BRAIN TERMINAL MEETS SUPERSIZE LEFTY: Fledgling right wing documentarian Evan Coyne Maloney stakes out his lefty counterpart Michael Moore (yes I know Maloney is a small fry next to Moore -- literally and figuratively), and it makes for some interesting viewing. Moore, who usually comes across as a bombastic, unhealthy jerk actually seems amicable and kind.

GOOD WOOD? The first review I've read of Woody's new flick sounds very promising.

HAS WOODY GONE LIMP? Woody Allen may well be my favorite filmmaker, but recent years have not been good to the man. Although Woody has made his share of mediocre films, HOLLYWOOD ENDING (his last effort) was an unmitigated disaster, a film so inept and unfunny that I actually felt sad after watching it. Brian Bellmont's MSNBC essay delivers a message many Woody fans are feeling: This next one, ANYTHING ELSE (which opens tomorrow), had better be good.

GOOGLE OF THE MONTH: "Free nude camel toes." Oh, man. Of all the ways to search for porn!

UH, HI: An ongoing job search, a sick 17-month old son, and a Cubs pennant race. These are the things that have conspired to keep me from blogging of late. Thankfully the job search may have borne fruit, the kid is feeling much better, and the Cubs' season is winding down, so chances are I may be blogging more in the days and weeks to come.

Just a second ago I refreshed my My Yahoo! page to see that the Rockies have taken a 5-2 lead over the Astros! I did an all-by-myself fistpump followed by a very quiet whoop (wife and kid are both asleep). That my evenings have been reduced to refreshing web pages in an effort to follow the Cubs' pennant chase does not bother me one bit. Life is all about these shrunken moments of charged insignificance.

MORE MOURNING: Motor City sports scribe Mitch Albom writes a brilliant memorial to Warren here. (Thanks to my brother Eric for the pointer.)

CHECK OUT: A wonderful profile of the late Warren Zevon on MSNBC today.

READ REILLY: Add the Washington Post's Reilly Capps to my list of must-read journalists (alongside the NYT's Charlie LeDuff). His recent piece on the Pepsified NFL kickoff party is so full of verve I found myself tapping my toes and smiling while I read it.

EASING BACK INTO IT: So I take off on y'all, my loyal readership, for like ten days. And then I lollygag around once I return, only posting one lazy GOOGLE OF THE DAY. Sucks, right?

Sorry.

Let's say I'm easing back into the blogging. What with my job search, my sick sixteen-month-old son (tongue twister!), and my incredibly demanding wife, well, who has time to pour their heart out to strangers?

Me.

I heard (the acclaimed young writer) Jhumpa Lahiri on FRESH AIR yesterday, and she gave a really solid explanation for why writers write. She said something like, "Writing is hard, but when I don't write I don't really feel like I'm living a complete life." Amen.

Of course when blogging takes the place of more substantive, goal-oriented, literary writing...

Hey, where's the crime?

GOOGLE OF THE DAY: Today's hilarious signpost to the Camel? A search on "Ohio laws on topless beaches." Come one, come all.

DOWN ON THE FARM: Blogging is still light -- duh -- because I'm deep in the wilds of Ohio, hunkered down on a farm. Next stop: The in-laws in Mount Vernon, Ohio. Right now I'm a stone's throw from Denison College. Tomorrow I'll be a hop, skip, and a jump from Kenyon College. Oh, and then there's that job opportunity I'm mulling over that's...gulp...right on Harvard's doorstep. The Camel may be quiet now -- but I can feel some serious soul-searching prose coming on. Stay tuned, friends. Stay tuned.

GOOGLE OF THE DAY: Searches for "naked Rudi Bakhtiar" and "naked Jose Canseco" have been supplanted of late by searches for "naked and/or topless Paige Davis." The Camel is proud to continue to appear high on the "nude celebrity" search lists, despite our continued lack of content to justify it.

SET BLOGGER ON STUN: I'm cruising the Midwest this week, stopping off in Detroit and Columbus, so blogging may be haphazard and/or light (as if you haven't noticed).

