I am alive and well. I know you were all concerned. Let's all thank Brian for forging ahead with this thing and doing his best to break the single year record for posts on this, the world's absolute best and most essential blog... IN THE WORLD!

Let me illustrate the differences between working at a soulless, faceless, cold hearted corporation and working for a small company. I see my boss every day. I feel like I'm actually working towards something. In three and a half years at Hertz I never did anything fun. Our meetings were held quickly over the phone in the back office and usually involved me getting yelled at for stuff I had little to no control over. In three weeks at Morton Publishing I have been paid attention to, went to Vail for a long weekend/sales meeting, and generally had a good time. Plus I get paid the same thing I used to and I work probably 15 hours a week less than I used to. Ah, publishing.

Also, now I live in Denver, which is good because: A) I can walk to dinner at a number of fine establishments; B) I can get to most concerts in less than 20 minutes; C) The cityscape out my window at night is awesome; D) There are people my age down here, and people of other races; E) I can walk to an awesome record store that specializes in punk and indie records; F) Other; G) All of the above. However, it's also bad because A) I don't know many people here; B) It's EXPENSIVE; C) This place has no parking, which means street parking, which means long walks sometimes and parallel parking, which has never been one of my strengths; D) The water in my apartment is sometimes disturbingly brown. But, what the hell. Might as well try city living while I'm young, single, and oh so sexy.

I am watching the news. The news is stupid. I don't want to hear about why the news isn't stupid, because it is. I'm watching a story about kids going to college. Kids going to college are stupid. I don't want to hear about why kids going to college aren't stupid, because they are. Except I have them to thank for buying our books and keeping me employed. Also, with the news, the stupid little banter they have between stories is stupid. I don't want to hear... well, you get the picture.

I hate not having a DVR. I am watching commercials again, and they suck. I hadn't watched commercials in years and it was awesome. So what I do instead now is watch way more DVDs and Netflix on demand on the Xbox. So let's talk about commercials real quick. Have you ever been influenced to buy or do something because of a commercial? Like sure, when I see a new food come out at a place that I like to eat, I want to go try it. But have you been influenced to buy Charmin because of a commercial? Have you been influenced to get new carpet because of a commercial? I think most people go to the bathroom or talk to each other or change the channel when commercials come on. So it just seems like a weird format. Nobody pays attention to them, but we have to have them because they pay for the shows that we watch. If they didn't pay for the shows, we'd have to pay way more for TV probably. I also take offense with the fact that I have to pay money to watch people try to sell me things, but whatever. This long, winding, nowhere-going argument for and against commercials has been brought to you be Pepperidge Farm's Goldfish: now with Flavor Blasted Xtra Cheddar flavor in those huge cartons that will feed you for six months.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaadios