COLUMN: Assassin

Throughout my fake career as a fake journalist, I've experienced a lot of milestones.

I can still remember the very first sample column I ever submitted... and the rejection letter that soon followed. I remember what it felt like to see my picture in the paper for the first time. I remember my first fan letter just as I remember my first piece of hate mail. I remember when a guy from Missouri showed up at our office after I wrote a less-than-enthusiastic recap of an unpleasant roadtrip I took to the Show-Me State.

And now, I'm pretty sure I'll always remember the first assassination attempt on my life.

It was last Wednesday, and I was just getting back from a trip to the vet. There I was on my back steps, keys in one hand and cat in the other, when it happened.

BANG!

When I first bought my house, my dad was eager to make some improvements to the place. One of the first things he did was install an outdoor floodlight next to my back door. When you're standing on the back steps, it's mounted just beside my door, roughly at eye level. When turned on, it does a pretty good job illuminating my tiny yard. When turned off, it does nothing -- except for last Wednesday, when it exploded.

All I heard was a huge bang, and then felt glass shards hitting my face, my hair, and covering my entire back steps.

Despite how savagely cool I may look in my photo, I am not an especially street-smart individual. I am neither well-read nor experienced in the inner workings of the modern floodlight. One thing I can say with confidence, though, is that they're NOT supposed to explode in your face, especially when they're off. I've never seen a caution label that reads: "WARNING: May spontaneously combust at any time, scaring you within an inch of your life."

There was only one possible scenario that sprang into my head: GUNPLAY. Either someone just did a really good job shooting at my floodlight or a really bad job shooting at me. Either way: SHOTS FIRED.

I refuse to believe that our world has devolved to the point that random acts of terror and violence are the new norm. I still believe in the power of goodness. But bad things CAN happen, and who among us hasn't wondered how we'd react in a God-forbid sort of scenario?

I now know exactly what I would do. I would, in fact, scream "WHAT THE FAAAAAAAA" in an octave I didn't know I was capable of, and then I would awkwardly dive into my house like a lame overweight action hero being chased by assassins. Then, once my hands stopped shaking, I would avoid all windows (you know, in case it was a SQUAD of assassins,) and then I would call 911 and tell them I thought I was just shot at.

"Do you, umm, have any enemies?" the operator asked me.

Good question. DO I have any enemies? Hmm. That fella from Missouri was awfully steamed. Urban chicken-keepers sure hate me (long story). There's my 5th grade gym teacher, but I'm pretty sure he's dead. That pretty much only leaves my mortal enemy, Tom Cruise. I'd like to think he has better things to do than take up sniper positions outside my house.

"I don't THINK so?" I replied.

To the credit of the Rock Island police, an officer was at my door in less than two minutes. In fact, SIX officers were there. And as they searched the back of my house for bullet holes that didn't exist, all I could do was apologize.

"No worries," one of the officers replied. "Better safe than sorry. I would've done the same thing." I don't think he would have done EXACTLY the same thing -- the artistry of the belly-roll-dive I performed shall forever be mine and mine alone.

The exploding floodlight, though, remained a mystery. Then it hit me -- on the head, literally. My neighbor owns a walnut tree. The tree, in turn, owns most of the airspace over my yard. And every year, a team of black squirrels farm that tree for every scrap of walnut they can get. And they HATE me. Every day, I open my back door to a sea of cracked walnuts while squirrels scamper up the tree and chirp at me angrily. If I stay out there too long, they'll drop walnuts on me -- or worse. Let's just say you haven't lived until you've had to clean squirrel pee off your head at 8 a.m. on a Tuesday.

Do I have enemies? I have a whole furry family of them, and I'll bet one of them dropped a walnut directly onto that floodlight while I was standing next to it. Those adorable little assassins have officially crossed the line, and I'm through playing. If you were driving by this morning and saw me yelling angrily at a tree, I promise I'm not insane. I just have a treeload of enemies that need eviction. My guess is they're from Missouri.

COLUMN: Fair Pt. 2

Michael Jordan. Tiger Woods. David Beckham. That Ken guy who won a bunch of money on Jeopardy. Scoot over, because I'm about to join you in the hallowed halls of immortal greatness.

As readers of last week's column know, I recently attended the Mississippi Valley Fair for the first time in, oh, about 25 years. The sights, the sounds, and especially the smells of that place will stick with me for a while (even though I've showered, like, 20 times since then, I swear.) But as any professional fair-goer knows, the REAL thrill of the fair isn't in the rides or on the stage. It's the cutthroat competition.

You haven't fully experienced a county fair unless you've wandered through its exhibition halls to see the myriad of competitions raging on. It's all there: the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat, and the greatest floral centerpieces in all of Scott County. You think winning a boxing match or a car race is tough? Try growing the best beet in east central Iowa, losers.

By the time I made it there, some of the biggest battles had already been waged. Blue ribbons adorned everything from green beans to quilts to model cars. And suddenly, right then and there in the middle of the exhibition hall, I had a flashback.

It was me back in grade school -- and one drawer of my dresser was filled to the brim with shiny blue ribbons and pins. Some were from activity fairs at school that I earned basically by showing up. Some were my late grandfather's photography awards. More still came from my great-grandmother's fair wins. All told, there were probably two dozen ribbons of various colors, sizes, and statures. And sometimes, when I was alone in my room and feeling extra important, I would take every one of those ribbons, pin them to my shirt, and play a little game that I liked to call "I Am The Greatest Person Who Ever Lived Ever."

The gameplay was simple: I would walk around my room with my amazing technicolor dreamshirt, and all of my stuffed animals would be really, really impressed by my many ribbon-winning accomplishments. A few of the luckier ones might even get my autograph.

Forty years later, I am mature, grounded, and fully self-aware that a meaningful and happy life can be had without ribbons or recognition. And as I wandered around the exhibition hall staring at all those blue ribbons, only one thought crossed my mind:

I WANT THEM. I WANT ALL OF THEM. Sure, you don't need ribbons for your life to have meaning. BUT I BET THEY'D HELP. And I bet two dozen of them would look JUST as good pinned to my shirt as they did when I was 8. My cats would be SUPER impressed.

So that's it, then. I have almost one full year until the next fair. That's plenty of time to learn how to bake, sew, pickle, quilt, craft, draw, farm, and paint my way to greatness. My goal is simple: WIN ALL THE RIBBONS NEXT YEAR. ALL OF THEM.

Sure, there are a few hurdles I'll need to overcome between now and then. I'm not quite sure what those hurdles ARE, because I didn't bother looking at the rules. I suppose I could do research, but that comes awfully close to real journalism, which I try to avoid in this column whenever possible. I do know that if I really want to win ALL the ribbons, I'll have to somehow pass myself off in certain categories as being both over 65 AND under 14 years of age, which is admittedly a challenge. But by then, I figure a convincing costume should be no problem, since I'll be a master sewer and craftsman by that point. I also might have to move to Iowa, but one doesn't become The Greatest Person Who Ever Lived Ever without the occasional sacrifice.

Some categories might be tough to win. I saw one where you apparently make dresses for little girls. I don't know the first thing about dressmaking OR little girls, and I'm pretty sure asking random children on the street to try on dresses is generally frowned upon by society. I also can't practice growing blue ribbon vegetables in the winter unless I install an elaborate grow light set-up in the basement, and nothing spoils the winter holidays quite like a SWAT team descending on your house. Of course, it might be worth it to see their faces when they bust through my basement door to find a secret grow lab full of radishes, corn, and green beans.

I'll also need to carefully study the difference between good things and bad things, because at the fair, I often couldn't tell the difference. At one point, I got to witness blue, silver, and red ribbon bales of hay. Sincere apologies to all you professional hay balers out there, but to MY untrained eye, every single bale looked identical. Frankly, I think the whole category might have been a sham, because when I was there, they were using the blue ribbon hay bales as free food for the blue ribbon goats.

Which reminds me, I need to go buy some goats. I've only got a year to get them trained up. If a tap-dancing goat isn't deserving of a blue ribbon, I don't know what is. Plus, even if I fail and I don't become The Greatest Person Who Ever Lived Ever, I'll still have a yard full of goats, and that's a pretty decent consolation prize.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have things to pickle. Greatness calls.

COLUMN: Fair Pt. 1

Did you see "The Late Late Show" last week when my favorite shiny-veneered super-villain, Thomas Cruise Mapother IV, convinced talk show host James Corden to join him in a skydiving adventure? I couldn't help but wonder what I would do in the same situation. While it's true that I've often yearned to see Tom Cruise take a flying leap, I wouldn't ever opt to join him.

Some people are thrill-seekers. I'm more of a thrill-avoider. Occasionally newspaper columnists get chances to do cool stuff like climb construction projects or fly with the Blue Angels. Those are amazing opportunities, to which I would say: "HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. No."

You might have your own definition of the word "thrilling." My version goes like this: "Ooh, my Amazon order arrived a day earlier than expected. How thrilling!" "This DVD has an extra commentary track? Thrilling!" "McRib is back? I'm thrilled!"

So why, then, did a self-confessed thrill-avoider recently find himself walking through the gates of our area's week-long home for cheap thrills? For the first time in 25 years, why would I purposely go to the place where stomachs churn, hearts burn, and the agonizing screams of the tortured fill the night sky?

