Wednesday In St. Paul

Yeah, I know I put this column up late. I was exhausted after getting no sleep this week (from preparing the new website) and from driving a total of five hours to Minneapolis and back on Wednesday. I started the column when I got back, but quickly realized that there was no way I could make it funny in my withered condition. So you had to wait, but you're getting a better product.

I'm starting to sound like Microsoft, so I'm just going to jump right into the column.

It's always good when you're driving all the way to St. Paul, and you forget the directions to where you're going. Unless you live in St. Paul. Then you'd be okay. But for those of us who don't, St. Paul can be a confusing town. I left the directions sitting on my bed, and had to find my way to the Designated Journalism Learning Experience without the help of a map.

Today's Designated Journalism Learning Experience was to learn how to cover child protection cases. The government is making the cases open records in a few months, to try and help kids who may not be treated appropriately by the courts. For some reason, that means I have to go sit and be bored off my ass for near eternity in some room near the capitol. I've been told it has to do with "learning new things", or some ridiculous, fascist idea like that.

The first thing I noticed upon entering the room was that we (the bored journalists) would be taught about the cases by government people who obviously had nothing better to do that day. These people spent half the seminar introducing themselves to us in long soliloquies. They seemed to either: 1) Immensly enjoy the chance to talk about their careers, or: 2) Immensly enjoy wasting the time of journalists. I can't blame them for liking either one.

On a tangent, I'm watching a rerun of the MTV Video Awards as I write this. There's so many boobs flopping around on the television that my mind's getting overloaded. Thank God for the periodic lame, unfunny comedy skits, or I'd probably be lying on the floor, twitching in pure ecstasy by the end of the show.

Ah, seizures. One of those would really hit the spot during this seminar. Yeah. A nice boobies-induced seizure. As non-mainstream and despised as MTV is, I'd still give up any job in the world to be an MTV Spring Break cameraman. Beaches, gorgeous women coralled into one small beach to create the illusion that everyone who attends college is gorgeous, responsibilities that include holding down a button on a camera and pointing it at things. Such a life.

Back to the seminar. I'm looking across the room at a guy who's the "City Editor" for the Rochester Post-Bulletin. He's a perfect stereotype of what a "City Editor" should look like. Small and trendy glasses, white shirt with a red tie, sissy socks bought from the "I'm Important" rack at Dayton's.

That's why I'll never be a city editor. My skateboarding t-shirt and baggy jeans look make me more a candidate for "bitchy, uncaring record store manager". But I'm getting off-topic, and the column's pretty much done. Sadly, I'm now forced to cram all my witty observations about government workers into short bulleted points. Here we go.

*Minnesota Supreme Court Judge Heidi Schellhas, while very nice, looks like a robot of Diana Sawyer. She only moves or changes facial expressions when she's recognized and asked to speak. Whenever she's not talking, it's like she's frozen in time.

*The ceiling in this room is wonderful. I've been staring at it for the entire length of the seminar.

*A large room full of legitimate print journalists, and I get stuck sitting next to the fat, bubbly and annoying television reporter. Dear God, please kill me.

*Here's what I believe are the requirements for becoming a government worker: 1) Sit very still, like in preschool when it's naptime and you don't want to nap. 2) Never begin speaking unless the person in charge nods at you. 3) While sitting still and not talking, periodically dawn a facial expression that makes it look as though you have bad gas. 4) When you do talk, make your speaking style a cross between a television news anchor and a special education teacher.

That's all for today, kids. I made the column a little longer today to make up for my tardiness. Tomorrow I'll be right on time.