It feels like about every third post lately is an apology for how I haven't posted in a while, and this one is no exception. This week I've been neglecting my blogger duties because I'm spending the holidays in frozen hell. Monday I visited my high school, saw some teachers, handed out some business cards (really, this is the first time I've ever returned home with some actual direction in my life), did some laundry and had a friend cancel on me for dinner. Tuesday I didn't leave the house until 10 at night, to go have a ... make that several ... drinks with an ex, and today I spent the whole day in my room playing March Madness. The more things change, the more Minocqua stays EXACTLY THE SAME.

But that's not why you're here. At least, I don't think that's why you're here. Come to think of it, why are you here?

Tonight, as I take part in my first internet in five days, I feel somewhat compelled to throw my thoughts out there on a few things that floated around the blogosphere during my absence:

First, the fun stuff. I went into this one thinking I could only hope to be half as sexy/funny as the red hot and hilarious Kris from Side Notes and Detours:

As it turns out, I'm hot too:



I'm not quite as funny:



Next, State 29 loves to bash people who go to college and generate debt for careers which won't generate much money. This week Chris from Political Forecast stepped into the line of fire on that one. Then State 29 backed off and congratulated Chris on having a goal in mind.

State 29 and Drew Miller have also gone toe to toe this week on supply-side economics as they apply to student basketball tickets at Iowa. I love economics at times, and this is an excellent real-world application of theories, but as I've said before, when it comes to people whining about sports policies at the U of I, I don't give a flying fuck.

Here's my point, though. State 29 has taken after two liberals this week, Chris and Drew, and I'm wondering if I'm next. So I'm going to give him ammunition, through his debate with Chris.

I started at Drake in 2001 as an open-journalism major. I figured I'd work in either radio or newspaper (with a starting salary under $20k, either way). By State's standards, I'd fall under the heading of "stupid," as I was spending more annually on college than I would make annually afterwards.

In college, I changed majors twice, from open to newspaper to radio, all within my first year and a half. My senior year I looked into changing my major, both to philosophy and economics, because I felt like my career in journalism was already over. I decided not to do that, and just get done and see what happened. I graduated in 2005 with a degree in Radio/TV production and an area of concentration in philosophy...probably the textbook definition of a useless degree.

After graduation, I decided to start volunteering in politics while I was looking for work. Four weeks later I was on salary and I've been in politics ever since.

State, if you read this, and I hope you will, lay off these people. Not everyone needs money to be happy, not everyone who gets a worthless degree ends up with a worthless career, and furthermore, someone as snarky as you probably isn't qualified to evaluate happiness.

Lastly, this one isn't directly Iowa related, but in this poll, Virginia governor Mark Warner and my candidate for president, Brian Schweitzer, rank far higher in approval rating than Vilsack. It may have something to do with this picture.

KL