Not much to report, which is as awful a way to start one of these things as any, I guess.

(For the record, my "U" key is not entirely functional right now, so please assume that I'm missing a "U" if it seems like a word is missing a "U." However, I just added the letter to the word "assume," after I nearly wrote "assme," which is pretty funny, really. However, I imagine that I'll notice when I don't strike the key properly, so I probably shouldn't miss any "U"'s. For the record.)

Another uneventful weekend, which isn't bad, but is getting a bit tiresome. Friday, however, I was flat tired, so it worked out great. Well, it worked out oddly. A catnap turned into 5 1/2 hours of sleep, as I woke up to five inches of snow at midnight. Happy November, friends. What does one do at 12:30, too late to call anybody and too rested to go to sleep? I got lost on YouTube, for the first time in my life, which was kind of cool.

Slate linked me to an R.E.M. performance of "So. Central Rain" from Letterman in 1983, which was pretty cool, and then I continued on to find video of Bob Pollard doing "Baba O'Riley" (the Teenage Wasteland song) with Pearl jam back in June, and then I found some great video of Toby Sprout playing some GbV songs at, I think, The Abbey Pub. Maybe November of 2003, when I went to see Toby opening for GbV on a Sunday night, and returned from Glenview to The 'Port at 5 a.m. on Monday morning. As I recall, totally worth it.

So I guess I've discovered YouTube and, to be honest, I was left kind of empty when I was done. Bt it was neat to see R.E.M.'s video for "The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite," even though it kind of sucked. But I hadn't seen it before. All told, I probably spent about 45 minutes on YouTube. Others have probably spent more, it seems, though I'm not convinced it's about to take over the world. Maybe it has already, however. That OK Go Treadmills video rules, after all.

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Saturday was a fantastic day of college football. The roommate and I "thought about going clubbing but instead we just started drinking" (- Craig Finn), and watched the fantastic Kansas State-Texas game. I consider myself a fan of Ron Prince, the K-State head coach, and I greatly anticipate a bowl matchup of purple Wildcats with sub-40-years-old head coaches at some point in the not-too-distant future. (I think Prince is 36, so I'm targeting next year's Alamo Bowl.)

Northwestern, meanwhile, performed like hell, but at least they moved the ball. At the end of the first quarter, they were on pace to gain 600 yards of offense and lose 84-0. That 84-zip loss would include 12 turnovers, which shows the folly of projecting game results based on the first quarter. But, still, they moved the ball.

My dad had the gall to make fun of me for my preseason prediction. (7-5) I guess he was justified, actually. Still, I remain optimistic, because that's how I am.

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Hey, look! A major sports website has noticed that the Cats have a hoops team. Please, seriously, follow the link. Sure, they're 0-1, but maybe they'll beat DePaul on Tuesday. If not, my dad'll be there, and he'll call to make fun of them afterwards.

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Sports Illustrated's cover story last week (though I received it today) is about Ray Lewis. Headline: "The Gospel According to Ray Lewis: God's Linebacker." As an American, I'm a fan of redemption and I'm a fan of second chances and things like that, but I think it's pretty offensive. He's a freakin' accessory to murder, friends, and I think it's a shame that we can just forget that. Or, it's a shame that the only magazine in the country that does legitimate sports reporting on a regular basis can forget that.

I'm also offended by last week's (though I received it on Saturday) My Turn essay in Newsweek. Headline: The Lessons I Didn't Learn in College.

So this recent college grad - a female philosophy major who doesn't identify her school but tells us that "My friends and I are graduates of Wesleyan, Barnard, Stanford, and Yale." - is stuck applying for and accepting a job at "an upscale bowling alley." And she can't fill out her tax forms, and she is offended that she wasn't taught this at college. And apparently, neither did her friends. And she didn't know "how to take advantage of" the job market. She couldn't get an entry-level job staring at a spreadsheet all day, because "in college I had never learned how to use spreadsheet programs." There's a 3.9 GPA, but she can't figure out a Roth IRA. She suggests that an Econ department should offer a personal finance class to account for these lapses. After all, college graduates "haven't learned how to manage our money. We can wing it for only so long before employers start wising p to our incompetence."

Turns out, Yale, Wesleyan, Barnard and Stanford are handing diplomas to idiots at this point. Please, take a moment to read the column, because I'm assuming you'll be as dumbfounded as I was.

Personal finance in the Econ department? How about "Don't spend more money than you have?" (Could you imagine receiving college credit for balancing a checkbook? That's what Math for Trees is for, dudes. Note: I did not take Math for Trees, though I wish I had. How about "It's freakin' Excel. Figure it out." How about "Look in the classifieds and send a resume?" Dumbass.

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What's the etiquette on taking magazines checked out from the library into the bathroom? I'm assuming I've violated it.

I checked out an issue of Paste magazine, a music publication that sent me a sample issue a few years ago. It's bi-monthly. The reviews are fantastic - more than 40 words long, and they give you a sense of the record, and I really liked them. But I'll probably just continue to check out four-months-old copies.

Also, I checked out an issue of Wired, because I'm in the industry now (witness my YouTube thoughts above, after all). However, I checked out the issue with Beck on the cover and the question "Is the Album a Dying Art Form?" or something of that nature. (Yes, but not to me, dude.)

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Rud family Thanksgiving plans are coming together. It'll be a four-person trip West, it seems. The day's activities aren't particularly important, but the evening's are. The Boy has proposed an Arlington Heights trivia night, though we can't confirm whether or not it'll be an actual option at all. This is definitely worth a call at the end of this week. (To be honest, even if there isn't a trivia night, there's something to be said for seven-dollar pitchers of Old Style. Especially if Dad's buying.)

If trivia is not a possibility, I'm hereby proposing a familial viewing of Borat, because it's pretty good, I hear. Then we'll go slap around some Jews.

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Devin Hester's The Bomb. Though it made the play, the "pretend like you're walking towards the sideline" fake was unnecessary, I think. Don't rules stipulate that he had to either take a touchback, or take the ball out of the end zone? I assume that, once he caught it, the play couldn't just end, and the ball couldn't just be spotted at the 42. But, still, fantastic.

The key was the jump shot, which should have drawn a penalty and a fine.

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I've been taking a backroad route to work, cutting off about four minutes from the morning and afternoon commute. After work this evening, the icy trip was downright treacherous. I was passed twice, despite generally curvy roads. And I was going between 45 and 60. I think I'll take the higher-traffic (and therefore, salted) main route and deal with the five minute loss of time the rest of the winter. Better than, you know, slipping into a ditch or something.

For the record, yes, it was snowing, and lots, this afternoon. And, yes, the volleyball was good. It'll be better in two weeks, when I've got my boots again.

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P.S. I think that my "What NU Friends Would Say If Asked If NU Was a Good School" bit from Thursday is the best writing I've done here in months. I've giggled rereading it, several times, because I've got nothing better to do.