Doritos, C-SPAN and Psycho Analysis

I guess it takes someone else to show us who we really are sometimes. Such is the case this week. Andrew is entertaining some friends who are in town. He's beer-ing and dining them all over the Anchorage Bowl. It's been great to see people from our past life in Minnesota, albeit a strain. To call our apartment small is an understatement and squeezing four adults into it is testing its tensile strength.

But the real challenge for me has not been finding a safe route from the kitchen to the bedroom, pinpointing the origin of strange odors or understanding where all the food is going. Nay, it's been finding common ground. The guests openly play World of Warcraft and Magic: The Gathering. They are the kind of dudes who make no bones about it. Fine. Fair enough. I simply don't do these things. I don't know the lingo or understand why 96 percent of the things they laugh at are funny.

So I thought I'd try my hand with my strong suits for small talk -- pop culture and current events. I watch a ton of TV and work at a news station, I'm well versed in both. It seems innocuous enough, "Can't believe how old McCain is, "How 'bout that earthquake in China?" "Can you believe Carrie is finally going to marry Big? (Okay, that one I only expect to work with a certain cross-section, few of whom also play Magic) But they all fell flat. Completely flat.

I think the most embarrassing attempt was when I started talking about Ralph Nader publicly calling for Bush's impeachment. I watched it on C-SPAN the other night. It was a sad little press conference with Nader and about six other people, he stumbled over words and looked generally disheveled. He was a shell of the guy I came to love in the documentary about his life.

I realized as I prattled on about Nader that I may be one of only six people in the world who care. I saw eyes gloss over in the room, attentions drift to errant shoelaces and a pitiful look from Andrew. I realized, while I was sitting in muted judgement of these guys who spend their days with lightening bolts, stone taps and white mages, I was showing my own profound nerdiness. Am I any better? Does my elitism preclude me from being considered a nerd? Am I a better person because I'm swilling cheap wine while watching oil executives testify before a sub-committee on C-SPAN at 3 a.m. instead of eating cheesy snacks and slaying a fictional dragon?

I don't know. But while they stink up my living room and eat all my Doritos, they're making me thing twice about what I care about and what it makes me. They're also reminding me how much I want a bigger apartment.

Which came first, the chicken or the rice rush?

News is a real clandestine operation sometimes. Reporters, producers and editors hope the world understands what they do and invite inquiries into their work. Still, most people don't care and most news people are so wrapped up in their work they overlook their responsibility to accountability.

It could be surprising then, that many story ideas start like a Jerry Seinfeld joke, "What's the deal with ..." Someone sees something curious on the road into work, hears something interesting from their child or catches a funky smell from a community stream and BAM, tomorrow's news.

That formula makes me wonder then, what exactly happened to get people so riled up about rice. It's obvious Americans won't be going hungry, EVER. So why is the news media mongering such fear about a possible shortage? Are we reporting the news, or constructing it?


The story is absurd. I hate it. I sat in on a few news meetings last month and watched as people tried to push the rice shortage story. Costco and Sam's Club limited their customers to 200 pounds a day. 200 pounds. 200 POUNDS.

Now the rising cost of keeping rice ready has pushed restaurants' hands. Someone came waltzing through the newsroom today complaining about how he was charged $1.50 for rice with his curry. Sounds like tomorrow's news to me.

The Accidential Environmentalist

There's been much to-do lately about going green. For the most part, I consider it a fad like Atkins, HyperColor and the Spice Girls. It's led to a host of politically-convenient rhetoric, a great new cross for the hipster community to bear and a shockingly-profitable new industry in which people sell you things to help you consume fewer things. Green is the new black.

It's strange to me, then, that my post-college poverty has made me so trendy. It certainly wasn't by design. I couldn't afford tables, so I've reused some "borrowed" milk crates (the Dairy Queen will get those back any day now). I couldn't afford a car, so I biked to work in Alaska all winter. My apartment is minuscule so I've waged a personal war against the under-the-sink-stockpile of plastic bags and use cloth tote bags.

Despite an ultra-green contingent of hippies, I have to say most Alaskans are in my generally-apathetic camp. They seem to like the environment as long as they're not inconvenienced to keep it healthy. Sure it's great to hike, camp, fish, rappel and partake in a slew of other categorically dangerous and insane things, but they'll be damned if they'll put that aluminum can in a recycling bin.

Still, it's probably not their fault. Back in Minnesota, curbside recycling was a foregone conclusion. Finished with that soda? Throw the can in the bin in the garage. Done with that newspaper? Put it out on the curb.

Not so in Alaska. Like everything else, recycling is just a little bit harder, making it a little bit sweeter when the task is accomplished.

Today for the second time in as many weeks, I loaded up the LTD and took our recycling to the Anchorage Recycling Center. Any good greenie would tell me it the trip was carbon-neutral at best. I'm pretty sure the LTD gets -2 miles to the gallon.

But it's not really about that. As I slammed the door on the LTD at the recycling station, trendy aviators shading my eyes from the dull sun, I realized it's about me. It's not about doing something good for the environment, but about feeling like I've done something good for the environment. It's another notch in my elitist belt. Green is the new black.

But it's still good, I guess. I mean doing the right thing for the wrong reason is still doing the right thing, right?

Roll and Rock your Face Off!

The Rage City Rollergirls debuted in exhibition last weekend. I can easily say this is a sport made for me. From what I can tell, you push other girls around a lot, wear fun costumes and nobody minds when you fall down.

I am great at falling down. Plus, I used to skate and I try to wear a helmet whenever possible.

Moreover, I think there's a family legacy at stake. At the age of about 85 my 98-pound grandmother told me she once tried out for the roller derby. This blew my 14-year-old mind. Having never met a coked-out supermodel or Roloff, she was the smallest person I had ever seen in real life. I couldn't imagine she would survive in the roller derby. I guess coaches couldn't either since she didn't make the cut.

Maybe her problem was that she didn't have a great roller derby name -- Nihilist Nina, or perhaps Slamma-Jamma Gramma (though I'm pretty sure she wasn't a grandmother when she tried out).

It seems clear to me that my best shot at making it in roller derby is having a great name -- Minnesota Slice, Minnesota Phatts (Though that invites some nasty comments), Big Thrill from Government Hill ...

Read the ktuu.com story

An homage to Hilldy

Hilldy, the Government Hill moose, has become a lumbering presence across the A Street Bridge. She seems to be getting quite comfortable (though I'm not entirely sure what an uncomfortable moose looks like).

I'd like to welcome her to the neighborhood with a haiku:

Hilldy lumbers large
chewing, strolling and ambling
the moose loves the hill.