A Thousand Times No

Nobody warns you that when you begin blogging, some odd things will start to happen. You’ll mull more than a pot of holiday cider. You’ll lose sleep. You’ll wind up checking your stats like a peanut-addicted circus monkey.

And sooner or later, you’ll meet up with the haters.

Sometimes they’re not completely loaded up with venom, just having a bad day. Other times, they’re insidious, sneaking up on you with the stealth of the hundred-and-first potato chip. But make no mistake: poo will be flung. Speak your mind clearly enough, openly enough, long enough, and I guarantee that an anonymized crusader will slingshot something smelly your way.

I think it’s high time we turned a phrase for these folks, bestowing upon them the attention they so deeply crave. Ladies and gentlemen, coming at you straight from the cheapest seats in house, may I present:

THE E-NUT GALLERY

(W00t!)

There are many reasons why I’m big on economist Steven Levitt, the co-author of Freakonomics. He grew up in Minnesota, he adopted kids from China, he won the J.B. Clark medal, he had the good sense to collaborate with Stephen Dubner.

But today, he topped all those things when he uncloaked his superpower. And for that, I am eternally grateful.

I recently bought a new camera, and I’m still learning how to deal with all the settings. It’s not a fancy digital SLR, just a healthy portable that allows for some degree of manual control. With plenty of options in the camera settings, I haven’t quite figured out where everything lives amid the physical buttons, the soft keys, and the menus. From a practical standpoint, this means I tend to burn through sets of batteries while hunting around to make certain adjustments.

The city was bathed in fog last night, and I toted the camera out to nearby Rittenhouse Square in an attempt to capture a few photos. I had no luck trying to override the autofocus override before the batteries called it a night. Time to dig into the actual paper manuals in search of all the covert capabilities closely held by my new little friend.

I’ve been spending the morning cleaning house, which at the moment is comprised primarily of sorting through things and deciding what to throw away. The people who are experts in such matters suggest that you put some music on, and crank it high. This morning’s soundtrack has been a random mix of the following albums, courtesy of Rhapsody.com:

• Run D.M.C., Raising Hell
• Eric B. and Rakim, Paid in Full
• LL Cool J, Mama Said Knock You Out
• Lauryn Hill, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill

On deck for this afternoon: M.I.A., Clipse, Lupe Fiasco, The Roots, and Aloe Blacc. Part of the joy of having a music subscription service is being able to spin playlists compiled by other people (in this case, a dj with a clear bias towards East Coast rap). I’m finding that it’s a good way to relieve the stress of looking at seemingly endless piles of junk without immediately tumbling into the Slough of Despond.

And that’s how we make progress, pilgrim.

My apologies for the suddenly sporadic posting. I was away in Lost Wages trying to actually get some learnin’ done for work. The conference content was extremely informative, and I met several very interesting people. But, true to form, I was having trouble sleeping while in Sin City (hence, my particular proclivities) and I was exhausted by the time I departed on a red-eye flight yesterday evening.

We landed in Philly around 5:30 this morning. I tried to catch a little more shut-eye before leaving for work. As I began walking to work this morning, I caught my shoe on a crack in the sidewalk and rolled onto my left ankle on the way to performing a nice knee and elbow plant in the cement.

Oddly, nobody else was walking along the same stretch of sidewalk, and none of the cars seemed to notice that I was sprawled out on the pavement. (Or perhaps they assumed I was taking up permanent residence there.) Eventually, a woman crossed the street to check up on me. I used a sidewalk railing to hoist myself up and test out my ankle. It seemed okay, so I began walking and hailed a cab.

By the time I arrived at my office and stepped out of the cab, it was clear that my ankle wasn’t entirely fine. I spent the day with my leg propped up, icing my ankle and hobbling around in a compression bandage. I should be better by the weekend, but you can wager that I’ll avoid the red-eye in the future.

A month of daily blogging has definitely gotten under my skin. I go for a single day without blogging and I feel guilty. One more day and I would have forced myself to go sit with the puppy kickers. Not that I’m going to be a daily blogger on a permanent basis, mind you, but immediately dropping the ball on December 1st just felt a little lame.

Yesterday I was on the road, spending far too much of my time in airports and on a plane. Where am I today? Let’s try a little photo quiz:

Where might you see station wagons and Priuses (Prii?) used by the local cab companies? (A Prius taxi — how cool is that? I know, I know, they’ll be all over New York in a few years — but not right now.)

Okay, next hint: Where do they encourage you to play Keno at the dinner table?

You probably already know where I am. But in case you don’t, one final clue: Where will you find legalized gambling in America…in the airport?

Yeah, you know it: Vegas, baby!

(That’s all for now. I’m actually here because of my job, and now I have to deal with business. Later, cats!)