Monday is always a quiet-yet-awful day of the week, since the paper is off to print at the Daily Press and it’s time to start thinking about next week. On some weeks, like when there’s both a city council and a school board meeting, both of which almost inevitably produce one or more stories, that’s pretty easy. On other weeks, like this one, there’s no meetings scheduled, no major events scheduled, nothing. So it all has to come from me. I’m not one of those writers naturally afflicted by a fear of the blank page — my home computer is filled with the equivalent of a million pieces of paper full of ideas, phrases, paragraphs, the first line of my novel, and so on — but on weeks like these, I can get a glimpse of the abyss those writers stare into, and feel staring back at them.
OK, that’s not true; there is one story that looks like a 50/50 chance of being in next week’s paper. It’s perhaps the most depressing subject of all time, but a story that needs to be covered, if it doesn’t resolve itself on its own.
In the meantime, I need to come up with some ideas, and fast. This is the glamorous life of the writer.
An old school GeoCities site with the lyrics to “I Don’t Like Mondays,” complete with awful MIDI music. I’m convinced MIDI files will be the bellbottom jeans of the 1990s. I already look back and wonder what everyone was thinking at the time. Those never sounded better than awful. The fact that I had them on my very first Web page just makes it worse.
I’m so senile (already — I must have caught it from the cat) that I can’t remember how I heard of Dave Cusick’s Post Modern Rock Show, but I’m glad I did. I’m not 100 percent sure how he can manage to play actual full songs in a podcast without being killed by rights issues, but I’m enjoying it while I can. A great, great radio show, available via podcast, for download or for live streaming over the Internet. Like all amateur podcasts, it has more talk than I’d like, but Dave is fortunately relatively interesting and even when he’s not, he’s pleasant enough. And the music more than makes up for the delays.
Good stuff. Check it out.
 Every time I think I’m a giant World of Warcraft geek (although, to be fair, I should get a bye on being called a geek for this, since my name is in the credits, somewhat inexplicably), someone comes along and shows me what real geekery looks like. If nothing else, pick something better to cook than Westfall Stew. Beer Basted Boar Ribs, for instance, aren’t geeky at all, yum.
I am also not geeky enough (or, probably, not young enough), to have the least bit of interest in the World of Warcraft collectable card game. In fact, I’m old enough to view the merger of baseball/collector cards with playing cards with vague suspicion. (Of course, if the in-game goodies are really cool, all bets are off.)
I am, however, geeky enough to seriously consider going to BlizzCon in Anaheim. Of course, I’d be compelled to wear my Warcraft III launch shirt given to Blizzard staff when the game hit shelves back in 2002 or my World of Warcraft shirt we wore to E3 for the newly announced game and sow misinformation.
OK, maybe not. We’ll see.
Hmm. My name is just after Donna “Katricia” Anthony, the former community rep. Maybe that’s what I’m doing there. If you play WoW, incidentally, you can see Donna in-game, as the Crazy Cat Lady in the Elywnn Forest. Her house is just outside the gates to Northshire Abbey. I do not appear anywhere in the game, although my EverQuest character is name-checked in EverQuest 2 in Baubleshire. (I’ve never played EQ2 to the extent that I can get to Baubleshire, so I’m just going on what I’ve been told here.)
OK, we’ve gone nuts and decided to go to BlizzCon. Photos and report to follow in November, along with me agitating for surnames being added to WoW.
At long last, it’s here. Copy this URL into your podcasting software of choice, or just save this file to hear Liz Phair’s podcast.
Todd gave me a heads-up on this, at the Potomac News, where we both worked, once upon a time:
Media General Northern Virginia Community Newspapers is seeking a bilingual reporter to provide local news for its new Spanish-language weekly newspaper and to cover diverse local cultures for its dailies, the Potomac News and the Manassas Journal Messenger. Must speak Spanish and English. This reporter will cover hard news and do features as assigned, as well as generate his or her own story ideas. He or she will also work closely with other reporters, photographers and a graphic artists, and editors.
So far, so good, right? Let’s skip down to the required job skills:
Cover breaking news in all kinds of weather or difficult terrain, including covering police stand-offs, moving quickly to avoid becoming a target, climbing/descending stairs or ropes or ladders or steep slopes.
It makes you wonder what the heck is going on back in Woodbridge.
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