I'm not sure, really, other than the constant month-long reassurance that "EVERYBODY'S GONNA BE THERE... THE GREAT MISSISSIPPI VALLEY FAIR!" The jingle lies, people. "Everybody" was not there. I wandered that whole place, and I can assure you from first-hand experience that Katie Holmes was NOT there. I checked.

But yes, I did it. I came, I saw, I ate funnel cake.

Now, I'm not gonna take any cheap shots at fair-goers, that's lazy journalism and it's dead wrong. I saw people of all walks of life, so I'm not about to issue any unfair stereotypes. I will say that I felt somewhat in the minority because the clothes I opted to wear that evening included sleeves. But hey, if you've got a side-body that you're not afraid to show countless strangers, go for it. Sleeves aside, the fair unites us all under one common cause: To eat horribly unhealthy food and then try super hard not to vomit it back up while being strapped to mechanical torture devices.

I may have approached the midway with the wrong mindset. I distinctly remember thinking to myself, "I ate a big lunch today. All I really need is something light to nibble on." I should have realized that "something light" doesn't exist at a fair -- and if it DID, someone else would find a way to throw it in a deep fryer and cover it in powdered sugar. I saw a vendor offering something called "Chicken on a Stick," which seemed like a nice little kabob-y thing to snack on. Then he handed me -- with TWO hands, I might mention -- what appeared to be 70%-80% of a whole chicken, deep fried to hell and back, attached to a popsicle stick that was clearly for ornamental purposes only. Fair food is NOT for amateurs.

I loved it all. There were angry-looking tigers, friendly-looking wolves, high-diving pirates, giant robots, and countless exciting ways to separate me from the contents of my wallet. At the far end of the midway, there was a wonderful exhibit devoted entirely to horse poop. Well, and the horses that made it, I suppose. But if I had to guess based on smell alone, I'd say the poop was the real star of the show.

In all honesty, I was there for one reason and one reason alone: to spend some quality time in a stable full of goats. I love goats, and I simply don't have enough of them in my life. In the grand agricultural animal kingdom, goats are far and away the best -- mostly because I don't understand them. They're strange creatures that look like the result of an unholy tryst between a bull terrier and the aliens at the end of "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." I'm not quite sure why anyone keeps goats, unless you're looking for a less efficient source of milk, a less efficient garbage disposal, or a less efficient lawn mower. Still, I love them to pieces. I hear that "therapy goats" are a real thing these days, and I will gladly sign up for goat therapy any time, any place.

That leaves us with the rides, and I wisely left those to a younger generation. Once upon a Shane, I greatly enjoyed the Tilt-A-Whirl and the Scrambler, but recently I was at a park with some friends and felt my stomach drop out while I was on a simple playground swing, so I think my whirling and scrambling days are behind me. As for the crazier rides that take you airborne, upside down, and round-and-round, I truly think the only reason one willingly goes on those is to test courage, challenge gag reflexes, or respond to a dreaded double-dog dare.

The crown jewel of this year's show appeared to be a flashing mini-rave of a ride called "GENESIS," where riders strap in to be hurled violently in sideways circles. And speaking of hurling, the only guy who looked more miserable than the riders was the poor soul tasked with cleaning up the after-effects with a spray bottle and a roll of paper towels. Let's just say it wasn't an ideal ad for the "quicker picker upper."

All told, I had a pretty fair time at the fair. I might be too chicken for the rides, but I wasn't too chicken for chicken-on-a-stick. Plus I got to pet a goat, and hey, it was pretty thrilling. Maybe I'll go again in another twenty-five years. I double dog dare myself.   
 

COLUMN: Pretty Woman

A friend of mine confessed something shocking the other day. Somehow, some way, she's lived her entire life having never seen "Star Wars."

In a way, I find this sad. She's not just missing a movie, she's missing a cultural touchstone that's shared and celebrated around the world. I bet you could go to the farthest corner of Mongolia and still find nomadic shepherds who could quote Yoda.

In another way, though, her achievement is kind of impressive. "Star Wars" is fairly omnipresent. It must be somewhat tough to avoid. Kudos, friend. You must be really committed. The Force is strong with this one.

I don't really think of myself as a film buff, but I probably qualify. If you spend as much time on a couch as I do, you're eventually going to see your fair share of movies. If I'm bored enough, I'll watch just about anything. But just like my "Star Wars"-hating friend, there exist a pair of movies that were massive cultural benchmarks of my era that I've never watched, nor do I ever intend to. Maybe I'm just being stubborn or an elitist movie snob, I dunno. I just truly think I'm a better person for having never sat through them.

The first is "Top Gun." My hatred of Tom Cruise has been well documented over the run of this column, but that's mostly due to his temporary betrothal to my ultimate celebrity crush, Katie Holmes. But even before he had the gall to sully the good name of my future wife, I was never a big fan. "Top Gun" just never interested me, and I guess I just never got around to seeing it. I don't even really know what it's about, other than a bunch of guys who fly planes super fast and I presume that Tom is the superest and fastest of them all. And then Berlin sings a song about taking my breath away. Yawn.

The other classic film of our era that I've never seen is "Pretty Woman." That almost changed this weekend.

Last Saturday, I was working on my laptop with the TV on in the background. TBS was airing a cavalcade of harmless romantic comedies that I'd seen a kajillion times over. All of a sudden, though, a new movie started and it wasn't until I spotted Julia Roberts that I realized I was absent-mindedly watching "Pretty Woman." I shoved my laptop aside for a second and stared at the screen.

Do I even know what this movie's about? Richard Gere's a fancy business guy and Julia's a prostitute and I guess they fall in love, right? So it's basically just a skeevy version of "My Fair Lady," except instead of awesome timeless songs, all you get is Roxette's "It Must Have Been Love" and Go West's "King of Wishful Thinking," two of the blandest chart-toppers ever released unto the world. Is there anything redeeming about this movie? I hit the "INFO" button on my Tivo to read its capsule description. Hand to God, this is what it said:

"PRETTY WOMAN (1991). George hires a bar girl, Mimin, who looks the same as his co-worker he killed to cover up the disappearance and resign from her job. However, Mimin decides to stay after seeing the vice president who saved her a few nights ago."

Wait... what? Richard Gere's a murderer? Julia becomes a businesswoman? Who's this vice president and what did he save her from? And what kind of a name is 'Mimin'?

One of two things was clearly afoot: Either (1) Tivo seriously screwed up, or (2) "Pretty Woman" is a WAY more interesting film than I ever knew.

It took some investigating, but I finally figured it out. Richard and Julia's "Pretty Woman" came out in 1990. But in 1991, ANOTHER "Pretty Woman" was released -- this one a low-budget drama from Hong Kong. Tivo had simply switched the two descriptions by mistake. (Why a Cantonese movie has leads named 'George' and 'Mimin' remains a mystery.)

But seriously, how AWESOME would that plot twist have been? There's nothing set in stone that says a light-hearted romantic comedy can't end in a moment of horror. Imagine a 90-minute movie where Richard and Julia meet-cute, fall in love, and do all the boring things that happens in every romantic comedy. Finally it culminates in a passionate kiss, after which Richard Gere pulls Julia Roberts close to him, leans into her ear, and whispers, "I killed my co-worker. She looked just like you." A look of terror spreads over Julia's face. A Roxette song starts playing. Credits.

Now THAT would be a movie to remember. Imagine a crowded theater full of date-nighters all going, "WHAT THE...??" in unison. THAT, friends, would be a movie I'd endorse. Moral of the story? I dunno -- prostitution is bad? The world is terrifying? Life is like a box of chocolates except when one of the chocolates gets murdered and replaced by another chocolate that looks exactly like it?

But no, instead of a cool movie full of murders and Mimims aplenty, this was just the boring "Pretty Woman" we all know and love. Except I didn't know it. So I watched a few minutes, got bored, and changed the channel into a Star Wars flick that was just starting up.

Good ol' Star Wars. No Tivo confusion to be had there. Just a good guy, a bad guy, a Wookie, and best of all? In a galaxy far, far away, there's no sign whatsoever of Tom Cruise.

COLUMN: Earwigs

Forgive my crudity this week, but I'm afraid I need to trash talk a little.

Modern living is amazing. In my lifetime alone, we as a people have made some pretty tremendous Jetsons-like leaps of progress. I remember tube TVs that proudly picked up three local static-filled channels. I remember when records weren't "vintage" and was simply the way music came. I remember when my family was at the cutting edge of technology because my dad had a "portable" pager that was still too big to fit in most pockets.

It seems hard to fathom, but once upon a time, I survived quite easily without a phone that could stream movies, play music, keep tabs on our President, or assist angry birds in swine genocide at the push of a button. The future is here, and it's pretty amazing.

But at the same time, we're still a good distance away from proper Jetsons-level cool. Where's my jetpack? My flying car? I look outside and see no people-sized pneumatic tubes that can whoosh me to work and back. Science and technology have given us many blessings, but I'm pretty sure if we all put our heads together and focused, we could really make some historic leaps and bounds in modern laziness, people.

For example: we should have a WAY better system for handling our trash.

Landfills, global warming, carbon footprints, climate change, litter, paper vs. plastic, recycling, composting, environmentalism. These are all words that important journalists should focus on. Thankfully, I'm not one of them. I'm just tired of having to bag my trash up and take it out to the bin, over and over and over again. This is counter-productive towards my aspiring goals of laziness. 

