The latest embarassing CD admission comes to us from Swing Dancin' Amy, who writes:


I guess the worst thing I've got is a Dream Theater cd (recommended to me from the $4 bin at Vintage Vinyl). The cd itself isn't 100% shameful, but the early 90s fashion statements featured on the back cover certainly are. The best is the guy with black overalls and no shirt, and poofy curly hair in his face. He sits there with one elbow on his knee, and you can just tell he is thinking "Man. Am I the sexiest person in the entire world or what?" Uh, I'm gonna have to go with "what" on that one...


Amy at least only spent $4 on her embarssing CD, which is well within the limit for "small enough amount where you can chalk it up to buying it for the sake of amusement". This is how I categorize my purchase of a movie called The Suburbans from Blockbuster's previously-viewed rack last summer. With the gift card I had I ended up getting the movie for free, which is good because it is possibly the worst use of Jennifer Love Hewitt in a movie (and that's saying a lot considering her other projects).

Sadly, I do not get to force everyone to call me "Special Agent Chris". After making it to the round of 10, I was bounced from contention for the lone FBI Honors Internship today. I also lost a game of Monopoly with my parents and maternal grandparents today, during which my dad accused us of favoring my mom in property transactions because "she's part of your family". Some days I win plane tickets and do well on exams and get really damn lucky, but my luck always runs out in the end.

The day we've been waiting for has finally arrived. Since it's past midnight here in Eastern Standard Time, that means it is officially November 29, the biggest shopping day of the year, and Buy Nothing Day.

The basic concept of Buy Nothing Day is sound: American society has way too much decadent consumption. Anyone who watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, complete with AskJeeves balloon, can verify that we are a culture based around consumer spending. We rack up credit card debt, we spend paychecks as soon as we get them, we make impulse purchases based on what ads tell us is hip and hot, it's like we're in a race to see how fast we can line the pockets of corporate America. But here's the problem: the folks "organizing" the Buy Nothing Day festivities have no concrete goals or ideals.

It's really easy to say something is bad or wrong, but it's a lot harder to come up with viable solutions. And if you're these people, it's hard to even put into words what the problem is. "Curb Overconsumption" seems to be their goal, but how? Why? They suggest on one page that one way you can take part in the festivities is to "organize a swap meet". That's a nice idea on the short-term, but what about the long term? Hmm...I need gas in my car. Let's go to the gas station. Whoops, I can't use money anymore since we're in a barter society. My pockets are empty, so the only thing I have to offer in exchange for gas is a service. There I am, working at the gas station for an hour in exchange for a tank of gas. Now think of everyone who needs gas doing the same thing. Pretty soon you've got about 50 people working at the gas station, none of whom have any training or any job to do. What an idea.

The problem with a cashless society is that money is a convenience IOU. Instead of working off our debts to the gas station, we give the attendant some green pieces of paper, but what we're really saying is "I have nothing concrete to offer you, but you can exchange this paper for a good or service at a later date when it's convenient for you. Imagine trying to pay off a car using the barter system. You'd be stuck in indentured servitude for years. Cash serves a valuable purpose. Ironically, it's hard to "Stop Shopping, Start Living", one of the BND slogans, if we're constantly trying to trade things in order to put food on the table.

The other major problem is their one structured event, a day of not purchasing anything, is pointless. I consistently, year after year, buy nothing on the day after Thanksgiving. I do this because, as a guy, I hate shopping, and I hate it even more when there are tons of people at the stores. Let's say I took it a step further and not only didn't go shopping at malls but also didn't buy groceries if I needed them or gas if I needed it. What have I accomplished? Basically I've put off buying groceries and gas until the next day. I hardly think me (or even me and millions of other people) not buying groceries on one day will bring Winn Dixie and Amoco to their knees. So where do we draw the line? We're allowed go buy essential items but not luxury items? Who decides what is a luxury and what isn't? Even if we could put companies out of business by not shopping for one day, is that really a desirable end? It's already hard enough to find a job, let's make our economy even worse! Good thinking, Buy Nothing Day.

There are a lot of useful things that could be done: educating people on how to responsibly use credit cards without piling up debt, organizing consumers into a sort of union that could help regulate shoddy products and ripoffs, teaching free classes to the public about investment and saving, the list goes on and on. These are productive things, things that are realistic and would help make our current economic system work more smoothly. Hanging up signs that say not to buy anything, dressing like sheep and harassing consumers, getting people to cut up their credit cards, these activities are not the least bit productive. I know of some other folks who thought that spending money was bad and that we should all work together harmoniously for the common good without any sort of reward: communists. And we all know how well that worked out. Here was one brilliant individual's contribution to Buy Nothing Day:


on bnd a friend and i celebrated by perfroming an improvised piece of performance art in a gas station near the residential neighborhood where we live. i chased him into the store with a long white stick and he fell to the floor near the checkout, i hit him a few times before the clerk confiscated my stick. i ran out of the store acting confused and angry. the clerk came out to have a few words with me and my friend followed, upon seeing my friend i started fuming and angrily chased after him again, thus we made our exit. then we wrote a letter from our mother to the cashier appologizing for our behaviour. we delivered this with a loaf of french bread from the pile that the Panera chain throws out every night. also, one of those big illuminated signs with the rearrangeable plastic letters that read "Boy! Have we got carpet" was rearranged to say "Boy! have we got crap" by me my troupe of sign liberators.


