wasn't the only one. As the elephant ear merchant started to glaze up my pastry, he triumphantly, err, blessed it. No foolin'. He said, quote, "I shake this sugar in the name of our Lord."

Yes, I had found a fundamentalist elephant-ear maker. And hey, that's pretty cool in my book. Personally, I'd like to think that God might prefer it if I ate something a little more nutritious, but hey, my arteries could stand a blessing or two. It was a little kooky, sure, but also a little heart-warming to know that a guy's out there spreading cholesterol with a side dish of positivity.

Suddenly, the Scenic Drive made sense again. It's all about people getting together, having fun, and celebrating the changing season. I didn't need to have my elephant ear blessed. I was already blessed -- with great scenery, a great friend along for the ride, a great set of parents that I surprised with a visit on the way home, and a pretty doggone good life.

COLUMN: Fall Sucks.

Ah, yes, a column which I would like to call:

WHY THIS FALL SUCKS: An Essay in 5 Parts.

1. THE WEATHER. Okay, so by the time you read this, it's supposed to be perfectly fall-like in nature outside. 60's, breezy, partly cloudy, etc. This would have been well and good -- in SEPTEMBER, when it's supposed to turn breezy and cool. Instead, as I write this, it's 92 degrees outside and I'm sitting with my a/c on blast.

If this is global warming, then okay, fine, Al Gore, you win. I'll start doing my part. I'll shut the water off while I'm brushing my teeth. Whatever I have to do. Because I like summer, but I also occasionally like summer to end.

Fall is my favorite time of year. I like walking through leaves. I like wearing a jacket. I like cuddling up around a campfire. None of this works in scalding weather. Mother Nature's already been wrecking my plans willy-nilly.

This weekend and last was the Spoon River Scenic Drive to the southeast. It's a festival that lures you in with the promise of fall scenery and then sells you funnel cakes and lemon shake-ups until you finally explode. If you somehow survive with your sanity, you likely do it with a hole in your wallet and a car full of knick-knacks, most of which are probably somehow made out of corn cobs. It's wacky and tacky fun, and my kinda fest.

But it's certainly not a 90+ degree outing. Mmm... the heat index is 102, I could sure go for a hot mug of apple cider. Yeah, not happening. Chicken and noodles? Chili? No way. So we cancelled plans and I stayed home and Grinched my way through what should have been a great roadtrip.

2. MY NOSE. On the other hand, staying inside might be a good thing. I don't know what's happening to the air outside this week, but I certainly know that I'm allergic to it. I don't normally have bad hay fever, but October has been a nightmare thus far. The other day, I woke up, blinked my eyes, and promptly sneezed... 37 TIMES. IN A ROW. Sneezes feel kinda good at first, but man, after 37 of 'em, I start to worry about busting an O-ring or something. My eyes are puffy, my sinuses are throbbing, and I'm living from Claritin to Claritin. Forget fall, I'm ready for all that ragweed to get buried under a foot or two of snow at this point.

3. THE CUBS. Okay, I'm the world's worst baseball fan. I don't think I've watched an MLB game since the Sox were in the World Series. Real Cubs fans probably want to kill me, and hey, rightfully so. But even us fair weather fans have to root for the perennial home state underdogs. It's one thing to place high hopes on a team that fails, but it's another altogether when that team chokes so bad that you start WISHING for a Steve Bartman to blame it on.

4. NASCAR. Yes, I know it's a character flaw that I love watching Nextel Cup racing, but I don't care. Despite the sane part of my personality, I inexplicably love NASCAR. But there's only a handful of races left, and then it's done for the year. Then what will I do with my Sundays? I've already tried looking out the window and watching cars turn left, but somehow it's just not the same.

5. THE FALL SEASON. One thing I WON'T be doing to bide the time is watching network TV, because -- newsflash -- the new fall season reeks. Every year like clockwork, I get all excited about the new slate of shows coming to network TV. Then, every year like clockwork, I actually watch them. Bad move. When my choices start to become "Hmm, do I watch the Geico cavemen or the bionic woman," that's when it's time to choose C: none of the above. As opposed to CSI: None of the Above, which will probably be coming NEXT fall.

I mean, seriously -- there's a new show on TV this year about a guy who's a private investigator by day, VAMPIRE BY NIGHT. Are you kidding me? The collective braintrust of network execs couldn't come with a better premise than that? What's next? A heartwarming sitcom about a yeti who babysits 3 precocious kids? Actually, I wanted to give the vampire show a chance, but only because it's got that Jason Dohring kid in it who was fantastic in Veronica Mars. But now every time I see him on the vampire show, it just reminds me what a BETTER show Veronica Mars was, and if it hadn't been cancelled last year we could be enjoying its fourth season right now, and... and...