Taking the trash out takes manhours (or at least man-minutes), motivation, and exertion -- three things that I can personally live without. I just took out a bag of trash and I'm pretty sure I missed at least two important television commercials that some poor corporation spent good money on. Taking out the trash is unfair to capitalism and the free market. Plus, it's horribly hazardous to your health. The last time I tried to walk my trash out to the curb, I fell and broke my ankle and had to spend the next six weeks in a cast.

I know what you're thinking -- Shane, didn't that happen, like, four years ago? Yes, yes it did. And that, friends, was indeed the last time I took my trash out to the curb. How my trash has gotten there since is completely beyond me. I like to think of it as one of those mysteries of science that perhaps we'll never be able to explain.

Or maybe I just have a VERY nice neighbor. All I know is every Monday, I wake up, my trash is already out at the curb, and I'm not asking questions. I don't know if someone's being nice or if someone just wants to use the excess space in my bin for their excess trash. Frankly, I don't care. I'm just grateful.

Still, though, I'm pretty sure there's room to be a little lazier. My trash might magically make its way to the curb every week, but I still have to go to the effort of bagging it up and putting it in the bin. I thought I could handle this simple task -- until this week.

Last Sunday I had a couple bags of trash that needed tossing, so in a fit of pure unadulterated motivation, I put on shoes, walked the trash down the back steps, opened the lid of my trash bin... and screamed in horror.

I hate taking out the trash -- but I hate bugs a whole lot more. And when I threw back the lid of my trash bin, I would approximate somewhere around thirty earwigs became airborne, landing in my hair, on my arms, on my shoes, and just generally everywhere you don't ever want earwigs to land.

Now, I'm a grown adult. I know fully well that earwigs don't ACTUALLY crawl into your ear and lay eggs -- but they sure LOOK like they do. In the grand pantheon of insectdom, earwigs are fairly harmless. That still doesn't mean I'm in any hurry to have dozens of the pincer-waving montrosities rain down on my head. I hope none of my neighbors heard me yell, "Gaaaaaaak!" and dance around in horror in my back yard. It wasn't my best moment. Don't worry, the denizens of my surprise earwig condo have since been evicted with extreme prejudice, but just imagine how many important television commercials I missed for THAT.

I'm just saying that if technology stepped up, I could put broken ankles and earwigs behind me for good. How? Don't ask me, I'm no scientist. Maybe some kind of hygenic hole in the floor that you toss garbage down and it disappears forever and ever, no questions asked. At the very least, you'd think I could purchase and install some kind of sassy, back-talking robot maid to handle waste management with skill and comedic one-liners aplenty.

I don't like to trash talk, but we need to step it up if we wanna be as cool as George Jetson.

COLUMN: Alien Hunting

As I type this, it's 9:30 at night. I'm sitting alone in my car, just me and my laptop, in the parking lot at Schwiebert Park in downtown Rock Island.

Why I am writing a column in such a peculiar locale and not in the usual position of lying sideways on my couch with a cat precariously balanced on my shoulder? Simple. I'm on a stakeout for UFOs. Duh.

Scoff all you want, people, but it's happening. A couple days ago someone uploaded a video to Youtube showing a creepy white light hovering unnaturally in the sky before it appears to ascend vertically into the clouds. The video was purportedly shot by a truck driver, and it was supposedly filmed somewhere just south of the Quad Cities.

Last night, a friend of mine captured grainy cell phone footage of two green lights he saw travel across the horizon, hop the Missisippi, and disappear somewhere over the Rock Island horizon. It appears the Quad Cities is rife this summer with unidentified flying objects. This is entirely unacceptable.

My whole life I've wanted to see something cool like a UFO in the sky. I've been on countless roadtrips, umpteen aimless drives, and more wasted hours than I care to admit staring wistfully at the night sky, and I've yet to catch even the tiniest glimpse of any wayward alien tourists. Now people in the Quad Cities are spotting genuine unexplained lights in the sky, and none of these people are ME. This is super unfair.

I am a firm believer that we are not alone in the universe. The odds are just too stacked against it. We're standing on merely one of eight (sorry, Pluto) planets that orbit our sun. Our sun is but one of 250 billion stars in our galaxy. Our galaxy is but one of 100 billion galaxies that we've been able to identify with the Hubble telescope. On the big map of the universe, we are less than a pinpoint. We are less than a molecule dancing on the head of that pinpoint. You simply can't tell me that out of the infinite abyss of the endless universe, we're the only ones with enough common sense to grow legs and stroll out of the ether.

Maybe there's life on one of Jupiter's mysterious moons. Maybe the nearest life is a kajillion light years away. Maybe that version of "life" is little more than a lump of moss chilling on some space rock somewhere. Or maybe that "life" is a race of sentient space wolves who've mastered interstellar travel. We literally have no idea.

The internet is awash in UFO videos, and I'm enough of a dreamer and/or idiot to watch them all. Most are fake, silly, and easily explained -- but a few of them are genuinely creepy and maybe, just maybe, the real deal. Perhaps it's the military testing new technology, maybe it's E.T. waving hello, or maybe it's those space wolves looking for an appetizer. Who knows? The only thing I'm sure about is that I'm not letting a UFO go unseen by me tonight. I'm here for the long haul, eyes skyward.

9:45 p.m. Nothing yet, but I feel all kinds of Fox Mulder cool. Truth be told, if I DID see a UFO, I'd probably just freeze and pee my pants, but for now, I feel like a cool FBI alien hunter.

9:55 p.m. It's a good thing I'm NOT with the FBI, because the kids in the car over there are passing around what does NOT look like a normal cigarette.

10:05 p.m. OMIGOD I CAN'T BELIEVE IT! LET ME GET MY CAM -- no, wait, that's just an airplane.

10:10 p.m. I will never not love the way the downtown WHBF aerial tower looks at night. It's my Eiffel.

10:15 p.m. NO. FREAKING. WAY. I TOTALLY SEE A -- oh, that's just Jupiter.

10:25 p.m. I'm starting to think I look less like a cool FBI alien hunter and more like a weird middle-aged creeper hanging out by himself at a park after dark. If a cop asks me what I'm doing, I'd better have an answer that isn't "looking for aliens."

10:35 p.m. Okay, so the "long haul" I was in for turned out to be roughly 45 minutes. I'm now back home, safely sideways on my couch with a cat on my shoulder. It turns out my desire to see a UFO is tempered only by my desire to NOT be seen as a park creeper. Plus I'm pretty sure I saw ANOTHER park creeper there, and I'm pretty sure he had dibs.

So if you see an eerie light in the sky, don't tell me about it. I'll be mad jealous. Just put it on Youtube and I'm sure I'll see it soon enough.

COLUMN: World Cup

WHOO! Oh man. How are you guys holding up? Is anybody even still conscious enough to read a paper today? I've barely recovered from such an exciting final match of the 2018 FIFA World Cup. That was intense!

Well, okay. I'm writing this in advance, so I have absolutely no idea how yesterday's final match turned out. Let's just say that [FRANCE OR CROATIA] really deserved that win after playing such a hard-fought game against [FRANCE OR CROATIA]. Even though [FRANCE OR CROATIA] didn't end up with a win, they can be proud to have even advanced far enough to play a team like [FRANCE OR CROATIA].

The World Cup is exciting stuff, folks. Every four years, top athletes from around the world gather in the spirit of competition, sportsmanship, and a united desire to kick each other in the shins as hard as they possibly can. Occasionally, one of these formidable athletes will miss a shin and instead kick a ball into a net. This is called a "goal," or "GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLL!!!!" for short. I've watched enough matches to know that goals are important, but not so important that a preliminary game can't end in a 0-0 tie, which shows you right there JUST how exciting of a tournament it can be.

The World Cup is a grand spectacle. There's only two problems: (1) We live in America, and (2) the sport they choose to play is soccer.

I know, I know. Shut up, footie nerds. I'm well aware that soccer has made some serious inroads in American culture over the past decade. Major League Soccer teams presumably exist because I've heard of them, and major U.S. networks are now even starting to carry British Premier League matches on the weekends. Soccer in the U.S. is probably the most popular its ever been right now, which means it's now our nation's favorite sport just behind football, basketball, baseball, hockey, NASCAR, golf, horse racing, pro wrestling, pumpkin chucking, hot-dog eating contests, and whatever American Ninja Warrior is.

YES, I'm kidding. There's a lot of people out there who love soccer. They just tend not to live in our country. Even the most ardent American fan of soccer has to admit that, while popular in the states, soccer isn't exactly a way of life over here like it is in most parts of the world. Still, I like soccer. Watching it makes me feel worldly and sophisticated. It looks like it'd be great fun to play. I'm just not entirely sold yet as to whether or not it's great fun to watch.

I'm well aware that I'm NOT remotely qualified to comment wisely on soccer pros and cons. The only sport I watch regularly is NASCAR, which is (a) a character flaw that I'm well aware of, and (b) a sport that many sportspeople don't consider a sport. Other than racing, the only sports I tend to watch are: baseball (when the Cubs are in the playoffs,) basketball (when the Bulls are in the playoffs), football (when the Bears are in the playoffs,) and yes, World Cup soccer (when England are in the tournament.)

Why do I root for England? Well, it's tough to root for the U.S. when we didn't even qualify this year. If you've got to adopt a team to root for, you can't do better than England. When it comes to droughts, Team England is basically the Bill Buckner of World Cup soccer. When they're predicted to do well, they do awful. When they're not expected to dominate (like this season,) they always come thiiiis close to glory before mucking it all up in the end.

