A few years ago we started to aggregate a list of all the free (or almost so) festivals and events within a driving distance of our home base here in Ann Arbor. Well austerity being what it is, 'Free' ain't what it used to be, but it's still out there, and there's always plenty of 'suggested donation' good times and who's going to complain about a mere $10 for a lawn seat to one of the great rockers of the 1980s? That's right nobody. With that in mind, here's your 2012 Guide to Summer:

Edward G. Money
May 25
Summer begins in earnest with the man who brought you such gems as "Take Me Home Tonight" "Shakin'" Two Tickets to Paradise" "Baby Hold on to Me" "Everybody Rock and Roll the Place" and many, many more (OK not that many).

Do-Division Street Fest
June 1-3
One of many Chicago neighborhood festivals, a five buck donation gets you a solo Craig Finn of the Hold Steady, so we'll be there.

Sonic Lunch
June 7 - Aug 30
A2's FREE downtown lunchtime concert series. I've actually never made it down to this, but every year there's a few bands I mean to check out, so it's worth perusing.

A2 Restaurant Week
June 10-15
This seems weirdly timed, but the BDGF points out that the last week of school means parents don't want to cook, which I get. Cross your fingers, one of these times we will actually get a a reservation at Logan.

Top of the Park
June 15 - July 8
The A2 staple. A $3 lightly suggested donation means you can bring in your own cooler that no one will ever question the contents of. I do love this town.

Taste of Randolph Street
June 15-17
Another Chicago neighborhood fest combing food, music and shopping. The artist lineup isn't completely announced, but look for Chicago fave Ezra Furman to be there.

Green Music Fest
June 23-24
Another Chicago neighborhood fest? Yes. But hey, Ravonettes, Dinosaur Jr., $5 donation? You could do worse...

Fourth of July
Duh
Here's a listing of all the fireworks displays in Michigan on and around our nation's birthday.

Common Ground Fest
July 9-15
Like aging artists that were popular 20 years ago in genres that only exist in parody anymore? Common Ground is for you. And Lansing, because of course it's in Lansing.

Elvis Fest
July 13-14
One day I will be forced to go this just so I can say I went. But I will kick that ball down the road as long as possible...

Pitchfork
July 13-15
...especially when it coincides with Chicago's best bargain basement indie rock festival. Check Saturday's lineup out - we'll be there.

Art Fair
July 18-21
Where the temps will soar into the high 90's and at least one storm will rip through Ann Arbor causing mass hysteria. Also a good week to leave town.

Beer Fest
July 27-28
The best thing to ever happen to Ypsilanti and my favorite non-Michigan football Saturday of the year.

Lolla
Aug 3-5
Not a great lineup this year, plus I am clearly going to be in Chicago a lot already seeing cheaper, less crowded acts.

Dream Cruise
Aug 18
FOR AVOIDANCE PURPOSES ONLY

Arts, Beats & Eats
Labor Day Weekend
Nobody knows what this lineup will entail, but don't forget to check back in August - last year they had George Clinton!

- I don't know what makes Minnesota so perfectly liberal, but it tends to be a bastion of the progressive movement - the one guaranteed blue state not touching a coast nor containing Chicago. As such we salute Gov. Mark Dayton, he of the land of 10,000 lakes, for vetoing back to back "abortion" bills. That's the definition of backbone.

- The U.S. tax code is in-fucking-sane. It has been corrupted to tilt the wealth of this country into the pockets of those that already have it, and those people still spend the majority of their time shouting at the rain about the 'death tax' and paying a lower marginal rate than they have in 80 years. All this and almost all of the Republicans in Congress have sided with one of the world's truly great idiots - Grover Norquist - to pledge that any tax increases must be revenue neutral. Yes, even though it belies an eighth grader's understanding of economics. Almost all Republicans except Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE). Read his answer to the second question, he gets it.

- You may have heard that the Commonwealth of Virginia threw out the appointment of a very qualified judge because he is a gay. But you may not have heard they did it after being admonished by their conservative governor for using something other than merit to appoint any nominee. You know, like logic would dictate.

- Obama's failed energy policy has us on track to potentially be energy independent by 2020. For those who don't want to read the article - spoiler alert - it doesn't mention bombing Iran back to the stone age and picking fights with Russia, which as I understand it are the cornerstones of the Mittens Romney camp's foreign policy.

- I've always been enamored with David Letterman. As a kid, staying up to see him was about the most magical thing available to me during the mid to late 1980s. And I don't know if this is actual courage, but for a guy I admire, who's not known for being overly political, I love to hear him say "What more do we want this man to do for us, honest to god?" when talking about the president.

- Finally, the BDGF and I were talking last night about Mittens' days as a high school bully and how relevant it was to his modern day character and on what level should his opposition weave it into the narrative of who he is. The BDGF thinks it's not only completely fair but compelling to a large portion of the electorate who are parents and see bullying as a problem. I stupidly take the moral high ground, arguing that I'd rather be right and lose than wrong and win (I'd be a terrible politician). I not only don't think it's overly relevant, but smells of swiftboating to me. At the end of the day, I don't want to be like this person, who essentially is saying "Thanks for calling Obama the gay president, because a lot of my base are homophobes!" What a terrible, bigoted, who-do-you-sleep-at-night thing to say. Again, I'd be the worst politician ever because I would actively tell those people not to vote for me.

Americans love their porno. They like super softcore love scenes that you can show on basic cable after 10pm, and they like at least a little bit of raunch too - the kind you search the internet for and immediately gets escalated beyond belief, to the point where you find yourself wondering "Who gets turned on by this shit?" But I assure you people do. Most of us may not stray into the avenues of true hard core, but everybody wants to see naked people, and from time to time we want them to touch each other.

Which is why I wonder why politicians like Mittens Romney and religion in general bother going after porn. Now were they to strictly concentrate on combating the exploitive parts of the industry, or to keep 10 year olds from seeing someone pee on someone else, well that's all well and good. But to posture like it shouldn't even exist? Well that's blaspheming my religion. Porn can be a healthy thing. Porn can be shared. Porn is love.

However, not according to the trailer for Harmless. Harmless, according to its producers is "the story about a husband and father and his battle with a box of porn that is found in the closet." Not just any story though, a horror story. Yes, add to the long lineage of Jason, Freddy, Chucky, Pinhead and the Tall Man, a box of porn. Now I've started to watch porn thinking it was one thing and it horrifyingly turned out to be another, but I don't think that's the conceit of this film. I do think it has the potential to be the funniest movie of all time, but like most potentially interesting things about religion, it will probably be profoundly boring.

- Libraries are banning the adult erotic novel "Fifty Shades of Grey" for being, well, erotic. I don't get word porn, but I imagine "Fifty Shades of Grey" to be some young guy touching an older lady for five minutes and then spending the rest of the day fixing things around the house.

- Priests embroiled in sex scandals are nothing new, but I enjoyed two things about this article: 1. The opening sentence "The Legion of Christ religious order, still reeling from revelations that its late founder was a pedophile," and 2. The subject of the article's job title is "American moral theologian". You'd think that if you're founder was a known pedophile, you'd disband and all get back together the following day and rename your group. And a "moral theologian" that fathers children out of wed lock? Now I obviously don't have a problem with that construct, but I don't run around telling people not to over imbibe either.

- Finally, an Arizona religious school forfeited the state championships because their opponent had a chick playing second base. I'm not sure what they were worried about, that every guy would get thrown out going to second as they stopped to stare at her freshman boobs? I've played softball for 15 years and I've never had to touch another dude during the process. My best guess is that being a Catholic school, they didn't want to take a chance at losing to a girl and thus tacitly admitting that women are equal to men in any way.

- In a down economy with austerity measures crippling local governments, the free summer festival has kind of gone the way of the dodo. But not in our little utopian hippie hamlet, where we still argue about how many millions to spend on public art funding. That means the Ann Arbor Summer Festival is alive and kicking, and Top of the Park is in full effect. My personal austerity measures of course mean that I will still be sneaking in my own booze.

- I've been a stick driver since I purchased my first car in 1993 (a 1979 Toyota Celica for the price of $500). When I leased my last car, I was puzzled to see that the MPG listed for the manual transmission was less than the automatic. Turns out that the computers have bested the humans yet again. Now of course I'm so adroit behind the wheel that I just know I can still best the automatic's numbers, plus the stick is just more fun to drive and for that reason alone I never want to give it up. Of course electric cars don't have transmissions, so my days are numbered no matter what.

- Congratulations goes out to Connecticut, who joins 48 other states in the 19th century by allowing alcohol sales on Sunday. Unfortunately for yours truly, the last hold out is Indiana, home of the in-laws Beach House, which means that I will still have plan ahead on Saturday evenings. That or drive the 10 minutes back to Michigan if we run out on Sundays, which <<shudder>>. In related news, Michigan Stadium is trying to get a temporary liquor license for the New Years Day Red Wings game next year. I will use this fact to justify sneaking in booze to every home game next year. Just go with it.

- Which of these idiots said the dumber, more hateful thing? 1. Bill Donohue, president of "The Catholic League" who wants the law to discriminate against the gays OR 2. Bristol Palin, who challengesBarack Obama's leadership as a father. Congrats Catholics, you are the intellectual equivalent of a girl who gets knocked up in high school and thinks the leader of the free world is a bad parental example.

- Finally, it's well documented how I disdain interactions with other human beings. I've made my kid call and order the pizza since he was 6 or 7, because I don't want to talk to those people. I adore the self checkout line at the grocery, unless I'm buying alcohol, which means they have to come check my ID and the interaction becomes 1,000x worse. The more automated the world becomes, the happier I am. My biggest pet peeve is talking on the phone. Haven't we gotten past this as necessity by now? Talking on the phone is the worst and oh how I wish I never had to do it again. Good news for me: we're getting there. One more bit of evidence that society is slowly conforming to my idea of a utopian society...

We don't post on the weekends 'round these parts, so we missed yesterday's annual guilt trip centered around mother appreciation. Don't get us wrong, when we say guilt trip we are totally on board - every one of us needs a little kick in the ass now and again when it comes to thanking and appreciating our moms. My mom has been gone a long time now, and not a day goes by where I don't stop and actively reflect on something she instilled in me or explicitly warned me about or even just outright did for me. That's how good moms are.

So thanks to my baby mama who's co-parented with me for almost seventeen years without ever so much as talking to lawyer - I can't stress enough as I get older how amazing and rare a feet that's been. Our kid is about to be accepted into some of the world's great institutions of higher learning, so we did something right. And thanks to my BDGF, who not only counsels and consoles my kid, but managed her children so well, that after two and a half years, neither one has ever yelled "You're not my father!" at me, nor so much as given me a cold shoulder.

Not only are all of these lovely children level headed, well adjusted (mostly) burgeoning adults, but they are also quite fetching. Observe:

Happy Mother's Day to each and every mom out there.

- Chuck Klosterman manages to pull off the rock journalist's equivalent of war time reporting: hitting a Creed and Nickleback show in the same night. The horror...

- Jack White is everywhere these days: The Colbert Report, Jools Holland (with Alabama Shakes!) and giving the AV Club interviews where he reminds his fans: I'm not like you. Which, unless you're vampire guitar genius, is probably accurate.

- Norah Jones has a new Dangermouse produced album, which she rocked on Letterman this week.

- The newly reformed Ben Folds Five has new music that will rock your face.

- There's a lot of retro genres gaining steam right now (see the aforementioned Alabama Shakes) and Nick Waterhouse is among my favorites.

- Stream the new Tenacious D, all over your face.

- Finally, Nada Surf covers New Order. Cheers.

Last weekend I sat on the infield of Churchill Downs as a storm came down to bear on Louisville, Kentucky. Armed security guards started to make the rounds to evacuate everyone out of concerns for our safety. My friend Troy urged us to pack up and get out before some weather tragedy befell us all. I just looked at him and said "Eh, I've lived a good life."

Yesterday the President of the United States took a stand that embodied a several hundred year old trope - the idea that all men are created equal. He did so a day after one of those United States passed a law that ostensibly said "We really don't like gay people" and a mere three days after one of his subordinates said "What's the big deal?" Most importantly, he did so hours after I defended his prudence on the matter, noting that it was probably the best course of action. I've never been so happy to be so wrong.

Not that I am wrong necessarily. Time will tell and since we can't put the genie back in the bottle, we'll never really know. But none of that is neither here nor there right now because I'm so happy. Gay conservative blogopundit Andrew Sullivan, who earlier yesterday said that it didn't matter what the President did on the matter, admitted after the fact that "There's something about hearing the President affirm your humanity." I can't imagine how amazing that must feel but I get indefatigable about this issue because I believe everyone deserves that. I believe that we are equal and endowed with unalienable rights. I love this country and get emotional when the people that lead us stand up for the best of our ideals, rather than hide behind the worst of our fears.

But I digress. I wasn't going to do that, because that made me happy yesterday, but that wasn't all. In part to celebrate Siddhartha finishing his Advanced Placement exams for the year, I got to go to a comic book movie I've been waiting 30 years to see with both of my teenagers. I told Troy last Friday that I'd lived a good life to get a laugh as god knows what was about to come down on us, but man oh man if I wasn't 100% right. So right that shortly after I said it we went and sought shelter, because when it's this good, you just want more.

Congratulations go out to the Tar Heel State, which is apparently gunning to be thrown in with the likes of Florida and Mississippi when it comes to ignorant, backwards bullshit. Yesterday the voters in the state decided to make gay marriage doubly illegal. What's the point? Apparently, North Carolinians are upset that gay partners can visit each other in times of medical emergency, or get domestic partner benefits from their employers. Of course, this was the last time NC amended their constitution in regards to marriage. You stay classy North Carolina. I'm sure history will smile on your stupid redneck faces.

- Let us no pivot to Willard Romney, who is inarguably anti-gay. Take these ads he helped pay for in California. Take his foreign policy spokesman - or don't, because he was forced out for being gay. He may have been a moderate on the issue when he was trying to get elected in Massachusetts, but he's clearly ready to acquiesce to homophobes in his party and his religion when we get down to brass tacks.

- As for Mr. Obama, many are decrying his 'evolving' stance on the issue and encouraging him to champion the cause. I for one think he's played this perfectly. Repealing DADT and deciding not to defend DOMA were honorable stances. I think for him to come out for gay marriage now, with the climate he's in and his opponents dead set on defeating whatever he's for, would do more harm to the movement than good. So I'm as inpatient as the next guy, but it's sort of a case of not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.

- For good measure, he's a piece by Bruce Fucking Bartlett that explains economics 101 to the current crop of stupid Paul Ryan led economic ideas. Enjoy your ideology, assholes.

- Before we go, please to enjoy this informative article about Mitt Romney's time at Bain Capital, which is at least twice as horrible as you've likely already imagined. Thankfully, his electoral map isn't something to be optimistic about.

It's time to put a bow on this little feature, as I think by this point we've had our way with it and there's little left to explore. To recap, over the past two months we've looked at the following cultural pathways to happiness:

1. One thing
2. Work
3. Possibilities
4. God
5. The best of all possible worlds
6. "All You Need is Love"

I honestly believe that all of these have merit for particular people, and find all wanting when it comes to being an ultimate solution. For me personally, I immediately throw out God (for obv. reasons) and work (for reasons I discussed at the time). Now clearly that doesn't mean that God or Work are incapable of making you happy, but these things vary person to person. And that's kind of the point - no self-help, happiness trope is going to work for everyone, nor will a single idea make you happy all the time. We take a little from column A, some from column B in hopes of finding ourselves more happy than not.

I have several "one things" in my life. I can always crack an Oberon and put on "Rosalita" by Bruce Springsteen and be happy, because I love music and a cocktail. And I believe in the power of possibilities, because imagining where I'll be at in 5 years and working to make that happen makes me smile. I think optimism can be uplifting and that love is a powerful emotion and can make you transcendent. It all works. But there's one more thing.

I think that all of the above things are great and most of them necessary in part for a person to be happy, but I also think you need a partner that embodies these things as well. Going through life is an absolute slog by yourself. I think being a teenager sucks so much because you go through a period of feeling like you are utterly alone and that no one could possibly relate to what you are going through. When you realize that life is a shared experience, things get a little easier. I've been lucky in that having a kid at 19, I've always had someone by my side to look to and say "We're in this together, right?" It became more comforting when he could understand what I meant and actually respond, but it was really there even without that. And of course eventually I met the BDGF.

If we're talking about single entities, nothing has made me happier or changed my outlook more than her. She's many one things to me, whether we are going to a show or sitting outside and talking until way too late. She's opened up possibilities, from where we're going on vacation to where we'll live when we get old. Having her around assures me that everything is going to be all right, and well, the love part goes without saying.

It's perhaps a little sappy, but I am a lot sappy guy from time to time. Bottom line, I nor anyone else can tell you how to be happy. Anyone who says they can is trying to fleece you of something. I would suggest finding a hobby, keeping your options open, being a little optimistic and willing to love. Keep those things in your brain and find someone who agrees with you about them. And of course don't be an asshole, I can't stress that enough.

After returning home having spent four days on a bachelor party excursion that amounted to the longest period the BDGF and I had been apart in over two years, thirty seconds of "I miss you" pleasantries quickly became "How did you not bet on a horse named I'll have another?" This quickly became "You spent how much?" but we all saw that part coming.

It does strike me as ironic in hindsight that during my first trip to the Kentucky Derby the winning horse's name was a reference to drinking and I wouldn't have a single bet on it. The short version as to why not is that after reading and hearing hundreds of predictions over two days of derby prep, I thought I was going to bet the big race smartly. Every other race over the course of two days I based my prediction on a number or a name or a feeling, but the one where it counted and I could have made out, I tried to go with cold hard science, or whatever the horse racing world's version of that term is. As much as we love it, we must remember that science is not infallible.

Striking out on a big, fat, slow eephus pitch taylor made to my swing aside, the Kentucky Derby as a bucket list event pretty much lives up to the hype. Lots of fancy people in suits and floppy hats, lots of hillbillies missing both the sleeves on their t-shirts and teeth in their mouth. As far spectacle and pomp and circumstance go, it has them in spades. It has plenty county fair-esque tropes and charms as well, so for every fancy lady on the arm of a guy in a seer sucker, there's a reminder that you are still in Kentucky.

Of course it being the one weekend a year for local businesses to take advantage of people who aren't forced to live in Kentucky, they all take the opportunity to jack their prices up 300%. So it's not cheap. As such I don't know that I need to go back, except perhaps to see it from the grandstands on the other side where the truly posh watch from. But I'm guessing I'd miss both the toothless hillbillies and the mere $11 mint juleps. Probably.

OK so I'm a day early. But since I will be somewhere drinking copious amounts of alcohol and spending the children's college fund on getting long shots to place, I have to say "May the fourth be with you" on May 3rd. But the fourth will be with you. Always.

- It's been 13 years since The Phantom Menace came out, and nerds everywhere are still obsessed with fixing it. For my money, this guy ends the debate. I want to see that movie, because in hind sight it's both exactly what I wanted and everything the actual Phantom Menace is not.

- I can't decide if I'm more upset that these people thought of this and I didn't, or that they did such a poor job with the Millennium Falcon. That took you three months? I could have knocked something that wopperjod on a Saturday afternoon.

- Again, this is better executed and something I'd like to replicate, as Star Wars and vinyl are two of my favorite things.

- Darth Vader as a model of fatherhood.

- Finally, rare "behind the scenes" Star Wars photos are like Tupac albums - it's hard to believe how many new ones still exist. And while it's fun to see Carrie Fisher make out with every creature in the Star Wars universe, all of the photos pale in comparison to Freddy Mercury on Darth Vader's shoulders. Yes, it exists:

George was never my scene and I don't like Star Wars? Please.

- I've been slow to warm to web-based serial content. I'll watch anything for 5-10 minutes, but somehow something that requires say 5-10 minutes every Monday seems beyond the pale to me. I can get hypnotized by 2 minutes of Kate Upton dancing, sure, but I have yet to tune in on a weekly basis to any web-based show. That changes with this new interview show starring Paul F. Tompkins. You have fooled me twice sir.

- For my BDGF, who dreams with the voracity of a 10 year old in the 1960s of going into space: Space X is commercially launching rockets to service the ISS, and Reaction Engines are working on ingesting oxygen instead of bringing it with, which could quickly mean cheap(er) commercial space flight. I promise to do everything in my power to at least get that girl into low Earth orbit before all's said and done.

- Dan Savage recently pointed out the inherent hypocrisy in people using the Bible to gay bash and the right prototypically lost their shit. What's ironic of course is that the only majority that really has to be worried about being 'bashed' or 'declared war on' is women, and that's because the power structure lies in the church and old white men worried about the status quo - both of whom are scared to death of vaginas.

- The Promise Ring has announced a tiny tour this summer, spending one weekend a month going to the East or West coasts. I wonder what kind of guarantee I'd have to provide to get them to come to Michigan? Or I can sit back and wait for more dates...

- Finally, this weekend I'm off to the Bluegrass State to take in the fastest two minutes in sports as part of a friend's bachelor party. I've never been, but if you Google image search "Kentucky Derby Infield", well let's just say here's hoping we make it back intact. Cheers.

Ed.Note: Our look into the advice we encounter that is designed to distill happiness into an easily digestible phrase or idea continues unabated. Of course seeing ourselves as final arbiter on all matters of public import, you should pay attention. I really shoehorned this, so apologies for poor through lines, limp turn of phrase and general poor writing. We need to wrap this series up, as I clearly have run out of steam.

The idea that love is the be all, end all of human emotion and existence is everywhere. Pop culture is littered with the idea that love is not only the goal of why we are here, but a trump card that wins wars, ends poverty and lifts us up beyond this mortal coil towards transcendence. Jesus talked about it. Buddha too, in a sense. In some ways, it encapsulates a lot of our series up to this point. Like Jackie Wilson sang, love is lifting me higher and higher. I'm certainly susceptible to its wares. I've always told Siddhartha that what John and Paul said were true - "All You Need is Love." Because it feels right and we all want it inherently to be true. The question, of course, is it?

In a certain sense, yes. Much like our initial ideal of "One Thing", if you have love in your life, you're probably ok - at least when that's manifesting itself. When your love is around and prescient, there's a spring in your step. Probably even better than that. If you're a delusional evangelical (which yes, is redundant) then you feel like it permeates your day to day existence. But when your love is a tangible thing or idea, it's transient. It comes and it goes. Anyone who who has ever copped to loving anything will tell you, when your love is inaccessible, it's the worst pain imaginable. The sense of being let down or made unwhole is a palpable sense of loss that for my money, is worse than a three curl hop kick to the jimmy.

And the idea of love being the strongest of all emotions? Littered with holes. The dark side of the force still took Qui Gon's life and Luke's hand. I can't even bear to mention the copious amounts of lives lost on this planet to hate and fear. Perhaps ultimately extinguished by forces for good on the side of love, but at what cost? From heartbreak to genocide, love has a lot of ugly losses on its record.

All you need is love? I hate to contradict even Ringo, but that better not be the only club in your bag. All feelings and emotions are important and can provide comfort and happiness in moderation. They can be just as fulfilling and make you as happy as love does. These are perhaps more in the moment ideals and much more short term tropes than the concept of love, but to live on love alone is a fool's paradise. Plus it's a hippy catch phrase that belies reality. I'm overly sentimental at heart, so I believe in the triumphant power love, but I don't think it's all you need. I will still walk over broken glass to show someone up in a game of trivial pursuit or shout down a well meaning nun to prove my point of view is more valid. That's not love, but holy shit does it make me happy. "All You Need is Love," while nice and important and perhaps ultimately triumphant, is flawed in its claim of being ultimate and requires context and surrounding players to carry true weight. On a scale of Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of the Clones to The Empire Strikes Back, we find "All You Need is Love" to be "Return of the Jedi."

- We feel morally obligated to cover every Kirk Cameron related story on the internet, so here's a bunch of other former child stars (who I am apparently too old to recognize) coming out against Kirk and his homophobia. Insert "Show me that smile again..." joke.

- I've always kind of understood those that think Siddhartha got short shrift growing up, or that he was somehow a lesser member of society or merely that his parents didn't love him as much because they were never married and didn't live together. I mean don't get me wrong, those fucking narrow minded simpletons can eat a bag of dicks, but I get it. But I am just recently finding out that people think that not only about kids who were adopted, but their parents as well. Take always classy Bill Donahue of The Catholic League. My question is, if you're against adoption AND abortion, you're basically condoning life sentences to two kids and an unborn child for a misdemeanor offense. That seems cruel and unusual, even for Catholics.

- This is a four+ year old story, but small government GOP candidate Mittens Romney wants a mandatory porn filter on your computer. Mormons are the worst.