I'm officially saying it: Bah humbug. In October. That's a new record. I'm gonna go pout in bed. Somebody wake me up when winter gets here.

COLUMN: Assembly

A friend of mine and I were joking the other day about how I should use my column as leverage to go to places in town that I've always wanted to check out -- you know, exotic locales where the general public isn't allowed, like the top of the Kone tower, or a security camera room aboard one of the casinos, or even the creepy old house that sits atop the 25th St. hill in Rock Island. Those are places I've always wanted to see first-hand (and wouldn't say no if the opportunity presented itself *cough*).

Yet even without the help of my column, I still occasionally find myself in the oddest of places. Take last Friday, for example, when I went somewhere I never thought I'd go again: high school.

Not MY high school, mind you. That's all the way down in Galesburg, and trust me, there's enough bad adolescent karma there to crush my soul and re-open the wounds of puberty seven-fold. But I DID, however, get to pop in to Rock Island High's fieldhouse for their homecoming assembly last week.

You guys know that I moonlight as a DJ on the side, right? Well, the Rocky High cheerleaders came to me a few weeks ago all sad-puppy-eyed and desperate, and asked if I'd mix the music for their homecoming routine. All of this in exchange for some homemade cookies. I'm such a sucker. Plus I'm still waiting for those cookies (*double cough* Am I getting sick?)

Since I knew a few of the adults on-hand, I figured I'd pop my head in and see for myself exactly what I'd spent the last few weeks soundtracking. And right off the bat, it was odd.

Arriving early, I walked in to a near-empty gymnasium and found some of my age-appropriate friends already staking out prime bleacher real estate. I clumsily plopped down next to them, and instantly started worrying about how NOT to lose a car key out of my pocket and into the dark recesses of Bleacher Netherland. Man, I'm becoming an old fuddy-duddy.

Then a bell rang and it happened. Students began filing in out of nowhere like livestock, and it hit me. Every high school neurosis I had ever had. Wham. Sherman and Mr. Peabody had set the wayback machine to 1987. Years may change, but high school pep assemblies remain the same.

There was the slightly befuddled yet clearly respected principal type, asking over and over again for the kids to quiet down. There were the ragged-looking teachers, who were obviously not having the time of their lives shepherding their classrooms into some form of organized seating.

There was gossip. In case you care, from what I heard over my right shoulder, someone named Keisha is totally getting played by someone named Dre, who is "straight trippin' even though he fiiiine."

Then there was the Rocky alma mater song. Okay, YES I know that I'm sure it's a sacred tradition I should respect, and YES it was probably written by some famous historical Rock Islander who was a great person, and YES the Rocky choir did a fantastic job tackling it. But MAN, what a downer of a tune.

I couldn't quite make out the lyrics, partly due to the gym acoustics, partly due to the continuing saga of Keisha and Dre, but I'm pretty sure it was something like: "Alma mater, alma mater, we mourn this dirge for thee/In crimson and gold we drape our dead/Hi de li de dee."

Okay, I'm just kidding. Please don't send me hate mail. It had real words which were probably touching and poetic. But at a pep assembly, I just wanted something, well, peppy. Maybe it could be reworked to the music of "Hey Hey We're the Monkees" or something. I'm just sayin'. All I know is that when a kid behind me spiced it up with a little beatboxing to the chuckles of his fellow students, I had to stifle a laugh myself.

But on the whole it was a great assembly. It was neat to see the Rocky cheerleaders do their thing to music I helped make. And it was neat to see such fantastic school spirit from the whole student body. It turned out we were sitting in the sophomore section, and the sophomores went on to win the spirit contest at the expense of the remaining shards of my eardrum.

"School spirit" is a weird concept, isn't it? When we're IN school, we're told that it's important to have. But why? Does it translate to the real world? Has anyone ever gone, "Well, you got a 10 on your ACT and you've got a 1.2 GPA, but you've got school spirit so WELCOME TO HARVARD!" But maybe it IS important to have spirit in everything you do. Maybe we need pep assemblies in the real world, like here at the paper. Our publisher could tell us all to quiet down, then we could have a spirit contest between the writers and the sales staff, and I could finally be elected Homepaper King!

Or maybe I'm just an old no-fun-nik and it's NOT 1987 all over again. After all, I scanned the seats but never saw MY high school clique anyplace: the outcasts. Where were the kids in black turtlenecks and Joy Division t-shirts making crass comments about lack of individualism and people behaving like sheep? I saw not ONE kid sticking it to The Man. I just saw a school full of spirit and having a blast.

Maybe that's what pep assemblies are all about. All I know is that -- even though I remain a Silver Streak by birthright -- I high-fived a stranger when I saw on the news that the Rocks crushed Quincy in the big game.