England is a soccer crazed nation. When the World Cup rolls around, their pop charts fill with soccer anthems -- and even the ANTHEMS can be depressing as all get out. Probably the most recognized UK soccer anthem is a song called "Three Lions." You can hear thousands of fans chanting its "football's coming home" chorus every time Team England takes the pitch. But the rest of the song pretty much just bemoans their team's reputation for failure. "So many jokes, so many sneers, but all those oh-so-nears wear you down through the years... Three lions on a shirt, Jules Rimet still gleaming, thirty years of hurt never stopped me dreaming." It'd be like if Wrigley blared a song called "Fail Cubs Fail" after every loss.

But if you thought the party in Chicago was insane when the Cubs won, I promise you we'll be able to HEAR the Brits screaming the day that Team England eventually wins the World Cup, and it WILL happen one day. But it definitely won't be this year, after last week's heartbreaking loss in the quarterfinals. Instead, we ended up with France (a team I don't especially care about) vs. Croatia (a team whose country I couldn't even point out on a map, other than "somewhere by Russia.")

Honestly, though, I enjoyed the matches I saw this year. If you've got to pick a sport to support, you could do a lot worse than soccer. I recently read an article about other sports as old as soccer that didn't quite catch on. Let's just say it's a good thing. Many were weird variations of tennis and baseball. A truly alarming number involved the use of live roosters, often as, err, the "ball."

So if you're a fan of soccer, I hope you enjoyed this year's World Cup. Maybe next time we'll have a Team USA to continue England's disappointments. If you're NOT a soccer fan, just be happy that we weren't all tuning in to watch organized chicken homicide. I just hope you didn't miss out yesterday when history was most definitely made by [FRANCE OR CROATIA].

COLUMN: Ready Player One

Over the years, I've amassed a fairly decent movie collection. But in today's age of streaming media, I've been buying fewer and fewer Blu-Rays lately. This week, though, I had to make an exception.

When Ernest Cline released his novel "Ready Player One" back in 2011, it became one of my fast favorites. Spielberg's film adaptation earlier this year was equally awesome. I saw it in the theater, and I've now been watching it on repeat viewings at home this week. With a fun nerdy plot and non-stop references to the 1980s, it's the kind of movie custom-made for a pop culture geek like myself. But I also discovered that after you watch it umpteen times, you can easily get lost daydreaming about Cline's world.

"Ready Player One" is set in a not-too-distant future where global warming and overpopulation has plunged much of the world into poverty and slums. As a result, most people instead spend their days in the OASIS -- a virtual reality universe where you can live, love, work, and play from the confines of your dilapidated shack. Strap on some VR goggles, plug yourself in, and suddenly you're anywhere you fancy. You could climb a virtual Mt. Everest or drive a virtual Batmobile -- the possibilities are limitless. The virtual currency inside the OASIS is valued more than real world money. Even if you live in a real world shantytown, you could be a mansion-owning millionaire in the OASIS.

If you want to know what happens, watch the movie or read the book. I recommend doing both, since they're quite different from one another.

But it's made me ponder: What if the OASIS really existed? What if there was a virtual world that we could escape to any time we fancied? Where would I go? How would I live? What would I do with my time?

If I had to pick the ideal virtual location for my virtual mansion, my mind immediately goes to mountains. I have no idea what makes tall stacks of ground majestic and beautiful, but nothing wows me like a good mountain vista. I think having some kind of Stanley Hotel-type mountain fortress with spectacular virtual views would be my first choice.

Then again, I know a guy who just went to Colorado and crashed his mountain bike to avoid running into a rattlesnake. If I had my global pick of locales, I think I'd rather live someplace without venomous and/or beclawed wildlife. Even in a virtual world, I'm enough of a weenie to be virtually afraid of virtual snakes and cyber-bears. I sincerely doubt the existence of Bigfoot, but in an imagination-fueled world where anything's possible? I'd be surrounded by robo-Sasquatches by sunset.

My next pick, then, would be ocean-side. Nothing centers me quite like staring out over an infinite sea. Going to bed with the sounds of waves crashing against craggy rocks would beat the heck out of any white noise machine the real world could offer.

Hmm, but once broke my foot walking down a sidewalk. I should probably avoid craggy rocks. I can't swim in the real world, so what makes me think my virtual avatar would fare any better? I don't want to be the first virtual corpse to wash up on a virtual beach. It'd be safer to set up virtual residence somewhere land-locked. Maybe I should just settle for, like, a river or something.

A desert? Too virtually hot. A medieval castle? Too virtually cold. I suppose it really doesn't matter WHERE I virtually live, as long as I have a massive mansion that I could deck out any way I saw fit.

Then again, in all the virtual worlds and virtual homes in "Ready Player One," I never once saw a virtual maid. I don't want to exhaust my imagination building a massive virtual dream house only to spend all my virtual time having to virtually clean the place. Plus, unless I round up a virtual girlfriend, which is virtually unlikely, I'd be stuck by myself in some echoey mansion that, knowing my luck, will be virtually haunted.

No, I'd probably be better off in a small simple imaginary home with a nice TV and a couple of virtual cats.

In other words, if I had access to a virtual world where I could live anywhere and do anything, I'd probably live in Virtual Rock Island, in a house identical to my own, sitting on a virtual couch playing virtual video games and watching movies about people who live in other virtual worlds.

And something tells me, as long as I had access to virtual Harris Pizza, I'd get along okay. Virtually.

COLUMN: Spit

I'm never here to dispense gross-out humor, mostly because I'm easily grossed out myself. I prefer to eat my cookies rather than toss them. But we are human beings, and we need to admit that a lot of things human beings do are inherently gross. That still doesn't mean I want to think or write about it. When it comes to matters of basic bodily functions, my general rule of thumb is: Whatever happens in the restroom stays in the restroom -- unless it needs to be flushed far away from said restroom. Whatever you do in there is your own business.

Of course, some restrooms are public, and that's where it gets sticky (hopefully not literally.) Whenever I go into a crowded restroom, I do my very best to stare at my shoes and pretend I'm the only one there. But if you're being gross, sometimes it's hard to ignore you. And yes, that goes for you, green-shirted guy from last weekend. Don't think I didn't see you shuffle past me in the restroom, do your duty, and then go high-five your bro's -- without washing your hands.

Lately, I've had the misfortune of noticing another trend in the bathroom. It's disgusting, but we need to dive into this one just a little bit. I promise I will do my very best NOT to gross you out, but we need to have a quick, tasteful heart-to-heart -- about saliva.

Saliva shouldn't be gross. Most animals produce it, and with all due apologies to John Merrick, we are nothing if not animals. Saliva helps us chew and swallow, lets us taste food, fights germs, and prevents our teeth from decaying. Birds use it to make nests. Cats use it to groom. We let our dogs slobber all over the place without a care in the world. Heck, when we find someone we like, one of the first things we try to do is mix saliva. It's a part of life.

Then why is it so disgusting to watch someone spit on the ground? I swear to you, nearly every time I'm in a public restroom, some dude comes in and hocks a wad of spit on the ground or in the urinal or toilet. I first started noticing it a few months ago, and now I can't NOT notice it. Any time my public bathroom space gets invaded, I brace myself for the inevitable hack-n-spit, and it usually ALWAYS happens.

And it's not just bathrooms. Pay attention the next time you're out on the weekend -- you're bound to catch some guy spitting on the ground like it's no big thing. I swear to you all, if you go to the gas station by my house, you can look at the parking lot and see clear evidence of spitters of yore. Everywhere I go, spittle can be found.

Maybe I shouldn't say anything? Is it some testosterone-fueled guy thing? Am I betraying the man club by complaining here? Nope. I used to work with a couple girls who I'd see spitting on the ground every time their shift ended. Spitting is a hobby of equal opportunity crassness. Just try it in Singapore. If you get caught spitting there, it's a $1500 fine.

It isn't the grossness of spitting that worries me, though. What worries me is that I clearly must be broken.

I've never once felt the urge to spit on the ground. I'm pretty sure I've never done it. I'm not even sure I know HOW to do it. It's just something I've never had want nor need to do. I've never once thought, "Man, I could sure use a good spit right about now." Am I just being civil? Or is there something wrong with me?

The other day, I brought up this nonsense to a close friend.

"Can you believe how many people these days just spit on the ground?"

I was expecting one of our usual we're-better-than-everyone-else moments. Instead, he replied, "What, you've never just spit on the ground?"

"No!" I said, aghast. "Do you?"

"A few times a day, I guess," he replied to my shock and horror. "So what do you do when you feel the need to spit?"

As God is my witness, I have never felt the need to spit. If my nose gets plugged, I blow it. If my throat gets a tickle, I clear it with a cough. None of these events have ever made me want to spit, publically or otherwise.

This is worrisome. I just read that the average human produces between 2 to 4 pints of saliva per day. If apparently everybody in the world is spitting theirs out on a regular basis, WHERE IS MINE GOING? Am I going to keel over of acute saliva intoxication? It's no secret I've put on some unwanted weight over the past few years... OR HAVE I? Maybe I'm just carrying an extra hundred pounds of unused saliva. It wouldn't surprise me -- people have often told me that I'm full of spit (or something like that, at least.)

COLUMN: Ladies Night

For as much time as I spend with them, my electronic devices certainly don't seem to know me very well.