- Finally, for those of you who need to understand how something comes from nothing re: the origin of the universe without the touch of a supreme being, Dr. Lawrence Krauss has an explanation for you. For those not into Cosmology, theoretical physics and the idea of an infinite multiverse, feel free to just take away this nugget, where he paraphrases Steven Weinberg: "Science doesn't make it impossible to believe in God, it just makes it possible to not believe in God." Fair point that.

Ed. Note - You're going to get a lot of these in the next 18 months. It'll be the same thing written over and over again probably. During these troubled times, I'd like to remind you that this site is free and I owe you nothing.

I don't admit this lightly, so take it with the understanding of the necessary ipecac it took for me to write this: I was once an Ohio State fan. I was young, naive and had a child's understanding of the world - and most importantly had a brother 12 years older than me whom I worshiped and who loved the BUckeyes. As such, so did I. Until one day, my father, a devote Wolverine disciple, took me to visit Ann Arbor - a trip he thusly instituted on a semi-annual basis. He took me to Columbus as well, but I am in no way sugar coating anything to say he let me see both sides of the coin and choose for myself. I don't think it was ever in his head that I'd someday go to Michigan, and he certainly never advocated it, much less try and sway my fandom. I decided it of my own volition having had the pros and cons laid out in front of me.

I don't know when I decided that I was going to go to Michigan. I don't know when my allegiance changed. I know as a kid growing up in Ohio I was told that Michigan and Ohio were (ostensibly) the same school (obv. by Ohio fans). I know that having seen both campuses come junior high, that was clearly not the case in my head. This was exponentially exacerbated once I got to high school and started to look at colleges, and once it was pointed out to me that Michigan was the premier public institution of higher learning in the United Stated and Ohio was a glorified community college, well that coupled with knowing that I was indeed smart enough to attend such a fine University, my life became laser focused to make that a reality. Now maybe I went from wanting to emulate my brother to making my father happy. Maybe I liked being the underdog amongst all of my classmates who were Ohio slappys. All of it played a part, but at some point I knew I belonged at Michigan, and truer words were never spoken.

Quick jump cut to 20 years later and my own son is about to apply to institutions of higher learning. Now I can't cop to Moeman levels of equal time or even magnanimity, but I swear to each and every one of you on the eternal soul of Tom Brady that I have never once even suggested that my son go to Michigan. Do I wear my heart on my sleeve about my love for Michigan? Obviously. Is Siddhartha surrounded with the physical presence and lore of the Leaders and Best? Absolutely. But did I ever say "You need to to Michigan"? No. Did I ever threaten to pull funding if he choose another college? Of course not. OK, I told him in no way would I ever give a dime to MSU, Notre Dame or Ohio, but that's just fiscal responsibility. I'm not paying more money for him to go to a lesser school when he has the academic ability to go to the best. That's just asinine.

Long story short, without too much prompting, my son is on track to be a freshman at Michigan in a scant 16 months. While I know that I carry sway and influence, I do believe that this is his decision. He's wondered about engineering at different schools and wistfully dreamed of MIT, and of course I will be immeasurably proud of him no matter where he goes, assuming he works hard and graduates with a degree. But as we've worried about the rigors of acceptance at the Ivy League, and fretted about the inability to dual apply to Michigan in both engineering and LS&A, he's said to me "I want to make sure I get into Michigan, because as long as that happens, I can never be disappointed."*

So I stand on the cusp of getting everything I ever wanted but was always too scared to advocate for. Alright, so I moved to him Ann Arbor, inundated him with the virtues of the University while spending 12 years saying how Columbus is a pit where people who could barely graduate from high school go to get drunk for two years while their parents pay for them to get laid and flunk out. Sue me. If he ends up at some other school to pursue engineering or another course of study I'll be fine with it. I'll never get a good night's sleep again and eternally wonder why I didn't make stronger case in a veil of perpetual tears, but as long he gets an education and a degree I will be fine with it. Really.

*This is me taking poetic license with his words, but trust me it's what he meant. The kid's a science nerd, verbal eloquence is not his strong suit, so I've prettied things up for him. I'm his father, it's my right.

- We eulogized Santorum months ago, but now that he's officially gone (and Newt too) let's look back on his wreck of a campaign, HuffPo style and Onion style.

- Now that we have our political pugilists for 2012, it's time to actually assess the race. No one has been doing that better the last week than Charles Blow, who is killing it. Killing it!

- The BDGF and I were bandying about what 2016 is going to look like, and who each party's candidate will be. I expressed my dream of a gay marriage loving, pot legalization atheist, but I know I'll go 0-3. That doesn't mean I can't get behind states like Colorado who are fighting the good fight.

- In things that are over already and don't matter, here's how batshit the Nuge is, and here's a listing of 2012 celebrity endorsements. When I view those, I try and forget that Bruce Willis is a Republican, because when that thought crosses my cranium, I die just a little bit inside.

- How dumb is the Republican budget and mindset right now? Catholics are coming out in droves to tell Paul Ryan to eat a dick and liberal rags like The Economist are calling them stupid to their stupid faces. Seems like the only people who believe what they're shoveling are themselves. Quite a feedback loop they've got going.

- Speaking of dumb, as England double dips into another recession due to austerity measures, here's an explanation of where these things have gone historically. Note how much worse things could have been, and how obtuse cuts would be at the moment.

- Finally, whatever your political leanings or ideology, whether you drive a truck with a gun rack or a hybrid with a vegan bumper sticker, from uneducated factory worker to college professor, we all can agree that a malleable robot subject to the whims of pollsters deserves a beat down from a President cool enough to slow jam the news. I said good day sir.

Ed.Note: Our look into the advice we encounter that is designed to distill happiness into an easily digestible phrase or idea continues unabated. Of course seeing ourselves as final arbiter on all matters of public import, you should pay attention. It probably would have been more informative to discuss solely Voltaire's views on happiness this week, but I can't do that eruditely after 3 drinks at 11pm on a Monday night. If only I was writing this in 1995...

My favorite philosopher has always been Voltaire. I could rip off five hundred words why in my sleep, but for the purposes of this essay let's just say that I read Candide when I was 15 and it changed my world. Or rather even than changed it, justified it. As a kid I was a cynic. I like to think I've grown into a pragmatist, and the BDGF often insists that I'm an optimist, but I assure her and those of you who have known me long enough can attest, this was not always the case. My high school English teacher's dedication to me my senior year referred to me as 'crabby'. I've been sullied with surly, a burgeoning curmudgeon, anti-everything and every other pejorative you can imagine (asshole being most common among them). I trace this back to being a very smart and precocious kid in a town where being too smart for your own good was rarely celebrated, but rather reminded the adults around me of their own shortcomings (or those of their own children, but that's complicating things). In any respect, I was a kid who considered himself the smartest person in the room from a very young age, and when that's in your head and people won't listen to you merely (from your perspective) because they have years on you, you become a raging cynic. When I read Voltaire's treatise on the idea that this is the best of all possible worlds, to say it hit home is an understatement.

To this day I don't get blind optimism. When the BDGF saddles me with a variant of that adjective, I tend to take it as a belief in myself. I tend to think things are going to be OK for me because I know I will do whatever it takes to make that my reality. It gets more muddled when we delve into politics and education and the like - I think people on the whole are stupid (pessimist) but that history indicates that we move forward and things will get better (optimist or pragmatist, depending on your argument). What I dread and find laughable is what Dr. Pangloss from Candide would profess, that this is the "Best of all possible worlds". I laugh every time I hear Sean Hannity ape it, noting "The U.S. is the greatest, best country God has ever given man on the face of the earth." Even taking the God out of it, it's utter hogwash. Because that's what blind optimism is - faith in something that isn't true despite every tangible piece of evidence you can get your hands on. We can go back to last week's discussion about a higher power for talking points, but you should just read Candide, because it's the ultimate treatise on why we call bullshit on this.

If you take this as merely another manifestation of last week's trope, let's take a different tact, with a cue from Hannity. People are prone to view the world through rose colored glasses and think things were better 20 years ago - when invariably life was simpler and more cohesive and just better. But nothing could be further from the truth. Society marches forward and despite a few twists and turns, we are always better off now than we were just a few years ago. Ask any minority. Look at the standard of living on this planet as a whole. For anyone that says this is the best of all possible worlds, I say tell that to anyone from a decade ago.

I'm a man without faith, but one who almost covets it. I believe it is comforting, soothing, and something to cling to in times of trouble and despair. But I ultimately think it's hollow and why I am devoid of it. I have probably said I don't have faith in anything but myself, but even that's not true. I believe in myself because of historical context and data about my skill set. I know should everything go to shit, I'll still be alright, but the rest of you are probably fucked. That's not a belief in this as the best of all possible worlds. I believe were are in a constant struggle to cut our problems by half, and any junior high math student will tell you that never gets you to the best possible iteration of anything, it just gets you closer. For this reason, we find the idea that this is the best of all possible worlds, on a scale of Full House to Cheers, to be a solid Family Matters.

It's tough as a father to know which of your own parent's peccadilloes to pass on. On one level, I like myself and think I turned out ok, which would indicate that I should ape what my parents did in order to replicate their perceived success. On the other hand, I did not have a great relationship with my parents for many years and that's something I'd like to avoid. Plus, as much as a mean old man I like to pretend to be, I'm still a big softie most of the time. Who wants to make their kid do all of the things that they loathed when they were growing up?

As such I have never dragged my kid to church. OK that's more for my benefit. What I do regret to this point in my sons's development is that at 16, he has no idea what real work is. I've had a job since I was at least twelve. This started as mowing several lawns around the neighborhood that I would ride my bike to, escalating up to doing maintenance and landscaping work. I planted trees. I built a pole barn. I busted concrete with a sledgehammer - all for the king's ransom of $4.25 an hour. I was relating this sum to the fake daughter the other day and I had both break her heart that no, that's not a lot of money and worse still, I wasn't allowed to go blow it at the mall on build-a-bears.

Yesterday I need to pick up a couple hundred rocks to build borders for the flower beds around the house, so I enlisted Siddhartha to help. After a mere hour of picking up rocks and lugging them around, he declared that he now knew what he did not want to do when he grew up - work in quarry. He then went inside to take a nap while I installed the new boulders for the next two hours.

Now I will say to his credit (and thus by communicative property mine) he didn't whine and complain through the process. I take solace in this because when I think of how soft the youth of today are collectively, I imagine a constant stream of what hurts diatribes and pleas for are we done yet? Thankfully, this is not my kid. He was however completely wiped after two hours. I think of breaking up concrete with a sledgehammer for eight hours in 90 degree heat at his age and I bristle that I'm not living up to my parent's legacy.

I think it's important to know what it feels like to do an "honest days work" because it can both motivate you to never do it again, and people can't throw it your face for your cushy desk job if you've been there. I never wanted my kid to go into the massive debt hole that I did to get an education, but perhaps I have not been vigilant enough in ensuring that he understands what a work ethic actually is. Luckily there is time left. Not lucky for Sid of course, but at least he'll be making more than $4.25 an hour.

- Today is the tenth anniversary of both Wilco's seminal Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and The Promise Ring's swan song Wood/Water. 2002 must have been way awesomer than I remember.

- Tonight! The red carpet premier of The Five Year Engagement at The Michigan Theater to benefit 826 Michigan. That is a trifecta of awesome and you should totally go. I'll be there.

- I'm not a big "day drinker" outside of vacations and football season, but when done right, I do admit that there isn't a more beautiful thing to behold and be enveloped in. Don't believe me? It's endorsed by the New York Motherfuckin' Times! Drink up!

- How great is Ann Arbor? Top 15 Main Streets in America great to be sure. And now, if you're under 21 and drink too much, you can go to the emergency room without fear of getting a MIP. When's the last time something useful passed the Senate unanimously?

- Paul F. Tompkins is bar none my favorite comedian at the moment. He has a new special premiering on Comedy Central tomorrow night. If you are home on a Saturday night, watching it might make you feel less sad about that fact.

- Finally, as we talked about earlier this week, there is a lot of home improvement going on as of late and the more I toil, the harder it will ever be to leave the place, even with the lure of the downtown loft utopian dream. Of course we need to work on the walkscore of our neighborhood, which is abysmal. Perhaps if we open a bar in the backyard...

- The Avengers is fast approaching, merging one of my favorite things from my childhood (comic book superheroes) and one of my favorite adult storytellers (Joss Whedon). It also has Scarlet Johansson's boobs, which should please people of all ages.

- From the mind of director Edgar Wright comes Brandon Generator, which is, well, Edgar Wright is better seen than described.

- Parks and Recreation returns tonight, so let us celebrate with some Ron Swanson woodworking.

- My progeny Siddhartha would like to suggest these Epic Rap Battles of History which look like what I imagine old people shake their heads at when they imagine kids on the youtube.

- You can't watch this yet, but the elusive season 4 of Arrested Development is coming, in one big chunk to Netflix. Come on!

- Finally, I try not to be judgmental of other parents, because I know what the job entails and as John Lennon used to say, whatever gets you through the night... But that doesn't mean I don't judge, and I say if you take an embarrassing situation and then wildly exacerbate it by going on the evening news to tell the world about it, well I hope you're saving money for orthodontia, university and years of psychotherapy, because tonight's top story: Girl Poops Pants. I keep watching it, it keeps making me laugh. I didn't even notice the girl's last name is Skidmore until the third time through. Skidmore! Priceless.

- I can't imagine a worse idea than the children of the Beatles coming together to form The Beatles 2, yet that appears to be the goal. Who would have thought it was Ringo's kid who'd be the reasonable one.

- You can now stream Jack White's solo debut Blunderbuss over at iTunes. If you needed reminding of why you love Mr. White, there's also (another) White Stripes live DVD on the way. #huckster

- I'm no fan of Madonna if if she did attend Michigan for the blink of an eye. So I fart in the general direction of her album sinking faster than the Titanic on the Billboard charts. Her music is terrible.

- The Lollapalooza lineup is out, although not in any order yet. If all the stuff I want to see happens on the same day, I'll be excited about going for an afternoon. Otherwise, I'll be happy to take the BDGF to see Jack White.

- Here's Chuck Klosterman interviewing Sammy Hagar. If you're not going to read Sammy's biography, you should at least listen to this interview. I'll never figure out if I'm more surprised at how rich and famous Sammy actually is, or how rich and famous Sammy thinks he is.

- The Black Keys were apparently on some cooking show? Because people do that now? This is what happens when you don't have cable and watch less than an hour of TV a day - out of the loop.

- Here's a hybrid band of Cursive and Cymbals Eat Guitars doing the early 90's classic "Hey Jealousy". I was in a lot of bands that played that song back in high school and we will pretend we were as sloppy awesome as this cover is.

- Finally, we are headed back to the Michigan Theater this Saturday to see the Fab Faux perform Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in its entirety. I apologize in advance to the people sitting behind for all of the dancing and singing at the top of our lungs that the wife and I are bound to do.

Ed.Note: Our look into the advice we encounter that is designed to distill happiness into an easily digestible phrase or idea continues unabated. Of course seeing ourselves as final arbiter on all matters of public import, you should pay attention. I'd like to note that today's entry may piss people off, so you've been warned and stuff. Then again, it shouldn't be surprising.

I like to think I was born an atheist, but it's not according to hoyle true. Or rather more to the point, my sainted mother did her best to undo what nature had instilled in me. Judy Conners Brubaker was a super Catholic. A true believer. She made sure we never missed a mass or Sunday school. As I got older, she was the "principal" at CCD - which for you non-Catholics is Sunday school for older kids who don't go to a Catholic school - a fate we were only saved due to the fact that the Catholic school where we grew up was tiny and universally renowned as crappy when it came to educational standards. At some point she tried to institute after dinner Bible readings, which lasted exactly one night due to me heckling her the entire time. I am no longer proud of this, but it did happen.

When I was but a wee lad I had a pastor friend of my parents explain to me that there were a group of scholars who hypothesized that during the time of "Jesus", the learned people of the era got tired of waiting around for their Lord's only begotten son to show up, so they created one (I'd later learn that this is largely the plot to Monty Python's Life of Brian). Well this little nugget of wisdom was enough for me to take all of my doubts about what I considered to be a Santa Clausian level nonsense and run with the theme. Shortly after I privately held myself to be an agnostic (in deference to said sainted mother) and not long after that I took the plunge into full fledged atheism. Baby Jesus has been crying ever since.

In the intervening 20 years or so, I've become fairly fascinated with religion, the idea of spirituality and the general belief in a higher power. Stemming from the "know your enemy" philosophy, I've at least cursorily studied all of the world's major religions and found one, pervasive, over-arching theme - religion is designed to comfort. Or in the parlance of this series, make you happy. Religion has inarguably sprung up over the history of civilization as an attempt to explain that which our tiny human brains could not. Greeks, Romans, Chinese, Native Americans, Mayans, Incans, Mormons and Scientologists - it's all the same - help me explain the things I can' wrap my brain around and alleviate the pressure. Most of the time this manifests itself as making us less fearful of death, and as such, provides us a path vis a vis our daily earthly behavior to either avoid death, or at least make it more palatable. Of course my previous use of the word inarguably assumes you don't believe that anyone who has walked this rock has ever had a conversation, much less heard the voice of a supreme being. If that's your tip, put down the laptop and go light a candle.

But even if such drivel is your proclivity, or if you eschew the hocus pocus of it all and find comfort in the inexorable social conventions of what religion has become in the 21st century - a sense of community and charity and stability for your children - well let us take a gander at how that lives up as a happiness trope. First off, while I know they exist from watching the news and reading about Congress, I personally don't know anyone who believes in an inerrant Bible or any other holy book. Even more so for the tenants of any particular denomination. Religion has become a la carte these days. Most Catholics use birth control. Muslims don't interpret the violent parts of the Koran to mean death to America. To my knowledge, most Jews question every word of their holy book and that is encouraged. But yet they still cling to the notion of one, omnipresent superbeing, and many of them think he has a daily interest in what happens down here.

Perhaps that's my biggest beef with the believers. Besides all of the provable science that points to the ridiculousness of it all, there's an avalanche of circumstantial proof that says God either doesn't exist, or doesn't care. Or if he is up there watching, he's a colossal dick. I can't prove God doesn't exist, but outside of the rote manifestations of "I feel him in my daily life" what do you want to point to that he does? But I'm getting off track here. OK, so you believe in some higher power. This gives you guidance and purpose. If you're an alcoholic, it let's you surrender the uncontrollable to something bigger than yourself. If your uneducated or uncurious enough to ever ponder the origins of our existence, then it explains things to you in a way that's easily understandable. I suppose that may be OK, as long as you shut out anyone trying to give you concrete proof of God. These people are charlatans and trying to sell you bullshit science textbooks in Tennessee.

What I mean to say is I get why every civilization since the beginning of time has created some form of God. It's to fill in the gaps and give us piece of mind. It makes the world less scary. In the days before public education, it allowed the most learned of us to tell the rabble not to eat the pork that's been sitting in the desert sun for a week. These are all important things that advanced society. Without all of it, we still might be living in a world where might makes right, and I'd be fucked - repeatedly by giant men with clubs. But it's an idea that's outlived its purpose. Or has it? Not all of us can ponder string theory or extrapolate the idea of the big bang over billions of years to where I can play Draw Something on my phone. And I know I'm belittling, but I suppose that's nice for you. If you're not going to search for the best, most plausible, possible scenario, I can imagine this working for you and giving you solace. Just know that you're settling and keep it to yourself. On a 1990's scale of Creed to Pearl Jam, we rate "God" as Stone Temple Pilots.

1. I am not a golfer. While I am not terribly athletic nor coordinated, these are not the major impediments to my taking up the sport. I like being outdoors enough and when necessary, have the patience of a saint. Plus I'm hypercompetitve and under the right circumstances there's drinking involved, so you could make a cogent argument that golf is something I should give the ol' college try if nothing else. And I sort of have. I cobbled together a bag and my dad's old clubs and various other accoutrements so that I could play in a scramble or two a year, usually centered around someone's bachelor party. But even with these caveats and casual forays into a good walk spoiled, I never really delved into the links for one reason and one reason only: the cost. Golf seems like an insanely stupid hobby or habit. While I piecemealed together the necessary gear to play 36 holes a year out of shear will and duct tape, to be serious about it requires an outlay of several hundred if not thousand dollars. And that's before you get into weekly greens fees to actually go out and use the asininely expensive equipment. I can't keep my left arm straight, but that's not why I don't golf.

2. My late twenties and early thirties were spent mostly wondering how and when I was going to own a house. I've led a fairly unconventional life, but everyone around me who was sticking to the script spent an inordinate amount of time telling me how obtuse I was by renting. And I always shook my head and tacitly agreed with them. I was throwing money down the drain. I was confining my child to a cramped space and not giving him a yard of his own to play in. I was giving money to someone on finite terms instead of building equity. I was wasting time renting when I would eventually buy and kick myself for all of those years where I could have been paying down principle instead of making slumlords rich. Hindsight proved me right in that I would have bought during a boom and would now surely be under water in a shitty mortgage. But I could never pull the trigger because it wasn't financially viable in my midwestern conservative mind set. I had no down payment. I had no money to pay a mortgage and taxes and sewer and all of the other fun bills that a landlords builds into your rent. I was too concerned with making childcare payments on a tight budget to put money away for closing fees. I felt it was the right thing to do at the time, and while I can now look back and be glad it never came to fruition, I still would have gladly done so if the opportunity presented itself.

3. My dad worked "in the yard" a lot as a kid. He was always planting this or trimming that - mowing the lawn or watering everything else. I, as most kids I assume, just figured that's what dad's do. Later in life, I assumed that dads partook in this ritual because it provided them a certain serenity. Dad's working in the yard, being a necessary thing, don't get bothered. He can't play your game or run you here or there because there's yard work to be done. It's a get out of jail free card. He puts on his headphones and runs some piece of equipment that makes no sense to you. You try and get his attention and he takes one headphone off and says "Huh?" and then to whatever your query, responds "Just let me finish this..." and you hopefully never mention it again. That's the best case scenario anyway.

I am 36 years old and still not a homeowner. But I feel like one. The BDGF owns the house we live in and could give me the boot tomorrow and I would be utterly homeless without a stake in anything. But that doesn't mean that over the course of the last year and a half we haven't built a home on this plot of land. That home existed long before I showed up, but I had to somehow figure out a way to integrate myself into it and make it ours (in my mind anyway). That started long before I ever changed my address my trying to fix anything and everything I could that needed love and attention. Leaky faucets. Door handles. Bathroom fans. If I could figure out how to address the situation, I wanted to make it better. Once I became a full fledged member of the domicile, I wanted to redouble my efforts. Not so much to put my stamp on things, but to make it the best possible iteration of what the place could be for the people who lived there. For lack of a better turn of phrase, I wanted to earn my keep.

Every spring this means copious amounts of yard work. I emulate my father and weed and trim and build things up so that they are ostensibly better than they were the year before. It has the ancillary benefits of providing me some uninterrupted alone time, but that's not why I do it. I make multiple trips to the hardware store every weekend, spending money on ground cover and mulch and paving stones that would easily pay for my greens fees, but in the process I get to create a landscape that I can be proud of (and hopefully get compliments on) that the rest of the residents of our little home can also enjoy. My pastime/hobby is now going to Lowe's so I can give the wife and kids a sanctuary they can fully enjoy and of which I can be proud. The BDGF and I are prone to fantasize about living in a loft downtown where we can walk to restaurants and bars and live the ultimate urban lifestyle, and I still love that ideal. But the the more work I put into this place, the harder it will be to give it up. Whether or not my name is on the mortgage I have a stake in this place. It's our home, and I am damn proud of how far it's come. The big caveat there of course is how far it still has to go in my head. But I am genuinely excited by that process and look forward to it. I love the idea of the grandkids playing in the same tree house that the littlest does now. Of course if I have to build bunk beds for them in our tiny downtown loft so they can spend Xmas with us, you won't hear me complain about that either.

- If you're going to stand up in front of a bunch of kids and tell them that those of you with single parents, who are adopted or may have two mommies aren't as good as kids with traditional, normal families, you should probably stick to elementary students, because high schoolers know bigotry when they see it and will fight back. I'd love to shake the hands of every one of those kids.

- What did Jesus think about homosexuality? He probably didn't. What you think about the gays however, may be a bit more telling. In other words, methinks thou doth protest too much.

- In Arizona, who is trying hard to jockey positions and overtake Florida as America's craziest state, they've defined life as beginning before conception, so you know, you could be pregnant right now even if you haven't had sex in a month. Texas says don't forget about us, we fire people for getting pregnant while unmarried. Now go back and read that in your announcer voice while "America The Beautiful" plays in the background. You'll shed tears of pride.