What the hell? Where do these people come from? Thanks to Fight Club, we now have a whole bunch of activists who want to be just like their hero, Tyler Durden, and take down the American economy for their own selfish reasons. "I don't think people should be chained to their possessions, therefore everyone else must think like me and if they don't then I'll harass them while they shop". Here's an idea: if you don't want to buy things anymore, then don't! But don't bug me at the grocery store or the gas station or even the mall. In fact, if you really don't agree with our capitalistic system, then leave! No one is stopping you from taking the first plane to Havana and basking in the warmth of communism. I hear the cigars are great...

A few more admissions for the music poll. The first is from David:


Here's my contribution to your CDs of shame thing: Home by Deep Blue Something. I had a brief, unhealthy appreciation for the song
"Breakfast at Tiffany's."

Also, because of a combination of my laziness and BMG Music Club's tendency to send you CDs you didn't want if you didn't reply to their monthly mailings, I was once the owner of Hanson's debut album. Thankfully, I've since pawned it off on a used CD store in exchange for "Paint the Sky with Stars - The Best of Enya."


I had a friend when I was growing up who bought every CD by a one-hit wonder band. He had the Tag Team album (featuring about 10 remixes of "Whoomp! There it is!") as well as the album by the band that does the Friends theme song. He also had the Deep Blue Something CD, so I've heard that whole album quite a few times unfortunately. As for your Hanson for Enya trade, the jury's still out on who got the better deal there...

And Full Professor Ron Cytron also is getting in on the act:


Let me see.... I have two Abba CDs which I bought off the net after seeing Mama Mia. I didn't like Abba's music so much when it came out, but something in the musical (that I didn't want to see) made me want to buy the original stuff to see if I missed anything in it. I didn't.

CDs overflow
from my shelf. I can't find what
I want anymore.


Yes Ron, collecting many performances of the same song is just plain weird...says Chris, who has probably around 200 lCounty, Georgia:


i have (or had, i dont know if it's still around) Meatloaf's "Bat Out of Hell II"...


Ouch! "I would do anything for love...but I won't....doooooo.....thaaaaaaaat". Downright scary. But not as scary as the following admission from Christie:


I tried my best to make this into haiku, but I'm about to admit that I own a Backstreet Boys cd and haiku didn't leave me sufficient room to explain myself. Clearly I didn't buy the cd because the BSB are big tools and whatnot, but my friend Tiffany thought it would be really funny to buy the cd for my birthday. So technically "I want it that way" may have been one of my guilty pleasures, but I would never buy it. Seriously. That doesn't explain why I still own it, unfortunately....


I will pick up the slack and haiku for her:

"I want it that way",
Gift from a friend? Don't believe
her for a minute.

Keep them coming folks. And Happy Thanksgiving and such to all you readers in the U.S. of A.

I almost forgot to do my NFL picks early this week because of the holiday games. I was a less-than-stellar 6-10 last week to move to 102-75. Lucas seemed to go 6-10 also, but that Houston game seems a little suspicious. His writeup seemed to imply that he would be picking the Giants, and I seem to remember him picking the Giants. I'll let it slide though, since Lucas won't be making his picks for tomorrow on time so I'll most likely pick up 2 games right there. Lucas is at 114-63 overall.

NE at DET: DET. I'm very worried about this game. I'm making this pick so that if the Pats lose it will assuage my depression at the fact they lost to the Lions, but if they win I won't be as disappointed about missing the pick.

WAS at DAL: DAL. They always beat Washington, they usually play well on Thanksgiving, they're playing at home, Danny Wuerffel is starting for the 'Skins.

PIT at JAX: PIT. Fred Taylor is still healthy! But the Jag-wires aren't very good anyway.

MIA at BUF: BUF. The official date of this game is December 1st, and as the newspapers down here like to point out, the Dolphins don't win cold weather games, nor do they win in December.

BAL at CIN: BAL. And as everyone knows, the Bengals don't win period.

CAR at CLE: CLE. Carolina may not win any more games this year. Oh well.

CHI at GB: GB. They may be struggling and injured, but it's the Bears.

AZ at KC: KC. Neither team has what could be reasonably construed as defense, so this one might be a shootout.

ATL at MIN: ATL. Randy Moss sure looks like an idiot about that whole "Randy Ratio" thing doesn't he? Maybe if he got the ball less the team would do better.

TEN at NYG: NYG. At home, coming off a loss to an expansion team, against an overrated team. It's just a hunch.

HOU at IND: IND. Back to being an expansion team for the Texans.

DEN at SD: DEN. Both of these teams have looked like crap lately, but I still don't think the Bolts are the real deal.

SEA at SF: SF. I must say, though, Matt Hasselbeck looked good last week. Let's see how he does against a real defense.

