I was reading Roger Ebert’s excellent piece about the sad template that Bill O’Reilly is currently etching, and it occurred to me that the problem on the 24-hour news network isn’t the creeping partisan politics masquerading as news, it’s the networks themselves.

Consider: prior to the 1980s, the national news was a half-hour long and took place once a day. Paltry? Probably. But also well researched, fact-checked, and thought-out.

Before the advent of continued news coverage, the people charged with reporting the evening news took the time to consider what was important, how to frame it so that the relevant parts were underlined, and, finally, how to present it so that everyone in America could understand it. This wasn’t because they were geniuses, it was a function of having 23 and 1/2 hours a day to work on the problem: there was time to try to get the news right.

Read the rest of this entry »

Eight years ago, my wife — girlfriend at the time — was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. It spread to her lymph nodes, and, over the course of three years, she had a round of radiation and four different surgeries to try to get rid of it.

Her last surgery was five years ago and, though you’re never 100% sure with cancer, it sure felt like things were moving in the right direction. We got married, had a kid, and bought a house. Plus, I started a successful blogging career that some months pays for almost 1/16th of our heating bill.

Right after this past Christmas, my wife went in for a routine ultrasound. What you’re always hoping for after one of those ultrasounds is for the doctor doing them to smile and say, “of course I can’t say definitively ‘no worries’, but hey, no worries!”

The doctor didn’t do that. He furrowed his brow and said “Hmmmm….”
Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re reading this post, it means one of two things:

1. You’re a huge television fan who uses the internet to augment your viewing pleasure.

2. You thought “CliqueClacking” was some sort of hardcore fetish you haven’t heard of yet.

If you’re the latter, sorry. I hope you find what you’re looking for and don’t worry, we don’t judge you.

If you’re the former, read on.

The other day, I was talking about The Office with my buddy Chris. We were discussing how the show is still pretty good, but that the patina of Awesome that used to hug the show tighter than the green on the Statue of Liberty seems to be gone now. That it’s no longer a new and exciting experience each and every week, but rather just a pleasant experience, quickly forgotten.

(Insert joke about being married here).

Read the rest of this entry »