You may have read my recent discovery that Facebook thinks my top interests include "ice," "cod," and "gay bars." My Amazon Echo ignores me until I start screaming "Alexa!" at it like a scolding parent. And now I've discovered another technological wonder that doesn't understand me in the slightest: Netflix.

For the past few weeks, every time I log onto Netflix, it's been constanly recommending that I watch an unending stream of dumb cringe comedies. You know, movies where nerdy losers do embarassing stuff and I'm supposed to find it endlessly funny.

Why is it funny to watch the embarassment of others? America's Funniest Home Videos has been on the air since the dawn of time, and it's basically nothing but people falling on their faces, taking shots to the groin, or dancing like nobody's watching (or filming.) And it's usually pretty funny. WHY?

Embarassing moments are great fun to watch -- unless they happen to you. I still remember that one time when I gave my crush a necklace for Valentine's Day and she responded by yelling "Eww!" and pretending to vomit. I'm pretty sure I'm still emotionally crippled from that moment and I'm also pretty sure it happened when I was ELEVEN. To this day, if I'm daydreaming and an embarassing memory pops up, I'll literally hear a voice in my head going, "LET'S CHANGE THE SUBJECT."

I'm an adult now, and at my age, you're not really supposed to care what others think of you. But let's be honest -- there's a small part of my brain that keeps a 24/7 vigil worrying if people are secretly pointing and laughing at me behind my back. This is pretty silly considering my silly job is to write a silly column that I sincerely hope you all point and laugh at.

Some might say I have a lack of self-confidence. I say I have an over-abundance of self-awareness. Specifically, the awareness that my particular self is prone to moments of extreme embarassment.

Take the other day, for instance. I was leaving work on my lunch hour and heading out to my car. Being the important deep thinker that I am, I was reflecting on a work problem I had just solved, wondering how I could fix another, curious where the nearest mailbox was so I could mail a card to my dad, pondering how long it takes mail to get from East Moline to Galesburg, complaining internally about the weather, reminding myself to stop for gas, and trying to decide what I wanted for lunch. That's when my thoughts were rudely interrupted by two immediate realizations:

(1) There was a very attractive woman walking just a few paces behind me that I hadn't noticed, and
(2) I was singing. Out loud. Loudly. With both volume and passion.

It also must be noted that I can't sing. Well, apparently I CAN sing -- just very, very, VERY poorly.

The fact that I was subconsciously singing out loud was embarassing, sure, but explainable. I am, after all, a huge music nerd with 30 years of DJ experience who works part time at a record store for fun. I've been exposed to a whole lot of songs over my years, and music is constantly going through my head. The average human brain can store roughly 2.5 petabytes of memory. That's 250,000,000 gigabytes -- the ultimate flash drive. Each of us has the capacity to remember literally hundreds of thousands of songs -- and I reckon I'm about out of room.

And out of those hundreds of thousands of songs swirling around in my subconscious, the jukebox in my brain chose that day and that hour to select: "Ladies Night" by Kool and the Gang. And not just any PART of "Ladies Night," mind you. No, the moment that I snapped to and realized I was having an a cappella solo karaoke jam session while in close proximity to another human was just one moment AFTER I had just emotionally and entirely subconsciously belted out, "Mmm, SOPHIS-TI-CA-TED MAMA! Come on you disco lay-day!"

Strangely, my attractive new friend did NOT offer me her number. All I could do was sheepishly mutter, "Excuse me," while trying to walk professionally to my car as though I hadn't just staged an impromptu one-man salute to disco in the parking lot. 

I'm pretty sure she pointed and laughed, if only internally.  But who knows? Perhaps my reassurance that she was a sophisticated mama was just the boost of self-confidence she needed to make it through the day. Maybe I was doing her a public service.

All I know is that I got to my car and strangely didn't feel like I wanted to curl up in a ball and hide forever. Instead, I just laughed a whole lot, which felt way better than shame. I'm an embarassing weirdo a lot of the time, sure. But I think I'd be disappointed in myself a little if I wasn't. When I worked in downtown Moline, there was a guy who would walk his dog around the neighborhood, always with a pair of headphones on, and always belting out songs like he was auditioning for American Idol. And you know what? That dude always had a smile on his face.

Life's too short to spend it constantly worrying what others think about you. If some girl thinks I'm a weirdo because I had an uncontrolled disco moment in a parking lot, oh well. If Facebook thinks I'm a fan of cod and gay bars, let them. If Netflix is convinced that I like stupid teen movies... well, Netflix is probably right -- those movies are awesome.

COLUMN: Truck Fire

(Note: Not the actual truck or the actual fire. But it was kinda like this.

Except at night. And I was a lot farther away. Or is it further away? Point is, it was scary.)

I am, by no means, a macho, macho man like the Village People once yearned to be. Still, I've always kind of assumed that inside this mild-mannered nerd beats the heart of a hero-in-waiting. After this week, I'm pretty sure I was wrong.

Running towards trouble and not away from it is a skill that doesn't come natural to me. A loud bang? I jump out of my seat. Someone yells? I pretend not to hear. A bee flys by? I run away while trying SUPER hard not to shriek. You can describe me with a choice of adjectives, but "brave" usually isn't among them.

Still, I've always thought that if I found myself in a crisis situation, I'd do the right thing. I'd help my fellow man. I'd run into the burning building -- or at least briskly walk. I've just never been in a real hurry to test my heroic instinct.

Last Sunday, I drove with my best friend Jason to Chicago to see one of our favorite bands from the old days (The Trash Can Sinatras.) It was a brilliant night out that took me straight back to college -- a frame of mind which might also explain why we thought that afterwards, we'd just hop in the car and drive back home like the 18-year-olds we definitely aren't.

Collegiate Shane would NOT have been impressed by the two middle-aged men limping and groaning their way into the Dekalb Oasis at 1:30 a.m. in dire need of caffeine and Advil. As it turned out, though, we didn't need coffee to wake us up on this particular roadtrip.

Twenty minutes later, we were somewhere outside of Dixon and I was thiiiis close to falling asleep in my seat when I heard Jason from behind the wheel yell out, "What the hell is THAT?"

I looked up. Omigod. "THAT" was an 18-wheeler, about 200 yards in front of us -- on fire. Not just a little fire, either. This was a BIG fire. Like, a MOVIE fire. I barely had time to curse when an explosion sent two flaming truck tires into the air over the inferno. I half expected Arnold Schwarzenegger at my window yelling, "Come with me if you want to live!"

Another fireball followed as presumably the gas tank went up. Was this my hero moment? Was I supposed to spring into action and somehow, some way, make everything all better? Instead, the two of us sat there transfixed, saying little that I could repeat in a family newspaper.

No one else was around. "We've got to call 911," someone said (was it me?) and we did, though it barely helped the operator to tell her we were "on I-88 somewhere not quite Dixon." Part of me wanted to run to the truck and make sure the driver was okay, but the fire was WAY too intense. The only thing we could do was turn on our emergency lights and try to warn other drivers coming up behind us.

A handful stopped and pulled off the road alongside us. A few minutes later, we saw the lights of a police car approaching from the other side of the accident. Behind us, another 18-wheeler rolled up, carrying a dozen or so new cars on his trailer. This bright bulb took one look at the situation and decided his best course of action was to just keep on truckin' down the half-lane that wasn't full of fiery debris. Smart move, since the only thing better than one exploding vehicle is a dozen of them.

He made it through, though, and that was all it took for the other cars to follow. Eventually being the last ones left, Jason and I shrugged and decided to follow suit. As we cautiously drove around the inferno, we were met with a surprise. From where we pulled off, it had looked like the whole truck was engulfed in flame. In reality, only the trailer was ablaze and the cab didn't look too bad. We saw no driver, a police car was there, and we could see lights of approaching fire trucks in the distance, so we carried on home. Easy peasy.

But then the next day, I e-mailed Lee County Sheriff John Simonton to see if there were any public details about the fire. I almost wish I hadn't.

Like I said, from our vantage point, all we saw was fire. What we didn't see was the car in front of the truck that stopped when they saw him blow a tire and swerve off the road. We didn't see the passengers of that car race to the cab and pull the unconscious driver to safety before the first explosion. We never spotted the good samaritans or the first-reponse officer giving the driver CPR until the ambulance arrived. As I write this, the driver's currently in critical but stable condition and expected to pull through, thank God.

Maybe I could have been more proactive. Instead, I was a gawker, unaware that life-and-death heroics were happening just beyond that blaze. Instead of keeping a safe distance from the fire, we joined in the parade of idiots too impatient to wait for the road to clear. Sheriff Simonton also informed me that the tanker was full of liquid oxygen and could have gone nuclear at any point.

So if you're holding out for a hero 'til the morning light, you might want to skip me. I'm still not entirely unconvinced that I'm incapable of bravery and self-sacrifice, but the jury's still out and I'm in no hurry to test it ever again. Just be safe when you're out there on the roads. And I know that some people say thoughts and prayers are overrated, but if you could send some towards the driver of that truck, this wannabe hero would be grateful.

COLUMN: Allergies

My neighbor's house is on fire. I'm not kidding.

Well, it WAS on fire. This column won't run until Monday and I'm writing it nearly a week in advance, so if my neighbor's house is STILL on fire by the time you're reading this, then we've got a far more serious problem than I could have ever anticipated.

