New laptop needed.

I need a new laptop. I'm giving serious thought to buying a Macbook. Or do I stick with a PC? If so, which brand?

I'm lost. And confused. Guide me, friends. What do I do?

[I'm planning an Oscar blog soon. If I can stay awake while writing it.]

On Location: Albany, NY

I realize that I've been nothing but a whine-o-matic lately but, really, the stupidest, crappy stuff keeps happening. The latest was yesterday. After diverting a small crisis (involving Sarada and keys to my apartment) with some skillful cross-town cabbing, I hopped on my on-time (!!!) train to Albany. I sat next to the most delightful elderly woman and had a great ride up.

Then I spent the next 3 hours sitting in Albany's train station. Why? BECAUSE OF A FRIGGIN' AIRLINE. They get me every time. There is no escaping their touch of pain. My roommate for the next three days, Jaye, was delayed leaving DC. So she was delayed picking me up at the station and taking me to the hotel, which was in her name. When I asked a station attendant for a nearby restaurant, he grunted and gestured at the Coffee Beanery down the hall. That was it.

Sitting at said Coffee Beanery, I decided to try to fire up my laptop to help pass the time. I was greeted with a blank screen. Off. On. Blank screen. Again. Blank screen. One more time. Then I got a message telling me that some file was corrupted and Windows wouldn't start. Terrific. I've spent most of today trying to get it work -- including my favorite method which involved dropping the laptop from a height of 3 feet onto the bed -- to no avail. My laptop seems to be gone for good.

So now I'm at the "business center" of my hotel. And by "business center" I mean a desktop with a slow internet connection and a printer sitting in the lobby. It's awesome. I can't really work from here so I e-mailed a few peeps at PBS to tell them not to expect anything from me. Now I just need to figure out how I'm going to do my CLE assignment that needs to be mailed out by Wednesday.

On the bright side, Jaye and I both sailed through our character and fitness interviews today. It seems like we will be sworn into the NY Bar this Wednesday. Also, we met a few actors in the Albany production of "Take Me Out" so we might go see them tomorrow night. This trip could easily turn out to be quite the fun time. I'll let you know.

I didn't die.

The windy Embraer flight didn't kill me. But the shock of not dying almost did.

Things got better once I was on the ground. And by "better" I, of course, mean "worse." We landed at terminal C then had to drive (slowly) all the way to terminal A. That took about 25-30 minutes. Then I only had to wait for my bag for about 45-50 minutes due to a broken conveyor belt at the baggage claim. At least the Continental staff member was really friendly and apologetic. Oh wait. No, she wasn't. It was awesome.

Flying blows.

My organs have melted due to the fury raging inside me.

Venting....

So I go online about 30 minutes ago to make sure that my flight tonight isn't delayed. It's not. No delay at all. Why? BECAUSE IT WAS CANCELLED. Thank goodness I looked. They insist that they called my home phone. Convenient. Whatever. (I made a point of giving her my cell phone for any other surprises.) All I know is that I was sitting here feeling peachy and suddenly my flight's CANCELLED. Reason? Because it's windy in Newark.

So I'm on the phone with Continental and I'm asking for options. The woman checks my reservation and is like, "Ooh! You've been switched to another flight!" Great! What time? Apparently, some braintrust at Continental thought it would be smart to switch someone traveling at 7pm on a Friday to a 4:50pm flight. Seriously? I'd have to leave right now. And I wouldn't make it. AND, like most Friday evening travelers, I'm still at work. SO, my best option was to be switched to a 9pm flight that apparently isn't cancelled. It's on an Embraer.

Review with me, worthy friend: My original Boeing 737 can't fly at all (not even with a delay) because of the wind in Newark but Continental's willing to send me up there 2 hours later in a 30-pound piece of tin? Sweet.

So now I'm enraged, stuck at work until late (because I'm not lugging this bag all the way back to DC when I can see the airport from my office building), and probably headed toward my death.

Go fuck yourself, Continental. Right in the ear.

Because I Said -- Thursday Night Television

Due to being felled by the some random 24-hour stomach flu, I had to miss work on Tuesday. It was bad. I could barely get out of bed. Go ahead. Take a moment to feel very, very sorry for me.

No, no. Keep it up. I was SO sick. SO sad.

Sigh.

So, as a result of missing work on Tuesday, I fell woefully behind and had to stay at work until nearly 8pm (!!!) tonight. I scrapped plans with Stetson to see Volver (yes, I STILL haven't seen it) and came home exhausted. I briefly toyed with the idea of meeting Charles for a drink, but between the cold and the fact that I needed to pack for a week in Jersey and Albany, I decided that it was going to be a quiet night at home. I glanced at the bag I was supposed to pack, made some dinner, and then plopped myself down on my bed for Thursday: The BEST night of television.

