One of my friends has a job that requires him to spend a lot of work hours reading books for background information. This sounded pretty okay to me, but he says it's a pain. It's just hard to read in a work environment, apparently.

Well, now I know what he means. My boss has got me preparing for the Microsoft 70-229 exam, which involves me taking a bunch of practice tests and reading this little gem. I'm not the world's fastest reader, but even by my standards this is slow-going.

But the real problem here is that the whole enterprise is somewhat depressing. I've got my MCAD, after this test it'll be a relative cakewalk to my MCSD, and I'm being submitted for a security clearance. All of these are valuable credentials that will help me earn a reliable wage. Until, that is, my soul has shriveled into a cathode-baked husk and I decide to repaint the corner of the ceiling.

Ever been good at something you dislike? My scoutmaster used to go to his office Christmas parties dressed as the Grim Reaper: the folks at work had figured out that he had a knack for firing people, and as the company's fortunes faded, it became his career.

Now, I don't mean to paint web page development as all that dire -- I am wearing pajamas at the moment, after all. But a little fondness for dabbling with computers can quickly metastasize into a horrifyingly parasitic existence, wherein I'm sustained solely by the putrid blood of the body corporate. TPS reports, people!

Anyway, this is all easy enough to ignore on a day-to-day basis -- we all bitch about white-collar wage-slavery, but obviously things could be a lot worse. Still, for the next few hours I'll be able to tell anyone who cares to ask all about the four different levels of transaction isolation available in Microsoft SQL Server 2000. You can't tell me that isn't a little scary.

kanishka, editing my post about roberto donna over at DCist, alerted me to the fact that my next DCist post will be my 100th. my, how time flies! huh. now i feel like i have to write something really monumental.

over here at ol' zunta, this particular post is something like the 973rd. do we get a gold statue of glenn reynolds or something once we reach a thousand?

fo' real, krauthammer? you so crazy:

Last night (3/7) on Special Report, Brit Hume went to great lengths to continue the spin on the shooting incident that killed Italian intel agent Nicola Calipari & wounded Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena, with a lot of help from one of the most rabid ideologues on his "All-Star" panel, Charles Krauthammer, who said: "She's lucky she wasn't shot as a collaborator."

[via newshounds.us]

Alright, someone has to blink. Yes, the DC blogosphere has kept up a brave face, going through the motions of denial in precise synchrony. Keep your eyes up and a smile on your face. Only later, when the lights are out, the alarm is set, and it's just you and an empty universe -- only then can you let in that flicker of honesty that will inevitably send you plummetting down an endless chasm of despair.

You're a fraud. We're all frauds. Our heroes are weaklings, our imagined power is officious bluster, and the goddamn pandas aren't fooling anybody.

I am, of course, referring to Roberto Donna's shameful performance on last Sunday's Iron Chef: America. Chef Donna, of Galileo, is considered to be one of our city's top 2 or 3 chefs, and while nobody would rank Washington among the foremost culinary capitals of the world, residents like to think the city acquits itself pretty well, subsidized as it is by thousands of lobbyist expense accounts.

Sure, Donna would likely be facing one of the country's foremost Italian chefs in the form of Mario Batali -- victory was not certain, but surely it would be a valiant battle. But wait -- what's this? Batali wouldn't be competing? No, instead Donna faced Masaharu Morimoto, that shock-artist prettyboy. Alright, points for disliking Bobby Flay, but this should have been a walk in the park.

But instead Donna, the region's pride, failed to even meet him on the field of battle: the sack of guts only completed 2 out of the required 5 dishes within the time limit and barely scored half as many points as Morimoto. Oh, Roberto.

did you know weddings are a racket? really, they are. i hadn't really figured this out earlier because i haven't been to a lot of weddings in my 25 years, but after talking with some friends last night, it's totally obvious. weddings are like...a republican institution or something. they're all about benefiting the rich and, um, helping out corporations like, um, pottery barn and williams-sonoma, and giving ridiculous material possessions only to straight folks...whatever. that analogy doesn't really work.

but seriously. i was talking with scott, a groomsman for jason and corbin's impending nuptials, and i found out he a) had to buy an engagement present b) buy a wedding present c) rent a tux d) go back and forth several times between his location and maryland to attend all sorts of crazy shindigs, where he can't even really get drunk or play beer pong or anything and e) attend a bachelor/bachelorette sleepover party, and doesn't that sound like fun, because you see the bride AND the groom will be there with all their friends, and they might make popcorn and watch movies and give each other facials and NOBODY GETS TO BE DRUNK AND KILL STRIPPERS.

really. and if i were to total all the money i'd already spent on this wedding, i would cry big salty tears, because in the past two days i have come to the realization that i am going to have to live like a monk for the next two years because northwestern and the federal government are going to own my souls for the rest of my life. do you want to know what one year at a journalism grad school will cost you? DO YOU? okay. brace yourself. here's northwestern's cruel and unusual estimate of my tuition and living costs for september 2005-september 2006:

Tuition
$35,332

Room & Board
17,020

Books
2,356

Travel
2,108

Personal
4,504

Activity Fee
280

Hospitalization Insurance
2,232

TOTAL
$63,832

HOLY FUCK! this is spectacularly unfair! and unless the "activity fee" includes bottles of whiskey, i'm going to be stone-cold sober all through school. but everybody knows that journalists need to be drunk! alcoholic, even! HOW DARE THEY DEPRIVE ME? don't they want me to learn real good?

this also comes with the fact that a) i just bought a laptop so i can blog drunkenly at will, anytime, anywhere b) long ago, before i realized i would be paying grad school debts until i was 90, i planned a trip to italy in april which will cost me molto euro and c) i recently became aware of the fact that another cost of journalism grad school is that you need a whole new wardrobe. no, really. especially when moving to a hip city like chicago. blazers, tweed skirts, suede messenger bags, flat black boots - my god. oh, and this dress - any journalist worth her salt needs this dress. you've got to look professional.

anyway. of course i am bringing this all on myself, and i know that journalistic careers traditionally reward their participants with high-paying, prestigious jobs. so it should be more or less okay. but you've been warned: for the forseeable future, i'm going on the canned-tuna-and-pasta-diet. and i'm going to be cranky.

UPDATE: think i kid about needing a whole new hip-journalist wardrobe? check out this spread of wonkette in fashion rag lucky magazine, illustrating her day-of-the-week clothing. now, tell me: can you REALLY be a good journalist without that brown leather grommet-studded tote? I THINK NOT.