Although it was only my second day at work in a completely new city, it felt oddly familiar as I left work and drove down Santa Monica Boulevard to the family friends I'm staying with. Almost as if I'd done it several hundred times before and it was all part of a routine.

More later.

There is an evil force here in the break room, and its name is Temptation. It shows itself in the form of five boxes of Krispy Kreme donuts, which I have been informed is a Thursday ritual from the sales department. It's good in that they're [insert Homer Simpson voice] soooooo tasty [/Homer] but bad in that I really need to get a handle on my ever-expanding waistline. I won't be able to impress the surf bunnies out here if I look like I'm wearing a donut around my waist, since apparently you are what you eat...

Among other stops I have made this morning, I experienced the wonder that is IKEA in my search for decently-priced furniture. That's all I'll say about that. Thankfully, though, I've learned that all of my packages have made it across the country in one piece thanks to UPS, so all of my belongings are in one place. Honestly, that's the one big fear I have about traveling -- that my belongings won't make it with me. I've never really been scared of flying, I'm just scared that my luggage won't make it with me.

So Cate got a little upset at my "bashing of Christian Southerners," as she put it. And, of course, there's a rebuttal involved on my end of things.

Cate believes that tolerance does exist in the South, except that people like me perpetuate the bashing with "snap judgments." Personally, I believe that in most cases, there wouldn't be a stereotype if there weren't the characteristics there to generalize in the first place. However, if Cate wants examples of what I see to be lack of tolerance in the South, I'm more than happy to provide them.

While I firmly believe that yes, Southern hospitality does exist and there are a good number of people down in the so-called "Bible Belt" who are extremely generous, that doesn't preclude the fact that tolerance may not go hand in hand with generosity. For example, let's take that whole slavery/racial discrimination issue. Even until recently (and probably still going on, though I wouldn't experience it as a white male), racial discrimination has been a powerful force in the South. It is a constant thorn in the side to blacks/African-Americans who had to ride at the back of the bus, give up their seats to white people, endure beatings, have crosses burned on their lawns, have their houses and churches burned down by arsonists, be the targets of lynchings and riots, and generally be treated as second-class citizens who need to patronize their own shops and use separate bathrooms and separate restaurants and go to separate schools because white people didn't want them around. Doesn't sound very tolerant to me, does it to you? Does it sound tolerant when a Southern governor says he'd rather shut a school down than desegregate it, forcing the National Guard to come in to maintain order? Yes, this happened a few decades ago, but let me tell you -- the wounds are still fairly fresh and big gashes in society like these do not heal completely in 20 or 30 years.

To accentuate this problem, most states in the South have renamed Martin Luther King Jr. Day as Lee-Jackson-King Day, commemorating General Robert E. Lee and General "Stonewall" Jackson -- men who fought as generals in the Confederate army, and need I remind you that the Confederates attempted to split from the United States on different platforms but one of the main points was slavery? -- alongside a man who was fighting for the opposite of what Lee and Jackson fought for. Doesn't this seem a little insulting to the memory of Martin Luther King that his holiday would be desecrated by having to share it with men who shed blood in the fight for slavery, while he preached peace and equal rights? Even in Tennessee, the state where King was killed, they have renamed the holiday.

In addition, there was a fight in South Carolina last year regarding the state's Congressional decision to fly the Confederate flag on their state Capitol building. Again, a symbol of a country and a fight that was partially based on the notion of allowing slavery is being flown on South Carolina's Capitol building -- as if to remind all their residents that they fought for and condoned (and by their continuing to fly that flag, probably still do condone) racially discriminatory practices. To a Jewish person, that would be tantamount to flying a Nazi swastika flag. To a Revolutionary War-era patriot fighting for the freedom of the United States, that would be tantamount to flying a British flag. To put it mildly, that flag is out of place and, of all places, should not be flown on a state Capitol building, especially if this supposed Age of Tolerance is blossoming in the South. That's not tolerance, that's an insult to every black person whose ancestors fought to be free.