STL at PHI: STL. Have I gone insane? I think so!

TB at NO: TB. Although I'm tempted to pick the Saints, I really am.

NYJ at OAK: OAK. Normally the Raiders' late-season swoon begins about now, but after that 4 game losing streak earlier I just don't know what to make of them this year.

I'm ashamed of you people. So far I've received exactly one response to my embarassing CD poll. The rest of you are either too lazy to email me, too embarassed of your poor musical taste, or under the mistaken assumption that you only listen to good music. The first is deplorable, if you're concerned about the second I'll leave your name off when I post it, and the third is just plain wrong. One of my readers listens to the Backstreet Boys, but to find out who it is you have to give me enough submissions to warrant posting about it!

Not many of you have young children at home, but as more and more of my friends get engaged this post will become more relevant. Toysafety.net has released their latest list of unsafe toys just in time for Christmas shopping season.

In particular I was astounded by the toys with hazardous noise levels (at the bottom of the page). The Growing Smart Lap Top Computer may look friendly and innocuous, but its 100-decibel sound level can cause hearing loss in 1-2 hours. This will never occur, though, because the average child's attention span for any particular toy is approximately 10 seconds. Woe is the child who unwraps a brand new "Typhoon Fazer and Saber" this Christmas, Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa, though. Playing with it for 2 minutes can supposedly cause hearing loss. And I feel even worse for the parents, as the decibel level is comparable with that of a power mower or snowblower.

Interestingly enough, however, is the fact that the sound of a baby crying is about 110 decibels, which is louder than either of the toys. Therefore the most dangerous playthings for small children are their own voice boxes, which should be recalled immediately.

In less than two days I will be nervously boarding an aeroplane and jetting off for sunny south Florida. I've posted previously about my love/hate relationship with flying (love being the emotion I feel upon exiting the aircraft, hate being every other second of the trip), but I'm willing to endure a few hours of personal torture in order to once again experience my grandmother's meatballs and cookies.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the year, because it usually arrives right when my stress level is about to reach its breaking point. 3 months of classes, homework, exams, and projects with only one or two measly days off takes its toll, and four or five days to recharge my batteries is usually just what the doctor ordered.

As an added bonus I get to eat my fill of turkey, pasta (my family is Italian, we eat pasta at every meal, traditions be damned!), and of course cookies and enjoy my other favorite holiday pastime: watching football. This year instead of having to endure boring games that I don't care about, I get to yell at the TV and coach my beloved Patriots from the sofa while I'm stuffing myself. Plus it's a giftless holiday that doesn't require stressful planning and purchasing (except for the rest of my family, who actually has to cook the meal). What more could this kid ask for?

Congratulations to Dr. Ron Cytron for being voted one of 5 most awesomest favoritest full professors in the Engineering school. I get to experience his awesomeness daily, but for those of you who don't, the chocolate is delicious :-)

I was a scintillating 11-5 last week in NFL picks, and am 96-65 on the season. Lucas one-upped me again by going 12-4, and stands overall at 108-53. I woke up early this morning to get my oil changed and run some errands, so I'm sleepy right now. This combined with Lucas' good luck with comment-less predictions leads me to try the same tactic this week:

SD at MIA: SD.
MIN at NE: NE.
CLE at NO: NO.
BUF at NYJ: BUF.
DET at CHI: CHI.
JAX at DAL: JAX.
CIN at PIT: PIT.
STL at WAS: STL.
ATL at CAR: ATL.
TEN at BAL: BAL.
KC at SEA: KC.
OAK at AZ: OAK.
GB at TB: GB.
NYG at HOU: NYG.
IND at DEN: DEN.
PHI at SF: SF.

I realize that I still owe everyone a post about Buy Nothing Day. I've been really busy doing a lot of homework and consumer spending lately, so I've had to put it off. I might put it up early this week or perhaps wait until the big day itself on Friday.

And finally, I've been told by some that my website needs to be more "interactivey". A few months ago I posted about some of the embarassing CDs that I own, with Bon Jovi, Bryan Adams, and the Presidents of the USA leading the list. I want to hear about everybody else's most embarassing CD in their collection and how they came to obtain it. Bonus points will be awarded if you make your submission in haiku form. Since I still don't have comments, you can send your submissions right to me by firing off an email or, if the Official Router of Apartment Twelve is working, an AOL instant message to crhill1979. If I get a good response from this I might make it a weekly (or semi-regular at least) thing, so fire up your keyboards and dig through your closets. I'll post the responses I get as I receive them, so the more you talk the more I update the site. Everyone's a winner!

Overhead during a conversation about how to most effectively clone myself so that I gain power and prestige in the DOC research group even after I graduate while ensuring that the clone is genetically inferior so it doesn't rise up and kill me:

Chris: I could genetically combine myself with monkey DNA, monkeys are funny.
Lucas: You plus a monkey would be an unholy supercreature.

Am I the only one who finds it mildly disturbing that every time one of the investigators on one of those hourlong TV dramas like CSI, Law & Order, or Third Watch encounters a crime scene they have to make a clever quip?

