Ho, ho, ho, hiatus

Yeah, so it's been a while since I've posted something. A combination of work, travel and lots of apathy in play here. Anyways, lots of this and that going on since the last post.

First off, I returned to Atlanta at the end of last month/beginning of this month for Trashmasters once again in Chattanooga. Nice to be a tourist in my former home city for a few days, not to mention seeing some old friends again (although not as many as I would've liked), and somehow waiting until the trip to see my first hockey game of the season.

As for the tournament, finally got to team up with Craig for the first time ever and we ended up losing in the finals to the team that will eventually be my TRASHionals teammates, so that's interesting. Plus, I got to defend my K-Tel Hell title, so the belt now sits in my cubicle itching for some more adornments.

I probably should've picked up adornments in the Tower Records bankruptcy sales. For the first time, things at Tower were actually at reasonable prices, but that's because everything was 60-70% off during my first trips and then 90% yesterday, the day before the stores closed for good.

I did get a ton of stuff I wouldn't have even sniffed at picking up for full price, but for $1, $2 or $4, I'm on top of it. Obviously by the time I got there, lots of the decent stuff was gone, so you had to stretch your mind thinking you landed a find (cool, there's that Bronson Arroyo cover album or what's the deal with all the Foghat). Thankfully I wasn't actively seeking out ironic prizes for trash tournaments, so I didn't load up my bags with even more crap than I already bought because I was interested in it. So while I spent decently on "real" gifts for family and friends, I was able to load up without feeling too guilty about shopping for myself. I think I could've bought three CDs at Tower for the price of the 25-30 things I did get.

As for other things going on, we were amused in the office when Mike and the Mad Dog got really worked up over the SI Sportsman of the Year choice of Dwyane Wade (including a heated argument with my overall boss). We were indifferent, although I think I had a decent choice.

Meanwhile, a few floors down, there's been some interesting feedback over Time's Person of the Year. One person wondered if you could put down on your resume that you were Time's Person of the Year. I wonder how wise it is picking "you" since "you" in general come off as a moron. For every one great blog, YouTube video or substantive online discussion is about 500 others much more idiotic (like this blog, to be honest).

But on the other hand, if you want to know how strange the MySpace generation can be, check out this story from one of my Medill classmates now at the New York Post. My own intriguing MySpace story has me finding one of my fellow Jeopardy! contestants and getting in touch with her for an interesting project.

And in the same online realm, the Vote For Rory Fitzpatrick project is working like gangbusters. However, having just filled out my NHL All-Star ballot, it seems a lot easier to pull off the "write-in" vote here than in other sports -- especially online. First off, there's only 12 actual choices for defenseman in the West and secondly, there's actually "write-in" candidates listed in the dropdown, so it's very easy to choose him as opposed to actually having to type in a name. Still, it's a spirited campaign and one that's actually working as opposed to some of my obscure baseball All-Star Game campaigns.