But Cate's protest was against my "bashing" Christian Southerners, not just Southerners in general. Fine, let's talk about the Christian Southerners. Let's talk about why there's not a thriving Jewish population in the South because the Christian Southerners either made them feel so unwelcome that they moved out, or burned crosses on their lawns too, or posted signs in their stores that right underneath "No Blacks" also said "No Jews." Let's talk about how uncomfortable I felt watching TV in the South and seeing commercials for politicians proclaiming their love for Jesus and how their following him makes them decent people and therefore electable. Politicians! Politicians who are supposed to be regulating the separation between church and state, not totally disregarding it. Let's talk about all the court battles (including the famous Scopes trial) because schools in the South outlawed teaching the theory of evolution and instead wanted to impose on teachers the need to teach Creationism based on pressure from Christian groups and Christian parents -- a battle that is still going on today. Let's talk about how rabid Christian pro-life protesters have terrorized abortion clinics and doctors because of their beliefs which they claim to hold in the name of God and Jesus, yet I don't see any pro-choice advocates taking the radical and destructive and sometimes murderous tactics that their opponents perpetrate. Burning down buildings, throwing rocks through windows, yelling and screaming at people, making death threats against doctors... this doesn't sound very tolerant to me. Let's talk about the people who support people like Pat Robertson and the Reverend Jerry Falwell and groups like the Christian Coalition, who came out and said that the events of September 11th were the result of America's tolerant behavior towards homosexuality and other "aberrant" behaviors, since these groups have their largest membership bases in the South and Midwest.

Life is not a Disney movie or an ABC after-school special where the bullies learn by the end of the hour and a half that it's not right to discriminate and end up defending their black/Jewish/non-Christian/non-mainstream friends and bringing enlightenment to the whole community. Ask all those people who died or who lost their homes or businesses whether they think those actions taken against them were based in tolerance.

The Los Angeles Times is turning out to be quite a good paper. They're providing me with lots of political fodder for my brain to chew on.

This morning's edition gave me two articles on the same page that I was rather enamored with. The first talked about how Aaron Sorkin, creator of "The West Wing" and "Sports Night," thinks our country (including NBC, his employer) "is pretending that President George W. Bush is competent and brave." Amen, brother! I've been saying this for a while. After all these months, I still honestly can't figure out what Moron has done that deserves the second-highest quarterly approval rating since I don't think he's done very much at all except cover his hide from Enron, send troops to Afghanistan to overrun a vastly inferior fighting force and do a lot of preaching about the evil in the world. I'm so glad that someone of note who has some of the media spotlight shares my views and actually is using it to raise awareness about this issue. As Sorkin said, "That illusion may be what we need right now, but the truth is we're simply pretending to believe that Bush exhibited unspeakable courage at the World Series by throwing out the first pitch at Yankee Stadium or that he, by God, showed those terrorists by going to Salt Lake City and jumbling the first line of the Olympic opening ceremony. The media is waing pom-poms and the entire public is being polite." That last part I'm not so sure about -- I think the public is deluding itself more than we're being polite. I think we want to believe in that illusion to the point where we're fooling ourselves into believing it's real, rather than pretending that we believe it while we're actually snickering at him behind his back. Me, I may not believe in the illusion, but I'm not snickering. Our administration is moving us backwards and getting us into a lot of hot water by declaring ourselves the Worldwide Judge of What's Good and What's Evil. That's not funny at all, that's lunacy and that's the main reason why people all over the world hate America. Rather than spending millions on a Propaganda Office to change the world's perception of us while we continue to do the one thing that reinforces that perception, why not put that money into building us some windfarms while we stop running all over the world policing everyone while a bunch of bureaucrats in Washington spend our tax dollars to buy ads around the world telling them how Nice and Good the United States really is?

And of all the people that I agree with today, I didn't think that Cher would be high on that list, but she is. While she acknowledges that she may not be the bastion of taste and family values, she ripped Ashcroft a new one over this whole issue of him wanting to cover up the naked statues of "Spirit of Justice" and "Majesty of Law." He claims he's "uncomfortable" making speeches in front of half-nude statues. Look, pal, we're all naked under our clothes, and there's a difference between porn and art. Plus, who made you the Magistrate of Decency? Now that I think about it, those may not be earthquakes I'm feeling, they may be the sharp movements of our country going towards the extreme right and the so-called Moral Majority. Who is he to decide what's decent for me? Didn't we battle this whole issue when we addressed book burning and freedom of expression with things like the Mapplethorpe exhibit? If we start with covering up some half-naked statues that have been around for 60-some-odd years, where do we stop? Will we slip into another Prohibition-type era, this time revolving around "public decency"? Dammit, it's my right as an American to buy that "Sports Illustrated" swimsuit edition and it's someone else's right to read trashy romance novels replete with bodice-ripping and wanton sex and it's someone else's right to wear a bikini in public. As Cher said, "If he doesn't want to make speeches in front of them, let him make speeches somewhere else. He's mobile." Amen, sister. So, Little Johnny Ashcroft, if you feel uncomfortable making speeches in front of half-naked statues, tell the camera crews "let's roll" and set up shop down the hall.