Investigator One: "This particular individual was found lynched and then gutted."
Main Character Investigator: "Well there's no sense 'hanging around'. Let's get him back to the lab."

Investigator: "Little Johnny here played guitar for a local death metal band. We found him on the tour bus with 8 grams of crack, a sawed-off shotgun, and his guitar."
Main Character Investigator: "That's what happens when Johnny doesn't 'B Goode'."

Investigator: "This woman was a magician's assistant who was apparently killed during a sword-swallowing trick."
Main Character Investigator: "I guess for his last trick of the night he made her life disappear."

Somehow, as sarcastic as I am, I can't imagine encountering a gruesome crime scene and engaging my partner in some good natured ribbing. But I guess when you can always find the culprit in less than 60 minutes minus a few commercial breaks, you can get away with a little more.

Today I interviewed with the FBI for an internship there next summer. I was one of 10 people in St. Louis chosen to interview, and I'll find out next Monday if I'm one of the 5 chosen to go on to the next round. Of those 5, DC will decide on one to offer an internship to, so I have a 10% chance of getting it. Perhaps my years of being a straightedge CS tool will finally pay off. Then my name can be "Special Agent Chris" (and yes, I would make all of you call me that, even in conversation). The internship sounds really sweet, but I don't know how the interview itself went. I always say things that pop into my head at the time but may not be the best politically correct interview things to say. I do know that of all the jobs that I've applied for, this is the first one where I've really thought it was something that would be a good fit for me, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Getting to the interview was an adventure in itself. I had the address, but the building itself was unmarked and had no number on it, apparently in an effort to combat terrorism. Then I had to pass through a variety of security measures, and part of the interview itself was to get fingerprinted. The FBI must have a big problem with criminals applying for jobs, although I'm not sure exactly how they would think that would be a good idea.

Special Agent: "Whoah, it says here that this internship applicant is wanted in seven states. And thanks to this giant packet we made him fill out, now we know exactly where he lives and everyone he has lived with in the last 5 years."

If only our nation's criminals were stupid enough to apply for defense jobs, the streets of St. Louis would be a lot safer. It was quite refreshing for a change to be interviewed by "Special Agent So-and-So" rather than "Personnel Director So-and-So". Although they asked a lot of typical interview questions, they seemed more like genuine people with interesting careers rather than corporate automatons brainwashed with company doctrine.

Festival congratulations must be extended to michael, whose research has now been reported on news sources for the nerdy (Slashdot) and the rest of the world (CNN). It's not often that something that we CS majors work on is deemed important or interesting enough for both parties. In honor of this momentous achievement, I present the following haikus:

It "makes little noise"?
Hardly, says anyone who
works on Jolley 5.

It's hard to ignore
a big red trash can, unless
wedding guests are drunk.

After quotes from Bill,
section two, paragraph five:
Students wrote the code.

They wrote the programs
but not as photogenic
as the big red can?

I've written some code for the big guy, so I can personally vouch for the difficulty of michael's research. Movement code for Lewis has to interpret data from many different sensors simultaneously just to avoid ramming into guests, and this doesn't even take into account the face-finding algorithms required for the photography aspects.

Alas, celebrity is shortlived, as the public's attention has quickly turned from legitimate research to the news that Michael Jackson dangled a baby out a 4-story window.

Tonight the Macaroni Grill became the epicenter of a massive flux of webloggers, as David mentioned. Surprisingly, the structure was able to hold the pure concentration of opinionation that descended upon it, perhaps because we were so content after being pacified with dessert thanks to a generous offer from Ron. Hopefully someday we will be able to adequately pay him back for all of his kindness, and a good start would be if my research that was running this weekend while I was slacking off comes through.

The other noteworthy event of the evening was that I got to meet Christie, who as I've previously mentioned occasionally makes less-than-flattering references in her posts to some other, non-Festival, Chris which often make me do a double-take. I think that she should follow my lead in the handling of the dual-Amy situation and refer to him from now on as "Evil Ex-Boyfriend Chris".

This makes two people now (Rachel being the first) whose innermost thoughts I've read before actually meeting them in person. It's interesting to think about how first impressions differ so much but are still a factor. In real life, first impressions are based almost totally on appearance, but in the wacky world of weblogs it is completely the opposite since all you can see are a person's thoughts (well, and my 7 AM blurry photo on the about page).

It's that time of week once again, time to make my futile attemp to guess the outcome of NFL football games. Last week I reverted to old form and went 8-5 (with one tie!) and moved to 85-60. Lucas expertly went 10-3 and zips upwards to 96-49. Here are this week's picks with appropriate acronyms instead of comments:

PIT at TEN: PIT. Pissed In Tennessee (after last week's blown lead and subsequent tie).

DAL at IND: IND. Dallas Always Loses.

BUF at KC: KC. Bledsoe's Usual Fade.

BAL at MIA: BAL. Missing Is Aikman (the 'Fins called the washed-up QB to try and lure him back on the field, but he declined, so Miami is stuck with Ray Lucas who is every bit as bad as advertised).

GB at MIN: GB. Moss Is Nuts.