- That Tennessee bill that says "We could give two shits about science" is now law. Congratulations Tennessee. You win.

- I've heard news of moles at Fox News, which must explain this post where they admit that Thomas Jefferson wasn't down with Jesus' divinity. A rare misstep off message - you guys are slipping.

- Finally, as a kid I watched movies like War Games and dreamed of all the cool shit I was going to one day do with my huge nerd brain and vast knowledge of computers. Cut to 25 years later, I can make computers do a million more incredible things than anyone ever dreamed of in 1987, but I'm still impressed with a case of simple password hacking. I really hope somewhere Matthew Broderick is leaning his back, feet up, hands behind head. Life moves pretty fast...

- I dream a lot about college. Never me in the mid-90s as it happened variety, but always me at 36 going back to school in some scenario. Being in the dorms, living with 8 guys in a house again - but all as my aging self. It's always interesting but never some glamorized, glorious return in which I wake up finding myself longing for the carefree days of my twenties. Truth be told, my twenties weren't that care free as I was a father at 19. Which explains why I'm probably dreaming about this stuff so much lately: my kid is taking the ACT, studying for AP classes and toot suite, applying to college. Sweet Baby Jesus...

- Sid has stated for some time now that his intent is to go to the University of Michigan, likely in an attempt to watch his father die from happiness. But lately he's been hinting around at MIT, which, if he can get, I would only be slightly less proud. You'll of course not be surprised that those two schools were of the three mentioned that were "doing it right" on the Colbert Report the other night. Hail to the Victors Valiant... and whatever they say at MIT.

- Paying for college will of course be a nightmare for me as I try to not make it so for him. I struggled to get through school financially as I was paying for it all myself. I made it, and in ten short more years it'll be all paid for. For both those reasons, I'm always interested in new ideas in making college affordable. Here's an interesting idea that instead of paying for school, give the U back 5% of your income for 20 years after graduation. But that's a big risk for someone with a liberal arts degree. How about we get Alumni to loan money to current undergrads? I promise to participate in that as soon as all three kids get their education paid for. Assuming I'm still upright and mobile when that happens.

- I never sweat Urban Meyer's hiring at Ohio, because we have Brady Hoke and Urban's an easy douche bag to hate, so status quo more than anything. But it's a fun little conundrum to try and decide "How did we not see this coming or should we just enjoy it?" reading about how Urban is not the super clean, stand up, forthright guy the media likes to slobber over. Again, status quo more than anything. Have fun being the current iteration of Florida when your savior bolts in 4 years.

- Finally, college is about expanding your horizons, trying new things and experimenting. While I would never advocate my child taking drugs (publicly), that doesn't mean that it isn't my responsibility to make sure that he would do so in a safe manner should the opportunity ever present itself. As such, here's 5 ways to avoid getting caught smoking marijuana. I'd add in Ann Arbor, just don't get caught doing it on U property, which makes it a state crime. Local law makes it a $20 fine.

- Gas prices are up, which means so is the talking head blustering. However, no matter how many times Sarah Palin screams "Drill Baby Drill!" I've always retorted "domestic oil production is going to have no long term - much less short term - effect on gasoline prices." Let's bring in science to break the tie. The truth is that Presidents and even Congress have less effect on gas prices than they do on the unemployment rate. For those of you worried that this means Fox News will no longer be able to blame Obama and 'Big government' on it taking an extra $40 a week to top off their SUVs, don't worry, they're on it.

- President Obama is on the road touting support for the Buffet Rule that taxes the wealthy at a rate closer to what you or I pay. If you're conservative, this is typical class warfare that won't move the meter on our deficit. If you're more rational, it's a first step towards raising revenue and a show of good faith that they will make an effort to make things something akin to fair. Everyone knows that it won't fix anything, but as a salvo I like it. now let's see some support for re-enacting Glass-Steagal and getting this report to find purchase.

- As scientists begin to study the phenomenon of conservatives, they have come up with the jaw-dropping findings that low-effort thinking leads to conservative mindsets and that Conservatives trust in science is at an all time low. I am shocked - shocked! - to find gambling in this establishment.

- Finally, yes, there is a magazine out there called The Conservative Teen and yes, it is exactly as amazing as you were hoping it would be. What's the old adage? Show me a conservative teen and I'll show you a closeted homosexual? Or was it brainwashed religious zealot? I apologize for mixing my metaphors.

Ed.Note: Our look into the advice we encounter that is designed to distill happiness into an easily digestible phrase or idea continues unabated. Of course seeing ourselves as final arbiter on all matters of public import, you should pay attention. I'd like to note that my writing has been pretty crappy as of late, especially in this series. That's on me. I'd say you deserve better, but that's probably not true.

In poker, they tell you to never put yourself in a position where you don't have any outs. Most of the people I know that are unhappy in their marriages are completely stuck due to the fact that leaving would leave them penniless or their children in a precarious position or face family/societal disapproval or all three. In a relative sense, my being 'poor' in the past has generally led to less happiness because I was limited financially in certain things that I wanted to do. So when I recently read John U. Bacon's book Three and Out about Rich Rodriquez, this sentence struck a chord: "A case could be made that all happiness is feeling like you have possibilities." To which I said "A ha! Happiness trope!"

Now for the anecdotal reasons stated above and basic common sense, this would seem superficially to be a no-brainer truism. A lack of options resigns you to whatever fate is in front of you and that is generally, no matter what the instance, depressing as hell. If you've ever found yourself hungry in small town America after 10pm on a weeknight, you know this to be true. If at some point in your life you've been in a soul crushing job in which the money was too good to leave, you say of course. And if by some chance you know what it's like to have a child when you're still a teenager and the birth and your involvement in said child's life is a fait accompli, you shout Amen.

Yet my problem with this particular trope is not its superficial logic, but that there's so many instances in everyone's life where lack of possibility in no way leads to being unhappy. If my only option for dinner is pizza, no matter how crappy, I'm probably ok with it. If every radio station is playing The Beatles, I'm ecstatic. I love that my kid is who he is and I can't change it, and I wouldn't trade all the anonymous sex in the world for being with my wife. But perhaps the ultimate argument against this particular trope is that ignorance is bliss.

Now not knowing leading to happiness is something for which I would never advocate. Quite the opposite. But if you've never had the divine experience of falling in love with someone who completes your existence, you may well settle for someone you can tolerate and hence never know the difference. That's probably a bad example because pop culture has inundated us with the idea of romantic love since the time of Shakespeare, but I think you know what I'm getting at. The majority of people aren't aware of most of the things that bring me the most sublime happiness, and if they did, it wouldn't affect their state of mind in the least. The people that love country music aren't comforted any more by the existence of Spoon than I am by that of Conway Twitty.

To further the point, knowing about possibilities can have quite a depressive effect in its own right. If you smoke cigarettes for ten years and quit for all the right reasons, you still want a cigarette. I suppose the option or possibility of you tasting tobacco again is still in play, but that possibility leads to more depression than joy. Same goes for when you get your heart broken. Or you have a heart attack and have to cut your red meat intake. Or marry a shrew who insists that you never watch college football again. Once you know these possibilities exist and are denied them, it's the worst thing in the world.

Options are great. Even when you sit on the couch with your partner and discuss where to eat and neither of you can decide, it's better than if you were resigned to go to White Castle because it's the only place that's open. At the same time, if you love White Castle, your lot in life is not so bad, no matter how sorry I feel for you. As a happiness trope, we find 'possibilities' to be an interesting social barometer on a case by case basis, but one that carries no weight when measuring actual happiness. On a scale of Ratt to Van Halen, we rate it Poison.

When I usually talk about this it comes out as "Teenagers are incapable of being cool." I'll admit to you now that this is not resolute but still as a maxim useful. My point is this: teenagers, smart and wonderful and in certain aspects our betters, are still reactionary beings whose existence is completely tied to pop culture and the society within they revolve. They lack experience and wisdom. It's a necessary point of evolution, and when they eventually reach escape velocity they become whole adult human beings that drive us forward collectively and ultimately, take care of us when we decide we've had enough and deserve some rest. This is a Panglossian best of all possible worlds scenario, but my kids are that good, so I choose to believe it.

But as such, teenagers understand very little of what it means to be an adult. They don't understand adult responsibilities, adult relationships and they sure as shit don't get adult priorities. Again, necessary and lamentable, but nevertheless true. I think about this a lot when I realize adult trueisms. Because extrapolated, the younger you are, the dumber you are. As I often talk about it, the older I get, the smarter my parents are. Perhaps that's why we turn into them, but that's neither here nor there right now.

Recently I was listening to a podcast and the host was talking about how he had recently heard the Talking Heads' "Once in a Lifetime" for the first time since he was a kid and, as a man in his late thirties, it took on a whole new meaning for him. Now I loved that song when it came out, but I was eight. I liked the big shoulder pads and the arm gestures from the video. I had no idea what the sentiment of the song was. I've heard that song a lot since, as the Talking Heads are amazing and totally worth your time, but the combination of hearing that podcast and being on vacation for (ostensibly) a week with my family made me see it a whole new light once again.

I won't go over the central conceit of the song because you're smart and art is interpretive and if you don't get it as I type the rest of this, you likely never will. We decided on a 'light' family vacation this year - five states in a week. We visited museums and restaurants and water parks and did everything a good Griswold would do. I've been a parent for a long ass time, but this is still new territory for me, and all I could think of the entire time was David Byrne. Not so much the "Same as it ever was" part nor the "My god, what have I done?" sentiment, but surely the the sense of "How did I get here?" and truly that this cannot be my beautiful wife.

I realize that for many Talking Heads' connoisseurs I may be muddling the central conceit of the song, and to those I say go back a few paragraphs where I talk about art being subjective. My point is that I imagine most of us wake up at some point in our lives and wonder "How did I get here?" John Lennon said "Life's what happens to you when you're busy making other plans" and it's kind of the same thing. Someday you'll turn around and be halfway through life and no amount of introspection will give you the answer of how you ended up exactly where you are.

I'm as introspective as they come and I've thought about it a lot, but as I drove a minivan around the great american mid-west for a week I had no answer to "How did I get here?" More than anything I want to know so I can tell my aforementioned naive teenagers how I did it so unconventionally and yet ended up so lucky. Because I want to believe it wasn't luck. Not all luck anyway. The only things I come up with the more I think about it amount to platitudes. So I give them this: Do what you think is right. Think about what your parents would want you to do. Think about what your partner would want you to do. Consider (briefly) what your kids would want you to do then largely ignore it. Weigh all of it and then make a decision. Quickly. When you fuck up, say so publicly and atone and then don't do it again. It's a bit wordier than "To thine own self be true" but it's also better philosophically. Shakespeare was a terrible father.

- The BDGF and I are just finishing the first season of The West Wing. It's her first time through the series, and my fourth or fifth. I'm happy to report that it holds up really well, even if you yearn a tad for them to take on more topical issues. Wait! What's this? A new political show from WW creator Aaron Sorkin?!? Looks like the perfect format for Sorkin's pragmatic liberalism, or if your me, awesome political porn.

- Well for all your futurists and science fiction prognosticators out there - pencil's down. Google has brought you the future, and after watching this I had to sit down, as I was feeling a little flush. I really hope I never find out that Larry Paige is turning old people into Soylent Green.

- As we ramp for the "Summer of Hitchcock" at the Chandler Drive In, peep this time lapse montage of Rear Window. You kind of have to know the movie to realize how cool this is, so feel free to wait until we screen it before clicking.

- As long as we are watching internet video, I'd be remiss if I didn't draw your attention to these car ride sing-a-longs: actual musicians doing Hall & Oates "I Can't Go for That" and colossally drunk guy doing "Bohemian Rhapsody" in the back of a cop car. Trust, watch both until the end. They are worth your time.

- Finally, tomorrow we pack up the family truckster Griswold style and head south for a long weekend. I'm fighting a cold tooth and nail at the moment, so if things take a turn for the worse and my virus addled body is too busy repairing itself to put energy into things like patience, pray for my children. Even if I wake up tomorrow feeling chipper, you can still expect me at some point to slam on the brakes and turn around and say "I think you're all fucked in the head," just because.

Ed.Note: This is part two of our look into the advice we encounter that is designed to distill happiness into an easily digestible phrase or idea. Of course seeing ourselves as final arbiter on all matters of public import, you should pay attention. Oh, and this one references my dad a lot too, but that's coincidence. For reals.

As a teenager, I was furious with my father. Not in a constant brooding, parents just don't understand way, but in this very specific point of contention: I had been around long enough and had enough literary savvy to know that the Moeman was a well respected writer. Family lore had further informed me over the years there had been interest from bigger papers in larger towns for my father's services. But he had never entertained these offers on the auspices that he wanted to raise his children in the quaint, small town environment where he grew up.

I can't say with any voracity as to how much of the above is true - probably most, and in any case I took it as gospel truth as a teenager and nothing more fueled my pubescent rage than that paradigm. In my mind I could have been spared a backwater existence AND moved up the socioeconomic ladder in the process. As such, prior to adulthood my only goals in life were to make obscene amounts of money and live somewhere that didn't shut completely down at 10pm on a Wednesday. Dream big, I always say.

Then shortly before my 20th birthday I became a father and was forced to reassess my priorities. I have never lost my desire to have entertainment and cuisine options past the time when streetlights come on, but the dreams of fists full of cash took a back seat to stability, flexability and benefits.

My first full time, post-collegiate job came just as Sid was about to be without insurance. The position also largely made me my own boss, had ample sick and vacation time, and as I would soon learn most importantly, let me jump out in the middle of the day to take care of a sick kid or even chaperone a field trip.

So my priorities drastically realigned. I saw my father's choices for what they were and forgave his sins. My kid would grow up in a liberal enclave as opposed to a hillbilly backwater, but otherwise I viewed the decision as making the same sacrifices my father before me had. Apples and trees.

The adage goes that if you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life. I find this particular trope to be complete and utter bullshit.

Now I honestly believe my father likes what he does, and I know I do. My job is diverse and challenging and allows me to constantly learn new things. And it to the previously mentioned benefits, and it's damn near the perfect scenario for someone in my encumbered situation. But let's not pretend for one hot minute that it's not work.

I've always viewed my dad's profession is the perfect iteration of this proposition. Sport's journalists, after and to a point, don't get to enjoy sports anymore. You have to be objective and dispassionate about that which you cover, and after spending 9 to 5 plus dissecting it, do you really want to sit down and watch more sports to unwind? Can you still love it with the same abandon that you did at 22? I'm arguing no. My dad still watches sports and gives a damn when it comes to Michigan, but I don't think it's the same.

This is the reason I am not an artist, musician or writer. That and I suppose lack of talent, but what I wanted desperately to avoid, despite my proclivities in these areas, was to ever not look forward to doing them. I have a penchant for technology. I've had zero training but it just makes sense to me. This makes me good at my job, but it wouldn't be in the top ten things I would use to describe the sum of my being to a stranger. It is work. I get paid to do it so that I can go home and do whatever it is at the moment that strikes my fancy.

I know there are many people out there whose lives revolve around the office. Their self worth is defined by a march up the corporate ladder. And as such I would never assume that I am any more or less happy than they are. Their personality type differs from mine. But I think people with varied interests that would rather work 40 hours a week and go home to spend time with loved ones and hobbies and enjoy a drink on the back porch. Our vacations are spent in the continental U.S. as opposed to Europe and our cars are litter older, but I think we are the majority and are lives being more diverse are likely better spent.

At the end of the day, the idea of work making you happy should be relegated to jaded loners and Alpha types whose need for more will never be satiated. For the rest of us, keep your loves as hobbies, get a job that allows you to leave your work at the office and perhaps even allows your peccadilloes to become useful to that which earns your keep. That's more of a win/win in my book.

In summation, we find doing what you love as a road to happiness a very specific trope for the highly motivated and laser focused, and leaves the rest of us perplexed. On a scale of Ladyhawk to Monty Python and the Holy Grail, we rate it Excaliber.

I noticed this little piece of disgusting hypocrisy pop up last week and didn't want to let it slip by without comment. The National Organization for Marriage* recently was compelled to release some internal documents, which eluded to pitting the blacks and the gays against each other, but this was my favorite part, paraphrased thusly:

To me the most striking detail was that NOM had budgeted $120,000 for a project to locate children of gay households willing to denounce their parents on camera.

Whenever I hear NOM described as “pro-family” from now on, I will think of that fact.

Focus on the Family. National Organization for Marriage. These groups should all have astericks or a parenthtical (ironic) listed after them so that people know there's no truth in adverstising. Please all lay down and die now.

- In Rick Santorum news, he's afraid of mixing boys and the color pink, and when he offers to pray for Dan Savage, Dan offers to gay for him.

- Finally, where is your state when it comes to civil rights? Here's a map showing each state's current laws on marriage equality. You can also peep pending legislation, so you know where to get boots on the ground.

*At least their narrow definition og marriage.

- Our brief dalliance with summer seems to have tapered off, so may I suggest coaxing it back with the aural pleasures of Vacationer? 60% of the time it works every time.

- Speaking of, it's the return of one Ron Burgandy.

- Game of Thrones returns this Sunday, and since I never read the books nor really planned on falling down the rabbit hole on this one, I'll need this season one refresher. And if you're like me and haven't gotten around to last week's season premier of Mad Men, here's a summation of that entire series.

- I don't plan on ever exploring the world of The Hunger Games, mostly because I am an adult and cool. I did however read this list of racist Hunger Games fans, because racist teens who fail at reading comprehension are funny.

- Finally, there's a mini-vacation happening over the next 10 days as the children get their second spring break of the year. I'll probably manage a post or two in the middle of next week, hopefully largely comprised of pictures. If you get withdrawal from lack of tbaggervance in the meantime, I suggest you suck it up.

- In this corner - representing love, tolerance, gay marriage and the starfleet federation: George Takei. In the other corner - representing bigotry, intolerance, Kirk Cameron and Baby Jesus - Stephen Baldwin. He never had a chance.

- I will forever maintain that moderate, sensible Christians and religious folks should be the most interested in what's making Baby J weep on a weekly basis - much more than us bemused Atheists. Why? Because the crazies beget atheism. It's science.

- Speaking of, this isn't exactly the 95 thesis, but it certainly is funnier.

- Tennessee, site of The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes some 87 years ago, is trying to put the genie back in the bottle by passing a law saying that teachers will not be reprimanded for pointing out the weaknesses of evolution. Tennessee: where lawmakers know more about science than the National Academy of Science and The National Association of Biology Teachers combined.

- The whole family is headed down to the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky area next week and we thought it'd be hilarious and awesome to visit the Creation Museum. Then we saw admission prices, and decided that was a high price to pay for some bullshit. If I get a kickstarter going, you think I could get the trip funded?

- Finally, you can decry homosexuality, rail against evolution and plaster every courthouse in the country with the ten commandments, but you right wing christianist fucks stay the hell away from Star Wars. You've been warned.

- This was a blow to the BDGF, who never got to see the White Stripes in concert. I still maintain that even if he doesn't ever need the money, he'll want the attention at some point. Fingers crossed, for my sweetheart if nothing else. In more immediate and good news, rumors abound that Jack will be headlining this year's Lollapalooza, so I might have to actually attend this year after avoiding it all this time.

- More summer festival news: Ann Arbor has announced its lineup of the usual stodgy, expensive shows that old people go watch* while I sit on the grass, drinking Captain and Cokes while watching Top Gun. You're doing it wrong, by the way.

- Record Store Day 2012 is a mere three weeks away from this Saturday. Peep what will be showing up at your local independent retailer here.

- The AV Club's Undercover project moves on, with Memoryhouse covering the Police. It's nice and all, but to hear the better pseudo-cover of "Every Little Thing She Does is Magic," you want The Blow.

- Former tbaggervance roommate's Taproot are still kicking out the jams. They have a new 'concept' album called "The Episodes", out April 10. Huh.

- Finally, Jack and KG are back, more glorious than ever. Long live the D!

*Except for Al Green. Al Green is a badass.

Ed.Note: This is part of what we here at tbaggervance hope to be an ongoing serious in which we take a look at pop culture, philosophy and good old fashioned common sense for their pearls of wisdom as it pertains to happiness. These areas of expertise all at one point or another attempt to distill down the keys to abating sadness into a singular entity or idea, and we here at tbaggervance are putting on our critic's tuque to assess how close they got to any validity. Of course seeing ourselves as final arbiter on all matters of public import, you should pay attention.

Since this is the opening salvo in our first crack at an ongoing series in a while around here, we decided to start with a bang. Or at least, the idea that was the seed for this endeavor that has stuck with me the longest. It's going to take quick flourish of pop culture references to get there, so stay with me.

When I was in high school, I felt like I had nothing in common with my father. We had little to talk about other than him reprimanding me for whatever thing I had recently done that had pissed my mother off. In City Slickers, Billy Crystal talks with his friends about the importance of baseball in his life, because despite his strained relationship with his father, they could always talk about sport. Well my relationship with my old man wasn't strained, but there was a point in time where they only thing we really shared in common was the show Cheers. It was the one half hour a week my dad and I sat down together, and apart from the fact that it was one of the best television shows ever, I looked forward to watching it because my dad and I could laugh at the same thing for a finite period of time.

So the final episode of Cheers finds Sam Malone searching for the meaning of life, the key to happiness. In the penultimate scene he asks his best friend Norm for the answer, and Norm tells him "One thing." In Norm's case he's talking about the stool in the bar where he spends the majority of his life, and shortly after, Sam realizes for him it's the bar itself, and that the happiness he's been searching for has been surrounding him all along. As a writer's trick it's fairly trite; as a way to end the series I'll go ahead and say that it was note perfect.

That's why I love that ideal and why it's stuck with me for so long, but how does it hold up when scrutinized as a philosophy to organize your life around? Superficially it seems fairly obvious - love one thing, rely on it, and happiness will always be there for you. If you love your job and it means everything to you, well then that's your thing. If you pour your heart and soul into a hobby - be it juggling or going to the symphony - that thing can center you and make the world melt away. If you find that one thing is a person, well then that person can stem the unrelenting tide and bring you happiness when everything comes crashing down around you. I find the most credence in the last iteration of the ideal. Whether it's your spouse or children or best friend, the calming ideal of one overriding, unconditional love is both pretty powerful and for the lucky amongst us, tangible.

But of course it's been said by many smarter than I that nothing lasts forever. Nations crash and civilizations crumble. You wife cheats on you. Your kids become fuck ups. The Cubs don't win a world series in 100 years. Tangible things can let you down. Unless your one thing is a sled from your childhood that you can curl up against every night, your thing will falter (and as an aside, if your thing is Rosebud, your thing isn't really Rosebud. You are missing the point.) Plus, I've organized my life as such that I'm in love with many things. I love my wife and my kids and they center me and make me happy beyond belief. But I'd be ibid if I couldn't create. I'd die on the vine without writing and drawing and letting things spring forth from my mind hole. And I haven't even mentioned booze or music yet!

I'm all for singularity of focus. It can keep you happy for weeks on end. But the idea of coming back to one thing over and over again as the object of your affection - and that you only need to open your eyes to see it - is a cheap trick of writers and filmmakers. It's the equivalent of Oprah's "secret" - designed to make you find the happiness around you and thus relate to the story being told to you. That's not always a malevolent thing, sometimes it's just to tug at your heartstrings and assure you that characters you spent 11 years watching every Thursday night are going to be OK even though they will no longer be on your television. But I find it wanting as a trope to live your life by. If you can modify it to say "immerse yourself in something from time to time and revel in it, take solace that it's there, but don't be afraid to move on." then we are closer. When talking about individuals, well that's closer still. They can really do it, but you still are going to need a hobby, because no one is everything to someone else.

At the end of the day, we find the concept of "One thing" an intriguing one, with some obvious flaws that doesn't hold up all that well to serious scrutiny. As a Happiness Trope, from a scale of 0-10, 0 being Twilight and 10 being Star Wars, we give it a Chasing Amy, or a 6.5.

Ah Oberon! King of the fairies and harbinger of summer! Today we mark your triumphant return from necessary exile - one that ensures that we may properly appreciate your color, scent and taste, and only pair it with the appropriate warmth of a summer's day. Oberon you are a cherished member of our barbeques, baseball games and all outdoor activities wherein we worship the sun and plead with it never to leave. Welcome back old friend. You were missed, but when you're back, it's like we never missed a beat.

- Our summer buddy is also now available in 12 packs! On sale at Busch's right now for $15.77.

- We inadvertently missed the 49th anniversary of Please Please Me last Thursday. We correct that mistake by presenting you with the greatest rock and roll vocal of all time: John Lennon on "Twist and Shout".