Some of you have asked me about my trip across the country. I have to say that it was long and it was kind of lonely at points -- possibly why I started talking to the car. I kind of ate my way across the country, sampling barbeque in Tennessee and Texas, Mexican food in New Mexico and Subway in Arkansas. A lot of the highway was just long wide-open space, especially once I passed into western Texas.

From western Texas pretty much to the metro Los Angeles area, it was absolutely gorgeous, but absolutely barren. The desert and hills and mountains stretched on and on, really conveying the impact of land untouched by man and the vastness of just how big our country really is. See, for a person like me who grew up in New England, I'm used to driving two hours and passing through three states. It's kind of shock when it takes you two days to cross a single state. The one thing that really got to me were the oil fields. Next to the highways, I could see oil derricks and pumps taking oil out of the ground -- yet I knew that wasn't the only place it was happening. Our head Moron-in-Charge is opening up protected lands in Alaska to further the oil plundering. And the odd thing was that next to one of the oil fields was a small windfarm.

For those of you unfamiliar with the term, a windfarm is a bunch of windmill-like structures grouped together in a small area that use wind power to generate electricity. I saw another big one in southern California in Coachella Valley, and it was a great sight to see. It actually warmed my heart a little to think that they really were putting their money where their mouths were to try and use some decent unharmful methods to generate some extra power.

Now, I'm not a tree-hugging hippie as Eric Cartman might say, but I still believe that there's a definite chance that we're ruining our planet with our need for oil and we're destroying precious reserves as well as ecosystems that should probably remain untouched to get to that oil. I read somewhere that a windfarm the size of Rhode Island would generate enough electricity for at least half the country, and although I could be wrong, I know that I drove through enough empty land that could probably (and easily) support windfarms twice that size. We wouldn't have to worry about having to open up new oil fields, we wouldn't have to worry about burying nuclear waste. That's why I think if the Nevadans don't want to accept that nuclear waste that President Moron is trying to force on them, a decent alternative would be to build a windfarm in that location to generate some natural power using methods that didn't affect the environment -- and especially the humans and other animals living in that environment.

So what mess has our lovely leader gotten us into today?

Has anyone else noticed that the British don't use definite articles in front of certain nouns? I've noticed a trend that English people usually say "they went to hospital" and not "they went to the hospital." Although the last occurrence I heard this on was Fox News Channel, maybe they're just not paying their correspondents enough to use definite articles.

In other television issues, these Sprint PCS "I don't do ads" ads with Dennis Franz are really starting to get on my nerves. It reminds me of that scene from Singles where Campbell Scott hits on Kyra Sedgwick by telling her that he's not going to use an act on her to pick her up, and she tells him that not having an act is his act.

I don't think my body clock has fully adjusted to being on Pacific Time yet. It's a lot harder when it's a gradual change as you're driving across the country and every few days crossing a time zone boundary rather than doing it in one fell swoop on a plane. That may be the reason why I crashed at 10PM last night and I've been waking up at 6:30AM. Either way, I guess this guarantees me a full day of apartment searching and furniture shopping since I have virtually nothing.

In other news, I'm feeling vaguely guilty. To help bribe the kid of the family friends I'm staying with, I offered him playtime with my Sega Dreamcast as a reward if he behaved and did all his work. He's become addicted to it in a very short amount of time. The upside is that his behavior is impeccable (according to his parents) and his schoolwork gets done in record time. The downside is that he wanted to cancel a playdate with one of his close friends this afternoon so he could stay home and play Dreamcast. Oy.

Have I mentioned how wonderful life can be when you're doing something you want to be doing? This is such an odd feeling for me, since I've never really worked at a place that I've had a burning desire to work at before (well, at least, not since I graduated college). The oddest thing is that even when I was walking in the front door to the office and they all were expecting me and had everything set up for me, it still seemed so surreal that I half-expected everyone to all of a sudden say, "Surprise! Just kidding! You're not really working here!"

But thankfully, that never happened. I'm working in a great atmosphere doing something I really like with some really cool people who I can already tell I'm going to enjoy working with. Yes, folks -- I am glowing. Years of drifting aimlessly through life and looking for a path, and I think I've finally found myself. Now all I need is a kick-ass apartment and a hottie California girl and I'll be completely set. You have no idea how wonderful I feel right now.

In other news, I'm fairly amused by California politics. I'm seeing all these commercials on TV for gubernatorial candidates -- basically, it's a smear campaign. One wants to move the Republican party more towards the center, the other is criticizing him for it and extolling the virtues of Reagan and Bush. Personally, I didn't think they had any virtues. Plus, the whole church-and-state line is being blurred with the candidate's declaration of how he's such a great guy because he believes in the all-healing spirit of God.