WAS at NYG: NYG. Next Year, Giants.

AZ at PHI: PHI. Playoff chase Halted by Indy.

NO at ATL: NO. Another Tough Loss.

CLE at CIN: CLE. Close Losses End here.

CAR at TB: TB. Totally Boring.

SF at SD: SF. Standard Decline.

DEN at SEA: DEN. Drop Every Night game

JAX at HOU: JAX. Just Along for the eXperience (since their season is pretty much over).

NYJ at DET: NYJ. Don't Ever score Touchdowns.

NE at OAK: OAK. Outraged Against tucK rule.

CHI at STL: STL. Chandler's Home: IR (injured reserve).

In the very near future I will be posting my take on Buy Nothing Day, a consumer prudence event that is scheduled for November 29. Right now I am very tired, as I spent much of this morning getting rended by a cs441 exam, but I thought I'd post a link so that you could read ahead and get the facts before I sound off with my own opinions. So go to Adbuster.org to read about it and make sure you check out the links on the left as well. For those gambling types out there (preferably those losing money on my NFL picks), you might want to make a friendly wager on what my stance will be on the issue. But for legal purposes, don't tell me about it!

Yesterday as I was riding home from class, Lucas and I heard a new hip-hop gem on the radio. It's Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliot's new song Work It, and the lyrics are absolutely outrageous (and not appropriate for the young 'uns out there).

Along with the usual assortment of bad grammar and made-up noises, Missy plays lines of the song backwards and the part that says "[elephant]" is actually the sound of an elephant trumpeting .

I got one of the best spam e-mails I've ever received in the mail the other day:


U N I V E R S I T Y D I P L O M A ' S

CALL NOW to receive your diploma within days!!!


I wonder what doctorate I could get based on my "life experiences"?

Snooty scientist: "Dr. Hill, I graduated first in my class at Harvard with a PhD in astrophysics, what about you?"
Me: "Well, I have a PhD in 'going to punk concerts' from an unnamed, confidential, unaccredited university."

Somehow I really don't see this as being my ticket to admiration by all, unless by "all" you mean "people who can't read".

After a few modifications, my massive permutation generator is churning away here at work (and hopefully not running out of memory this time), so I thought I'd grab the opportunity for a quick post.

Recently some members of the community have been besieged with hate mail regarding recent (or not-so-recent) posts. Somehow, I've never been on the bad end of an attack about anything I've said, even with my frequent inflammatory statements. The closest I ever came was when Swing Dancin' Amy misunderstood the wording of one of my posts and kindly inquired as to whether I had mental problems.

But I've never received any spiteful e-mails, which isn't necessarily a good thing. The goal of any columnist is to present their viewpoint in a way that sparks their audience to think about an issue and formulate their own opinions on it. When someone fires off an incisive missive, it shows that they not only feel strongly enough about the opinion presented to take the time to write about it, but also that they've read over your column or post and thought about the issue hard enough to formulate a cohesive argument.

The worst thing a journalist can do is to report only "safe" opinions that don't spark any sort of controversy or debate, because a boring journalist is an unemployed journalist. So Rachel, while you're certainly entitled to be upset at the response you got, keep in mind that it just reaffirms your journalistic abilities, which is the path you intend to take anyway (unless you go into copy-editing, in which case rather than reading this post for content you've noticed that I not only started a sentence with the word "But", but that I commit the cardinal sin of the comma splice on average of about one every three sentences).

As I mentioned in my NFL picks, yesterday I took the Festival on the road to Champaign, Illinois to see my Patriots face the slumping Chicago Bears and the University of Illinois, where the Bears play while their new stadium gets built in Chi-town.

The first thing I have to say is that, as I expected, those Coors Light commercials are pretty far from the truth in their depiction of the average football fan. Most football fans are not in any kind of physical shape (except maybe "round"), nor are they ever playing two-hand-touch with supermodels wearing officially-licensed NFL jerseys. They don't all drink Coors Light, either. In fact, most of them will drink anything and everything they can get their hands on, so much so that by the time the game starts they don't even remember what teams are playing.

I've got to give props to the Bears fans, though. We were definitely in hostile territory and stuck out immensely with our Pats gear in a sea of orange and blue, but rather than throw batteries at us, slash our tires, or wear t-shirts about how much our team sucks, Bears fans instead invited us over for some tailgate barbecue and taunted us good-naturedly during the game.

Then the fourth quarter came around and with it the Bears' horrendous collapse. Thanks to the most conservative play-calling ever by Bears coach Dick Jauron and a number of controversial calls that were decided by instant replay, the Patriots stormed back from a 21-point deficit to win. The fans were pissed -- chanting "bull-shit", getting in fights, and throwing footballs and other projectiles towards the field -- but we safely got out of the stadium injury-free. All in all it was one of the most exciting football games I've ever seen, and I was lucky enough to be there in person. It made the 3-hour-each-way drive through the middle of nowhere, Illinois worth every minute.

After my first victory last week I stand at 77-55 while Lucas is still 9 games ahead at 86-46, so now it's time to make a valiant attemp to pull ever closer.