But right here, right now, in the reality of me sitting on my couch writing this column, my neighbor's house is on fire. As I type, there are police outside my window blocking the road and two trucks full of firefighters attacking the blaze. The good news is that it looks like they caught it early and it's not going to be that big of a deal. I'm pretty sure they've already got it done to a mere smolder, everyone seems okay, and there doesn't look to be a ton of property damage. Whew.

I tried walking down there for a closer view and got a couple of very stern looks from some of Rock Island's finest, so I decided it would be best to retreat to the house and let them do their job. Besides, I was a bit preoccupied.

How did I first know that the neighbor's house was ablaze? Was it the random shouts I heard from down the block? Was it the wailing sirens of fire trucks skidding to a stop in front of my house? Was it the foul burnt smell currently suffocating the neighborhood?

Nope. I knew something was up when, out of complete nowhere, I sat up, blinked, went "uh oh," and sneezed 37 times in a row. I'm not kidding. I counted.

Like many of you, I suffer from seasonal allergies -- and the season is NOW.

When I was a kid, I was constantly sniffling through pollen season. When I hit my twenties and thirties, though, most of my symptoms went away and I just assumed I'd outgrown my hay fever. But about five years ago, my allergies returned with a vengeance. These days, I can pretty much count on losing the ability to smell for most of the spring and fall.

Some folks get the sniffles or a runny nose or itchy eyes. Me? I get spontaneous, no-warning rapid fire sneezing fits that can last for fifteen minutes or more. It's just a fun quirky facet of Shane that my co-workers especially seem to enjoy.

Some people can sneeze politely. I once had a massive crush on a cute girl who even had cute sneezes -- little petite things that went "Fiw!" adorably. I used to have a co-worker who could hold them in entirely and would just politely go "fppt" while I presume her head narrowly avoided exploding into tiny polite shards. My sneezes tend to sound more like "RrrrrAFFFFLEKAFLOOOOOOOOOO!" which is made all the more fun when they appear one after the other like semi-automatic assault sneezes.

My co-workers, bless them, are used to it. That is, the ones who've always sat near me are. But since we recently moved offices, we're now in one giant cubicle farm where each and every employee of the Dispatch/Argus now gets to hear me rrrraffflekaflooo-ing on a regular basis. The other day, a couple of them attempted to issue a polite "God bless you" after each sneeze. Both of them gave up after sneeze #25 or so. I'd like to think God must have better things to do than sit around and bless me 37 times in a row.

It's all great fun and games until it happens while you're behind the wheel of a car. I've had to pull off the road on many an occasion just to sneeze a dozen times. I'm probably the only person who's explained tardiness to their boss as "I was sneezing" and have them go, "yeah, I understand." They've heard it. They know.

I've never been tested to find out exactly what I'm allergic to, but I'm in no hurry to find out. Doesn't it still involve drawing a grid on your back, injecting you with tiny amounts of irritants, and seeing which ones make you red and itchy? To this medieval practice, I say a big no thanks. This would be like testing for meningitis by having people spit in your mouth until one of them makes you sick. Keep your back grids, needles, and cooties to yourself, doc.

No, instead I'll just err on the side of caution and assume that I'm allergic to ALL of nature and do my very best to wall myself indoors until everything that's gonna bloom blooms. I know I'm allergic to pollen, dust, bee stings, and now I'm pretty sure I can add "burning duplexes" to that list. I reckon that's all the knowledge I need for now. I'll be fine in a month, I promise you.

Some people might be bummed if they had to stay indoors and live the spring season through HEPA filters and allergy drugs. I'm cool with it. I've got a long Netflix queue to get through, people. Go enjoy the rest of your spring. I'll keep the homefires burning -- just not as dramatically as my neighbor, I hope.

COLUMN: Laurel v Yanny

So how's your week going? Mine's going okay -- well, except for that one part when my entire worldview got tossed asunder and I lost all personal identity as my reality came crashing down leaving me in a void of unanswered questions and the realization that my entire life could be a lie.

Other than that, things are pretty decent.

Fair warning: there's a good chance this column could be an abject failure. For one, I'm about to discuss something that's better HEARD than read. For two, since it was all over the news last week, you're probably sick to death of hearing about it.

But sometimes, when something this paramount occurs in our world, it merits careful analysis. I don't care if it's been beat to death by the media, a topic this important deserves our time, our consideration, and a valuable fact-based discussion about what it means to society and the global ramifications that could ensue from such a divisive, far-reaching, and world-changing topic.

I speak, of course, about whether you hear Laurel or Yanny.

In case you've been living under that one rock without wi-fi or emergency access to internet memes, I'll recap: Last week, someone somewhere on the internet posted a sound file. The short clip is a recording that comes from the website vocabulary.com of a robotic male voice offering the correct pronounciation of the word "laurel."

But when some people listen to the clip, they don't hear "laurel." Instead they hear a word that sounds more like "yanny." This is super weird, since "laurel" and "yanny" don't really sound alike at all. But it's true -- a good chunk of the populace clearly hears "laurel" while others plainly hear "yanny." Over the past week, the internet has exploded with questions about how this auditory illusion works.

The answer, as you may expect, is a bit sciency. Speaking to the website "The Verge," Lars Riecke, an assistant professor of audition and cognitive neuroscience at Maastricht University, explains that several different factors can play into whether we hear "Laurel" or "Yanny."

One is frequency. The acoustic information that makes us hear "yanny" is a higher frequency than the information that makes us hear "laurel." Hearing loss over time tends to start with higher frequencies, so older people tend to hear "laurel." The audio source can affect the outcome, too. If you're playing the sound over a tinny speaker with little low-end, you might be more inclined to hear the higher frequency "yanny."

But the difference can also be due to our brains and the way we interpret sounds. When we hear something ambiguous, our brains will automatically try to fill in the blanks. If you know some Laurels and are familiar saying the name, that's what you might hear. If you're a fan of well-coiffed new age keyboardists, you might hear Yanni. Or Yanny. Whatever.

The point is, I'm not having it. I am a life-long audio geek, music fan, and weekend DJ. Even at my lowest, I can fall back on the knowledge that I am a world class conoisseur of sound waves. I'm not saying that I'm so conceited and full of myself that I believe I can appreciate audio on a different level than most of you, except that is EXACTLY what I'm saying because music is my oxygen and my well-trained ears rule.

Therefore, I should be able to listen to this clip, simulataneously hear both "Laurel" and "Yanny," and laugh at you poor audio amateurs and your unskilled ears. But no. I've played the clip a hundred times, and all I hear is "Laurel." Not even a hint of "Yanny." As it turns out, I don't have the supersensory hearing I've always assumed I had. In fact, I probably have hearing loss that eliminates high frequencies and makes me only hear "Laurel."

So what does this mean? If I can listen to a word and only hear it one way while half the world hears it another, what ELSE do people hear differently? Is this why I hate dubstep music so much? Can others put on a Skrillex CD and hear a beautiful emotive symphony while I only hear angry robots yelling at one another? Maybe to some ears, Lil Yachty can sing like Pavarotti. I hate to say it, folks, but maybe -- just maybe -- Nickelback is GOOD and we just can't hear it.

This is the kind of thing that keeps me up late. I found a website where you can adjust the frequencies of the original sample until I could finally hear "Yanny." I was hoping there'd be a sweet spot where it might sound like "Lauryannyel," but no dice. I did, however, find a median where I could think to myself, "I want to hear Laurel" and I would, and then "I want to hear Yanny" and I would -- which is frankly just more proof that everything we hear is a lie created by our brain.

My best bet is just to stop thinking about it before I lose all confidence in my ears and they take away my membership badge to the music nerd club. I just need to accept the fact that when I turn on the radio and hear "Stairway to Heaven," it might really be "Hairspray for Kevin." If you hear something different than I do, then so be it, I guess. I still like music the way I hear it just fine. If the only loss I took away from being in the crowd at the 132 decibel assault of My Bloody Valentine live at the Aragon Ballroom was my future inability to hear a robot voice say the word "Yanny," it was a fair price to pay.

Let's let the Laurels be Laurels and the Yannys be Yannys and move on to important matters -- like whether that dress is black & blue or white & gold.

COLUMN: Cancellations

Well, it's official. Good weather is upon us.

How do I know this? Is it because the flood waters have receded? Because the forecasters have retired the phrase "wintry mix" for at least a few months? Because the sun's out, people are milling around outdoors, and there's a certain magic in the air?

Nope. I know the weather's getting nice because every TV show that any of us care about has just been unceremoniously snuffed out of existence for the season, some never to return again.

I remember a day when I used to anxiously await network TV's annual spring upfronts, where they introduce and tease some of the new shows coming this fall. But this year especially, I found myself caring a lot less about new shows and a lot more about which current shows were facing the grim axe of cancellation.

Six months ago, I wrote a column celebrating the current slate of TV programming and told you that we were living in a new golden age of broadcasting. Half a year later, all those shows are cancelled and everything sucks again. Whoops, my bad.

Once upon a time, TV shows were given a fighting chance of survival. Even "My Mother The Car," an actual series about a guy's dead mother reincarnated as a 1928 Porter jalopy, a show widely considered to be the worst show in the history of television, aired 30 episodes before the network pulled the plug. (An actual episode synopsis: "Dave is forced to drive his mother/car to a mountaintop wedding, but along the way she gets drunk on antifreeze.")