PLAY PHAIR: You know I'm a fan of the underdog. ISHTAR is probably my favorite movie, the Cubs are my favorite baseball team, and I happen to really like Liz Phair's roundly dismissed, self-titled fourth album.

LIZ PHAIR-the-record arguably features three or four of Liz Phair-the-person's best songs. Interestingly enough, which three or four they are keeps changing for me. I like the pop confections ("Extraordinary" and "Why Can't I?"), the divorced mom anthem ("Little Digger"), and her signature cynical introspections ("Take a Look" and "Love/Hate").

At the same time, this record also harbors two of her absolute worst tunes (the just-plain-dumb "Favorite" and the jaw-dropping-in-a-bad-way "H.W.C."), and features her most contrived art direction to date.

Years ago I was lucky enough to meet Liz on a number of ocassions -- when she was guest-bartending at Delilah's, in the VIP balcony at Metro before and after her own gigs, and so forth. What always struck me about her was how simple, down-to-earth, and friendly she was. Contrary to her image at the time, Liz was not some foul-mouthed sexpot or cooler-than-school indie princess. She was a Midwestern music fan who happened to have an act of her own, and she was polite and casual and generally seemed pretty happy. If she happened to swear here or there or talk about sex, it seemed somehow appropriate, or at least genuine.

Granted, her live show was bit wooden, but it also appeared earnest and heartfelt, a nice antidote to much of the slouching, disinterested indie shows of the day.

On her recent Chicago homestand, the local critics savaged her. This only steeled my resolve to get the word out about the record. Check it out if you get a chance. It ain't Aimee Mann (although the Michael Penn-produced tracks shade in that direction), but it also ain't Avril Lavigne by a long stretch. In a summer devoid of musical gems, Liz's latest record is, at worst, a very compelling fake -- a Cubic Zirconia that shines just fine until the real thing comes along.

TWO TONGUES: Hamas says it's pulling out of the cease-fire and seems to blame it on the Israelis.

This after they've claimed responsibility for a grisly suicide attack yesterday that killed 20 innocents, and the Israelis have responded by executing one of the Hamas leaders.

The Israelis say simply, "Cease fire? We've never had a cease fire with terrorists."

Meanwhile, the PA sputters and threatens. (""We are going to take a new set of measures, measures not seen before in the last period of time," said a PA spokesman.)

We'll see. Thus far, Muslim extremists seem good at two things: 1) making really threatening threats, and 2) blowing themselves up.

In the meantime, I like the Israeli's strategy. With Abbas, talk diplomacy. With the terrorist scum, speak their language.

GOOGLE OF THE DAY: Someone from the Federal Bureau of Prisons went to Google...typed in "beer camel photo"...and found themselves here. A big shout-out to the FBofP!

Wow. So I go over to the FBofP website, just for kicks, and here's what I learn:

There are 130 Mike Smiths in their inmate registry. (Not all are incarcerated. Recent releasees also appear.)

There are "constant openings" for new correctional officers at facilities across the country.

At 37, I am too old to apply for one of those jobs.

Having a family member in prison does not disqualify one from becoming a prison guard. (I mean "correctional officer."

There is no minimum age for corrections officers.

Corrections officers must be able to perform the following physical duties: walking/standing up to an hour; seeing a human figure at a distance of one quarter mile or a target at 250 yards; hearing and detecting movement; using firearms; performing self-defense movements; running an extended distance; climbing stairs; lifting, dragging, and carrying objects; and smelling smoke and drugs.

OUTRAGE: Mark this down as the year in which I gave up any feelings of sympathy for the Palestinians. As long as they continue to support and enable groups that commit atrocities like this one, I'll stand with the Israelis and against the Palestinians. There is no Israeli equivalent to this kind of reckless butchery.

BRIDE GONE WILD: All men have dated this woman at some time in their life. Luckily very few of us have ever been stupid enough to marry her.

NOMACK! The knowledgeable armchair analysts over at the Cub Reporter don't much care for the Cubs' recent acquisition of Tony Womack.