- Back when I was in college, my roommate always used to note as we walked home from some party how different Ann Arbor and U of M was. This usually was because we were getting drunk and discussing Voltaire's influence on the Enlightenment or something of the sort. "Only in Ann Arbor.." he'd say. I thought of him when I read this.

- I had seen that many people I respected were in the throes of love with the BBC show Downton Abbey, but I wasn't expecting to fall down that rabbit hole. But then an afternoon at the in-laws turned into a Downton Abbey marathon and before I knew it I was clamoring for more. It's fitting that we just finished the last episode before another show I feel similarly about, Mad Men, returns this Sunday. In honor of both, here's a slideshow pairing the characters of Downton Abbey with their Md Men soul mates.

- Angry Birds. Words with Friends. Qrank. Most of the app games people have told me were amazing and would change my life were absolutely spot on. Add Draw Something to the list. If you're playing, please find tbaggervance and start a game. I'm quite good...

- Thanks to the unseasonably warm weather, this year's Chandler Drive In is in full swing. Last summer, I used our backyard movie theater to show Siddhartha all of the films of Quentin Tarantino. This summer: the movies of Alfred Hitchcock. Luckily for him we won't be able to get to them all.

- Finally, as I type this, there are 61 hours and 27 minutes until Oberon is released. I'll be like a kid trying to fall asleep on Xmas eve until then. Plus, I just found out that it will now be available in 12 packs, which is going to change my entire life. Cheers.

I know we talked politics yesterday, but I don't have my thoughts organized on other things I want to talk to you about and truth be told, this shit has been building up in my cache and I want to dump it and move on. So what follows are links/articles/op-eds/ideas that have been and are going to be ignored (smart) or countered (dumb) by the GOP in the coming months. OK, it's a "No so bad with the Obama, eh?" post. I tried to stay away from blatantly liberal blogs and stick to national news organizations. For those who want an overly wordy counterpoint, I'm sure ljv will have something in the comments section as soon as he has a free period.

- From the NYTimes: The government bought up $225 billion in toxic mortgage backed securities a while back, in order to stabilize markets during the downturn. End cost to the taxpayers: $25 billion. Profit.

- From USAToday: 4 million seniors saved over $2 billion on prescription drugs last year, thanks to the Affordable Care Act. Overall savings to the government are even more, as many of these medications allow for outpatient treatment or are preventative medicines.

- From The Hill: Fox News contributor points out that not only did 'The Stimulus' work, but to argue against it is to say that huge tax cuts don't work, and that might not be what those arguing against it want to say.

- Again from The Nation's Newspaper - we said the auto bailouts were wrong at the time. Turns out we were wrong. Let's go ahead and ALL admit that.

- From the Atlantic: Obama is more fiscally conservative than Reagan. I could debunk what the GOP thinks of Reagan from now until election day. What a farce.

So there you go. Next time someone tells you that all that spending the government is doing isn't working, you counter with math. And a few curse words, because the mouth breathers probably won't get the math.

Let's make this quick. Mittens Romney won Illinois handily last night and bully for him. His position as the nominee is the same fait accompli that it was months ago. That doesn't mean that Santorum or Gingrich or Paul are going away, but the narrative may finally start to change. I for one knew that the end was neigh when Santorum declared war on porn. People give lip service to a lot of conservative bullshit because it sounds good and like what you're supposed to say, but you come for their booze or their porn and you're going to get a lot of "Beg your pardon?"s. It's America Rick. Love it or leave it.

With all of the hullabaloo out of the way, it's time for Willard to start talking to the American public at large - like a national candidate as opposed to the niche lackey that primaries require. That's why I laughed until my balls ached that he came out of the gate with this gem: "I don't see how anyone who is a young person could vote for a Democrat, I'm going to be honest with you."

Now Romney's no idiot. He's far closer to a spoiled Machiavelli who doesn't understand why people don't like him. Shrewd but obtuse. A bad actor, but one who can memorize his lines. The trouble starts, as it generally does in politics, when the truth comes out. But in addition to being of a party that wants to remove porn from the internet, let's look at some of the other things on the GOP agenda that young people are lining up to support:

- To run for office in South Carolina, they insist that you abstain from pre-marital sex. I'm sure that will be very popular.

- In Wisconsin, they want you to know that underage sex is a crime (you should watch the video in that link where the guy says that "Nobody knows more about sex than ME." and then pray for his homeschooled children).

- Their latest budget slashes funding of Pell grants for college, while lowering the top tax rate by 10%. Makes sense, most 20 year olds make $300,000 a year as opposed to attending school.

Funding for women's health. Gay marriage. Immigration. The Republican party is on the opposite side of young America on all of these issues. Yet Willard can't understand why if you're 22 you wouldn't vote Republican. Maybe I'm underestimating the amount of high school seniors who hate sex, don't want to go to college and are scared of women, gays and hispanics the same way you're average 57 year old hedge fund manager or third generation rural farmer are. I guess we'll find out on election day.

- If you haven't seen this, I swear it is worth your time: Will the real Mitt Romney please stand up?

Last night I was trying to make a left turn onto a one way into downton Ann Arbor and was forced to sit there while three people making a right turn waited to see if the d-bag standing on the corner was going to cross the street in front of them or not. While I place the majority of blame onto the bro standing there casually glancing at his phone, not knowing where he was going - as well as the third car who watched him do so and didn't just gun it, I find them all in violation of the social contract.

I recently saw an autograph that Louie CK signed for a little kid that said simply: "Don't be an asshole." That's as succinct of a distillation as I could give to my own philosophy. We have a certain set of prescribed rules in this society. They largely stem from Biblical pretexts and the Hammurabic code, which means they are so overtly simplistic that people several millennia ago said "That seems about right." Most of these laws people obey without thinking about them. They are fairly absolute, black and white, and haven't truly been argued about for centuries. Sure we play in the gray areas, but that's the privilege of an advanced society.

However, being civilized in my little corner of the world means more than that. These are the things that I've cobbled together through my midwestern upbringing, my early indoctrination into Catholicism and the following 25 years of analytical analysis. And while "Don't be an asshole" is a nice turn-of-phrase distillation, we unfortunately have to get a tad more overt than that, because people don't seem to get it.

First off, I'll caveat it by saying that sometimes it's important to be an asshole. I'll loosely define this behavior as "Calling people on their shit" but it could more politely be stated as "Stand up for what you believe in." While in 'refined' society (not to be confused with society-at-large or civilized society) it may make you persona-non-grata to call out an elder for being racist, or your friend for saying that Obama is a Muslim, or your co-worker for leaving shit in the community fridge for months on end, in the code of tbaggervance that is exactly what you must do. To tolerate intolerance or injustice gives these things tacit permission, and thus you would be found guilty of hindering our advancement in the court of tbaggervance.

Now I have (and continue to, to a lesser degree) take this as a mandate to call people out on lesser shit - whether it be their love for The Da Vinci Code or Twilight, or their advocacy of a non-progressive tax code, or even their fondness for Coldplay. I feel it the duty of every man to advocate for their beliefs. Not to the point of proselytizing mind you, but if someone across from you says something akin to "The Beatles are overrated" you don't just sit there. You don't even just walk away. You set the record straight. You do so with facts and knowledge and passion if you can, and with the eviscerating barbs of profanity and condescension if you can't. If you are not well versed in this, please sign up for my class "Making people fell small while validating your pre-conceived notions" at the learning annex.

But these are not the real world problems most of us face. I get that most people don't lie awake at night because they heard someone say at the bar "Dianetics changed my life." But I have a distinct idea that many of us have our day to day existence marred by people driving the speed limit in the left hand lane, or by trying to get on an elevator before you get off of it, or by taking their sweet goddamn time checking out at the self-checkout lane in the grocery store.

As a society, we function at our best when we consider those around us. This can manifest itself by giving time or money to a cause you believe in, by not driving past a line of cars waiting to get into a construction zone when the highway goes down to one lane and merging at the last second, or by simply holding the door for whomever is behind you going to the same place. These are simple things that cost you little to nothing, but yet prove the best in us in that we have taken the time to admit that solipsism is no way to go through life.

When I saw that idiot standing on the street corner tonight, with both he and the cars around him wondering if he was going to cross the street, I noted to the BDGF that it's a good thing for the idiots of the world that I wouldn't last in prison, because otherwise I'd thin the herd every chance I get. Actually, I said it's a good thing for society, but in hindsight my wording was wrong - It would be a fantastic thing for society, just not the least among you. I imagine this is the same thought process H.G. Wells had when he wrote The Time Machine.

- There's a plethora of Jack White media saturation out there, so in deference to the BDGF, let's go to the tape: here's a review of his SXSW performance (which included reworked White Stripes songs), here's a similar review of Jack's new endeavor that includes the line "White has often ceded the stage to great but less charismatic talents like Brendan Benson." so that's dumb, and speaking of Mr. Benson, here comes a Raconteurs' DVD. Oh, and this is the best song of his solo debut yet.

- Radiohead are finally playing Detroit! Well, Auburn Hills anyway. Here's hoping that these idiots come along for the ride.

- Jeff Tweady's kid is making music and it is not bad. Makes you feel old, eh?

- The A.V. Club is back with it's Undercover series, and it kicks off with the Tom Petty/Stevie Nicks classic "Stop Dragging my Heart Around". Baby you could never look me in the eye...

- The Shins are streaming their new LP on iTunes. I like the Shins, but I will never get excited by them, because when it comes to excitement and the Shins, never the twain shall meet.

- Craig Finn is making his own beer. I've watched him drink a million Coronas on stage over the years, so pardon me if I sit this one out. One week until Oberon returns!

- Finally, Ann Arbor's hottest low-fi duo, Death Wish Squirrel play Woodruffs this Thursday at 8pm sharp. Dig it. And try not to judge them for existing on MySpace. Yes, apparently still a thing.

- Here's a new meme that I am totally on board with: Mitt Romney quotes as read by Lucille Bluth and Sterling Archer quotes as read by James Bond. Come on!

- Community returned last night, so in celebration, we give the hottest animated gifs of Allison Bree and Gillian Jacobs.

- Michigan plays in the opening round of the NCAA tournament tonight. Sadly, I will be with Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman watching Mythbusters Live. As far as sacrafices go, a pretty easy one. As a pre-game snack, please enjoy this analysis of why Ohio fans are douche bags. Nailed it.

- There's no way to tie these two things together, so I'll just note it gives me unadulterated joy that Dr. Horrible may be coming back and that Chuck Klosterman also enjoyed the late 80's Canadian teen melodrama Fifteen. That show was my church on Sunday mornings back in the day.

- Finally, tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day. My pride in my Irish heritage compells me to celebrate, but there's nothing worse than a Saturday St. Pats. It makes the amateur component explode exponentially. Anyway, enjoy this Guiness commercial which, of course, nails it. Erin Go Bragh.

Ed. note: This is for my own edification. No one should decide to read it of their own volition, except in which case they find my profanity laden diatribes funny, but I even can't promise that right now.

Deep down in my heart of hearts I am eternally grateful. Back in 1998 I had been working at a research firm that served as my student employment. After graduation, I was stuck with a degree that was essentially useless in the real world, a desire to never sit in a classroom again, and a three year old who needed food, shelter and insurance. So when my employer at the time offered me a full time job (albeit one not in my field of study) I jumped at the opportunity. Despite going into college wanting to set the world on fire and have a career path drastically different from my old man's, I found myself taking a steady job to provide for a toddler. My dad always said the older you get the smarter your parents are, and the older I get, the more I agree with him.

Now this was not a dire scenario by any stretch of the imagination. My new salary afforded me the opportunity to pay my bills, let my son be insured, and most importantly, came with a flexibility so that I could be there for the little one when time called. I worked nine to five, five days a week - and if I needed to leave at 10am because someone threw up at school, no worries mate.

Plus it was a fairly challenging position. I knew computers because I was a nerd, but not having any formal training, there was a lot of learning as I went. And the tasks were diverse - I literally learned the ins and outs of every part of IT support. Show me a computer now and I can tell you within 30 seconds what's wrong with it. Turns out to be a valuable skill. You think doctors have a tough time at a party when the guests find out and he spends the evening being asked "Can you look at this blemish on my scrotum?" Try being in IT. Same thing except they don't have anything to show you. "How come all of the sudden my computer at home doesn't print?" Turns out "Probably because you're an idiot." isn't a valid response.

But as he too often is, the Moeman was right. For a dozen years I never had to miss a team practice. I got to coach baseball that met at 4pm on a Thursday. I picked Sid up from school on half days and had no trouble staying home when he was sick or even if his belly hurt. I wouldn't trade that for the world.

After a decade or so however, I started to think about longevity. I saw the end of the line wherein I didn't have 2pm emergencies or International nights or the need to be a taxi cab to tennis practice. I started to feel a sense of entitlement where one had previously not existed. I had done good work for a long time, and while I had grown accustomed to the cushy University life, I now also wanted compensated for my experience. I had earned it. It was time to make money, and I would very much like to do that with very little additional effort or finding a new job thank you.

Let us fast forward to a year ago. Things started to snowball when the guy for all intents and purposes 'above me' decided to leave. This was to be my big break. A chance to set an agenda for myself to become the IT overlord for an entire department, just I had envisioned for years. Everyone at work loved me, and I knew not only problems but the solutions to that which plagued us. Of course best laid plans...

Almost a year later, after having me do the job of the guy that left in addition to my previous responsibilities, and hiring an 'IT Manager' for the department without so much as informing that it was going to happen (much less giving me the opportunity to apply for the position) I find myself butting heads with a stereotypical middle management asshole who takes my ideas and spouts them to the higher ups as if they were his own while I sit at the office, now 11:12pm on a Wednesday night, doing the menial work of a temp. So much for being indispensable.

As I stopped home quickly to drink a beer in the sun before heading back to my cave for the evening, the BDGF reminded me "Oh, come on, it's not the end of the world..." To which I summarily responded "Yes it is." When she asked for one example how it was , I told her "When the idiots of the world stop listening to those smarter than they and quit respecting their ideas in deference to their own wrong-headedness, we are fucked as a society." That's as arrogant as it gets people. The BDGF laughed. I contend, as I sit here in my spite, that I am right.

Now my at work troubles don't amount to a hill of beans. Maybe I'm not as good as I think I am. Maybe I'm too young and still too acerbic a personality to rise to the vaunted level of middle management. But I know the reason I sit here right now pounding the keyboard as if it were my enemy only exists because people didn't listen to me. At the very least I'm right a little bit. And of course I still contend a lot. Maybe I'll never be rich and successful and get what I deserve for years of dedicated service. Sometimes I worry about that. But I always take solace in the Moeman paradigm. I'm sure he had to deal with worse than I have so far, and he seemed to be OK in his lot in life. At the end of the day, I could do worse. Although if any more of them end up with me printing posters at midnight on a Wednesday, the end of the day is going to come with me taking a shit in someone's office. At the very least...

- I don't care too terribly much about pro football, certainly no single team owns my allegiance. I find it hard to root for pro athletes who are inherently flawed individuals who I may not agree with, thus putting me at odds with loving them on the field and loathing them off. Take Philip Rivers for example. Not only would I be jumping ship if I were any sort of a Chargers fan, I now look forward to rooting against them for as long as he's on the team.

- We've talked about Kirk Cameron's homophobia ad nauseam 'round these parts, and I normally wouldn't bother following it up just because his one time TV dad Alan Thicke rebuked him, but I also do not want to deny you this headline: Kirk Cameron's Growing Pains co-stars no longer showing him that smile. Nailed it.

- Ah Utah, home of Mormons and Karl Malone. Therefore you shouldn't be surprised that they've passed an abstinence only sex-ed bill. But what if I also told you that it prohibits even mentioning homosexuality and gives schools the choice to forgo sex-ed al altogether? Yeah, barely phases me either.

- Here's some stuff the Bible says 'tsk, tsk' to that you probably participated in. Sinner.

- If you're looking for an alternate moral code, you could do worse than Louis CK.

- Finally, we are all for conflating the Obama = Savior meme around here, especially when it's done in reverse.

The BDGF hates winter like I hate conservative hypocrites. She gruffs her way from November onward every year. And come every January I remind her of the promise of St. Patrick's Day. The first year we were together St. Pats broke the back of winter. We were buried under a foot of snow at the beginning of March, but the powers of the Drunken Irish beat back the cold and on March 17th that year, we walked around in the sun without even coats to keep ourselves warm.

Every year she grouses, every year I remind her. At which point she usually tells me how tired of waiting she is, along with another string of expletives as she turns up the heat in the house. Well I am happy to report - as you obviously already know, that she didn't have to wait even until St. Patrick's Day this year. Yesterday I worked outside in SHORTS. The extended 10 day forecast doesn't have a temperature below 60 for a high. Whether it be climate change, global warming or just a weird point in nature's cycle, I hereby declare winter to be stone dead. Make forth glorious summer! Even if Oberon is still two weeks away...

- I imagine it's still pretty cold in Quebec come April, so we will plan our trip to these for sometime in August. Because Hoth proved that the force cannot keep you warm.

- There's some interesting math going on here. But it also includes a Star Wars reference, so worth checking out.

- Hey about that contraception being a liberal plot to force conservatives to subsidize promiscuity thing - is that pill easier to swallow if it saves us a billion dollars? Aw well, it was worth a shot...

- There was quite a bit of good music on television this week, highlighted by Jack White on SNL and Elvis Costello and the Roots covering Bruce Springsteen on Fallon. Yowza.

- I found it interesting that of the top ten bars in Ann Arbor (ranked by total alcohol sales) I'd only be caught dead in one of them. I can't decide if this means I'm not doing enough at the bars I do frequent, or I'm single handedly keeping them afloat.

- I leave it to you as to which of these "Who said it?"s is funnier: Mitt Romney or Mr Burns? OR Rick Santorum or the Grand Ayatollah? Did I say funny? I think I meant disturbing.

-It's tourney time! Almost anyway. Michigan plays in the Big Ten Tournament this weekend before the Big Dance starts next Thursday. I will watch more basketball in the next ten days than I will the rest of the year. And on Monday I will fill out a bracket wherein I will spectacularly fail to predict the correct upsets, yet still carry around a sheet with my picks on it, and two pens so that I can mark the games I get right and those I inevitably get wrong. Wait, there's got to be an app for that, right?

- Finally, the BDGF returns today, trophy in hand for another State Championship for her little math nerds. We couldn't be prouder of her or more happy to have her back. xoxo my sweet.

Along with my parenting duties (and cleaning the hideousness that had festered underneath our basement stairs) so far I have watched: a documentary about Star Wars fans who feel like George Lucas mouth raped their childhood, Brubaker, a 1980 Robert Redford prison movie that features plenty of actual rape, and a "where are they now?" documentary about the world's best video gamers in 1982. Tonight I may read a bit of the Teddy Roosevelt biography while listening to Chris Bathgate on vinyl before settling down to watch a 1982 German film about a rubber baron who tried to build an opera house in the Peruvian jungle. Jealous? If someone wants to come over and play Star Wars/Lord of the Rings/Beatles Trivial Pursuit (yes, I own all three editions, why do you ask?) my night would be complete. I'll also start to feel a little bit like those guys from the video game documentary. Minus the living with my parents part. On to the nerd links!

- The new iPad is out and I finally really want one. We always bring a laptop with us when we travel, and I always get to be the one to lug it around. That's just the tip of the iceberg as to why I am ready to take the plunge. Here's a comparison between the iPad's latest specs and its top competitors.

- That 70's Show (and I supposeWin a Date with Tad Hamilton?)'s Topher Grace edited the three Star Wars prequels together into an action packed 90-minute movie, and it's apparently not too shabby. You'll never get to see it of course, so keep dreaming of another decent Star Wars movie.

- For Ann Arbor Star Wars fans, a lament - they are tearing down the building that used to house Sze Chuan West to build a Noodles and Co. This is not only lamentable because boo crappy chain restaurants, but if any of you ever had the pleasure of going to the old Sze Chuan, you know it was as close to actually being on Tatooine that you could find this side of Tunisia. My dream that someone would turn it into a replica of the Mos Eisley Cantina will soon be dead.

- Finally, venn diagrams, when done well, are a perfect cocktail of nerd awesome.

It's that time of year again when the BDGF goes away on business for a couple of days and I am left hold down the fort and fend for myself and the girls. This basically means that I have to get up an hour early to get them to school and be in charge of getting the littlest into bed at reasonable time (midnight?) The rest of my existence will ostensibly be the same.

Except for the fact that I have about 4 hours to kill after the littlest goes to bed every night all by my lonesome. And while I will miss my BDGF I am going to make the most of my alone time by going on a nerd binge. The BGDF and I agree on most things to a level that approaches disturbing, but I do have a few proclivities that she does not share. I once averaged watching a movie at LEAST every other day, now not so much. I absolutely adore slow, mellow, trenchant music - but not around the BDGF.

So for the next 48 hours I'm going to watch long, methodical movies that most people have never heard of (who's ready for Fitzcarraldo!) and listen to Chris Bathgate and Radiohead. And I'll get to enjoy it without a single eyeroll from my better half. Of course I'll be more than ready to have her back come Friday, because while I look forward to placating my inner nerd, I'd much rather sit around and discuss the entirety of the day's NYTimes with my BDGF (which is of course pretty nerdy in and of itself).

- Wormer.. .dead. Niedermeyer... dead. McQuarrie... Star Wars concept artist and populator of my adolescent dreams Ralph McQuarrie has passed away at the age of 82. Perhaps no other person outside of Lucas himself was responsible for how awesome Star Wars looked. I like to think he was lying in bed and then suddenly just disappeared, leaving nothing but a cloak in his wake.

- Neil Degrasse Tyson is perhaps the world's most badass astrophysicist. You've seen him on the Daily Show and Colbert. He has a kick ass podcast. You can generally ask him anything about science and he'll give you an answer that not only sounds irrefutable, but also eloquent. Here he is giving you the most astounding thing about the universe.

- Finally, the cherry on today's nerd Sunday: The Dr. Who/Sherlock musical mash up. I said good day sir.

I suppose I've had some adversity in my life. Not as much as someone born truly poor who had to worry about going to bed hungry growing up, more than someone who had the means to buy their way out of trouble and make it go away. And while most of the people who knew me as a teenager would have described me as pessimistic at best, at the very least I've grown to consider myself an extremely lucky individual. No more so in how I managed to become a father at 19 and literally, just survive. And while I've had a fortuitous nature in a lot of the aspects of that paradigm, in my mind what made that possible was the kind of kid I had. Nature versus nurture aside, I've been told that Sid and I do everything alike from enter a room the same way to similarly condescend to our enemies while playing a game of euchre. Had this not been the case, I would have struggled far more mightily than I did.

I'm fairly certain that his success is predicated on this. Sid is a smart kid. The veritable textbook case of what you'd think parents would want their child to be. Most importantly for me, he approaches things (mostly) like I did. This is paramount because as I'm fond of saying, I wouldn't have had the first clue what to do with a kid that struggled. Pardon my not-humble nature (and hyperbole) but I barely needed to open a book in high school to get straight A's nor in college to get a degree from one of the better institutions of higher learning in the country. This is not necessarily something to brag about nor aspire to, as it made me lazy and dismissive and (along with needing to pay for a toddler) stopped my educational career far before it may have otherwise progressed.

But years later, when I had a smart kid on my hands who needed challenging rather than help to stay afloat, I had the tools to deal with it. Because like every parent who has ever existed, I wanted more for my kid than that which I had for myself. It's the epitome of the American dream. I've done whatever (although admittedly certainly not everything - I'm still somewhat lazy) I could to foster a climate of educational importance in Sid's life. To push him, prod him and ensure that he's performing up to his potential, rather than skating by like his father years before him too often did.

Sid takes his ACT exam this week. I'm confident in his success, because I have no reason to expect otherwise. My fingers are crossed that he goes to the University of Michigan and revels in being a Wolverine like his old man. It's a dream that I never allowed myself to have until recently, but now it burns within me like so much the white hot intensity of a thousand suns. It is all consuming and all I want in life. I can say this knowing that A.) he will never read this, and B.) that - honestly - if he goes to a good school and works hard I'll be as proud of him as I would be were we to have matching diplomas. Honest. Mostly.

What I don't get is, who doesn't want that for their kid? I understand that not everyone is as lucky as I have been and that dream is not attainable for every single 16 year old in America, but some version of it is. In my estimation this goes back to the election of George W. Bush, but it assuredly stems back further if not having existed ad infinitum. It also seems to be somewhat uniquely American, but I'm willing to be wrong on that too and not defend it vehemently. However long it's existed and wherever it's most prevalent, there's a push back against intellectualism in this country, and it makes me want to vomit more profusely than Rick Santorum contemplating JFK's mere existence.

