THANKSGIVING WITH THE TROOPS: In my humble opinion...only a cynic can hate this story.

STRANGE BEDFELLOW, VOLUME 31: I suspect my friends on the Right and the Left, as painful as it may be for them to admit, will agree with me in agreeing with David Horowitz: A constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage is not just idiotic, it's reckless.

BRA-VO! Liz Penn writes a fun, whimsical piece about the recent Victoria's Secret Fashion Show for Slate. Apparently she also has a website which I'll be checking out now and again.

THE RALL RULE: I have no use for heartless cartoonist Ted Rall. Oh, wait, yes I do!

Keeping up with politics is hard work. You have to listen to the radio everyday, read the candidates' websites, scan the newspapers, watch the Sunday shows. Or, you can do what I do.

When you come upon someone so wrong-headed as Ted Rall...someone who had the audacity to mock the widows of 9/11 (those whose behavior he, in his infinite wisdom, took to be "cynical, crass, and gauche")...and who couldn't seem more mean-spirited, cynical, and generally grotesque in his TV appearances...well, you put him to use.

Here's how I do it:

1) Rall comes out in favor of Howard Dean.
2) I apply the Rall Rule, which states, "Anything he's for, I must be against."
3) I realize I'm against Howard Dean.

It ain't sophisticated, but it just might work.

WHAT NOT TO DO: If possible, try not to lose your cell phone on the eve of the biggest cell-phone buying spree in the history of wireless communications.

Jeepers. I lose my phone last Wednesday. I call the BUU Wireless (not their real name) customer service line, and they say due to high call volumes they can't help me at this time. Hours later I finally get through, and a helpful woman agrees to leave my VM intact, but to make it impossible for anyone to make outbound calls on my phone. Moments later I discover I can't access my VM anymore. Great. Thanks for nuttin', lady.

So I go to a BUU Wireless store to get a new phone. They want at least $733 for any of the phones I'm interested in (since I'm already under contract), but that's beside the point: They're out of all the models I'm interested in. "Don't worry," the BUU guy tell me. "I'll call and order you one and have 'em overnight it." Moments later he comes back. "Systems are down. Sorry. Can't help ya."

I go back to my office and call. Systems still down.

I go on my business trip with no phone. When I get home I back to the BUU store. "We have no phones and all our systems are down," they tell me. "No phone for you."

I go back to my office and I call the BUU customer service line. I get through!

"We have plenty of phones, but our systems are down so we can't sell them to you right now."

Finally, the woman agrees to write down which phone I want (the really crappy one with the crappy camera on it, the one whose reception will blow ass and whose battery will run out really fast and which will sometimes just turn off for no reason and that costs $733), and to key my order into the system when they come back up.

I am not a winner in this game.

TRIUMPH FOR TRIUMPH: Forget about Dick Costolo, this is the funniest thing I've heard in years.

FISH OR FOWL? I've had AT&T Wireless phone for about a year now. I'm a bright guy. I'm fairly tech-savvy. In fact, I'd wager I'm more tech-savvy than about 80 or 90 percent of the population. And I still don't have the foggiest idea about what mMode is, or what I'm supposed to do with it. I just got a "service message" touting the new look and new features in mMode, and I'm still back on page one wondering what the heck it is.

ONE MORE REASON LIFE IS NOT A MISTAKE: I like to pretend like I'm the first to most parties, a real go-getter, trendsetter-type. Yeah, right...

So let me be the first to say I was slow to jump on the Death Cab for Cutie bandwagon, and I was wrong. "Transatlanticism," the latest record from DC4C, is simply wonderful. Think Elliott Smith (of ever honored memory) meets Built to Spill, with less heartbroken wallowing than Elliott and less guitar bluster than BTS. Geez, I'd actually buy this record (if my brother hadn't already burned me a copy).

Heh heh.

Just kidding, RIAA.

HOW TO SUCCEED IN HOLLYWOOD: My pal Dick Costolo recently wrote one of the funniest things I've read in years.

STUPID THINGS SOMETIMES PLAGUE ME: Like, for example: Why do people with Caller ID pretend they don't know who's calling? I see this all the time. A colleague just heard his phone ring, looked at the display screen and said "Oh, this is [so-and-so] calling," then answered the phone with a faux-innocent salutation. I have a neighbor who does this, too. She lays a quizzical "hello" out there, then feigns surprise and mild delight when I identify myself. Recently I could take it no longer, and so I said, "Carolyn, you have caller ID, right?" "Yes," she says. "So you knew it was me, right?" "Right," she confirms. "So why not just say, 'Hi, Scott,' instead of this surprised act?" "I dunno," she says.

Or there's the reverse that happens: Your phone rings, you see it's so-and-so, and so you answer, "Hi, so-and so." And they act all surprised, chuckle and say something like, "Wow, how'd you know it was me?"

People, we ALL have friggin' caller ID these days. At the very least, we all have it on our cell phones. Let's quit pretending. You're making me crazy. Err. Crazier.

BEST HEADLINE I'VE SEEN IN A WHILE: "Trapeze artist lands on fat spectator."

INGRAINED AS GREAT: I wouldn't call myself much of a Pearl Jam fan. I tried, though.

I bought the first disc, TEN (if memory serves), the day it came out. I was intrigued by what I'd heard of Green River (Gossard and Ament's earlier band) and by all the critical buzz. I listened to it start-to-finish on a flight to San Francisco, then again on the return flight. It did nothing for me musically or lyrically, and so I sold the disc back to a used record store near my house.

Years later, going through a rough patch in my life, I happened to listen to YIELD, one of their more recent releases. Somehow I latched onto the fourth and fifth songs -- "Given to Fly" and "Wishlist" -- and ever since I can listen to those songs a hundred times in a row without tiring of them. I actually have a preferred listening time: first thing in the morning. I love it when I'm in my office very early, way before everyone else, and I can just unleash them. The first, "Fly," is an admitted rip-off of Led Zep's "Going to California." Funny, 'cause if there's one band I don't like it's LZ. Never could handle Robert Plant. Still, I just love this song, the way it's a kind of march, like many of the songs I loved back in the day by bands like The Call and The Alarm. And "Wishlist" is really a sort of simple, clever poem, ala Billy Collins.

I think I'll listen to 'em again.

WHY I MAY VOTE REPUBLICAN, VOL. 17: Longtime BC readers know I've been lamenting the sorry state of what was "my" Democratic Party and even threatening to vote Republican for the first time ever. Why the shift? Some think it's because I'm a papa now. I don't think that's the reason, but I'll be the first to admit that fatherhood seems to be making all manner of invisible, subcutaneous transformations on your humble correspondent.

I've had a difficult time articulating my change of political heart/head, but leave it to Andrew Sullivan to do it for me, via an e-mail from one of his readers. An excerpt:

I consider myself in many ways a "September 11th Republican." That is, before September 11th, I was a passionate Democrat. I voted for Clinton twice, campaigned on behalf of Al Gore (despite the fact that the man had no personal charisma). And in my heart, I guess I sort of want to be a Democrat, primarily because all of my friends are, and I want them to like me. And I want to think of myself as a caring humanitarian (which embodies liberalism at its best) rather than a calculated realist. But I can't. Not after September 11th. Not with the raving lunacy that has captured the Democratic party. Not when National Security is considered dispensable, if considered at all. Not when the Democrats fault George Bush for creating French obstruction. Not when the Democrats secretly applaud American deaths because it proves George Bush is "wrong."

I would also add that, for me, conservatism is beginning to seem like a more viable and honest vehicle for compassion than liberalism. More on that another time.