DET at GB: GB. The Lions don't win on the road, and Lambeau Field is more than just a road game, it's a full-blown nightmare for Joey Harrington.

HOU at TEN: TEN. The Titans are tied for first, despite being absolutely awful. If they played in the NCAA, they wouldn't even be ranked in the top 25 thanks to their horrid strength-of-schedule.

SD at STL: STL. St. Louis plays a tough defense for the first time in a few weeks, but they're on the turf and the Chargers have been slipping lately. Marshall Faulk is once again the best running back in the NFC, but is it too late?

NYG at MIN: NYG. The Vikings are to passing defense what the Seahawks are to rush defense: they make the opposing team look so much better than they really are.

IND at PHI: PHI. The Eagles haven't impressed me lately, but the Colts are starting some guy named James Mungro at running back since Ricky Williams The Crappier injured himself during warmups last week.

ATL at PIT: PIT. Michael Vick! Michael Vick Michael Vick! Now that that's out of the way, the Steelers have the better complete team right now, although this will be a hell of a game.

NO at CAR: NO. Rodney Peete is back, which means that Chris Weinke goes back to the bench where he belongs. This may be a trap game, though, as the Saints are coming off a bye week and could be rusty against a subpar opponent.

CIN at BAL: CIN. That's right, I'm picking the turbocharged Bengals to win their second straight. Baltimore is without a number of key players on defense and John Kitna is on a roll (I never thought I'd say that in my life).

WAS at JAX: WAS. The Jaguars are sucking it up and pointing fingers, while the 'Skins are attempting to crawl back into the playoff race despite no good players at any of the skill positions.

SEA at AZ: AZ. Please Mike Holmgren, bring in Jeff George. Thomas Jones gets to look like a quality running back again, if only for one game.

KC at SF: SF. KC should put up a fight, but which Chiefs defense will show up? The one that held the Raiders to 10 points 2 weeks ago, or the one that was absolutely horrible the rest of the year.

NE at CHI: NE. I'll be at this game tomorrow, and we all know the Pats won't let me down.

MIA at NYJ: NYJ. As funny as it is to watch Ray Lucas play for the Dolphins, it's also a little sad because I remember him beating the Patriots as a Jet one game. Sad.

OAK at DEN: DEN. Denver just doesn't lose to the Raiders at home, and Oakland began their end-of-season-swoon quite early this year.

Could it be that my luck is finally changing? Tonight I went to an Ataris and Sugarcult concert that was excellent. Tomorrow night I might be seeing Wilco. Sunday I am definitely seeing my first NFL game as my Patriots are taking on the hated Chicago Bears in Champaign, IL. And to top it all off...

The other day Ben convinced me to reluctantly fork over $5 for a raffle ticket to support the crew team, then taunted me about how I was not going to win the raffle. He was right of course, in that I never win anything. I've previously explained how "gambling" is a misnomer where I'm involved since it's not a gamble if you know that I have no chance of winning, and raffles are just another form of gambling. However, for once I get to say, "Screw you Ben Brodie, I won your damn raffle!" But even more rewarding than taunting Ben is the prize: 2 plane tickets to anywhere in the continental US that I believe it's Southwest Airlines flies. I pick them up on Monday, then have to make the big decision: where to go, and the even bigger decision: who to take with me. It's the ultimate date, a trip anywhere in the country, and since I am currently unattached I can take anyone I want. Here I come New York, or Boston, or Southern California, or ... Idaho?

Well the election results are in, and it looks like we're in for another 6 weeks of winter. Wait, that's Groundhog Day, but regardless it looks like a bleak day for those in favor of balance since now Dubya is free to push through whatever wacky legislation he wants. The most disturbing thing about this election, though, was not then change in power but rather the continuation of a trend.

As those of you who know me in "real life" most likely know, I grew up just north of Atlanta, Georgia, in an area that is stereotyped by most as backwoods redneck hickville. Every few years, the people of Georgia lend credence to this stereotype by electing people into office with the most hayseed names possible. In the time I lived there, I distinctly remember Zell, Newt, Wyche, and Maynard all holding office at the same time. Sadly, Georgians continued the trend this year by electing Sonny, Saxby, and Sanford. I don't know anything about these guys' political credentials, but is it completely impossible for Georgia politicos to at least pretend to not be a bunch of good ol' boys? The Civil War is over dammit, despite your bumper stickers.

aign will be all about.

-First of all, no business suits. Ever. For my public appearances I'll be dressed as I normally am: in wrinkled t-shirts purchased at ska/punk concerts and tattered jeans or cargo pants.

-Secondly, monkeys, lots of monkeys. People like monkeys, so there will be a lower bound of 5 simians at each one of my campaign events. As well as entertaining the crowd, these friendly primates will provide cheap campaign labor by passing out buttons and holding up giant signs with my name on them.

-As for my name, I will of course have to change it. No one would elect someone named "Chris Hill", so I will have it legally changed to "Franklin Delano Kennedy Rockefeller". It is a known fact that people are more likely to elect a name they recognize (in Indiana, for example, they elected a representative named "Chocola" who is of course named after our favorite childhood cerealmonger Count Chocula), and I think people will be encouraged by the knowledge that I grew up in the Kennedy political environment with Rockefeller money.