What makes "elitism" an ugly word? I mean, I know that it's a GOP meme meant to conjure up vapid, over-educated souls who have never done a hard day's work in their life and who think they know how to fix your problems despite never having experienced them, but what makes that OK when applied to education but not business 'elites' who are certainly as soft and more coddled than their University counterparts? The latter is celebrated while the former serves as a Limbaugh punchline (nevermind that those routinely throwing said barbs have master's level degrees and higher).

My little brother is a farmer. He's two years younger than I am. Never went to school, has problems with subject/verb agreement when speaking extemporaneously. He's read fewer books in his lifetime than I have in my 30s and can't begin to define string theory or the argument for preemptive war with Iran versus sanctions and diplomacy. Yet I don't doubt for a second that he's every bit as happy on a day to day basis as I am. I don't look down on my brother for one second because of the choices he's made or how he's decided to live his life. The truth is, despite eschewing college, he's engaged in bettering himself through apprenticeship programs and courses designed to teach him a trade until he's found a place for himself. He may not be done yet, but if that's the case, I'm sure he's not going to sit back and stop searching.

I'm also fairly certain that he doesn't think I'm a condescending asshole for getting a degree. I mean, I KNOW he thinks I'm a condescending asshole, but for the same reason that most people think I am - because it's true. At the end of the day, we both have the same values instilled in us by out parents: Work hard. Do right. Don't rest on your laurels. Find something that makes sense to you and then give back, because not everyone is as lucky as you are. Disparate paths, same result.

I want everyone to be educated because I think it's the highest ideal. I think that more often than not, those who can apply their brains to the abstract end up solving the concrete problems we face. That a knowledge of history and the basic building blocks of chemistry, physics, literature, mathematics and art allow us to stand on the shoulders of giants and solve problems we would have otherwise not ever been made aware of. Failing that, I want my kid to get a good job and not have to fret too much about living paycheck to paycheck so that he can worry a little less and take vacations a little more. I honestly believe that an education is the best way to do that. I really hope that Sid crushes my ACT score, even if that fact will hinder my sleep patterns for the better part of a month.

- Rick Santorum is very concerned that President Obama wants to make over the you of America 'in his image' by sending them to college to be educated. Mr. Santorum has a great fear that attending college will make people less religious. I'm here to tell Rick that his fears are 100% correct. I'm fond of the argument that politics and religion are the two things that most people get indoctrinated into at a very young age and then never bother to explore for themselves. This is not to say that many people don't question their faith or political leanings and end up coming down exactly where they've always been told that they belong, but my question to Santorum and any other believer out there would be "What are you afraid of?" Isn't the unexamined life not worth living? Does your belief system and set of dogmas not pass the muster of scrutiny? By overtly stating that an education makes you less religious, you're the one pointing out flaws in your system - which by the way you think should inform and be arbiter of every piece of public discourse and policy. Christ on a bike what house of cards...

- As the contraception and "personhood" arguments heat up like we've time warped back to the 1950s, this hero proposes masturbation be a crime. Thankfully he was joking, but disgustingly it's like one foot behind the line in the sand they are trying to draw.

- Witness the most disturbing documentary trailer you've seen since "Jesus Camp": "Kidnapped for Christ" Because if you're rich, super-christian and your kid tells you they're gay, it's off to the re-education camps. Again: documentary.

- Wait, Kirk Cameron says homosexuality is detrimental to society. I take back the above post.

- What was that show where Alyssa Milano was a witch? I want to see her and whoever else was on that show take on these bitches: The Teen Exorcism Squad. Again, I'm not making this shit up.

- Finally, this little segment may have outlived its usefulness, as it would appear Miley Cyrus is an atheist. Game over, we won. Peace out.

- So the Oscars, as per usual, were pretty bland. We get it, you think you have to be milquetoast. But do you have to trot out a catskill comedian recycling jokes from Vaudeville and treading on his the same exact shtick he's done 8 times before? Christ on a bike. Wanna know how meh the Oscars were? Watch Seth Rogen's opening remarks from the American Spirit Awards (BTW, the movie 50/50 didn't get nominated for anything? It was way better than a lot of the dreck that got noms). Or the montage from the Jimmy Kimmel Show post-Oscars. Oye vey Billy Crystal, worse than we thought in the moment.

- I hate mentioning people like Rush Limbaugh because I feel like I'm contributing to the problem by merely repeating the vile things that come out of his mouth. But this, well... he said that if we mandate coverage for birth control, then women should have to tape themselves having sex and put it on the internet so he can watch. Ironically, it's dumber than this parody of the GOP's war on women's reproductive rights - which they tried to make so dumb as to be laughable. Congrats Rush and the whole GOP - that's tough to do.

- One of my favorite conversations (and one I've been having for 20 years) is about how all artists are thieves. Anyone who has ever created anything stands on the shoulders of giants, and I write that stealing a quote that I'm not attributing, thus completing the cycle. Anyway, rather than give you my version of the diatribe, I can't recommend enough that you watch these videos "Everything is a Remix". My buddy Rohrs emailed it to me, noting "I think we had this conversation many moons ago." We did, and let's go ahead and pretend we were that erudite.

- Wormer... dead. Niedermeyer... dead. Breitbart... Political asshat Andrew Breitbart died yesterday at the age of 43, and I have no problem saying about time. I know I should feel bad that he had friends and family and they are mourning, but I'd feel worse if he had lived and they had continued to suffer him, in an even more personal, up close way than the world had to. He was a horrible, vile human being that politically embodied the worst of humanity (minus things such as genocide). I can't say it any better than Matt Taibbi did: Andrew Breitbart: Death of a Douche.

- Finally, yesterday Bells Brewery announced that Oberon will be released March 26th (it's always the last Monday in March, but it's good to have things all official like). That means we are just a tad more than three weeks away from the official start of spring. Let's get the weather to cooperate now please and thank you. Cheers.

- This is ancient news at this point, but people were upset at Dave Grohl dissing electronic music on the Grammys, and which point he kind of clarified what he meant. He was right all along - music is about self-expression, and most of what you hear on the radio (I assume, anyway) is not that.

- Announced - Sleigh Bells go on tour and Pitchfork's Festival lineup 2012.

- I have no idea what bizarre internet show this is, but Ted Leo plays "Bottled in Cork" at the 17:45 mark.

- Jimmy Fallon + Eddie Vedder + Jeremy Lin = This.

- I remember the first time I heard Norah Jones. I thought "This is something" and promptly listened to the album 1 zillion times. Then six months later it became a huge adult contemporary thing I needed a shower. Since then she's made a number of awesome career zigs and zags, including acting in a Wong Kar Wai movie collaborating with Jack White and Dangermouse. Incidentally, Danger produces her new album, and I like the first track. If that means I am headed for Lite FM, so be it. I mean how dare you!

- My all time greatest indie rock underground crush The Promise Ring reunited again last Saturday night in Chicago. Due to travel schedules I had to miss the show, so here's hoping this turns into some sort of mini reunion tour, because imagine how much fun it would be to pretend it's 1997 again...

- Finally, Wormer.. dead. Niedermeyer... dead. Davey Jones... I certainly am not old enough to have been the Monkee's target demographic when they were hatched in a lab sometime in 1964, but I certainly saw most if not all of their TV episodes growing up, which I think speaks to the quality (if not necessarily enduring power) of what they were doing. Sometimes old guys in suits decide to copy something in the zeitgeist and despite their best efforts, fail to screw it up. I put the Monkees in that category. No they didn't play their instruments, but that makes this not a good song or more importantly, not super fun? No, no it doesn't. RIP Davey...

- I'll admit that I thought about voting for Rick Santorum yesterday. Michigan has an open primary so I could have gone in, asked for a Republican ballot and cast my lot with vilest of the vile in hopes of obfuscating the GOP race. Ultimately, I didn't because I don't want to be that kind of person. Not because of the liberals yelling "If he gets elected I'm blaming you!" because that prospect is as likely me turning down a free drink. I like to think that I have a little higher set of ideals. Let them run whomever they think best represents their direction for the country and let's have an honest debate about it. None of this will happen mind you, but not because I'm fucking around and giggling with the kids at Daily Kos.

- So let us eulogize the man synonymous with anal sex liquids, mostly because I have a million links in my file I need to dump. Let us remember Santorum by remembering what he believed in:

- Global warming is a hoax.
- College is for snobs (and Obama mandates your attendance).
- You have no constitutional right to privacy.
- There's no such thing as a liberal Christian.
- JFK was a pussy.

Thanks for the good times Santorum. And thanks to every woman and non-Catholic who voted for him and prolonged his run in the spotlight - you took one for the team knowing that Santorum hates you and has no respect for your rights as an individual.

- You know how the biggest homophobes in the Republican party doth tend to protest too much? This does nothing to dispel that.

- And while I always knew that the Girl Scouts had a rampant pro-homosexual agenda, I had no clue they were also encouraging the sexualization of children as an arm of Panned Parenthood. The more you know...

- Finally, with a little luck, I give you the first female president of the United States. I'd vote for her.

When the BDGF initially proffered the idea of including Vegas on our Southwestern United States vacation, I was excited. I love Vegas. Or I did. Back in the day Vegas was a wonderful, giant, gold plated turd. Sure at some point they tried to gentrify it and make a family friendly vacation destination, but it still had seediness at its core. You could still get rooms for $40 a night on the strip in what amounted to a motel. And these low rent dens of inequity would comp your stay if you agreed to play blackjack at five dollars a hand for eight hours at their tables (and they'd throw in a breakfast buffet on top of it). But I came in to that scenario as the waiters were clearing dessert, and that version of Vegas has faded into memory. The Disneyfication of the Strip is complete, and while it's still a giant, gold plated turd populated with shirtless hillbillies wearing yard long glasses of margaritas around their collective necks, seeing said spectacle is no longer possible on a budget. You can't find $5 blackjack anymore. The late night sirloin and baked potato deals for $1.99 are gone, replaced with meals fit for Applebees at twice the price. You not only don't get comped for charming the pit boss anymore, you are forbidden from making eye contact with the overweight goombas running the tables. People now bring four year olds to wander Las Vegas Boulevard, staring at business cards with naked women with stars covering their nipples and ogling at billboards featuring men in g-strings. I have a problem with this on several levels.

My trepidation didn't hit me initially. I knew that the BDGF has OCD levels of germaphobia, but that could be dealt with by wearing gloves. And I knew she wouldn't want to partake in whatever was left of my 'Dirty Vegas', where you could hope to win $100 in an hour on $5 blackjack and feel like you affected the pit's take for the day. It started to bother me when I remembered that my last two trips to Sin City ended up in my then girlfriend breaking up with me and getting mugged. My Vegas was gone. Since then I had had my heart broken and wallet stolen from me. Why was I going back here? When our itinerary went from one night to three, I started to panic.

Yet there I was Wednesday morning, checking out of our beautiful, eclectic hotel in Phoenix to head North to stay in a rundown Vegas casino where they charged $15 a night for WIRED internet access. The first night would be easy. We had tickets to see Penn & Teller at the Rio, so it was merely a matter of turning in the rental car, checking in, and going to the show. Nothing could possibly go wrong. And while I know this should be the point where I tell you a story of a horrific nature, outside of the piss poor pizza we ate out of necessity and convenience, everything went to plan. We checked in, the BDGF learned an important lesson about never stopping to talk to anyone offering you anything in Vegas, we saw the show and went back to the hotel to hang out much like we were back in Ann Arbor. The BDGF already started to express her reservations about how skeevy the city was, but I knew that was coming. Incidentally, having never been to a Vegas show before, I highly recommend Penn & Teller. Amazing magic, $50 a ticket, hilarious. Fuck $100+ for Cirque du Soleil.

The next day it was time to walk the strip and revel in all of its retarded opulence. We were resplendent in the juxtaposition of carefully recreated world treasures against the backdrop of fat Americans in their fanny packs pushing strollers. We ate pseudo French cuisine while watching tourists pay $5 to touch a guy's snake (not a euphemism). After enough sightseeing to require two showers, we took a cab to an out of the way, low rent casino to see an aging Beatles cover band that rocked our faces. We were complimented by several strangers for being able to sing every word to every song and just being utterly adorable, and both agreed that it was our favorite evening of our adventure. It's amazing at how John and Paul's words can make everything melt away, even when you are 10 years the youngest people in the room.

Friday we walked the strip again, with a detour to one of the few places my Vegas still exists: Ellis Island. Its a dump of a place with a square footage no larger than our house. But we drank their $2 beers and managed to roll them for $60 collectively at blackjack in the span of 30 minutes, thus the hero hands.

We then decided to find a spot to watch the spectacle unfold and play the ultimate Vegas game. It started as Girlfriend/Mistress/Wife but unfolded to include the following categories:

1st wife
2nd wife
Girlfriend
Mistress
Sugar daddy
King of Queens/ reverse King of Queens
Mistress turned 2nd wife
The Sarandon
Mrs. Robinson
Escort
Hillbilly Hookup
Stepladder
Lesbians or sisters?
The Beard (aka the Tom cruise)
Gaybies (Gay men with babies)
The Mailorder
The Mr. mom
The Manstress

It's a game you can play anywhere, but you will find no better content anywhere than in Vegas.

Friday night was to include a taste of the best Vegas had to offer, so at the suggestion of former Vegas resident, Sin City confidant and long time friend of tbaggervance RJ, we went to the Chandelier at the Cosmopolitan. It's the current reason Vegas has a reputation for being hip and cool and above the fray, and deservedly so. It didn't hurt that I had this on my arm:

That being said, its coolness still had a vibe of entitlement and Eurotrash to it. When you charge me $18 for two vodka sodas and act like I just kicked you in the junk when I tip you two bucks, you can politely go fuck yourself. Of course it was still amazing and being in Vegas for 48 hours, I was used to overpaying and being made to feel like it was my fault for it.

We made our way back to the hotel and checked out the following morning and made our way home. The BDGF had experienced Vegas and realized what she knew going in: that it was a dirty place she wanted no part of. I had a similar awakening in that my Vegas was truly all but dead. That of course was tempered by the notion that I got to experience it with my favorite person in the world, and what ever taboos I had about the place were similarly extinct. I no longer have a desire to visit Vegas the way I once did, but it's also not a harbinger of evil. I have better, more important ways to spend my time. The last day we were there, the BDGF and I posed in front of a chapel and posted it to facebook, hoping that people would extrapolate that we'd made a spur of the moment decision to making an honest man and woman of each other. No one bit, but that ended up being besides the point. It solidified for me something I'd known for some time now - I'd have said yes in a heartbeat. What more does anyone want out of a vacation?

I don't think for a second that the BDGF and I are the only couple in the world who routinely look each other in the eye and agree out loud to never do something again, only to find ourselves in said situation the very next time the opportunity arises. I am extremely glad, however, that those things are never horrible habits like letting each other down, but rather silly things that tend to revolve around spoiling the children or driving on vacation.

I got my way once again this year in that we agreed to try and balance fun and warmth by traveling to a probably warm city rather than a definitely warm remote resort where we'd eat dinner next to Bob and Midge from Charlotsville for six straight nights. And just as to not bury the lead - the weather was nigh on perfect. After two years of rollercoaster-y at best temps, the BDGF got a week of mid to high 70's. Of course just for cohesion's sake, we also got 9 degrees and snow on the ground.

Our original plan was to spend a week in sunny Phoenix, Arizona. I'm a big fan of their light rail transportation and figured that in a place that size, we could find a way to kill a week. After looking around a bit, the BDGF wasn't so sure. So we added Las Vegas to the itinerary. After scheduling the girl's simultaneous trip and finding the cheapest flight we arrived in Las Vegas, bound for Phoenix via economy rental car, just before midnight on Sunday night.

Of course since we were going to be so close, we just had to see the Grand Canyon on the way. Now the first summer the BDGF and I were together we drove to both South Carolina and South Kadota because family made those trips necessary. Then last year we drove up and down the East coast with the children because the older ones will be gone soon and togetherness is paramount. After that trip we swore off traveling great distances by automobile. Yet here I was, traveling through the middle of the night, 3 hours out of the way to see the sunrise over a giant hole in a car with no cruise control (seriously Ford?) And when we got there it was 9 degrees fahrenheit outside.

But what, we were going to be a couple hours from the Grand Canyon and not see it? By the time we drove south a few more hours and lowered our elevation by several thousand feet, we were sitting poolside at our hotel, basking in the 75 degree sunshine. We spent the next two days drinking outside on patios, which would have been enough to make a successful vacation for either of us.

We also met up with my ex Ayesha, who gave the BDGF a fairly prototypical Ayesha experience. It was good to see her and whatever awkwardness that's inherent in those things melted fairly quickly - thanks in large part, as always, to alcohol. And of course as we try to do every vacation, we found pub trivia to play. Phoenix may not be an intellectual mecca nor world renowned for its erudite citizenry, but let that not take away from the fact that the two of us kicked that trivia night's ass.

We clearly could have stayed longer, as we quickly fell in love with our hotel and the weather. We spent the last night sitting on the roof, just drinking and talking as we are wont to do. Because while we may fall into the trap of looking each other in the eye, stating that we'll never do something again that we clearly will, after two and half years we still just like looking at each other.

Tomorrow: Bright light city gonna set my soul on fire!

- You've seen Documentaries, Rockumentaries and Mockumentaries, but are you aware of Filmumentaries? Jamie Benning takes watching your favorite films to a new behind the scenes level, this time with my personal favorite movie of all time, Raiders of the Lost Ark. Dig it.

- More film fun! See how many times through it takes you to name all of these movies, A to Z. I watched it 3 times, I'm still missing two letters.

- Paul Krugman's op-ed in the Times today tries to tackle why people vote against their self interests. I think he misses an important reason that's tough to quantify but I think is nevertheless true: People vote Republican because they think someday they (or their children) will be rich enough to take advantage of their gamed system. I think this is largely unconscious and people who participate in this behavior often wouldn't quantify it in this way, but I think it's an actual thing. I mean, it can't all be wedge issues, the gays and lady parts aren't that scary.

- I've long been calling Romney 'inevitable'. And as much as I love the dog and pony show, I always want the opposition to run somewhat not totally batshit, because what if they win? I could always move to Toronto, but I don't think the BDGF would survive the cold. Anyway, I thought Romney was not so bad. Outside of the magic underwear thing, the guy is so malleable that he probably wouldn't be the worst President in the world. Now I'm starting to waver, because you won't believe the example of talking out of both sides of one's mouth I'm about to lay on you: Mittens was against the bailout of the auto industry. Big time. Said to let Detroit go bankrupt and kept saying it, this despite every reasonable person in the world saying that IN HINDSIGHT even, this was a rousing success. Then IN DETROIT he gets up, IN PUBLIC, and takes credit for GM being profitable. Who the fuck does this guy think he is?

- Finally, the blog will be an empty plain filled with nothing but tumbleweeds next week as I head to the great American Southwest for a much needed respite from the grind of the working week. We struggle with where to go every year, because the BDGF wants nothing more than to be able to wear dresses and be warm, and I'd rather stay home and go to work than spend a bunch of money to go to some resort and have forced interaction with Biff and Wendy from Pecoima. So we try and find somewhere South that has actual culture and a nightlife and things to do. Year one was Austin, which was fairly perfect outside of the one day that it snowed (for the first time in Austin in 30 years). Year two we hit LA, where we still had to wear coats outside and crank the heater to put the top down on the convertible. This year we'll be in PHX and Las Vegas, checking out the Grand Canyon and Hoover Dam as we ferry between the two. Please please please let it be above 70 while we are there. I have no doubt that one of these years I will have to bite the bullet and end up somewhere in the Caribbean where nothing is open after 10pm, but if I can get a week of highs of 77, I might be able to kick that ball down the road a while longer.

- More Craig Finn... Playing NPR's Tiny Desk and Minnesota Public Radio.

- And so that the BDGF's other crush doesn't get jealous over qualms of equal time, Jack White has a new video and solo tour dates. I wonder if his tour bus is a hearse since he clearly spends daylight hours sleeping in a coffin.

- Sleigh Bells new album Reign of Terror is streaming over at the NYTimes. Well la di da...

- If I were to tell you that Bill Cosby covered "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and it was even awesomer than what you are imagining in your brain right now, would you listen? You better.

- Want a Super Bowl halftime show that will rock your face? Vote for Weird Al.

- Finally, last night's Love Hangover was a rousing success. Here's a picture to prove it happened:

If and when video gets posted, it will be appeneded here. That's of course assuming that it's not a total train wreck of embarassment. Cross your fingers...

I wouldn't say that growing up Catholic made me an Atheist - that was probably inevitable. I do think that you could make a cogent argument that it hastened the process. How they can teach you the rampant hypocrisy and corruption that has existed in the institution of the Church throughout its history and NOT expect you to say 'Fuck all this' is beyond me.

So while I love railing against all religious hypocrisy, there's a special place in my heart when it comes to the Catholic church. There's an extra gear of ire to get into. The past couple of weeks, the Catholics have been firing on all cylinders, and my dander is up people. Let's go to the tape.

- If you're institutionally raping young boys for decades, you'd think the least you owed them and society at large is an apology. Well Cardinal Egan would like you to know that if he did apologize, he shouldn't have and he takes it back. The power of Christ compels him!

- We talked last week about religious morality being arbitrary at the end of the day, and that's never more true when looking at politicians. Just so happens that the two biggest d-bags vying for the GOP nomination are both Catholic. Here's ten specific ways Gingrich and Santorum are picking and choosing to be pious. Enjoy the buffet.

- Here's Maureen Dowd on the rise of exorcisms in the the Catholic church. 'Nuff said.

- Finally, the Catholics are going to the mattresses over the birth control mandate upcoming as health care reform is implemented. Now I have a problem with religious institutions being tax exempt, and you know, I believe the science when it empirically tells me the societal advantages of giving women access to birth control, but I'm not Jesus, and apparently he differs with me. And I imagine that he doesn't care that most Catholics agree with me and the Obama administration. Here's Gail Collins laying out the argument, including an anecdote about women using birth control being no better than common street whores. Stay classy, Catholics.

It's a super busy week here at tbaggervance.com. Today is Valentine's, tomorrow is the Love Hangover, and on Friday, we head off for a week's vacation. So we are feeling a little overwhelmed. But not so much that we can't wish you, dear readers, a Happy Valentine's Day.

I'm always for telling the people you love that you love them. It's something that you pretty much can't do too much. OK you can, but that's probably the least of your problems if that's becoming an issue. But I digress. Tell your kids you love them, because otherwise you're just a mean old man. Here's my Valentine's card to them:

My nerdiness knows no bounds.

Of course tell your partner you love them too. They put up with you and all of your awfulness. You don't deserve them and they should not only know that you appreciate them for who they are, but for the fact that they tolerate you, because you know you're a piece of work. I love my BDGF and I'm pretty sure she knows it. I used to blanche at the word partner because it seemed sterile and an overly PC way to play the pronoun game, but the BDGF has made me rethink it. Mostly because with her it makes sense - she's my partner in the very best sense of the word. We do everything together, hand in hand, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Oh, and I made her a card too, but she hasn't seen it yet, so you'll have to wait until tomorrow to see it. Happy Valentine's one and all.

In my penchant for being a cranky old man that longs for the day when I can yell at children to get off my lawn, I love warning the children that they will never get away with anything. I tell them that they are in the unenviable position of having young parents who have already tried everything that they could possibly conceive of, and thus are hyper aware of the ins and outs of getting away with it. My parents were old and slow and tired and I still managed to get caught being colossally dumb during my teenage years, because teenagers are inherently dumb and overconfident. Eventually, with persistence, you can out fox your elders through sheer force of will, breaking them down over time. However, without a generation gap to distance you from what your parents imagine your possibilities and resources are, this becomes more difficult.

This of course depends somewhat on your definition of "getting away with it". A lot of the time, all you want is the experience, consequences be damned. I participated in a lot of foolish behavior knowing damn well that I'd be caught eventually, but not until the so called damage was done. This is much more possible than getting off scott free, even for those with hyper vigilant parents who have a working understanding of technology. It's a sucker punch to a much more powerful adversary - you got your shot in, and now you are going to pay for it.

This is a willing trade for someone in my situation growing up. Of course the upside of having young parents is that the rule of asking forgiveness rather than permission does not generally apply. Understanding the paradigm the way we do, we're willing to concede a level of stupidity if we feel we can cover it with an overarching umbrella of safety. It's the choice between calling your parents to come get you when you've been drinking vs. driving anyway and hoping you get home with no one being the wiser. These are the choices we want to avoid ever being made. Because make no mistake about it, you will be found out, one way or another.

- Take these assholes. Regular readers know tbaggervance.com's feelings towards sweatpants, and we make no exception for those made to look like you're some sort of hipster douche bag executive. Wearing sweatpants outside of the house makes you look like a homeless person. End of story.

