The Crystal Pepsi Generation: Just Add Pop Rocks, Chill, and Serve

"Wake up kids - We've got the dreamer's disease. Age fourteen - They got you down on your knees. So polite - You're busy still saying please..."

These long, cold, harsh winters are really starting to grind on me (and not in the good stripper kind of way). I'm beginning to feel like Tolstoy - just without the talent. I guess I'm supposed to care about The Winter Olympics - but I don't. Even if they try and "jazz it up" for the kids, I'm still not buying what they are selling. I guess I'm supposed to be intrigued by "bad boy" Bode Miller skiing downhill drunk - but when they starting passing out gold medals for "half-drunken blog posting" then, hey, maybe I'll give a damn. I'm selfish that way.

So after my usual Sunday morning ritual of faithfully watching "The Sports Reporters" on ESPN - with a giant frosted mug of Coca-Cola Zero in one hand and TV remote in the other - I began to click around the cable stations only to discover a startling fact of "X-Files" mystique and importance ...there was no football on today!!!

And then another startling factoid suddenly dawned on me: I HAD NO LIFE.

I mean, sure it could be worse: I could be wandering around Home Depot on the weekends chatting it up on my cell phone or something like the rest of the George A. Romero zombies. "Hi, honey, it's me. Yeah, I'm at The Depot now. Okay, well, look - I'm coming up on the insecticides aisle now. Okay, yeah, I'm standing if front of the insecticides now. So what kind of Raid should I buy-? The lemon-fresh scented or the potpourri-? I don't know, which kind do you like better-? Well, look, we have to make a decision here. Honey, are you there...? Yeah, I think the signal on my phone is breaking up. Yeah, hold on. Let me move over to the toilet seat aisle - maybe I can get better reception over there... just hold on ...HOLD ON!"

Oh sure, maybe attending late-night "frat meetings" at sports bars on weekends, over beer and and an endless pile of buffalo wings with my buddies, isn't the way to go either - but a guy's got to have some fun. I mean, just look at that Gordon Gekko fellow from the movie, "Wall Street." His dad dropped dead from a heart attack at the tender age of 46 schlubbing electrical supplies "for The Man." When you hear stories like that from fictional film characters, it just kind of puts things in persepective, you know?

I mean, I'm not a total good-time Charlie Sheen. I have hopes, dreams and ambitions ...that extend beyond the 4 pm - 7 pm happy hour at Slam Jams. Hey, as a matter of fact, I just bought some stock (as in "the stock market") in Buffalo Wild Wings last week - How "adult" is that! I'm saving for the future - as well as giving me a good excuse to "check up on my investments" - every once in a Blue Moon or so.

Sure, I like my fair share of TV ...and beer ...and video games - but I'm not a total stool sample! I am seeking "gainful employment" as we speak (um, type/read). Just last week I applied for a laundry list of jobs: Assistant Writer for "Saturday Night Live" ...Covering the Cleveland Indians' beat (and the Larry Dolan deadbeat) for The Sporting News ...Curator of The Superman Museum (that hasn't been built yet). See, I'm not adverse to real work - I just don't like it. And I've worked in my fair share of sweatshops, too - but I can't go back to that. I'm too pretty. I wouldn't last a day in there! So sue me: I'm the Morris the Cat of job seekers, okay-?

I've even thought about going into business for myself: Like opening a detective agency (Blue Moonlighting, Inc.) with a spunky network newswoman who is down on her luck. One day, she'd walk in my office - scared, confused, looking for help. But little would she realize that after she opened that door, and walked into my office ...that she would also be walking into my heart. I'd solve her little mystery for her, we would later laugh about it on the outdoor patio at some Bohemian cafe, over Appletini's or something pompous like that, and then we would come to grips with the painful realization that together, hey, we made a pretty damn good team.

And it would be a LEGITIMATE business, people! It wouldn't be like one of those hard-to-believe detective agencies like you see on "Hart to Hart" or something, where the Harts just happen to stumble across a murder mystery week after week. It's not like a dead body will be "falling out of the trees" everytime Greta Van Susteren and I attend a polo match or a baby's christening or the Governor's ball or something. We live in the real world, after all...

So as I lay on the couch, with the covers half over my head, I go back to searching for some meaning in my life - as well as something decent on television. While on my exotic travels, I stumble across something called "PBS" this snowy Sunday morning - before narrowly making my escape from it's twisted clutches!

Oh, PBS - Now I know why they DON'T put video cameras in funeral homes!

But, hey, what do I know, huh-? I wouldn't know "Capote" from "Chipotle" at this point. So, to each his own, I guess. Life is a journey. Drink it up!

"Championed by a soulless media misleading - People unaware they're bleeding. No one with a brain is believing. It's so sad you lost the meaning. Never knew it anyway. Human nature's so predictable - I'm a fool to do your dirty work, whoa, whoa!"

Tonight's music featured on "The id and I" included "You Get What You Give" by The New Radicals and is available on The WB.com (or not).