OK, I was listening to the live broadcast of Gonzo's farewell speech, and this phrase definitely jumped out at me. What the hell was he talking abut? Joan's column helped fill in the background, without which the comment -- totally context-free in the speech -- is even more bizarre. As someone pointed out, the AG probably didn't mean it as a "diss" on his father. But it does reveal, crack in the wall, dropping the curtain style, some of the psychological underpinnings that have motivated this man, and perhaps the whole administration. It's fascinating to watch. And horrifying. What's next, Cheney resigning with some strange remark about his daughter?

I also wonder about the timing of all these resignations. It's like star players being taken out of a blowout game, one after the other, to allow them each to get a standing O on their way to the bench. In this case, that would be Bush and the remaining media cronies and bloggers rhapsodizing over their "accomplishments" and scolding liberals/Congress for driving them out. What's the move here?

I feel bad for y'all, but try living in a small college town in central Texas with absolutely NO THEATERS but a mid-sized multiplex off the freeway a few miles south. There's never anything but mainstream Hollywood schlock, the whole place is run by and geared towards college undergrads, and to see any film at or above the Scorcese level of arthouse means a longish drive up to Austin. Like most of the folks who've commented, we absolutely hate talkers, murmurers, cell phone checkers, but like the cat who always crawls into the lap of the person who's allergic to cats, they somehow manage to find us and sit within one or two rows. The Alamo Drafthouse is great, sure, but even at arthouse theaters like Dobie we've had problems (and Dobie's screens suck).

What makes it worse is I know what I'm missing -- I used to live in San Francisco, around the corner from a wonderful neighborhood theater. And of course there was the Castro and even mainstream theaters like the Kabuki had a bit of character. Now that's a movie town.

I realize there are already 300 letters and counting on this subject, but that's my 2 cents. In several situations -- always in a big city, where rent and bill totals were such that expediency demanded I have roommates -- I have lived with couples and not once have emerged victorious from these sorts of power struggles. Your fate was sealed the moment you agreed to let roommie's girlfriend move in.

The power dynamic set up is one of family vs. individual, and the individual always loses. The family has meals in the kitchen. The family has control of the living room. The family decides to do this or that, to have people over or not. The individual works around the family. Eventually, the family decides to have a baby, or a little brother needs a place to stay, or the folks are coming for a month or two -- all things that happened to me -- and the individual needs to pack his or her bags.

Even if this is not the overt, conscious strategy of the family, it just naturally happens. There's a natural tendency for the family's issues and problems to take over the house, to seem more important, perhaps because they are played out in front of the individual, who must listen to arguments, be privy to dramas, etc. Try it sometime and find out. Better yet, don't. Find roommates that you can squabble with and make decisions as equals.

he'd give us hundreds of dollars -- sometimes a thousand -- in cash, and we'd fan out to remote ticket outlets and sleep on the pavement to be first in line when they opened. he had specific sections he wanted -- main floor if it was a concert, courtside if it was a game, and so on. i'll never forget how strangely disappointed with me this one guy was, a genuine fan who was also sleeping outside to get rolling stone tickets, to sort of discover the next morning (when i started peeling off hundreds and asking about blocks of seats) that i probably wasn't a fan like he was.

the scalper i worked for was sleazy, sure, but he paid us several hundred dollars per gig and there was a kind of honor about the thing -- i mean, we had to physically be out there in the cold, waiting -- if not honesty. any fan who wanted to could and did sleep out there, too, waiting. it's not something i'm terribly proud of, and i didn't do it for long, although it makes a good story. but -- this whole thing with computers hacking into systems and tricking ticketmaster takes the weaseliness of scalping to a whole new level.

the computer thing ought to and probably can be fixed somehow, but scalpers will always find a way to eat up any number of tickets to giant events like this. it's probably been happening since ancient rome, when some senator sold seats in his private section to rich merchants who wanted to see the christians get eaten.

for april fool's? i hope that's what you're doing. my wife is sitting in the kitchen right now downloading virus protection software to her new laptop pc, and debating whether or not to keep windows vista. please tell me I and my macbook won't be consigned to that hell. seriously.