- Take this asshole. What chance does a women hating, war mongering homophobe have of winning an election when this is his stance on freedom:

This whole idea of personal autonomy, well I don't think most conservatives hold that point of view. Some do. They have this idea that people should be left alone, be able to do whatever they want to do, government should keep our taxes down and keep our regulations low, that we shouldn't get involved in the bedroom, we shouldn't get involved in cultural issues. You know, people should do whatever they want. Well, that is not how traditional conservatives view the world and I think most conservatives understand that individuals can’t go it alone. That there is no such society that I am aware of, where we’ve had radical individualism and that it succeeds as a culture.

That's Rick Santorum noting that the government has every right to peek into your bedroom. Screw individual freedom. Welcome to the new GOP.

- In celebration of Prop 8 suffering another Death Blow, here's the best anti- Prop 8 posters. In honor of Washington getting a step closer to marriage equality, here's Howard Stern defending gay people. Seriously.

- In honor of two of my favorite TV shows: here's two Archer soundboards and some free advice from Ron Swanson.

- Thankfully, I have a fake 8 year old daughter who loves Star Wars so I don't have to hem and haw about whether or not to see Star Wars: Episode One: The Phantom Menace in 3D this weekend. Of course we're going - she's never seen ANY Star Wars movie in a theater! How EXCITING! Sadly, she'll never get to see the original trilogy in its original glory, but sadder still is that George Lucas is still trying to justify his "Greedo shot first" retconning of one of the greatest heroes in the history of cinema. Now he's saying it was always this way. He's clearly a not well individual.

- When the original Spider-man came out way back in 2002, I thought it was pretty perfect. So I also thought it was also pretty dumb to reboot the franchise a mere 10 years later. Then I saw the new trailer and a day later I'm still trying to hide my nerd boner. This looks totally like the Spider-man ethos I grew up with. And plus, at the end of the day, it's more comic book movies, why would I ever be against that?

- Finally, this is next Wednesday:

My son has recently decided to become a full fledged teenager, which means everything sucks and everyone is stupid and thus he will not be performing with me this year. In his stead, I got the BDGF and Markie C to join me and help focus attention away from my crappy guitar playing (plus Chermack Chermack on bass to completely spackle over my shoddy musicianship). We go on at 7, so get there early.

This is Craig Finn:

He's normally the frontman for the band The Hold Steady. He's not famous. He's 40 and kind of schlubby. But I love him. And so does the BDGF.

Last night we went and saw him perform his new solo album at a tiny hipster bar in Detroit. With barely over a 100 people in the place, we were able to get right up front and as anyone who had an HDTV in the early days before they figured out how to put the makeup on right will tell you, there's such a thing as too much clarity.

Craig spits when he sings. Not on purpose, but he's forceful into the mic and often times that's accompanied by large plumes of saliva. The BDGF cringed with every speck of spittle. He also got completely hammered half way through the show. He kept looking at the crowd like Nicholson in The Shining. He completely stopped playing his guitar. Don't get me wrong, Mr. Finn is a professional and the set sounded great, but it was perhaps a tad too intimate.

After the performance the BDGF rushed over to get an autograph, and he took her hand, called her sweet, and led her to the back of the club where he set up to greet the fans, giving her a guitar pick as they walked back. The fantasy of making out with Craig may have died in his spit soaked microphone screen, but I think the small interaction went a long way to putting the bloom back on the rose.

- Things to watch:

- Nada Surf on Fallon
- Wilco on ACL
- The Black Keys new video for "Gold on the Ceiling"

- Finally, the BDGF's secondary crush may be a spit talker and her main one may be slowly turning into Lestat, but will always celebrate both of their musical endeavors. Here's a list of the 13 best Jack White collaborations and listen to his new song, "Machine Gun Silhouette".

Yesterday, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decided legally what we all know to be true in our hearts:

Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California, and to officially reclassify their relationships and families as inferior to those of opposite-sex couples.

I've read a lot of analysis that argues that wording in the decision is very narrow and not only makes the decision apply specifically to California, but gives the Supreme Court enough cover to deny even hearing the case. But we here at tbaggervance.com are not here to be the Debbie Downers of the internet. Victory is ours. Let us rejoice.

This blog deals a lot with what it considers to be hypocrisy. Particularly when it comes with a religious bent. There's a lot of inconsistencies in the Bible, and that's putting it extremely benevolently. I think it's somewhat possible analytically to resolve the paradoxes that exist between the old and new testament, but how then do you not consider any evidence of the intervening 2,000 years? At the end of the day you are arbitrarily picking and choosing your morality, and/or listening to authority figures that have a very status quo agenda.

I suppose that's fine for your personal existence. I'm no fan of a nanny state and your business isn't mine much less the government's. But we're talking about giving someone second class citizen status for who they inherently are. How does that not make you angry? If it doesn't, who are you to say, in a plural society, that you are the best arbiter of doling out inalienable rights? Remember, the basis of your morality is inconsistent, paradoxical and ultimately flawed.

I know we are on the right side of history and the fight has already been won, but I still get upset about it. I hate that I live in a country where this isn't rote and de rigueur and a no-brainer. It is frustrating to exist in a world where analytical thought, the scientific method and cogent analysis don't rule the day. And I said I wasn't going to be Debbie Downer.

But hey! We won! Bill O'Reilly is apoplectic, and that's always a good sign. And yes, ljv, Ted Olsen has a huge hand in this. To quote a famous boxer, "If I can change, and you can change, we all can change." Remember, he beat Ivan Drago.

- We live in amazing times. Not only does the internet take time wasting to a whole new level that would be unimaginable to even our younger selves, but it can effect actual change in the world. All of that and I haven't even mentioned the porn! But I digress. From regime change in the Middle East to stopping SOPA and PIPA in their tracks, the internet provides information dissemination and a rallying cry to action in a way never before possible. The best, most recent example of this is Planned Parenthood vs. The Komen Foundation. The internet's righteous indignation over Komen's overtly political decision not only immediately replaced the pulled funds of the Foundation with small, grassroots donations, but eventually got the foundation to reverse its decision. That's a beautiful thing. Guess what side of the 'debate' Mittens Romney came down on? To be fair, that was his position yesterday. Give it time.

- Yes, it's going to be a day dedicated to GOP stupidity. In several caucuses/popularity contests today, guess who is poised to surge? After he toured a sweater vest factory! And no, that's not even from the Onion.

- Speaking of ineffectual, more evidence that sex education (or lack thereof) is not getting the job done in red states. Apparently adhering to the 'ostrich method' works just as well around horny teenagers as it does in the wild.

- If you weren't watching the Super Bowl in Michigan last Sunday, you might have missed Republican Senate candidate Pete Hoekstra's racist, xenophobic campaign ad. There's nothing like a bit of actual racism to make me feel bad about all the times I make fun of my son for being an asian stereotype.

- Finally, no matter where you watched the game, chances are you saw the Clint Eastwood "It's Halftime in America" ad for Chrysler. And if you're scene was anything like ours, you were chanting "USA! USA!" after it. Clint's not only an American icon, all-time bad ass and renaissance man, he's also an authority figure. He's going to tell you the truth, and then no matter how bad it is, remind you to do the right thing and be a man about it. Or more importantly in the parlance of the commercial, be an American about it. It's powerful stuff. Especially around Detroit, a very proud city that yearns to be great again. Of course several Republicans want to demonize this as an Obama campaign ad (despite the facts) precisely because it's so effective. The problem being, it doesn't fit their narrative. It should, it's a typically Republican sentiment, but it lacks that notable derision that they can't live without. Well I've got some advice for Karl Rove and anyone else in the GOP who wants to whine about corporations 'using our tax dollars to buy corporate advertising" that shills for the president: shut up and be a man about it. Be an American.

- I eschewed Parks and Recreation for the longest time because I thought it was dumb. I tried to watch it a couple of times because the entirety of the internet assured be it was awesome, but every time I tried I found myself colossally bored. So I decided to give it one more serious college try and internet, I owe you an apology. You were right, I was wrong. Specifically, I love Ron Swanson. I have unknowingly been modeling my work persona on him for over a decade. Please enjoy Nick Offerman and his wife Megan Mullaly performing a country song about a Paleontologist falling for a Creationist. You had me at meat tornado.

- Three of my favorite people live in the black mining hills of South Kadota, so I put them in charge of policing this potential stupidity so that is doesn't spiral out of control. I encourage academic study of the Bible, as you can't really understand History or Art without it, but let's be honest, this is a stupid loophole.

- Speaking of stupid state governments, Pennsylvania unanimously declared 2012 The Year of the Bible. I'm not sure how the approximately 50 Chinese people in Pennsylvania feel about this, because if you ask them, I'm pretty sure it's the year of the dragon. I'm also pretty sure every founding father would call this a violation of the Constitution.

- There are still heroes in the world - the asshat State senator form Tennessee who authored the 'Don't Say Gay" bill and spouts fallacies about HIV was recently denied service at a local restaurant because, well he's an idiot and a bigot. Kudos ma'am.

- I'm not exactly sure who Baby J would feel about erotic Bible fan fiction, but I can guess.

- Finally, in typical 'turn the other cheek', 'whatever you do to the least of my people', 'Christian compassion' fashion, the girl who had a prayer banner removed from her school is getting death threats. Stay classy zealots, Baby Jesus is watching...

- Welcome to another Drum Fill Friday! Fear for the future of humanity by watching how colossally stupid American teenagers are! Or if you are like me, write down every question in the video and then take them home to ask your own teenagers to answer them to restore your faith. Please please please restore my faith...

- Two things on the horizon: The Oscars are February 26th and The Hamtramck Blowout starts Feb. 29th. Ann Arborites can enter Quality 16's annual Oscar contest here, and those with rock and roll in their hearts can peep the Blowout's lineup here.

- I expect Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan to end up fairly high on most lists ranking intellectual prowess and general secular awesomeness, but being in the 19 most fun-loving colleges was pleasantly surprising. I was similarly impressed with my home state in these charts of "Is Your State on the Right Side of History?" until I got all the way down to gay marriage. Come on Michigan, we're better than that.

- Mitt Romney may be breathing a little easier after winning Florida and his pending status of 'inevitable' may finally start getting etched in stone. Too bad for him that this is happening at the same time the other 'inevitable' is coming to fruition - the economy is gaining momentum. Their really gonna run against his record? Listen, I'm no sycophant, there's issues out there to exploit, but what's your case? Foreign policy? Bin Laden's dead and we're ending wars and changing regimes without losing soldiers. The economy? The stimulus and bailouts worked and things are turning around. I guess you can try and outflank him on social issues, hoping that progressives think he hasn't done enough, because otherwise his policies are with the majority. I watched Romney's victory speech Tuesday, and I got news for him, you can't lie in a debate with the President the way you can to Floridian septuagenarians. I'm starting to prepare myself to enjoy this...

- Finally, the Superbowl is Sunday. I for one welcome the opportunity for Captain Dreamboat to win his fourth Superbowl and forever shut the door on who is the greatest quarterback of all time. Of course for those of you who give two shits about the game, don't forget that there's still copious amounts of bad food to eat, booze to guzzle and commercials to watch. Like this Ferris Bueller update and Avengers preview. Hopefully things get more interesting than that.

- First off, it's Groundhog Day, which is political, since whether or not Puxatawny Phil sees his shadow is decided by a small Pennsylvanian aristocracy. They decided he did, so six more weeks of winter, which who cares: it's going to be 47 tomorrow. But I digress, because we buried the lead about GH Day: it takes place at Gobblers Knob. True story. Now get out there and try and make that stick as someone's nickname.

- For those nostalgic for elections of yore, I give you the trailer for HBO's Game Change. Looks nostalgically awesome! Remember hating Palin?

- Washington moves forward on gay marriage. Hooray! I haven't been so proud of you guys since grunge.

- Fox should know better than to screw with a frog and a pig. They don't have the wit, much less the intellectual firepower.

- In the bucklingest of buckling moves, the Komen Foundation is backing out of Planned Parenthood. To tell these people to go fuck themselves, please donate to Planned Parenthood.

- Finally, Florida did something right for once and sounded the death knell for America's least favorite bridge troll, Newt Gingrich. So, let us begin the vetting process of one Willard Mittens Romney. What do we like? He was the Republican governor of a hugely liberal state, where he seemed to bend to the will of the people and compromise, including passing a universal health care law NEARLY IDENTICAL to that of President Obama. Of course that's not how he's running for president, so let's talk about the things we don't care for:

1. He's mormon. Like really, really, mormon. Which means we can assume he hates gays and women and wears magic underwear.
2. He's rich. Disgustingly, ill-gotten rich. In fact, if you took the wealth of every President from Nixon to Obama and DOUBLED it, Romney would still have more cash.
3. That's mildly palatable for most people, except he thinks that corporations are people, that $300,000 is not that much money, makes $10,000 bets on a whim and oh, he's "not concerned about the very poor."
4. When asked to defend that statement, he said it's not that he doesn't care, it's that he's not going to do anything for them.
5. He once pulled a Griswold and strapped his dog to the roof of his car for a 12 hour trip.

The guy's a piece of shit. Of course he's probably the least of all evils in the GOP field. Were he to be elected, history shows he could be swayed to the side of public opinion more often than not. (Now all we have to worry about is public opinion.) However, I keep seeing this meme show up, and when I first heard it proffered by the BDGF a month ago, I immediately knew it to be true: Willard is John Kerry. Enjoy Republicans!

I'm pretty sure Soul Train was my first foray into Black culture. For all I know Don Cornelius was the first black person I ever saw. Growing up in the late '70s and early '80s in very rural Ohio with no cable TV, my exposure to what was going on in the world was limited at best. Not that I cared that much, all I really wanted was the four hours of respite offered to me by Saturday morning cartoons.

Do they even exist anymore? Saturday morning cartoons were literally the center of my existence for the first ten years of my life. Before Nickelodeon and Disney, it was the only block of programming designed for my demographic. It seems strangely sad to me that they might not even exist anymore, much less be something that kids look forward to for six days a week. But I digress.

After Saturday morning cartoons were over, I would desperately scan the 6 channels we got looking for anything that would occupy my brain for just a tad longer. This usually ended up being some old Vincent Price movie on the Saturday Afternoon Double Creature Feature, but not before a brief pause up the dial to see what was going down on Soul Train.

I do remember, even at the time, unworldly as I was, thinking that it seemed dated. Like it wasn't just another part of the world featuring people who I had nothing in common with, but from a different age. A bygone era of disco, bell bottoms and people being smooth yet funky. Like a black Saturday Night Fever. Clearly this a confused remembrance tied up in nostalgia crossed wires. Chances are I saw my sister's copy of the SNF soundtrack, saw that people on Soul Train wore similar clothes and equated the two. Who knows.

In any event, Don Cornelius passed away yesterday. I always paused on Soul Train because I wanted to hear Don's voice, even for a second. It blew my mind that anyone sounded like that in real life. I couldn't wrap my brain around the music and the clothes made it seem like every Saturday was Halloween, but I knew that Don Cornelius was cool. Thanks for that, even if I'd be nothing but disappointed several years later when I started meeting actual black people and found out they weren't all so silver tongued and smooth.

This is Jack White:

Early on in the BDGF and I's relationship we divulged our celebrity sexceptions and Jack was at the top of her list.* I for one was thrilled. Not only do I love Jack's music, not only is he a guitar god and from the city of Detroit, but he looks like a ghoul. No one would be surprised to find out he sleeps in a coffin and suffers from a vitamin D deficiency. I'm sure he's been mistaken for Johnny Depp's derelict cousin more than once. He can play guitar and sing and I get that those abilities are inherently sexy, but I imagine a guy who looks like that trying to pick up my BDGF and laugh.

The BDGF never got to see in concert the reason she fell for Jack in the first place, The White Stripes, and I wish I could find a DeLorean or TARDIS to make that happen for her. I imagine that some day Jack the Huckster will need either the money or attention that a White Stripes reunion could afford him, and when that happens we'll be there at every show within a day's driving radius. Until then I offer her this:

Jack White Announces Solo Album

The new single is on his website, the album out April 24th. Enjoy my sweet. I'll be there to catch you as you swoon at every show. If you make it back stage, you're on your own.

*for the record, she also gets Craig Finn (who goes to church!), I get Neko Case and Tom Brady. The BDGF may be far better looking than I and much more likely to charm the pants off her crushes, but pasty white guys and people who get out of bed on Sunday mornings to go to church I don't sweat.

- Side by side comparisons are often illuminating. Take the tax returns of Obama, Romney and Gingrich. Takeaway - Newt is stingy douche. But I suppose we all knew that. You can also look at the tax rates in America going all the way back to Eisenhower. If the GOP wants to go back to the good ol' days, then they should at least, for consistency's sake, have to go back to the tax rates in place at the time too.

- There's new songs from The Boss and Brendan Benson online. The former is surprisingly good, the latter surprisingly meh (if you can be surprising and meh at the same time).

- The BDGF brought up this Stephen Colbert interview with Maurice Sendak three times over the last couple of days, so I finally had to watch it. Hear Maurice say "Newt Gingrich is an idiot of great reknown." It's worth your time.

- More video? Here's 50 years of Doctor Who in 10 minutes, 10 misconceptions debunked and How Return of the Jedi should have ended. 10.

- Finally, for Dr. Walker, Liebs, the Sumersquales and my BDGF (who actually found this) - Mythbusters Photo Hunt. Another round of Vodka Sodas please...

- I read about this girl who got a prayer banner removed from her school under the auspices of separation of church and state and had my typical two point reaction: 1. Good for her and atheism 2. I bet she was insufferable about it and probably should have left well enough alone. THEN I read the reaction of the guy who originally wrote the prayer:

I am upset, disappointed, and not to say, outraged. It's a shame that some judge with an appointment out of a Cracker Jack box can make a ruling like that.

She also had to leave school due to threats. So I apologize Jessica for ever assuming you were insufferable. Your are 100% bad ass awesome.

- I know we already eulogized Santorum, but since this isn't a political context but rather a religious one - just know that his advisers think that it is against God's will that I woman be president. It will always be the 1950s somewhere..

- I'm told that this is real and not a parody. It's a fairly tongue in cheek thing either way, but note the following:

1. It's the girl who's all horned up and the guy, in violation of the immutable laws of the universe, who says no.
2. They're clearly getting married the week after high school graduation, so good luck with those odds. THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU GET MARRIED JUST SO YOU CAN HAVE SEX.
3. They clearly elude to fucking stuffed animals in lieu of sex.

- Tennessee is once again going the ostrich route on homosexuality, bringing back their "Don't say gay" bill to prevent school children from learning that the gays exist. I'm pretty sure this is why Will and Grace is no longer on the air.

- Here's a bit of refreshing honesty - a bunch of religious leaders don't want gay marriage to be legal because then we could call them what they are - bigots. Where do we get off?

- I love this girl too. When a local printer refused to print her non-offensive, tolerance boosting t-shirt, she not only found someone else to do it, but made sure that all of the other clubs in her school that normally do business with the printer knew about it. Where's your messiah now, eh?

- Not only do these Minnesota parents want "pray away the gay" therapy to be taught in their schools, they also want HIV/AIDS to be called "Gay-related Immune Deficiency", which is about as forward thinking as calling black people 'colored' as a sign of respect.

- Finally, here's a video that shows the relative size of our universe. I post here because wow is it impressive and when you see it like this, it's a little easier to wrap your brain around.

Tyrants must be opposed. 'Tis true that a small band of rebels cannot only come together and take movement to groundswell and effect change, it's the only thing that ever has. Of course I'm talking about Star Wars. The SOTU was nice. I loved the tone and most of the ideas. But I don't fee like getting into at the moment. LJV's recent posts in comments section have left me frustrated. Clearly there's a class of citizens out there willing to vote for Newt Gingrich of all people. These people are obtuse, pig headed, obstinate and wholly unaware, either through ignorance or the blinders of the media they consume, as to both what has happened in this country under the current administration and what's at stake going forward. So instead, Star Wars!

- I'm not sure what level of fandom it takes to sit through Star Wars Uncut - a version of the original film completely sweded by fans on the internet 15 seconds at a time - but whatever it is, I'm clearly just over the bar. Well, I only half paid attention, so maybe I hit the bar but it stayed on its post.

- This week in Star Wars fan art - Minimalist movie posters and Lando Calrissian on a 40. Don't let the smooth taste fool ya.

- This week in Star Wars fan video - Darth Draper and dogs do the Star Wars theme? I'm not quite sure what the latter is, but it supposedly means Star Wars Super Bowl commercials, of which I am in favor.

- Here's a real life exchange between what I imagine in my head is Ned Flanders and the Comic Book Guy. Or say a really PG version of a scene from Clerks.

- Here's a reasonable parsing of why Star Wars and Star Trek are better than each other. I mean it's fair attempt, because Lightsabers, Darth Vader and the Millennium Falcon win anything in a walk.

- Finally, George Lucas claims to be retiring from big budget filmmaking, in no small part due to the fact that people on the internet are mean. To which I say, WE DID IT YOU GUYS! You see, a small group of rebels CAN affect change in this world. Remember that the next time someone tells you it can't be done and you soldier on. May the Force be with You.

Five years. Don't they go by in a blink. That's 770 things that have made me smile over half a decade. The blog getting older and reaching milestones has the exact same effect as my kids doing it - I feel old and tired. I mean, write 100 words about a thousand different things that make you happy. It'd probably take just over 6 years. I didn't intend on doing it, but sometime a year and a half from now, I'll have done it. I'll be contacting Stan Lee for my no prize. Let's get crackin'...

- I am in love with Ann Arbor. I've felt it since I first stepped foot on campus. And I just found out that 2/3rds of its residents aren't religiously affiliated! The hits just keep on coming. Like President Obama making his second trip here on Friday. He'll be speaking about making college affordable, so I'm going to suggest the Wondertwins listen up, as that's a subject very, very important to them all too quickly.

- While A2 routinely makes any list of the best college towns, I find it hilarious that I've been to almost a third of the towns listed as the absolute worst places to go to school. Yes, Albion, Ada and South Bend are collective pits and I pity anyone who had to matriculate there. But come on, no love for West Lafayette? The only fun thing to do there is pack up and leave.

- Wormer... dead. Niedermeyer... dead. Paterno... Well as usual, The Onion pretty much sums it up.

- Following up on yesterday's harangue of "Newt Gingrich is an ass faced weasel whose hypocrisy knows no bounds", Gingrich, while an admitted pot smoker, once tried to make bringing 2 ounces of pot into America an offense punishable by death. It shouldn't surprise, this man's personal philosophy is, and I quote: ‘It doesn’t matter what I do. People need to hear what I have to say’. No foolin'. Oh,and this:

- Finally, Oscar noms are out this morning. Big up yourself to the Academy for nominating Melissa McCarthy for her role in Bridesmaids and Bret McKenzie for "Man or Muppet". Shame for not giving Albert Brooks his own big ups for Drive. I've got some movies to see between now and February 26th.

Newt Gingrich crushed in South Carolina over the weekend. A fact that I laughed off on Saturday. I mean, it's South Carolina. To not laugh off anything they do is practically a tacit affirmation of racism. There have been three primaries/caucausi and we now have three separate winners. All according to the GOP's obvious self-destructive plan. But then I saw this and I had two thoughts: The first was Mitt Romney as Jon Lovitz as Michael Dukakis looking into the camera and going "I can't believe I'm losing to this guy!" and the second was an image of myself drunk and cowering in the fetal position as John Roberts swears in President Newt.

Don't get me wrong, I still maintain that without an economic collapse or some other unforeseen catastrophe, Obama is Parker Lewis*. I said it 18 months ago and I still believe it to be just as true today if not more so. I mean we're talking about a fat headed hypocrite blowhard who's about as likeable as the powertripping weasel who used to manage the Subway you worked at in high school. This is a guy who tried a sitting President in the media for getting a BJ and then cries foul for the media's intrusion into his personal life. A man who decries big government while raking in 'consulting' cash from Fannie Mae. The first Speaker of the House to be disciplined for ethics violations. The kind of a man who asks his wife for an open marriage six months AFTER he checks the box marked yes.

Now I love this country and while most of the time I think we are collectively about as smart as box of hammers, I don't think that even an indifferent America elects this fuckstick to be President, much less one that's starting to climb back out of the muck and mire. But then I remember one chilling fact that sends fear shooting down my spine and reminds me that are we capable of unspeakable evils: George W. Bush was elected to the highest office in this country. Twice. And when my liberal voice screams back "He was never elected the first time!" I know that the fact remains that he was still President for 8 years. Sometimes I wonder how I sleep at night.