First I watched Ugly Betty. As you may know, Betty took the Best Comedy prize at Monday's Golden Globe Awards. I was very excited. The show continues to be funny and fresh and the cast is just getting better and better each week (particularly the stunning and hilarious Becki Newton -- honestly, this girl is destined for great, great things). I thought that I'd seen it all with the excellent denoument of a just-long-enough plot arc featuring Salma Hayek (co-producer of the show and, in my humble opinion, one of the most beautiful women on the planet...she looked FABU at the Globes), but I was wrong. Tonight's show ended with one of those jaw-dropping, last-five-minute moments that all shows promise and few rarely deliver. I nearly vomited.

I decided to give in to the natural flow of ABC and watched Grey's Anatomy next. I was so pleased when ABC made it a two-fer and Grey's won the Globe for Best Drama. Shonda Rhimes (the show's creator and head writer) gets mad props from me. She juggles a ton of truly compelling characters and makes it work beautifully. Furthermore, I don't think anyone's given her credit for doing one of the most taboo things on television -- making the lead male and lead female actually get together -- and having the show thrive despite of it. Countless shows (except for maybe Friends) have be cowed by bringing couples together (none as much as Moonlighting) and Grey's has done it without a flinch. Perfection.

Next I poured myself a glass of wine and opted to go for the Scrubs musical. It was getting late and I really needed to pack so I figured it would be good background. I was wrong. I watched the whole thing intently. Not only did I stupidly not count for a personal weakness for musicals, I forgot how great Scrubs can be. I watched in the beginning, then faded off, then picked up again when Comedy Central starting running reruns. Honestly, it can't be said that Scrubs does any one thing with much originality -- I feel it necessary to point out that Buffy did a musical episode to SPECTACULAR and PEERLESS effect about four years ago -- but Scrubs incorporates comedy, drama, and everything in between into such an effective little package. I'll be honest, while I loved Garden State, Zach Braff mildly irks me. Still, the rest of the cast is uniformly brilliant and the musical episode (apparently written by the people who wrote Avenue Q) was terrific. I fully cop to watching it twice.

What to do next? Well, I packed (during the second viewing of the Scrubs musical) and I had a long day at work tomorrow before I jetted off to tropical Newark, NJ. What to do, indeed? I toyed with the idea of just going to bed, but clearly I don't do that (note the time of this post). Instead, I watched The Office.

Now, I wrote a while ago that Ugly Betty was the best thing on television. At the time, I believed that. I had just seen the greatest episode of the season -- "Fey's Sleigh Ride" -- and was pretty psyched about how the show was turning out. Still, I don't think anything really compares to The Office. Full disclosure: I never saw the British version. I know for a fact that the BBC does good work. I'm a HUGE fan of the BBC version of Coupling (and I like to pretend the NBC's version of Coupling never happened). Still, the US version of The Office is transcendent. It's like what a really good Jars of Clay concert must be for hardcore Christians. It's got comedy unlike any other. It's got drama. It's got romance. It's got emotion. Each week, it sends me on a rollercoaster ride. One second I'm cracking up. The next second I'm tearing up. Then I'm rewinding scenes to rewatch one castmember's staggeringly nuanced moment (highlight on Jim at the sales meeting when he overhears Michael mention that Pam's going on a date). This show is the very definition of brilliance.

Watch it. And watch all of Thursday TV. I sometimes think that people look at TV as the ugly stepchild of film. I love film. Nay, I ADORE film. But television is its own unique challenge. Being consistent week to week is, I'd say, harder than crafting a great 2-hour flick. Being loyal to legions of fans for seasons is more satisfying to the viewer than a solid trilogy. It's true that some TV series are primo garbage. It is also true that some TV series are art of the highest degree.

Ugly Betty. Grey's Anatomy. Scrubs. The Office.

I salute you.

Enjoy the following clip from the Scrubs musical (not nearly the best number in the show, but just to whet your appetite):

Life Poll

I found out about this site that allows you to make polls and it seemed like a great addition to the TerenZone. I was initially at a bit of a loss on what question to pose my readers. I tried to think of something interesting when, suddenly, it hit me. ME! Me, me, me! What better poll topic than that? Gosh, I'm brilliant. So, with the recent extension on my PBS gig, I've been giving some thought as to where my life might head next. Since I've come to no conclusion, I put it to you. Vote early and often.

What should the TerenZoner do with his life?
	"Buy in" (not sell out) and work for a law firm.
	Work at a nonprofit legal clinic (and never afford to buy anything again).
	Attempt to find one of those elusive legal Hill jobs.
	Go back to school (if you choose this, be sure to tell me where and for what in the comments).
	Finally write his novel.
	Move to Cambodia and tend bar at Angkor What?
pollcode.com free polls

Get your hands outta my stuff, wench.