-You know those boring expensive dinners where the candidates charge $3000 a plate to sit around and listen to boring people talk about boring stuff? Not in my campaign. Instead, fundraisers will be neighborhood basketball tournaments, elephant rides, and Less than Jake concerts.

-All speeches and campaign ads will be made in haiku form. What better way to eloquently deliver a platform than through the ancient Japanese art of bad poetry? For example:

      Abortion, quite the
      controversy.  Won't touch it
      with a ten foot pole.

      This speech was written
      by monkeys, but makes more sense
      than what Dubya says.

      Big Tobacco paid
      for this ad; joke's on them when
      I ban cigarettes.

      My opponent wants
      to slaughter your children and
      raise taxes tenfold.

-Finally, in order to entice the all-important "teen" demographic (who will be allowed to vote once I'm through with legislation), I will feature extreme sports prominently in every aspect of my campaign. A vote for me is a vote for Base Jumping, Vans Skate Shoes, and Vin Diesel movies. I will affirm this position by getting fake temporary tattoos and clip-on body piercings and making my campaign slogan "He was a sk8r boi, she said 'see you later boy'".

Kennedy Rockefeller 2004. Jump on the bandwagon before it drag races by you.

I'd just like to take a moment to congratulate myself on my first victory of the season in NFL picks. It may have taken until Week 9 and involved a lot of different failed strategies, but finally, possibly aided by Lucas' Martzesque arrogance at his own gigantic lead, I pulled out the victory. I went a scintillating 11-3 to improve my record to 77-55, while Lucas took a few risks and got burned 5-9 and dropped to 86-46 on the season. What was a 15-game lead has suddenly become 9. At this rate I will overtake him in just 2 short weeks.

So tonight I got to represent the St. Louis television-viewing public and sound off about two pilot episodes and a bunch of commercials. It was a good thing I was there, because if I wasn't then St. Louis would have been represented by people over the age of 70. David, michael, and I were obviously not the target demographic there, but aren't we between the ages of 18 and 35? Aren't we the big earners and, most importantly, the big spenders? Don't we control what is on the airwaves?

The first show was a shoddily-cut pilot starring some actress from 3rd Watch as a hypnotherapist who meets a man she thinks she knew in a past life. Also rounding out the all-star cast was a woman who wore men's briefs (and nothing else save a button-down shirt), the past-life guy and his team of nameless, racially diverse cohorts whose names or occupations we never learned, another past-life guy (she apparently got around a lot more in her past life), and another psychiatrist woman who just kind of appears without any sort of explanation. Unfortunately, it seemed they tried to cut an hour-long pilot into a half-hour show, so we were forced to watch a breakneck plot that made no sense being executed by characters we knew nothing about. And to top it all off, the show was called "Soulmates". Whatever TV execs came up with this idea must've been smoking something fierce. At one point the woman flew to Hawaii for no apparent reason. It would seem that hypnotherapists not only rake in the money but also have flexible schedules that can be dropped at a moment's notice. What a career. The audience didn't seem impressed by it except for the annoying old ladies who sat in front of us. They seemed to like it because of the flashback World War II "past life" scenes and not because of any merits of the show itself.

The second show was a sitcom pilot that was filmed back in the 80's. Apparently there is some sort of public clamor for one of the actresses from the Mary Tyler Moore Show to have her own show, and this was a pilot she had done awhile ago that would let us see if she was really prime-time sitcom material. The show itself eventually became Spin City (after a few alterations), so it was actually pretty funny. The actress we were supposed to be judging, however, was absolutely awful in what became the Michael J. Fox role (after a bit of tweaking). She also had an equally-unfunny daughter, and both were fortunately upstaged most of the time by the rest of the cast. Whatever public clamor there is over this woman will soon die down if she actually gets her own show.

In between shows we had a wacky emcee doing drawings for prizes. The drawing cleverly required that we circle our "favorite products" from a list that would be included in our prize package if we won. They did this before and after we saw advertisements related to these products. Those clever bastards. I, however, made most of my choices based on which package contained more product (would I want to win 4 rolls of toilet paper or 6? Hmmm....) or, for products such as wrinkle cream and hair barrettes that I only use when no one else is around, I chose the one in the flashier packaging (there were pictures of the products on the questionnaire). Some of the pages even allowed us to choose prescription medications that are supposedly only obtained with a doctor's permission, and one page let us choose either our favorite brand of nicotine patch or (my personal choice) hypnosis to stop smoking. I chose this in the hopes that, if I were chosen as the winner, I could convince the hypnotist to bring forth some rememberance of a past life so I could go to Hawaii and have all sorts of wacky, shoddily-cut adventures with characters that seemed to appear in and out of my life.

I hope that I've performed my duty as a representative to all Festival readers. My opinions on allergy medication, dishwasher detergent, and situational comedies may not match exactly with your own, but chances are they were closer than Oldie McGee's sitting in front of us.