* he can't lose. I hate footnoting that, but I have to be reminded from time to time that my remembrances of obscure pop culture are not universal.

- It's Drum Fill Friday! Take this super easy quiz to celebrate and see if it doesn't make you want to listen to "Hot For Teacher".

- Many years ago, Class 'A' asshole Jack Valenti created the MPAA and steered them into decision after decision that was not only managerially stupid, but had negative impact on the filmgoing public. We can't go into all of them, let's just say that A.) He created the movie rating system wherein some housewife in Burbank decides how much boob a 13 year old can see and B.) He's so scared of technology he once compared the VCR to the Boston Strangler. True story. Unfortunately Hollywood has money, and since this guy used to lick LBJ's boots, they let him peddle their influence, no matter how backward and insular his understanding of the world was. He's dead now, so that's over. But he has a new champion in Chris Dodd, former blow hard senator and current head of the MPAA. Like his mentor Valenti, Dodd is showing an outstanding lack of understanding about technology. First he goes on record as calling Wednesday's blackout "irresponsible", and then threatens to take Hollywood's money away from the President if he doesn't support SOPA. Three words: delusions of grandeur.

- I'm fairly happy with the era I got to be a college student in. The music was good, illicit substances were readily available and the internet was so young that we could still run the naked mile at the end of the year. But I'm pretty sure there weren't people filming porn in their dorm rooms. I think I would have heard about it.

- I wasn't going to do this, but Monday was MLK day, and yes, there is still plenty of hatred and ignorance in America. If you see any of these people, plead with them not to procreate.

- Finally, while the GOP field (what remains of it) is so uninspiring I'd never vote for anyone but Obama later this year, I'd like to see him do a thing or two to get me excited about the prospect. I'm not holding out for him to make a declarative stance on gay marriage or anything, as Mr. Nuance just gradually evolves over time, hopefully in my direction. I am happy he nixed this awful pipeline idea, but of course they could reroute the thing and it could pass, so just putting the toe over the line of status quo. Natch.

OK, so the thing was on its deathbed to begin with, but yesterday's coordinated blackout seems to have worked. People are certainly more aware today than they were yesterday, and congressmen are dropping their support faster than if the thing was just endorsed by Hitler. Of course the issue isn't dead. The idea of copyright infringement didn't just go away, and the people with deep pockets who want this issue addressed will not take their ball and go home. So we'll continue to talk about it here at tbaggervance.com. We will stay vigilant. We will remain indefatigable. Because otherwise, James Burrows could shut us down tomorrow for using the above image.

- One of my biggest pet peeves is people wearing sweats in public. I got so disgusted walking through an airport years years back that I came up with this little diddy that continues to infect my brain to this day:

If you're gonna leave the house don't wear sweats [clap clap]
If you're gonna leave the house don't wear sweats [clap clap]
If you're gonna leave the house then have some self respect
If you're gonna leave the house don't wear sweats [clap clap]

Sing it to the tune of "If you're happy and you know it..." next time you're in a public place and people don't have the common decency to get dressed before walking out the front door. Call me old fashioned, but I prefer to live in a civilized society - one were people don't bring babies to bars or on airplanes, where people let you get off the elevator before forcing their way on, and one were people don't wear sweats, spandex or pajamas in public. That's why despite my disdain for the nanny state, I am 100% on board with this. Otherwise, before you know it we'll be living in some sort of Lord of the Flies dystopia.

- As long as were discussing politics, one last hurrah for Santorum, because A.) As a kid he was McLovin'. and B.) this headline: Revealed: Wife of pro-life presidential candidate Rick Santorum had love affair with abortion doctor 40 years her senior... who delivered her as baby. Damnit that's fucking awesome!

- Colbert almost makes Super PACs worthwhile.

- Finally, I leave you with this dead on quote from David Brook's op-ed earlier in the week:

I sometimes wonder if the Republican Party has become the receding roar of white America as it pines for a way of life that will never return.

Sometimes I actually want to get old so I can point and laugh at everyone I know who's currently on the wrong side of history and scream "I told you so!" It's a good thing I'll never get there, because I would be the world's most annoying old man.

- That "Eeeeeeeeeeee!" you heard was me listening to the new Craig Finn solo album, which is available to stream from NPR. For those of you who could give a shit, this will mostly cap our Craig Finn coverage until the new Hold Steady album comes out at the end of the year.

- And since you can't have one of the BDGF's boyfriends without the other, here's Jack White buying a dead elephant head on a show called American Pickers, which I assume is something old people watch between that show about the pawn shop and episodes of Bill O'Reilly.

- For those of you who ever worshiped at the alter of 90's pseudo-punk, prepare to shed a tear, as Lookout! Records finally shuttered its doors. THey got plenty of my money over the years publishing Ted Leo albums, so I bid you a fond adieu, regardless of how I feel about Operation Ivy.

- Speaking of Teddy, here he is being interviewed by ABC News of all people. I haven't seen Ted Leo live in ages (OK, solo last year in L.A., but I need a full show with the Pharmacists, damn it!) so him being interviewed by the big time media is a good sign.

- New single releases that bode well for some sweet new albums: Nada Surf's "Waiting for Something" and Ezra Furman's "Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde".

- Finally, Tom Brady (for the second time in two months) once again killed the Tim Tebow = Jesus meme last Sunday. You're welcome, humanity. That doesn't mean we can't say goodbye with Jimmy Fallon doing TeBowie.

A key provision in the accord that the BDGF and I signed when realized we were going to try and make this work was that I promised to be around for a minimum of 30 years. Not in a limited, non-exclusive contract sort of way, but that I was going to live for at least that long. Getting to 65 may be a no-brianer for most of you out there not living in the third world, but it wasn't necessarily a guarantee on my part. With my offspring rapidly approaching adulthood I was quite content with my original plan to drink with reckless abandon and let the chips fall where they may. This is apparently not a desirable trait in a life mate.

Add in some ugly family history, my fair skin and myriad other things I participate in not associated with longevity, and it turns out that even a promise isn't enough assurance. In a move of caring placation, I am headed to the Doctor this afternoon to get checked out. I told the BDGF that if she made the appointment and told them exactly what she wanted done* I'd submit to being poked and prodded. Am I worried? Not really. I'm still relatively young. I'm not overweight and I feel great. I don't expect my liver to hold out so that I see triple digits, but I'm guessing we're not in permanent damage territory yet either.

Actually I expect to go in there and get told what I always get told: he'd like to see me drink less but won't make a compelling argument as to why. With perfect blood pressure, cholesterol barely above 200 and whatever enzymes they look at to make sure my liver is still functioning (and really, how could it not be?) I should be able to kick the ball down the road at least another ten years, right? I mean let's all hope so, because a promise is a promise, but that was one in which I assumed I was going to live forever when I made it.

- The good news? More evidence that pot isn't really bad for you after all. So I suppose that if I ever have to pull back on the reigns, there's my out.

- The bad news? Turns out red wine doesn't really have all of those redemptive qualities that got people so excited. I'm guessing it's still better for you than rum, so there's that.

- The ultimate reason to stick it out? Seniors out drink everyone. And I'm not talking about those about to graduate, I'm talking AARP card carryin', Price is Right watchin' septuagenarians. Ain't no party like a nursin' home party... until someone breaks a hip.

*sans prostate.

- I love movie trailers. God help you if we are going to the movies and you make us late thus missing even one of the trailers before the actual film*. It's part of the filmgoing experience. And while watching trailers on the internet while you are alone in your office is not nearly the transcendent experience of sitting in a darkened theater ramming popcorn into your maw and slurping a spiked Diet Coke, it can still be emotionally satisfying. Take this trailer for the new Wes Anderson movie, which is exactly what I want my childhood to retroactively be like, and this trailer for the LCD Soundsystem documentary, which is want I want the rest of my life to be like all the time always.

- Speaking of movies, this is a super fun 1970s A to Z movie quiz. Don't scroll down too far, as the answers are below. N threw me at first and then I had a 'duh' moment.

- College football is over for another year so those of you who could give two shits can rejoice in the fact that I won't bring up again until August. Right after this, that is: How fucking awesome is it that after winning 10 games, including a bowl victory, all little brother wants to talk about is waaaaah waaaaah but Michigan? And that's why you'll always be Little Brother.

- These 25 best autocorrects made me laugh out loud, and super glad that texting and my parents never co-existed.

-Finally, Sunday night are the Golden Globes, bringing together three of my favorite things: movies, atheism and award shows. OK that's a stretch. I don't especially even care about award shows and the Golden Globes are only about atheism in the sense that Ricky Gervais is hosting. For the last three weeks I've made the declarative statement 'I am going to the movies this weekend.' to no one in particular, and I am currently batting 0-3. I said it again yesterday, and I guess what I am telling you is that Sunday night's Golden Globes are a decent substitute for going to the movies.

* Exception for kids movies, wherein all of the trailers will make me fear for the future of humanity

- Some wacky pastor in Texas is planning on spending 24 hours in bed on top of a church to promote healthy sexual relationships within marriage. Which, you know, sounds like a mostly harmless misappropriation of an old John Lennon trope, until you realize that it's not surprisingly penis/vagina only, at which point fuck you.

- Here's a nice timeline of where Baby Jesus has and hasn't been spending his time. Tim Tebow must have a kickass fooseball table or something, because he hangs out with the dude a lot.

- Apparently Satan is giddy that American religious cult leaders like Joel Osteen aren't decrying Romney for being Mormon? I can't even begin to want to untangle that rubric.

- Yooooo Hooooooo! I live in the Sixth Gayest City in America! Who wants to go shopping for leather pants?

- I mention the gay thing because the Pope is back calling gay marriage a "threat to the future of humanity" in an obvious attempt to leech other religion's disciples by out-homophobing them. Sadly, it may work.

- When the BDGF's littlest wanted to join Brownies, we had to do some quick Google searching to make sure that they weren't in league with the Boy Scouts on the whole gay=evil thing. We read enough to give it a green light, but this little girl had the opposite reaction, specifically to transgender girl scouts. I get being scared of penises, but how does it affect your ability to get a merit badge for making a house out of popsicle sticks?

- Finally, I think people find religion comforting both in times of need and for the fact that trying to understand the science behind the history of the planet is neigh on impossible given it's six billion year existence. Like, if the history of the Earth is a 24 hour clock, humans show up at 11:58pm. It's much easier to just imagine God sculpting us out of clay, isn't it?

- So the primary season kicked off in earnest yesterday, and this Onion headline pretty much says it all. You're all-but-certain nominee and frontrunner for the last two years manages less than 40%. Meh. Feel free to stay on the couch, it's probably going to play out like this barring all of the crazies dropping out and rallying behind Huntsman, in which case we get to play a game of "Who seems less Mormon-y?"

- After engaging in one of the dumbest tirades against education I've ever heard and then tying Newt Gingrich in New Hampshire with a limp 9.4% of the vote, let us take a moment to eulogize Rick Santorum's presidential bid. I'll be honest, it got more traction than I ever thought possible. I choose to see this as a reflection of Romney being a huge skeev rather than a barometer for the mood of the country, but that's just me. Let us send out the man synonymous with frothy ass juice with a slideshow of the one sartorial choice made only by cheating college football coaches who look like child molesters and homophobic Catholics who fear both Iran's theocracy AND Obama's secular government: the sweatervest.

- I know I just spent two paragraphs making jokes about our feckless primaries, but I implore you to watch this video explaining the process. Even if you're sure you have it all laid out, just as a refresher. Better yet, show it to your children. Lord knows my teenagers need to see it.

- Good news in gay! New Jersey is fast tracking a bill to legalize gay marriage (that will be likely vetoed by Senior Largess himself) and Washington State's push towards equality gets an endorsement from a Republican Senator. His name is Steve Litzow and he notes

I am a traditional Republican. When you think about gay marriage, it’s the right thing to do and it’s very consistent with the tenets of being a Republican — such as individual freedom and personal responsibility.

He is awesome and I would love to buy him a drink for having the courage to not only stand for his convictions but do so in such a cogent fashion.

- SOPA is not dead yet people. There are rumors that major opponents of the bill are coordinating a blackout on their sites to raise awareness of the bill. Think people would notice if Google and Facebook went down for a few hours? Reddit has already sacked up. Meanwhile, if one of your representatives is on this list of supporters, give them a call and tell them to get their shit together.

- Finally, I'd like to leave you with two quotes from my favorite President:

The essence of any struggle for healthy liberty has always been, and must always be, to take from some one man or class of men the right to enjoy power, or wealth, or position, or immunity, which has not been earned by service to his or their fellows. That is what you fought for in the Civil War, and that is what we strive for now... We grudge no man a fortune in civil life if it is honorably obtained and well used. It is not even enough that it should have been gained without doing damage to the community. We should permit it to be gained only so long as the gaining represents benefit to the community.

This, I know, implies a policy of a far more active governmental interference with social and economic conditions in this country than we have yet had, but I think we have got to face the fact that such an increase in governmental control is now necessary.

That's noted socialist and Republican president Teddy Roosevelt. Call him weak. I dare you.

Too much cannot be said against the men of wealth who sacrifice everything to getting wealth. There is not in the world a more ignoble character than the mere money-getting American, insensible to every duty, regardless of every principle, bent only on amassing a fortune, and putting his fortune only to the basest uses —whether these uses be to speculate in stocks and wreck railroads himself, or to allow his son to lead a life of foolish and expensive idleness and gross debauchery, or to purchase some scoundrel of high social position, foreign or native, for his daughter. Such a man is only the more dangerous if he occasionally does some deed like founding a college or endowing a church, which makes those good people who are also foolish forget his real iniquity. These men are equally careless of the working men, whom they oppress, and of the State, whose existence they imperil. There are not very many of them, but there is a very great number of men who approach more or less closely to the type, and, just in so far as they do so approach, they are curses to the country.

I wonder if TR would still think that there are not very many of these men. They seem to be everywhere if you ask me.

- Hold Steady frontman Craig Finn is rapidly approaching the release date of his solo debut Clear Heart Full Eyes, out 1/24 on Vagrant. You can hear the new track "New Friend Jesus" here, or for the BDGF, here's him performing "Jackson" over at the AV Club's One Track Mind again.

- Wilco's new album is great and you should go back and listen to it again, because you've clearly forgotten that. While you're at it, you can watch Jeff Tweedy do the weather, and then watch Wilco AND Nick Lowe AND Mavis Staples cover the band. It's as awesome as it sounds.

- If you need another reason to love the Black Keys, here's them dissing Nickelback, who should clearly be made to suck it.

- Jack White's latest team up: Tom Jones.

- Remember when they used advertise albums on TV? Man, we are old. But even I was surprised they did it for Nirvana.

- Album covers minus the dead guys.

- Finally, there was a time in my life (from about 1985-1988) where Van Halen meant everything to me. Eventually I transitioned to Led Zeppelin and then finally to grunge, where the seed of the music snob that types before you today was planted. But my first obsession was Van Halen. Hearing those songs takes me back to being 10 years old and wanting to do nothing but sit in my room and listen to Eddie play guitar as loud as my stereo from Sears would allow. That being said, I have zero desire to pay $50 to sit a mile away in some giant corporate stadium and watch them go through the motions because they are broke. Now the NYTimes gave a glowing review of their industry preview show, and Chuck K predictable calls the VH reunion incredibly, insanely, undeniably awesome, and if I saw them in a tiny club for free I'm sure I'd feel exactly the same. But watch their new video for their new song and tell me you feel compelled to participate in this.

I didn't grow up in a house like Cameron Frye, but a certain sense of order and expectation of cleanliness was imbued in all of the Brubaker children. My mother was in a constant state of stemming the tide of sticky, haphazard children, admonishing those who didn't pick up after themselves and spending most Sunday mornings cleaning the house top to bottom. My father would contemplatively try to remain above the fray, silently repeating his mantra of "they're only children" to himself over and over until he'd snap and take all of the shoes left here and there around the house and place them on the front porch under a sign that read "Shoes for sale". True story.

I like to say that I got the least of the anal retentive gene/indoctrination of all of my siblings, but to the outside world that's like discussing which Kardashian is the least whore-ish. Moot point. I need order. I crave cleanliness. Watching someone carelessly leave a mess about - even with the caveat of noting "I'll clean it up later" - is akin to walking into my home and taking off The Beatles to put on Coldplay while making out with my sister. I don't know how people get through the day knowing that there's piles of months old magazines laying about in their living rooms, or sleep at night with a sink full of dishes, but apparently to some people these are not sins much less an affront to all that is good and decent in the world.

And while we were raised to be neat, we were also raised relatively poor. That's of course hyperbolic in that we weren't poor at all, but my mother could stretch a nickel farther than any two people I know. We rarely got extravagances like going out to dinner, so the idea of having a cleaning lady would have been right up there with putting the family on a plane to go on vacation out of state. These are pipe dreams of the rich and famous. So when I moved in with the BDGF and found out that she had a woman come and clean the house for an hour every other week, I was caught in a paradox.

On the one hand, I get to walk in the front door of our home once every fortnight and everything smells of bleach and is in its rightful place. If I could do this with a drink in my hand it would the most peaceful, stress free moment of my existence. Of course this service costs money, which means paying someone to do something that I could easily do myself. That's a no-no. My initial attempts to alleviate this cognitive dissonance involved me traipsing around the house pointing out all of the deficiencies in our cleaning lady's technique. I then tried to offer for the BDGF to pay me half what she pays her to do the same job. Lucky for me the BDGF is benevolent and laughs off my specific level of OCD. Instead we (I) have arrived at a compromise where I furiously arrange the house the night prior to the cleaning lady's arrival to ensure we get our maximum value during her hour. In short, I clean before the cleaning lady comes. And yet I still maintain my anal retentiveness pales in comparison to the rest of my clan's. Believe it.

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- My family has a general, non-spoken agreement to not talk about politics or religion, mostly (at least in my mind) because I go down the rabbit hole into condescending prick far too quickly. Well there was a moment of unintentional panic when my baby brother mentioned that somebody said that the founding fathers weren't religious and I started to explain what it means to be a Deist. The BDGF shot me a look like I was willfully violating the prime directive and first rule of fight club in one simultaneous shot, so it go dropped. In my family, the mere stating of facts can be too much. So for Bertrum C. Bertrum, here's the truth from a third party. God Bless America.

- After Hitch passed away a few weeks back, #GodisNotGreat started trending on twitter. Here's some of the best "turn the other cheek" reactions you'd expect from the followers of Baby Jesus.

- I don't generally get upset by nativity scenes. I usually can find one anachronistic thing about them to make fun of and laugh at. This guy, not so much. Love the TJ quote though.

- Alas, Michelle "Crazy Eyes" Bachmann's presidential run hit an iceberg in Iowa this week. This means that will be deprived of out first First Husband and his agenda of Homophobia. Methinks thou dost... awww you know what, that fruit is so low hanging it's on the ground.

- Pro-tip: If you're some random Christian Fundamentalist on twitter, you probably don't want to get in a war of words with Ricky Gervais. Just sayin'...

- Finally, I have to admit that I almost abandoned my atheism, belief in Darwinism and evolution, and certitude that the earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old when I read this. Luckily I didn't panic and remembered by elementary school lessons about the water cycle and the fact that all the water that's ever been on the Earth is still here and that amount basically never changes. Whew! That was close...

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Oh Iowa. Your caucus system is woefully outdated and its placement at the head of our political process is specious at best. The thought of the millions of dollars being thrown around your state trying to influence a bunch of elderly rubes and the subsequent influence that process can have frankly sickens me.

Take your 2012 imbroglio. You've taken time out to give momentary credence to Michelle Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich and now Rick Santorum. Rick Santorum! The one non-Mormon I was sure would never get his day in the sun. Rick Santorum! I mean Google it! Rick Santorum! A man so sexually pent up and confused he doesn't believe in non-reproductive sex within the confines of marriage. He thinks birth control should be illegal! Do you guys hate Mormons that much?

Look, I know at the end of the day you picked the inevitable nominee by a whole 8 votes. And I suppose you still get a pass for the momentum you gave Obama in 2008. But you either need to get a special system for your evangelicals where they can vote for the Pope of "we're scared of the places our bathing suits cover", or lay down your sword. Now the country will go back to forgetting you exist for four years. I said good day sir.

- This is all a moot point I suppose, as I've been saying for over a year now that the GOP doesn't have anyone to run that can beat Obama short of the economy turning into an absolute tire fire, and that doesn't appear to be happening. Healthcare reform has numerous positive aspects and he's sacked up and appointed a head to Consumer Protection Bureau during the recess. John McCain can yell all he wants about leading from behind while the President shrugs his shoulders and says "Libya bin Laden". Even with the Republicans resigning themselves to the sanest candidate of the bunch, this is going to be fun.

- Finally, Senator Bernie Sanders is proposing a constitutional amendment to overturn the back assward Citizens United decision. I implore you to sign the petition. The Montana State Supreme Court can't do this all by themselves.

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Editors note: The holidays were grand. Too grandiose to do justice here in any sort of summary post. Was there merriment? Of course. Was there seldom seen friends? Thankfully. Was there vomit? Copious amounts. But we are now living in 2012. The past is prologue! Except for this stuff...

- Mittenfest! You've probably been reading tbaggervance.com long enough to know about this annual music festival that supports 826 Michigan. It was another banner year for my enjoyment, but more importantly, this year's festivities raised over $20,000 for our student programs. I only wish I could of gone and drank MORE Captain and Diets, but that would have been impossible.

- Hopefully you are already aware of the government's latest attempt to ruin the internet, this time in the form of the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA. If you need to know why this (and the Protect IP Act) are truly terrible, internet-ruining pieces of legislation, Adam Savage of Mythbusters sums it up quite succinctly. If you need to know which multinational conglomerates are propping up this horrible bill (and who's got your back) your boycott list is readily available.

- Our Christmas morning was very vinyl-centric, with the BDGF and I trading celebrity crush records (her getting wax by Craig Finn and Jack White, and I receiving the lovely visage of Neko Case). Since I am overly generous (and also nurse my own Craig Finn crush) here he is promoting his new record AND talking about and performing a new song on the AV Club's One Track Mind.

- Tonight, 2011 is finally wrapped as Michigan takes on Virginia Tech in the Sugar Bowl. I am nervous and excited and kind of can't believe that I agreed to come into work today. Bowl games are often seen as launching pads for the following season, so not only will people be watching tonight to put a bow on a fairly glorious 2011, but to see how much however undeserved hype will be placed on this team prior to next fall's version taking the field. Here's a write up on defensive God Greg Mattison in the NYTimes. My prediction for the game: M 35 VT 24. Go Blue.

- Finally, we moved! Hopefully you didn't notice, but if you bookmarked our old URL, you'll need to point your browsers to tbaggervance.com for now and ever more. Again, since this is now costing me money you may see an ad or two. For those of you behind government or corporate firewalls, you can now enjoy the site from your computers rather than your phones. And yes, I know the comments are down at the moment, but if you find any other maladies, please let me know so that I may tend to them. Otherwise, enjoy our new diggs, which are exactly the same as our old ones. xoxo...

As a rule, I need impetus. I tend to have a few drinks and run my mouth, and then someone calls me on something that I said was a good idea. Months later I'm forced to half heartedly do something that I don't have the talent or perseverence for. This is well documented. The BDGF goes one better. She generally hears me say something inane, stupid, or at least grandiose and then scales it into something awesome. Witness our Xmas card:

One night I had an idea to draw the family in horrible Xmas sweaters and then scale it huge to place on our front lawn as part of our exterior holiday confections. Instead of calling me on this atrocity, she merely said "How about you turn that into our Xmas card?" She's good.

In a similar fashion, when I off the cuff suggested turning a t-shirt I drunkenly made two and half years ago into Xmas presents, she showed up the next morning hurling t-shirts at me with requests. These are the results:

My friend Lieberstein had a "come in your PJs brunch" back in the day, and I drew a crude sleep ridden robot on a t-shirt to wear to the shin dig. As crude as it was, it got admired and some how led to these, my new line of Sleepybots Jammys. The first few should be relatively self-explanatory, the last was for Damma: all of her grandkids as very tired robots. I'd tell you to look for these in my Etsy shop,where I will turn this drunk idea into a Martha Stewart-esque fortune, but you're probably better off telling me you admire them and then waiting for an occasion for me to make you one. In any event, remember that robots get tired too, and have a happy New Year.

Editors note: My plan is to migrate the site to a new space between now and the end of Xmas vacation. So in addition to minimal posting over the next fortnight due to my drinking schedule, you may come here and find nothing but a vast sea of emptiness comparable to the Juttland Wastes. Don't panic. We'll be back in 2012. Stronger and drunker than ever. xoxo

- Starting off with a bang: Drunk History: Twas the Night Before Xmas is live on the internet. It's a Christmas miracle.