These days, a struggling show is lucky to get six episodes before the axe falls. Imagine what television history would be like if networks always had this itchy of a trigger finger. When it started out, "Cheers" ranked 74th out of 77 shows on the air. "Seinfeld" was panned by test audiences. Neither show would have survived past its first season in today's market. With a kajillion different cable channels and limitless streaming options, networks no longer have the patience to nurse a show to success -- it's either a hit or a miss out the gate.

And when you're only concerned with hits, what happens? You water creativity down, pander to middle America, and you're left with a schedule of singing contests, banal family sitcoms, and my absolute least favorite genre of TV: medical dramas. I swear, every one of them has the same plot:

Patient: "I have a head cold."

Doctor: "Well, let me just take a look... OMIGOD, YOU HAVE TERMINAL NOSE CANCER AND 45 MINUTES LEFT TO LIVE! #drama"

Patient: "Let me quickly make amends with my family and say something incredibly poignant about mortality. #Emmynominee"

Actor Playing Doctor: "I am now SO popular for playing this doctor that I am quitting the show to make movies with Brad Pitt. #Emmywinner"

Doctor: "OH NO, NOW I HAVE TERMINAL NOSE CANCER, TOO!"

This season's biggest success story was the return of fan favorites like "Will & Grace" and "Roseanne." As a result, next fall's schedule is filled to the brim with multi-camera sitcoms and retreads of past glories. "Murphy Brown" is coming back, and so are new versions of "Magnum P.I." and "Cagney and Lacey." WHY? Let ghosts lie, I say.

Why not just make a NEW show about two mismatched female detectives and name it something OTHER than "Cagney and Lacey?" If you made a new show about a small-town sheriff with a heart of gold, you wouldn't call it "The Andy Griffith Show." And how much staying power does the name "Cagney and Lacey" even HAVE, anyways? No offense, but hasn't the primary fanbase of the original series shuffled off to the great studio audience in the sky?

And to make room for this tidal wave of retreads, some truly great shows got the axe this year. "Designated Survivor" and "Last Man on Earth," both quality shows, end their legacies on cliffhangers that will never get resolved (although there are now rumours that Netflix may step in and save "Designated Survivor.")

My favorite new show of the year, "Kevin (Probably) Saves the World" now ends without fanfare, resolution, or any indication as to whether or not Kevin actually saves the world (Spoiler: He probably does.) The Grim Reaper of cancellation even reached my favorite show to hate-watch, the musical-drama "Rise." Now we'll never know whether or not a high school full of every cliche teenage stereotype can be saved by one dauntless drama teacher and his plucky production of "Spring Awakening."

The point is: Shows should never end on a cliffhanger. If a network prematurely boots a show, they should be required to air a final episode wherein the show's creators and writers just stand in front of a camera and tell us what WOULD have happened had the series continued. Every show deserves a "The End."

If I ran the world, the television dial would look a whole lot different. And Katie Holmes would probably be starring in everything. But if this assassination of quality TV keeps up, I might just have to check out this "outdoors" thing I keep hearing about.

COLUMN: Co-Op

If there's one thing I'm good at, it's issuing overly-dramatic and potentially life-changing vows, only to go back on my words as if they were never uttered. "I'm THROUGH procrastinating!" "I will NEVER let my house get this messy ever again!" "That's the LAST time I ever eat an entire Harris Pizza!"

Words to live by -- except I never do. But there was one such assertion I've remained true to my word on for decades. I swore it in the middle of a particularly hissy fit sometime in the mid-Nineties, but I meant it:

"As God is my witness, I will NEVER work retail again!"

I'm now sorta hoping God wasn't eavesdropping that day, because yours truly is the newest part time employee of Moline's Co-Op Records.

Me working at a record store shouldn't be THAT much of a shocker. Listening to music, collecting music, and talking about music are pretty much my three favorite hobbies. I might as well be getting paid for it. Besides, it's not my first rodeo in music sales.

When I got out of college, I got hired on at a now-defunct second-hand CD shop. I thought it would be my dream job -- well, except it was part time, offered no benefits, and paid minimum wage.

But then I got to know the owners. They turned out to be less music junkies and more like money junkies out to make a tidy profit, and my charming slackerish ways weren't met with much love back then. I was constantly getting admonished for not tucking my polo shirt in straight. Don't get me wrong, there's certainly something to be said for wearing professional appropriate attire in the workplace. But in the "professional" setting of a used CD store, an untucked shirt IS appropriate attire, and it's usually best if said shirt is ripped, weathered, and contains the faded logo of a band that NO ONE'S ever heard of except you.

Instead of hour-long discussions about the greatest drummers in rock history, I got lessons on how to wipe down countertops. Instead of sharing musical passions, they shared how to take advantage of elderly customers. My tenure there was short-lived. Thankfully, Co-Op was waiting in the wings to offer me a job at a REAL independent record store.

My days at Co-Op were great, and quickly proved that every stereotype about record store clerks is pretty much true. YES, we would sit around and have heated arguments over which Beatles album was best. YES, we'd have contests where you'd look at a customer and try to figure out which in-store music would get him to ask what was playing. YES, we were all pretty much insufferable dorks. It was great.

Eventually, the real world had to win out. I was about to fall off my parents' insurance, they were growing tired of paying a college graduate's rent, and I wasn't exactly raking in the big bucks. A Shane in a record store is like a kid in a candy shop -- and back then, you could just take home whatever music you wanted and they'd subtract it off your payroll. That's how I went down in history as the only employee to ever receive a NEGATIVE paycheck. "It's payday! You owe us $72."

So I folded up the concert tees, put on some nice clothes, and took what I thought to be a short-term job at the local newspaper to get my parents off my back until I figured out what I wanted to do with my life. 23 years later, here we are. No regrets.

But last fall, I got an interesting proposition from my friend Reid. He owns the Co-Op Records on Moline's Avenue of the Cities, and he was in a bind. Reid runs the store with a couple dedicated employees who work tirelessly, but even music dorks need time off once in a while. That, friends, is where I come in.

It's not a big commitment -- I'm lucky to work 2 shifts a month -- but I am back in the retail game. I'm still the same insufferable dork as ever, but I'm now selling music to kids half my age, which I guess makes me an insufferable elder statesdork. If I can recommend a record that'll change a kid's life the way music once changed mine, mission accomplished.

I've worked a few shifts already and it kinda feels like home, but with a few exceptions. I can operate a newspaper's entire complicated software system, but put me in front of simple cash register and I panic. I thought I knew music until I started getting questions from kids about bands I've never heard of. And how 1990's Shane stayed on his feet all shift is beyond me. 20 years and 100 pounds later, I leave work dreaming of epsom salt.

But I'm happy occasionally reliving my retail days. I've even been trusted with a key to the store. Frankly, there are days I don't trust myself with my own house keys. So if you fancy some records and see a chubby guy behind the counter struggling to stay on his feet, say hi. I promise I'll give you a great deal, and I clearly never go back on my word (cough).

COLUMN: Court Pt. 2

Tonight on Dateline:

He seemed like a nice, ordinary newspaper columnist. The kind of guy who filled his days writing about harmless things like cats and TV. So what could have caused this mild-mannered everyman to snap, get behind the wheel of his car, and take down an innocent bicyclist? Was it an unavoidable accident? Or was it MURDER?

Spoiler: It wasn't murder.

If you read last week's column, you've already heard the story. Last October, I was pulling out of my alley on the way to work when I got into a fender bender with a cyclist who came zipping down the sidewalk into the blind intersection. I was just letting off the brake from a dead stop and barely moving, so thankfully no one was hurt except my driving record and the guy's poor bike, which the front of my car rearranged like a Dali painting.

It was one of the more traumatic and embarassing moments in my life, and I can only be grateful that nobody got hurt. For my part in the incident, the police awarded me with a special honor called a "failure to yield" citation that turned out to be a little less prestigious than I was hoping for.

I certainly don't make a habit of it, but I've been on the receiving end of a few traffic tickets over the years. Nothing big, but I racked up as couple of speeding tickets when I was in college and a seat belt violation one stupid day. And every time, I've freely owned up to it. I was at fault, I deserved the ticket, and I duly paid them.

But THIS time, I didn't feel quite so liable. It truly is a blind intersection, and I don't think any driver at the same spot at the same time would have been able to avoid hitting the bike. Half on principle and half because I thought it might make for an interesting newspaper column, I decided to fight my failure to yield ticket and have my day in court.

I spent one entire day incredibly satisfied by this decision, and then the next two months regretting it. Did I need an attorney? Just meeting with one would probably cost more than this silly ticket. Could I possibly defend myself? Wouldn't I just flop-sweat and stammer like usual? What was my defense going to be? "There was this bush, see..."? This was a dumb idea.

But when the day of my court appearance finally rolled around, I wasn't scared or stressed. That's because I was too busy vomiting. My January court date timed perfectly with the worst case of flu I'd ever had in years. But somehow, I managed to crawl out of bed, put on some nice clothes, and drag my drugged-out self to the courthouse on a wing, a prayer, and a whole lot of Dayquil.

At the courthouse, I was greeted by a kindly guard who told me I had to take off my belt before passing through the metal detector, which explains how my flu-addled brain came thiiiis close to accidentally dropping trou in front of some of our community's finest legal minds. The guard gets my ultimate respect, because he was the only one who went, "Excuse me, sir? Before you see the judge, you might want to zip up your pants." Good advice. Thankfully, the officer who cited me was a no-show and my date with the judge got pushed back two more months.