So, as you may know by now, NJ requires all newly admitted attorneys to attend a “Skills and Methods” course within six months of being admitted to the state bar. The NJ Institute for Continuing Legal Education -- the inept organization that NJ allows to run the program [Ha! I tried to find a link about them and got a nice example of their ineptitude] -- sent this swell letter telling me how “convenient” it would be to fulfill this requirement. My two convenient choices? Class from 9am to 4pm five Saturdays in a row in January OR class from 6pm-9pm five Monday and Tuesday nights in a row in the spring. Maybe I’m a complete nut, but I wouldn’t call anything that gave me those two options as “convenient.” “Unconscionable,” perhaps. Add to that the fact that they have such limited space at each of the three also “convenient” locations that Newark (clearly the most in-demand site) filled up well before the deadline to sign up, leaving me and my fellows – quick sidebar: thank everything holy for Gabby, Rachel, and Mustafa because I wouldn’t be able to deal if they weren’t there with me – stuck going to Rutgers – New Brunswick. That’s an hour drive from my parents’ house.

Then again, I’ve been thinking about this CLE thing in a bit of a vacuum. By that I mean, it never occurred to me that it would cause ripples that would wreak tsunami-style havoc on the rest of my existence. Sure, I realized that it would cost me a pretty penny to get up to Jersey every weekend. Bless my understanding employer who gave me the week of the 21st off so that I mildly minimize the roundtrip tickets to Newark. I flew this past weekend (more on that in a sec), I’m renting a car next weekend, and then I’m flying up again for the aforementioned week off and the last class on February 3. At $125 per trip, this isn’t a cheap enterprise. And did I mention that the class itself costs $295? Well, yeah, it does.

But expense is only one prong of this wheel of horrors. Time and effort? I’m a friggin’ zombie today. I imagine I won’t stop being a friggin’ zombie until I sleep through the weekend of February 9. This week, I’ve got dinners with (at different times) Cicie, Jennie and the BFTC crew, and the studliest gang of men in the District. Not to mention that I double-booked Thursday and wanted to see Volver (which, yes, I still haven’t seen) with Dave and Vijay. These are all things that I would love to do during the weekend but I can’t because I have to be in Jersey -- for the next month of weekends. My busy lifestyle combined with the natural wear and tear of travel make me want to cry with exhaustion at just the thought of the next four weeks. Give me a second to compose myself.

Then there are the other mild annoyances that stem from this sort of lifestyle. For instance, stupid TSA (Transportation Security Administration) decided that there was something fishy in my check-in bag. When I opened it last night, I found a little flyer reporting TSA inspection and, basically, informing me that I had to take it and like it. I felt violated. First, they apparently had to inspect my shoes (like I’d put a bomb in a pair of Kenneth Coles…sneakers are a much more appropriate choice) but they didn’t return them to the plastic bag in which I had placed them. I don’t want the bottoms of my shoes touching my clothes. This is why I place them in bags whenever I pack them. Why can’t TSA respect that? Furthermore, they CUT THROUGH a plastic bag in which I had placed my toiletry kit. First, the thought of anyone rifling through my toiletries gives me a major case of the wiggins. Second, I bag the toiletries in case something leaks. What if moisturizer or shampoo or astringent had leaked all over my stuff? At the risk of being put on a no-fly list, I hate TSA. And I hate their stupid baggy/3.4 ounces policy. I’m not scooping my sodium PCA moisturizer into a 3.4-oz travel bottle. Go fuck yourself.

That outright violation put me in a terrible mood last night. I slept poorly, woke up late, and was halfway to work when I realized that I didn’t have my ID badge. I brought my laptop to Jersey with me and I left straight from work on Friday, so I had moved my badge from my work bag to my laptop bag. It’s still there. Worse still, once I had piggybacked up to my floor and tapped on the glass doors until Alice let me in, I sat at my desk, sneezed, and realized that I had forgotten to take my allergy medicine. Why? Because it’s still in my laptop bag, too. And due to the global warming (follow the link, Andrew wrote most of the copy!) that conservatives continue to deny, winter is the new spring and my allergies are in full effect.

So now I’m at work, tired, cranky, without my ID badge, allergizing like it’s going out of style, and still feeling a tiny bit violated after revisiting the TSA search of the night before. And we all know that NJ’s ridiculous CLE requirements are to blame. Now excuse me while I try to sort out my tasks and appointments this week. I have to find time to do the CLE ASSIGNMENT that’s due on January 17. I have to draft a divorce complaint and motion and do a bunch of other stuff. Know that you stand with me if you’re now scratching your head wondering what this has to do with my career.

I hate everything.

Happy New Year!

New and improved posts coming soon!