The people who live on my floor are rather weird and usually annoying. Last night I come back at about 1 AM to find them having some sort of costume-type party complete with unsafe propped-open door, reeking beer smell in the hall, and loud bassy music shaking the walls. This happens every once in awhile (minus the costumes), and is no big deal since my bedroom is well insulated from the noise. Then this afternoon, on my way to campus to beat my head against a wall working on my Databases group project, I find them standing around on the fire escape smoking and drinking beer (at 12:45 in the afternoon). The drunkest, most obese of them stops me as I'm walking by with a [southern drawl] "What up Dog?" [/southern drawl], as he always does whenever he sees me, then informs me that I "missed the party last night", to which I wanted to respond "well I didn't actually miss it per se...", but I restrained myself out of politeness. Instead I told him I was elsewhere, which I was since when I left at 7:30 there was no party and when I got back at 1 AM it was already winding down, but he apparently didn't believe that I could've had anything better to do than to get drunk with him and his friends from UMSL and proceeded to berate me as I was walking to my car. When I got back at 3:30 they were all still there standing around and drinking. What a life.

Am I the only person in the world who is not the least bit entertained by parties? I don't like the music they play, I don't like being around drunk people, I can't stand the smell of beer or cigarette smoke, and I just can't understand what people get so excited about. It's like "hmm, if I drink enough then I won't realize that I'm not actually doing anything fun." I often hear about how you can go to "meet people", but I'm not really that interested in meeting people who are currently intoxicated. It makes meeting girls that much harder, but at least the ones I do meet aren't blowing smoke in my face or having trouble standing up.

You all know the drill, I'm 66-52 while Lucas is 81-37. It will take some sort of miracle for me to overtake him this season, perhaps I should take a dive so I get a good draft pick next year. Anyway, here are my picks this week:

BAL at ATL: ATL. Like Michael Vick, the Ravens' winning streak has disappeared in a cloud of dust. From Super Bowl champions to starting Jeff Blake at QB in a span of 2 years, what a sad story.

NE at BUF: NE. The Patriots were flying through their games earlier this season, racking up points and playing stingy defense. A few games later, Bill "Defensive Guru" Belichick decided to completely stop running the ball, and voila! There went the Patriots offense. And his defense has been nothing short of horrible. But now they get to tee off against the statuesque Bledsoe. If Ty Law and...I can't believe I'm saying this...30-some-odd-year-old Otis Smith can cover Moulds and Price for a few seconds, the Pats should be able to blitz Bledsoe back to last season.

PHI at CHI: PHI. I don't think the Bears could score on anybody right now. Anthony Thomas looks like the below-average back that he is, teams are starting to realize that Marty Booker is the only decent receiver they have, and the Crystal Chandelier himself Chris Chandler is starting at quarterback. And I get to see them play next week against the Patriots.

PIT at CLE: PIT. Just when you think the Browns are done, they go and rally from an 18-point deficit like they did last week. Unfortunately, the Steelers ain't the Jets.

DAL at DET: DET. It would take a lot for me to pick Dallas to win another football game this season. I know the Lions are bad, but now that Emmitt has his record there is absolutely nothing for the Cowboys to play for anymore.

TEN at IND: TEN. Want to know how silly the whole 8-division thing is? If the Titans win this game (which they will), they will be tied for their division lead. At 4-4. After almost losing to the Bengals. Too bad I can't move Lucas into another division so that my crappy record could put me in first place.

MIN at TB: MIN. It's bound to happen one of these days. The Bucs can't keep winning without any sort of offense. I know Daunte throws a lot of picks, I know that Moss may or may not be incarcerated for this game, I know that Michael Bennett is...Michael Bennett, but I just have a feeling. Call it my upset special.

CIN at HOU: CIN. Holy Moses, the world has ceased spinning on its axis! I've picked the Bengals to win an NFL football game! I say this because this is their best chance all season to win a game, and only one team in history has gone 0-16. So I'm playing the odds.

NYJ at SD: SD. Once again, the Jets have become the joke of the NFL. All is right in the world again.

WAS at SEA: WAS. Finally, a team took my advice and signed Jeff George. Mark my words, he'll be starting in 2 weeks. In Steve Spurrier news, he apparently decided he did not have enough former University of Florida players on his team, so he signed Falcons castoff Willie Jackson. And congratulations Chris Doering for your first (and only) career touchdown catch last week!

STL at AZ: STL. There's no need for me to justify why the Cardinals will lose anymore. Unfortunately I have to start Jake Plummer on my fantasy team this week. Yikes.

SF at OAK: SF. The Raiders were flying through their games earlier this season, racking up points and playing stingy defense. A few injuries later, "Wild Bill" Callahan decided to completely stop running the ball, and voila! There went the Raiders offense. Sounds very familiar...

JAX at NYG: JAX. I don't think the Giants could beat anybody right now. You thought their offense was struggling before? Now Ike Hilliard is out for the season.

MIA at GB: GB. Ray Lucas is still running the Miami offense. Granted he's had 2 weeks of practice to prepare for the Packers depleted secondary thank to a bye last week, but still...it's Ray Lucas.