INSTALLING A NEW TEMPLATE AND ACTING LIKE I ACTUALLY DID SOMETHING: Last night's blog rehab was fueled by a few things: coupla e-mails from my pal Kev lamenting the load time and suggesting some possible solutions (God bless ya, Kev); coupla Belgian Tripels and, truth be told, a Pacifico chaser; the need to totally throw myself into something almost meditative as a salve on the chaos of my day.

And I must say it's awfully nice to wake up to my sleek new blog, despite the fact it's been denuded of its most fun part, your comments. Those of you that write a blog know, something like 90% of the reason to do this -- slap all your dreams and thoughts and bad poetry and armchair political analysis up on a website -- is to get the feedback from virtual intimates, those precious few that pull the car to the side of the road for a sec and scribble something on the wall.

That kind of sloppy writing -- maybe mixing metaphors, maybe not even making a real metaphor at all -- reminds me to disclaim the following: You can probably tell I write all this stuff on the fly. And maybe it doesn't make for the most studied analysis, duh, but I hope it's breezy enough to sweep your hair from your eyes, tickle your neck, maybe even give you allergies.