This was ample time for me to become a legal eagle. I'm somewhat of an expert in the modern legal system, because I have seen at least 100 episodes of "Law & Order." So in my down time before the judge, I prepped. I went to the intersection with a camera and took CSI pics of the obscuring hedge row. I hopped online and researched statutes. I watched even more "Law & Order."

Two weeks ago, it was my moment to shine. When they called my name, I would stride confidently before the judge, present my evidence, provide my multi-point argument with the grace and finesse of Jack McCoy, and leave court a free man, vindicated of my crime. As I awaited my turn, I composed my victory speech for the throng of reporters that surely must have been outside. My fantasy was soon interrupted by the assistant city attorney. Here's how it went down:

"Mr. Brown? Care to come up? Your honor, my officer isn't here. The victim isn't here. Move to dismiss."
"Sound good to you, Mr. Brown?"
"Err... yes?"
"Dismissed. Next."

It was the fastest "Law & Order" episode ever. The judge didn't even bang a gavel, not even once. My epic courtroom drama played out in roughly forty-five seconds. I was incredibly relieved -- except for the teeny tiny part of me that was silently disappointed. I didn't get to show my fancy pictures of the crime scene. Nobody had to press any "FREE SHANE" t-shirts. I didn't even get to stand up and yell, "YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!!!"

As much as I want to experience a shining star moment in court, it's probably not worth doling out any more love taps to passing cyclists. Probably. If you see my car coming, you might want to give it a wide berth just in case.

COLUMN: Court Pt. 1

I was trying to think of a good intro to this week's column, but I really think the only fitting intro is to imagine that you're hearing the "CHUNG! CHUNG!" noise from the beginning of every episode of "Law and Order." So, are you ready? CHUNG! CHUNG!

For the past six months, I've been harboring a deep secret from you people. As it turns out, your friendly neighborhood humor columnist -- is a felonious felon on the lam from Johnny Law.

Well, maybe I'm exaggerating a bit. I suppose I've been less "on the lam" and more "sitting around waiting patiently for my court date." And I'm not a felonious felon. But I WAS accused of being a misdemeanorous misdemeanorer. Rebel, thy name is Shane.

I'm trying to figure out a way to frame this in a way that you WON'T immediately cast judgement upon me after hearing what happened -- but that might be a tall order. I swear I'm not a bad guy, but this wasn't my best moment.

Alright, fine. I'll just say it. Last October, I was involved in a minor traffic... kerfluffle, wherein it is alleged that my car may have been slightly over-eager to make the acquaintance of a passing bicyclist whilst I was behind the wheel. SEE? You've already made up your mind, right? I can hear you screaming "GUILTY!" from the rafters. I'm a horrible person who needs his license taken away and should be banished to the Island of Misfit Drivers for the rest of my natural life.

Now that you're convinced of my guilt, let me tell you what really happened. I was leaving for work one October morning and was attempting to turn right from my alley onto a major Rock Island artery. I came to a complete stop, looked both ways for oncoming traffic, let off the brake, and eased out.

Next thing I knew, KER-WUMP. Unbeknownst to me, a young guy was zipping down the sidewalk westbound on his bike while I was turning east. I didn't see him, he didn't see me, and we met only when my bumper clipped his tire and my heart leapt out of my chest.

The good news -- the only news that matters, really -- is that everyone's fine. I had just started to roll out of a dead stop, so the impact was minimal. Unless you count the year or two it took off my life, no one was hurt. It didn't even knock the guy off his bike. But it DID do a pretty good number on the poor bike and bent his wheel up, so after verifying that he was fine, I called 911 and reported the incident. To Rock Island's credit, an officer was there in moments.

If you're going to be involved in a traffic accident, I hope it's as optimal as mine was. The guy on the bike couldn't have been nicer, the officer couldn't have been nicer. The only bummer was that I ended up with a "failure to yield" ticket that I didn't think I deserved. Don't get me wrong, I felt (and still feel) terrible about the collision -- but I didn't feel especially liable. Here's why.

For one, the stretch of road I was turning onto provides a clearly marked bike lane in both directions. Had the cyclist been utilizing the proper marked lane, he would have been on the other side of the street safely away from any pre-caffeinated columnists trying to get to work.

But even more importantly, the end of my alley features an unkempt overgrown hedge row that, for half the year, obstructs ANY view of the sidewalk. It's a completely blind intersection, which is why I always pull out slow enough to stop for any pedestrians. In my admittedly amateur opinion, the cyclist was travelling too fast on the sidewalk against traffic into a blind intersection and the accident couldn't have been avoided. It was just lousy timing and little else.

These are all excellent points that my brain was making at the time. My MOUTH, on the other hand, was acting as its own attorney and not doing a great job. Fueled on a diet of shock, adrenaline, and pure thankfulness that no one was hurt, "OMIGOSH" was about the most sensible thing I could muster.

When I finally mentioned the bike lane to the officer, her response was, "I'm no expert on bike laws" (?) before looking up a general Illinois statute that say bicyclists on sidewalks should be afforded the same rights as pedestrians. When I pointed out the overgrown hedge row obscuring the sidewalk, the officer agreed and told me I should contact public works to remove them because they were a hazard. These were, in her words, "things you might want to bring up with the judge."

Gulp. As a general rule, I prefer to shy away from any scenarios wherein I have bring any things up with any judges. But I did it. I decided to fight my ticket.

There's been much debate lately about Rock Island's historic yet crumbling and asbestos-riddled courthouse. All this talk has made me want to have a peek inside the place, though there's probably better ways to do it than broadsiding a bicycle.

My court date was last week. How'd it go? Meet me here next Monday and I'll tell you. CHUNG! CHUNG!

COLUMN: Hunting

One of my favorite things about our home office's recent move to East Moline has been getting to know the pair of Canadian geese that appear to have set up shop somewhere on our grounds.

Every day, you can find the literal lovebirds in or around our parking lot, nibbling on grass, happily honking, and generally just goose-ing it up, seemingly oblivious to the building full of stressed newsies running around in desperate attempts to beat advertising goals and print deadlines. It's a relatively safe space, and I like seeing them flourish rather than becoming someone's dinner.

My new guilty pleasure is reality shows like "North Woods Law" that follow state game wardens on patrol. I'm a sucker for any program that tails cops around, but after awhile, there's a finite level of drunken domestic abuse calls one can watch without becoming queasy and worried about the future of society. The Animal Planet shows, on the other hand, just show clip after clip of game wardens making life hell for hunters, and I'm all for that.

I realize I may lose a few readers with this one, but I don't care: I'm not a fan of hunting. I don't understand how it's considered a "sport" to sit in a tree waiting for something cute to come along so that you can put a hole in it. If that's sporting, then I should be considered an athlete every time I play video games. At least Grand Theft Auto requires you to push some buttons.

And yes, I know. The only way I can truly be an anti-hunting crusader without being a huge hypocrite is if I became one of those self-righteous vegan types, and I'm not. Vegetables are too icky and cows are too delicious, sorry. I prefer to live my life in denial that those chicken breasts I bought at the grocery store were once attached to actual chickens.

I just don't get how killing something cute, furry, and innocent can possibly be fun. Besides, I've tried venison once or twice and it's not my thing. Maybe I'd be an avid hunter if the only way I could enjoy a cheeseburger is by stalking wild cattle through the woods. I just don't get how any of this is sporting unless the deer have crossbows, too.

If you want real sportmanship in nature, forget deer and geese. If you really want to experience the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat, you need to match wits with the fiercest and most cunning creature in all of nature. I speak, of course, about the domestic housecat. You might enjoy waking up early to go hunting. I get it to do it every morning without leaving the house.

One of my elderly cats suffers from kidney problems. Twice a week, I'm supposed to sit her down, poke her with a needle, and pump her with a few hundred cc's of subcutaneous fluid that she needs to help flush her system. The internet is filled with how-to videos of patient cats happily purring away while their owners administer the life-giving fluids.

To this process, my cat says "thanks, but no thanks." That's a loose translation. She really just says "Hisssssssssssssss!"

In fact, she throws such a literal hissy fit that I can't do it at home without investing heavily in Bactine and Band-Aids. Ergo, twice a week, I have to take her to the vet, where they tell me she's a "total angel" who's a "perfect patient." They don't hear her in the car, where she spends the entire six-block trip giving me an earful of meows that range from angry to livid to, well, catty. Then I get her home, and she's instantly the affectionate purring lap cat I know.

She remains that cat for two days, and then I don't see her. As it turns out, I don't raise stupid cats. She knows that vet trips happen every three or four days, so she's lovely and underfeet for two days -- and then she hides. But only until it's night out. Once the sun sets, she comes out purring -- she knows vet trips only happen during sunlight.

Where she spends her day hours is anyone's guess. Sometimes it's under my bed where I can't reach. Sometimes it's under the basement stairs where NO ONE can reach. It's only during those few times when she comes out for food or the litterbox when I can grab her. I've tried playing with her toys, I've tried shaking the food box, I've tried luring her with tuna.

Every time I grab her, she learns more about how to evade future traps. Every week, it gets harder and harder to catch her slipping up. I never expected the most challenging aspect of my day would be matching wits with an animal who once ate an entire shoestring.

So have fun in your duck blinds and deer stands, hunters of the world. The real sport happens in my living room. I fear it's only a matter of time before I wake up tied down with rope like Gulliver until sunset. It's worth it, though. Life's a little bit better with work geese and lap cats.