Snippet from Stiles: Speidi
Me: Heidi and Spencer [from The Hills] are going to Africa.
Him: Hopefully they'll catch malaria or something.

Facebook Etiquette
What are you supposed to do when you get invited to become Facebook friends with someone you have never met -- or maybe have met but don't remember -- who shares some friends with you?

Mizzou Centennial, Here We Come
It's on! Stiles and I are planning to go to the Journo-Fest in Columbia that is the 2008 J-School Centennial. Is there any lodging left, or am I gonna have to find a way to sneak into the Pi Phi house?

We're crunched up in the back corner of a Capitol Extension committee room. I can't actually move from my position so the photos are...limited. Harry Cabluck from the AP (see below) got a picture of me stuck in the corner so you have an idea of our vantage point.

Oh, Harry. Hardest-working man in the biz.

My vantage point. Yeah, can't see most of the Commission, so I'm going by voice recognition only, i.e. "Oh, that's Chuy!"

FWST's John Moritz is sitting next to me, but his legs are tangled up in a bunch of bags and other junk.

This is dramatized for effect.

The day-to-day chief of DPS, Colonel Tommy Davis, readies to testify. I wiggled out of my corner to get a shot.

I'm So Proud of My Family
My computer geek cousins, the Ho brothers (yes, we have Ho's and Hu's in our family) are awesome at wu-shu, a form of Kung Fu. And they love Star Wars. So several Thanksgiving's ago, they made "Art of the Saber"... and made me watch it. Years later, I have found the video on YouTube, to show you all:

Uncomfortable Moment
Sitting across from another woman at the nail place, waiting for our respective pedicures to dry, she starts singing to the song playing over the sound system, Shania Twain's "You're Still the One".

Crazies in Town
The largest Texas Democratic convention ever was hosted by the state's most liberal city. Around 15,000 Democratic delegates and alternates descended on Austin on Thursday and finally -- finally -- they have gone home. Republican conventions are way more disciplined, but you gotta love the diversity you find at the D convention. We spotted lots of crazy hats and costumes, but my biggest complaint is all the crazy convention goers who knocked on the door of our live truck pretty much non stop with their "stories" they wanted me to "expose".

We're talking about Nancy from Cass County's problem with the "Larramore family" who is "out to get her" and it screwed up her chance to be elevated from alternate to delegate in credentials committee, because her county chair is an attorney named Jim who couldn't get off work to make it and now she needs us to "shine a light" because that is her only hope.

So take Nancy's problem, multiply it by about 12, and therein lies my problem. But it's worth it -- as R. Kelly says, after the show it's the after party. And watching state lawmakers do the soul train or raise the roof? Priceless.

Snippet from Stiles: Sex and the City Movie Opens
"My balls have shriveled up into the size of peas. Like canned peas size." -Stiles, before the movie even starts. He utters this snippet during the preview for Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2.