I'm working insane hours... which is too bad, because I'm not getting enough done for my employer to be worth the effort. This happens to me every few months it seems... a few weeks of terrible productivity despite long hours, then I find traction... and work even more hours, but at least I'm productive.

But when I'm not working or whinging about work, I'm driving to work or I'm avoiding work. While driving or avoiding, I partake in pop culture:

• What I'm listening to now: Green Day's album American Idiot is the most inspired album I've heard in years. It has lived in the CD player in my van non-stop for months, now.

• What I'm reading now: I just finished book three (The Waste Lands) in Stephen King's "The Dark Tower" series. Before I resume the series (I had refused to read any of the Dark Tower books until King had finished writing them), though, I'm now diving into Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. A very compelling read. J. K. Rowling just gets better and better as a writer, and the story is a grabber.

• What I'm watching on TV: Ha! Faithful readers know that my wife and I told the cable company and the satellite companies to go and unbroadcastable themselves about five years ago. So our TV watching has depended upon DVDs, rentals, and anything we could pick up with rabbit ears.

  Happily, we recently moved from a valley to a ridge, so now instead of getting NBC and occasionally ABC, we can watch *all* of the broadcast networks. So, sometimes I get home by ten-thirty in the evening, which affords me the chance to watch the syndicated reruns of "That 70's Show" -- a program I never watched when it was on. Or popular. Or whatever. Is it still on? Is it still popular? Well, whatever. I like the show. Not because I'm nostalgic for the '70's (I'm not), but because the show is very cleverly written and the performances are enjoyable. A relaxed approach to comedy; nothing forced. Well, not much, anyway. So that's what I'm watching. Re-runs of "That 70's Show".

• What I'm eating: jambalaya. Mmmmm.

• What I'm wearing: Carhart t-shirt. Blue jeans. Hawaiian shirt. Natch.

• What I'm drinking: Dr Pepper.

• What I'm writing: a horror short story about a dead bird.

So, go pick up American Idiot and listen to it while reading your copy of the latest Harry Potter. Then watch some "That 70's Show" while eating jambalaya and drinking Dr Pepper, all decked out in your hawaiian shirt. But don't write a horror story about a dead bird because I'm going to finish mine and send it out before you do, and then you'll just look like a copy cat.