- My Drunk Kitchen also has a Christmas special that involves the futility that is a gingerbread house.

- Here's Newt and Calista Gingrich's video Xmas card, that makes me want to be violently drunk.

- Finally, for those of you who can't wait until January 3rd for Michigan's bowl game, here's 18 minutes of football porn. God bless us everyone.

I make no apologies for loving Christmas music. Of course I can't just turn on whatever local radio station is spewing out Mariah Carey or some flavor of the month saccharin crap - I have very specific needs. Heavy doses of the Rat Pack, Johnny Mathis, Rock and Roll and a dash of comedy. These are my absolute favorites.

10. Give Me Your Love for Christmas - Johnny Mathis
My mother loved Johnny Mathis. Loved. So I do too. And this is a song that didn't get covered to death like it deserved, so it's still fresh and beautiful as ever.

9. Father Christmas - The Kinks
A lot of 'new' rock Christmas songs can suck it (I'm looking at you, former Beatles). Ray Davies did it right.

8. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen - Barenaked Ladies/Sarah McLachlan
I don't have a problem with overly religious Xmas songs, but they're usually not my favorite. This is an exception, probably because I dig the arrangement so much.

7. Baby it's Cold Outside - Dean Martin
There's a lot of great versions of this great song, but give me Deano, probably because they keep the verse about cigarettes and "What will people say?!?" It's a scandal for Christmas!

6. Santa Claws - Vermont
The one song on the list nobody knows. You should listen - it's the grooviest.

5. Mr. Heatmiser/Mr. Coldmiser - Big Bad Voodoo Daddy
I love this song because I got the BDGF to sing karaoke with me to it. That goes a long way.

4. Santa Claus is Coming to Town - Bruce Springsteen
Did Big Man ever get his new saxophone? I'm guessing yes.

3. The Grinch - Dr. Seuss
I sing this song all year long. If you've got a nice bassy voice, it's really fun to belt out. Cuddly as a cactus? Charming as an eel? What fun!

2. Christmas All Over - Tom Petty
This is the second newest song on the list. I like the idea that there are still great new Christmas songs to be written, and this is certainly already a classic.

1. Santa Claus - Cheech and Chong
My all-time favorite Christmas "song". And the one most requested by my children. Guaranteed to make you laugh and put you in the holiday spirit.

Baby, it's cold outside. What better reason to stay inside, curl up under the blankets and watch some movies to put you in the yuletide spirit? I love a good Christmas movie, especially the unconventional ones. Sure A Christmas Story, Elf, It's a Wonderful Life and Scrooged are great, but they're a tad obvious. Here's my top five Christmas movies that you may have forgotten are Christmas movies.

5. Gremlins
I haven't seen Gremlins in far too long, so I can't remember if the mogwai was initially a Christmas present or not, but I do remember Phoebe Cates' story about her dad getting cooked in the chimney trying to play Santa. Merry Christmas movie house!

4. Lethal Weapon
From "Jingle Bell Rock" being played during the opening credits, to our introduction to Martin Riggs in a Christmas tree lot, Lethal Weapon is practically an out and out Christmas film. OK, maybe not, but still a good alternative to Love, Actually.

3. Go
People too often forget Doug Liman's follow up to Swingers, and the holidays are just the time to remember. Enjoy a pre-spoiled-by-Tom-Cruise Katie Holmes and an Xmas themed rave. It's 90's Christmas nostalgia.

2. Trading Places
Taking place over the month between Thanksgiving and New Years, Trading Places encompasses the entire holiday season. Watch this after dinner, as seeing Dan Akroyd eat a piece of ham through his Santa beard is enough to spoil any appetite.

1. Die Hard
My all-time favorite Christmas movie. Least you forget, the entire movie is scored by a riff on Beethoven's 9th, and it also contains the line "Now I have a machine gun. Ho. Ho. Ho." Let's start a campaign to make "Yipee Kay Aye, Motherfucker" the new "Happy Holidays".

And the world is rid of another murderous, egomaniacal, lonely dictator. He was an undoubatbly detestable, deranged human being, but let's concentrate on all the joy he's brought us over the years.

- 30 Rock is likely reeling given their North Korean based story line, but man did they have a run late last year.

- The Daily Show has of course used the North Korean dictator for fodder ove rthe years. None perhaps better than when talking about his now successor, Kim Jong Un.

- The Onion asks if Jong-Un is crazy enough to run North Korea. One wonders why Jong Il's robot powers couldn't save him.

- Hulu provides a comedy retrospective.

- South Park once weighed in.

- Anyone looking to do some last minute, online holiday shopping that benefits children's writing programs, have I got a site for you. The Liberty Street Robot Supply and Repair shop has a holiday catalog for all your robot needs.

- Anyone worried that known pedophile Jerry Sandusky would put together some OJ Simpson style legal dream team and get off without paying the maximum punishment allowed by law for his crimes can rest easy. Not only did he compare Sandusky's 'legal woes' with a football game while suggesting people call a gay sex line (seriously) THIS was his defense for showering with young boys. I couldn't make this shit up.

- Here's two holiday videos for you to enjoy - A Very Calvin and Hobbes Christmas and a trailer for the upcoming Drunk History: Christmas. It promises to be drunktastic.

- Wormer... dead. Niedermeyer... dead. Hitchens... Today we say goodbye to one of the most erudite men to ever walk the face of the Earth. I vehemently disagreed with Christopher Hitchens. A lot. But I always respected him. I respected the way he lived his life, the way he argued and above all, the way he wrote. Anyone holding out hope that one of the world's most renowned atheists would have a death bed conversion to the side of the righteous forgot an important truth - Hitch was better than you. And far to stubborn a twat to give anyone that level of satisfaction.

- Finally, tomorrow I make my bi-annual pilgrimage back to where I was born. Outside of my family and a few high school friends that never left, I've got zero connection to the place outside of a penchant for using a colloquialism now and again where the subject and verb of a sentence don't agree. And I hate when I hear myself do that. But family and duty calls, so the whole fake family will bear down for 24 hours in Ohio. I look forward to seeing my dad and siblings and their offspring, to watching how quickly someone will change the subject if religion or politics get mentioned in my presence, and drinking enough alcohol to make so many children in such a small space bearable. Happy Holidays everyone.

1. Our president. The U.S. Military now can indefinitely detain American citizens captured on U.S. soil. If this sounds crazy for the Bush Administration, or you know, woefully unconstitutional, well congratulations for having a sense of irony and a high school level understanding of our nations founding documents. My Senator, Carl Levin, was sponsor of the specific amendment that allowed this, and I've already sent him a letter noting that despite how much I've enjoyed being represented by him for over 15 years, he no longer has my vote. You're an asshole too, Carl.

2. The Salvation Army. And not just for being omnipresent and annoying for one twelfth of the year. You guys, they're super homophobic. Like Chick-fil-a bad. Please don't give your money to these assholes, no matter how judgmental of a look the jerk faces give you when you blow by them leaving the grocery store. (HT: Liberstein and @thegynomite)

3. William Shatner. Apparently in full-on panic for not having any attention for a period approaching months, Bill put out a video trashing Star Wars in comparison to Star Trek, which we all know is a fool's errand. That caused Carrie Fisher to respond in kind, all of which comes across as petty and frankly, quite far from erudite. Enter George Takei. The non-asshole. George brokers a peace between Wars and Trek to fight a common enemy - Twilight.

4. Finally, Louie CK is a self-admitted asshole. For money though, he's the good kind. Instead of partnering with HBO or Comedy Central for his latest one hour stand up special, he shot it and is releasing it himself, charging you a mere $5 to watch it. Its an awesome model and as it turns out, a successful one. If you a re a fan of comedy, this is something you should encourage. Support this asshole!

Our position on Newt Gingrich here at tbaggervance.com is that he sounds what dumb people think smart sounds like. His ideas are shallow and wrongheaded, and only his vehement embrace of them and his adherence to dogma keep every single person within earshot of him from realizing that he's a complete charlatan. Let's go to the tape:

- How big is Newt's head? Both figuratively and literally, pretty fucking big.

- How dumb is Newt's tax plan? Pretty fucking dumb.

- How awesome is Newt's personal life? Sure he divorced his first wife while she had cancer, but did you know that he met that wife while he was in high school and she was a geometry teacher? Did you know he went into politics because he couldn't get tenure at West Georgia College? A man of History indeed!

- How much of a hypocrite is Newt? Do you want me to keep going after Fannie Mae? How about prosecuting President Clinton for having an affair while having one himself? You stay classy Newt.

- How much of a disaster would Newt be as the Republican nominee? The establishment is so panicked that they've offered him a million dollars to go away.

- Finally, Chris Farley as Newt Gingrich. You're welcome.

Living in a household with five people having four last names has some tricky idiosyncrasies. Chief among them is the holidays. When you're sharing custody of children, xmas and thanksgiving have to be a time of give and take. When you're living with someone who shares custody while you're doing the same, it can be a logistical nightmare. Add in trips to see your family, and her family, and the kids having to visit the relatives on their other parent's side of the family - I can barely type that and have it make sense.

During Thanksgiving it helps to think long term and rotate on a yearly basis. During Xmas it helps to be an atheist. We have a house full of them. A house filled with xmas loving atheists. We do love our holiday traditions, but when trying to make everyone happy with a schedule, how important is the actual date of December 25th? Jesus wasn't even born on that date. The most devout Catholic knows that most, if not all, of your yuletide symbols and traditions are stolen from the pagans. Santa's suit exists largely thanks to Coca-Cola, and Rudolph was thought up in the 1930's by a Montgomery Ward copy writer. O come let us adore the sanctity of the holidays!

There's no war on Christmas. Christmas is already secular. It's as commercial a holiday as Valentines Day or Mothers Day. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's cold outside. We need parties and presents and food and family to gather close and forget for a while that it is cold as balls outside. I say Happy Holidays to people not because I hate Jesus, but there's at least two holidays this month - xmas and new years - that everyone celebrates. We have a tree and a porcelain xmas village and stockings and gingerbread houses and you name it. But no nativity. It's not any less special.

This year I won't have Siddhartha on Xmas morning. He'll be at his mothers while the rest of our household is in Indiana, getting ready to put the BDGF's girls on a plane to Oregon the next morning. This is life when five people living together have four last names and your not sharing a crappy college apartment. But we'll throw thousands of dollars worth of presents at them two days early and no one will be the wiser. Especially the children, who will get to do it again two days later. This setup does have its advantages.

- Getting in the holiday spirit, a Kentucky church banned interracial couples from its services. They overturned it a few days later, but does anyone really believe it was because they had an honest to goodness change of heart? Show of hands...

- Finally, I can't stand Tim Tebow. The guy is an undeniable winner and a seemingly really nice guy, but the religious stuff gives me the heebie geebies. There's the fact that he throws a football about as well as I do, but that should be endearing, it it just isn't when it comes to him. Probably because of stuff like this. Tebow can believe in Jesus all he wants, but when his pastor thinks that God is the 12th man, willing the Broncos to victory, well I just vomited on my keyboard, so thanks for that.

In the last week two of my best friends have had their first child*. Both are ostensibly my age. Both are happily married. Both are rightfully proud and excited and nervous and I have no doubt that they'll both make great fathers, if for no other reason than they are married to great women that will keep them in line. And I'm excited, knowing that there's two new people on the planet whose lives I get to be a part of for the next 20 years. That's a special thing. But I would feel remiss if I didn't note that I think both of these proud new papas are fucking nuts.

My perspective on this is admittedly skewed. Being a teenage parent does that to you. I've spent the last 16 years watching the clock, waiting for my sentence to be over. As rewarding as it's been, what kills me is the idea of starting over right now. Sixteen years in the idea of going back to diapers is unfathomable. At 36 there's not enough caffeine and Red Bull in the world to provide the fuel that'd be necessary for me to make another parenting run. I'm exhausted just thinking about it.

Of course I did knowingly extend my stay in parenting when I fell for the BDGF. I got extremely lucky in that her kids are quite lovely and have the ability to reason, which makes dealing with them much easier than wrangling a two year old. But I'm still now on the hook for 8 years of taxi service right after my kid got his drivers license. I still get another decade of teacher conferences and sitting in auditoriums watching other parent's precious commodities that I couldn't care less about while waiting for mine to go on. Despite all that, I feel extremely lucky to get to be a part of all of it.

In that sense, I get exactly why my friends are just now throwing themselves into the parenting abyss. The terribleness of parenting is dwarfed by the rewards. It doesn't always seem like it when you're running them from one activity to the next or staring at a field hockey schedule that conflicts with Michigan football games, but then they put their head on your should and it all melts away. I guess in that sense you'd be fucking nuts not to give that a go.

* One is actually in labor as we speak, but I'm assuming the baby will be here toot suite.

Here it is. The only year end round up you'll ever need.

10. Dangermouse and Danni Lupi - Rome
Jack White and Norah Jones? Yes please. As a huge fan of Ennio Morricone, I can't think of a more interesting, rag tag group to pay homage to his legacy, and to do so with such great aplomb.

9. Maritime - Human Hearts
When Davey Von Bohlen releases an album, it makes my top ten. There's something about not only having an affinity for someone's personal aesthetic, but to also be the same age as that person and watch it grow and change over the years and to view your relationship with said person as that aesthetic evolves. Just me?

8. Grouplove - Grouplove
More of an EP than an album, but we don't differentiate here at tbaggervance.com. Here's hoping that they can remain as high energy and interesting as they begin to stretch things out.

7. Army/Navy - The Last Place
Am I the only one that just figured out that Justin Kennedy of Army?Navy was in Pinwheel with Ben Gibbard back in the day?!? Oh thank god. Army/Navy sometimes pushes my limits of disaffected jangle pop, but at its best, it is pretty darn wonderful indeed.

6. We Were Promised Jetpacks - In the Pit of the Stomach
Sophomore albums are tough. You can come out with more of the same and be accused of turning out the same crap, or you can make a huge departure and get cries of contrarianism. Jetpacks took the third route of trying to take the accoutrements that made their first album so great and make them darker and harder. It's pretty successful, even if it lacks one great, memorable anthem that populated These Four Walls.

5. Sleeper Agent - Celebrasion
OK, so existing paradigms suggest that I dismiss these guys as foo foo pop punk for the kiddies out there. But it's just too damn fun and catchy. I don't have high hopes that what's on their debut is sustainable, but I've been wrong before, and would gladly be here again.

4. Original Cast Recording - The Book of Mormon
There's certainly a debate to be had about how listening to this album before seeing the show could spoil some of the hilarious surprises contained within. To that I say I've seen Guys and Dolls a hundred times and would go see a well staged production right now if I had the chance. Enjoy this until the hype dies down enough that you can actually get a ticket to this.

3. Wilco - The Whole Love
The first time I listen to Wilco's latest album my immediate reaction was "Shit. It's not much better thanWilco (The Album)" - which I hated. But cooler heads prevailed and I now love The Whole Love. While Wilco (The Album) felt detached, there's a great, big, beating heart here, which has always been the center of Wilco at its best.

2. Chris Bathgate - Salt Year
Chris Bathgate will forever suffer in brain from the fact that I can never detach my analysis of how good his stuff is from my personal connection to him. Chris Bathgate should be as big as Bon Iver in my mind - but better because it's not quite as depressing. At the end of the day all I have to do is enjoy it and be thankful that I have so many opportunities to see him, of course only until I remember that the BDGF wants nothing to do with him.

1. The Black Keys - El Camino
Five years ago I was in Columbus for a football game talking to a guy who was in town to see the Black Keys. I remember how impressed and excited he was that I even knew who they were. A lot has changed since then. It only came out Tuesday, but if this album doesn't burn up you iPod and stereo the next six months, I'll eat my hat.

- Everyone in our house loves the Mythbusters. Which is nice, because even if you're showing up for the explosions, most of the show is science, and it's gonna seep in there like it or not. Of course in trying to please the explosion loving contingent, they may have gone too far yesterday, as they accidentally shot a cannonball through someone's house, over a highway, off a roof and into a SUV. Well there's your problem...

- It's kind of pointless to talk about Rick Perry and his blatant homophobia these days, but let's do it anyway. The Obama administration made an important announcement yesterday supporting worldwide gay rights (which no one covered) and then Perry came out decrying the "deeply objectionable" gay lifestyle. That's offensive to me, but this, well it's just bizarre. Gays can serve openly in our military but our children can't openly celebrate Christmas? What's going on in Texas that that's true?

- The Black Keys latest opus El Camino dropped Tuesday, and as previously stated here, it is fabulous. You can catch their media blitz to SNL, Colbert and Letterman. Dave is giddy as a schoolgirl.

-This Week in Booze: I unfortunately know a lot of Old Milwaukee drinkers who will use this as justification for their life choices, to which I say it's still pisswater. And on a happier note, the FDA has approved a hangover cure. Keep next to bedside at all times. Don't get it confused with your emergency Plan B pills.

- Finally, I put up outdoor Xmas lights this year to make my fake daughters happy, but next year I might do this just for me. Happy Holidays.

Yesterday I had written my politickin' post and started to upload it when I noticed the calendar. The blog turned 7 yesterday! No shit. Of course this also coincided with a text that I received from Siddhartha's Babymama, telling me that he had passed his road test and was now a licensed driver. Yikes.

So I have these dynamic children: changing, swirling and evolving. One I have complete control over and the other, little to none. In the next year my 16 year old will visit colleges, apply to them, pick one, and then shortly leave me for greener pasteurs. Yikes.

The blog, well I've decided it's time for the blog to grow up a bit too. Not in content mind you, that will be as juvenile as ever. But I started this thing based on the free resources I had at my disposal via the University. After 7 years, it's time to go corporate.

What does this mean to you, dear readers? Probably not much. Since this thing will now cost me money, it will also have attempts at revenue. Nothing gauche or garish, just some Google ads to offset the cost of bringing you content. It will also mean that those of you behind jack-booted firewalls will be able to read me in public places again. Yikes.

So happy birthday tbaggervance.com and congratulations Siddhartha. There's been plenty of times I didn't think we'd get here, but now I can see that the best stuff is right in front of us. Let's not screw it up now.

- At the intersection of Tuesdays are for politickin' and What's making Baby Jesus cry this week? you'll find this video: Penn Jillette's Atheist's Guide to the 2012 election. In it he addresses the Kobayashi Maru of Obama: Religious or Liar?

- While I enjoy the cripple fight that the race to lose to Obama has been, I have always been and forever will be in favor of a strong opposition so that we can have the grand debate that this country deserves. Alas those days may be forever gone, but how much better would it be if John Huntsman could gain traction? Anybody who goes on Fox News and ostensibly says "I'm not blowing Trump for an endorsement - this is serious business," is my kind of guy.

- Troy, Michigan mayor Janice Daniels hates the queers. The weird thing is, she apologized for using the word queers, but not the sentiment, because that's where we are with this right now. Oy vey. Even if she never gets it, someday her grandkids will shudder at the thought that she didn't say "I regret that not only did I espouse a view that denies my fellow citizens their basic civil rights, but that I chastised an entire state for addressing the issue and righting a wrong. My religious convictions are my own, and should not influence my public stance on whether or not someone's orientation should deny them what is afforded to me as a citizen of this country." See? Easy.

- Finally, Newt Gingrich is the Republican frontrunner? The guy who dumb people think sounds smart? The guy with this record? With these unfavorable numbers BEFORE being vetted by the press? Divorced his wife while on her cancer deathbed Newt Gingrich? OK, but you asked for it.

Let's face it, Star Wars is basically a Christmas movie. At least in my house. The reason for this is two fold: One, it's a movie that everyone can sit down and watch, yet no one has to pay 100% attention to follow or enjoy the thing. Get up and do your whatever while it's going on, and you can still jump back in later*. Perhaps more important though, is that nary a Christmas season goes by without a Star Wars related gift. I got them every year growing up. Sid got them when he was younger, and now I have the privilege of buying them for the BDGF's littlest. At some point I'll be buying actual working lightsabers for the grandkids, shortly after I purchase the original trilogy one more time in 4D (you can actually smell the inside of the tauntaun!)

Thus we brought the holiday season to true fruition last night with Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope, for the first time on Blu-ray. It does look great. The "additions" are still annoying, and I will pray that some day we'll get the cleaned up original versions that everyone but Lucas wants. But I'm not holding my breath. This is what we have, and being able to sit down and enjoy it with two beautiful girls who love the movie as much as I do? Well it makes Greedo shooting first almost bearable.

- Someone needs to fully animate this Rankin-Bass style ASAP: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Tauntaun.

- I would gladly trade my current booze cabinet for this.

- Every year the girls build a gingerbread house for the holidays. Here is me lobbying to change that.

- We have plenty of expensive, Lucasfilm authorized ornaments on our tree, but these are just as cool.

- Finally, for anyone looking to buy me a completely ridiculously extravagant Star Wars related gift, I'm a size 10.

*For the record, I don't endorse this watching style, but it is possible.

- Urban Meyer is the new head coach at Ohio. I don't really feel one way or another about this. He's good, but he's a bit of an entitled schizo. My hatred of him is built in, so there's nothing new to learn, but most importantly, Michigan is undefeated against him. So meh. I do however find the fact that The Onion mentioned him twice this week hilarious.

- From the 'duh' department, abstinence only education doesn't work, and people who watch Fox News are uninformed. Someone owes Jon Stewart an apology.

- Pennies are the worst. Am I right? Nonbelievers, here's the science.

- My booze evolution has taken a fairly orthodox path. There was a time (high school) when I 'treated' myself to Budweiser. Regular, not unleaded. Then I went to college and exclusively drank mass produced domestic swill for four years, peppered here and there with shots with overly elaborate names and ingredient lists. Post-graduation I started to mix in cocktails and wine, upgrading the quality of each I would be willing to imbibe over time. My beer drinking is at its final iteration: microbrews that cost $10 a six pack. There's really no where to go from here with beer without being a pompous ass hat (assuming you don't think I'm already there for drinking beer you can taste). I've had expensive wine, and I find my palate is just fine with the $10 bottle stuff, although I'm sure I'll pay much more than that for a decent bottle several times a year for the rest of my life. I can still graduate to Goose or Kettle One in the spirits department, but I either need a raise or to curb my vodka intake, and you can guess which will happen first. Of course I'm told that eventually I will get to a point where I drink nothing but expensive scotch, and to that I say "I await the day." I say all of this to point out that the first beer in space was a Natty Light. This means that by 2050 you can look forward to Macallan on the moon.

- Finally, I am two(ish) presents short of being done with xmas shopping. This may be a personal best. The house is decorated, there's slush in the freezer and we even got a good bit of wrapping done last night. Bring on the holidays, god help us everyone.

It seems like it's been a while since we've spent much time or energy on gay marriage or marijuana legalization here at tbaggervance.com. And while we're not potheads nor do we seek out sex with genitals we already have a set of, we do view these issues as somewhere between basic human rights and good public policy. So where are we these days? Let's take a look:

- Where's the public on pot? Only 40% of the public at large thinks pot should be straight up legal, but almost twice that supports medical marijuana. Of course we're at a majority of people under 30 and approaching that for independents, so the tipping point is merely a matter of time.

- Why legalize it? Well there's the rote arguments of the cost of prohibition vs the revenue of legalization, but pot is still scary, right? How about if it reduced traffic deaths? As any stoner will you, there's much more to fear from a drunk behind the wheel than someone who's baked.

- What about the gays? In the last 15 years, support has gone from 27% to 46%, while opposition has dropped from 65% to 44%. So we are finally sitting at more people favoring it than not.

- You'd think that given these overwhelming numbers, politicians would be the first to champion the cause and be on the right side of history. Let's survey your field of GOP presidential candidates:

Mitt Romney supports a federal amendment defining marriage as penis and vagina only - despite calling it a "State issue" and as late as last week saying he supports gay rights.

Newt Gingrich called gay marriage a "temporary aberration," just like his first two marriages that ended with his infidelities.

Michelle Bachmann says that gay people can marry - people of the opposite sex that is. Just ask her husband.

Rick Perry signed this Iowa hate group's pledge, stating he's appoint judges who would defend traditional marriage. You may remember that pledge as the one that stated black children born into slavery had it better off than black children born today.

Herman Cain can't make up his mind. "What do the people who can win me Iowa want? That's what I want. Hey sexy, how you doin'?"

Rick Santorum? Anyone want to stand with this cat?

Jon Huntsman doesn't support the redefining of marriage, but he does support civil unions. This is the only person listed who has never led the race.

So instead of courting the 47% of independents who support gay marriage, the entirety of the GOP field runs to the backwards base and plays on scare tactics. Meanwhile Wisconsin says it's street legal to harass gays in the workplace. You stay classy Republicans.