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Life On Shuffle Mode

Sunday
December 2, 2012

"If I'm curt with you, it's because time is a factor."
-Winston Wolf in Pulp Fiction

10:15 p.m. -- it's the time of the evening on Sunday when I'm usually in the early process of getting ready for work, maybe even psyching myself up a little bit for it. That's how it works for me, getting into character to a degree, preparing for the part-sprint, part-marathon mindset that allows me to best craft a television newscast. It's like in Pulp Fiction with how Winston Wolf tells Jules and Vincent to clean the car: fast, fast, fast.

But tomorrow has been assigned as my floating holiday for the year at work, so instead of listening to "The Game" by Motörhead while I shave and keep an eye on the clock, I actually have some time to write tonight. This is a more appealing option than watching the lackluster Eagles/Cowboys game that NBC opted not to flex out of for a better matchup (since NBC loves large market teams), not after a day of enjoying the NFL RedZone Channel -- which, incidentally, is the greatest television sports advancement since the 1984 Supreme Court NCAA v. Board of Regents of Univ. of Oklahoma ruling. Read this if you are unfamiliar with the greatness that is the NFL RedZone Channel. And, while I have episodes of Survivor and Modern Family and other shows on my DVR, they can wait.

Modern technology is worth the premium I pay for it. As Gregor, the Russian guy in those fantastic DirecTV promos from 2011, said: "Opulence, I has it."

Things in Huntington have been going well, really as well as I could have hoped for when I moved back here. I've been in my apartment now for six months and it's become home for me in that incremental way where something sneaks up on you and you don't notice the drastic change since you're too close to the situation to appreciate the contrast. My place still has the understated decorating that McNulty's apartment on The Wire had, which was pointed out to me by a certain female visitor last night. She's the same girl who I ended up re-enacting the Claudia/Jim restaurant scene from Magnolia with at Applebee's on Thursday night, well save for her not freaking out and running away like Claudia did.

As I wrote on Twitter, she should have seen the place before I had a couch. It would've been like living the lyrics to "Norwegian Wood". And I do have the two Salvador Dalí prints my parents bought me as a birthday present a few years ago up on the walls, so it's not completely barren. "This is definitely a guy's apartment," she noted accurately. Remember, I left Nashville with only what I could fit into my Honda Accord, and I've been more inclined to put money into savings as opposed to spending it on apartment decorations.

Speaking of Nashville, I'll be back there for the first time since I left town later this month, during the week of Christmas. I didn't think was going to happen since I have the least seniority out of the producers on staff and I feared others would want the days around there off. But, fortunately for me, WSAZ doesn't have a Christmas morning newscast, and I was able to use comp days to be off from 12/26-12/28. Yes, I'm working on Christmas Eve, but it's the morning of it. Depending on my level of drowsiness, I'll either drive directly there after work or nap here for a few hours first. Either way, I should end up in Nashville by the afternoon or early evening of 12/24, which should work out quite nicely.

In less than a month it will be 2013. The perception of time passing quicker and quicker really does happen as you get older, or at least it has for me. Also, I'm not the young rookie in everything I do anymore, be it producing or writing about the NFL Draft or whatever else. You wake up one day and you're 35 and you wonder "How did this happen?" Things that feel like they happened last week actually took place 15+ years ago. And I know this will only continue to be the case, the momentum of space and time advancing quicker and quicker, like a car accelerating. I suppose I might as well enjoy the ride.

There has been less time for me to work on Draft King with my current schedule, both in perception and in reality, and certainly less time to write long-form pieces. But in many ways that's okay since it's my mock draft on there that draws the masses, not necessarily my musings. Don't get me wrong, I anticipate writing plenty as the April draft gets a bit closer, but limited time means prioritizing things. It's also in part why I've written so much less on here. Believe me, I've had plenty to express and links to share, but it's much quicker to post something brief on Twitter than to spend hours crafting a column.


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