Yes, folks, Ferris Bueller's Day Off is on TV. An excellent end to my Last Day of Freedom. I haven't worked a day since the end of last June. Isn't that sick? I spent the day looking at apartments, checking out furniture, looking at electronics and generally being an all-around responsible person. I called to check in with my new workplace, half-expecting them to say, "Ooh... sorry, we realized last week that we don't actually need you..." because this whole thing seems so surreal that I'm finally going to do something I love. Instead, I found that they sounded almost as excited to have me there as I am to be there. But I seriously doubt that they're more excited than I am, since I'm pretty damn excited. I'm so excited that I think I'd give everyone in that office a hug if there weren't a chance that it could be construed as sexual harassment. Some of you have asked what the Dream Job is, and now that it's landed, I can safely say what I'll be doing. I'm going to be a fry cook on Venus. (Dammit, time to turn off Ferris Bueller.) Actually, I'm going to be an assistant editor at a magazine that deals with the recording and broadcasting industries. This combines my loves of music, radio and writing all in one place. Can you see now why I consider this the Dream Job?

Speaking of the recording industry, the RIAA came out today with figures that says that music sales declined last year. They're blaming Napster and the proliferation of recordable CDs and CD burners. Has anyone thought to blame the fact that the record labels put out rather bad music last year and no one wanted to buy it?

Greetings, mortals, from the land of Perpetual Summer! And I can say that because it's sunny and around 70ish degrees outside right now despite the fact that it's February. This is totally going to screw with my internal calendar.

So, the windows are down and the sunroof is open, the car radio is set to the World-Famous KROQ, and the driver is trying very hard to concentrate on the road rather than observing the California women in all their splendor and possibly ramming into a signpost. Although I'm sure that would get me some attention rather than just me passing by unnoticed. For those of you who know me personally, you'll be astonished to know that for the first time in 3 years, I now have a cell phone. And for those of you who don't know me personally, you'll be astonished to know that for the past 3 years, this gadget freak did not have a cell phone. I just never really saw the need for it. But it seems to be a permanent fixture on the side of every Angeleno's head and I needed something to use as a base of operations and communications. So I have a cell phone now. I have joined the masses of the New Millennium. I can feel that tumor forming in my brain already...

There are so many things to experience, I'm not quite sure what to do first. Besides look for an apartment and try to get my life in order before I start work tomorrow, of course. In-N-Out Burger is calling my name very loudly, and so are the beaches. But first, I have to go outside and frolic in a t-shirt in the midst of February without freezing off any appendages. Pardon me whilst I frolic.

Well folks, I made it. I am officially in Los Angeles. And I am officially exhausted.

There's three things that I immediately thought of upon arriving:

1. I've lived my entire life on the East Coast. For the past 7 years in Boston, the ocean has always been to the east. Now, for the first time in my life, I have to make sure I remember the ocean is to the west. This will make things interesting when I try to venture out and navigate on my own.

2. When I was in college, one of the people on my hall came from Tarzana, which is up in the Valley. He kept telling all these stories of the wild L.A. drivers zooming down their 5 lane freeways at 75 miles an hour, and at the time I thought, "Man, I'd never be able to handle that." Except on my way in, I was one of those wild drivers zooming down a 5 lane freeway at 75, and I thought nothing of it. It just makes me think how far I've come since my freshman year of college.

3. Those of you who know me personally know that I'm very into music, especially the radio aspect of things. It was odd resetting my car's radio presets to stations that I never thought I'd be listening to in my own car -- stations that I'd either only heard about by reputation or listened to over the Internet.

And now, I sleep. Tomorrow, the apartment search begins. Tuesday, I go back to work for the first time in several months, but this time, at a job that I'm thrilled about.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to say that I am getting quite near to Los Angeles, and should be arriving either late on Sunday night or on Monday morning. In Yiddish terms, one would call this a "schlep."

However, I'm not so pleased to say that I spent last night in the middle of nowhere. Right smack dab in the middle of it. And the nowhere was abounding. The town I stayed in had two traffic lights. The Days Inn I stayed in was run by the same family who ran the Grapevine Cafe across the parking lot, which seemed to be the main attraction of the town as the breakfast regulars included the sheriff, the newspaper delivery guy and one of the employees from a local gas station. The two exit town boasted four gas stations, the Days Inn, a liquor store (thank God for small favors) and a so-called supermarket cleverly disguised as a convenience store. At least the hotel had a pool and, by some miracle of God, HBO. I've become quite the urban snob, haven't I? Although I think there's something to be said for my craving for constant media feed, since it's been starving -- having driven through an area that had only 3 radio stations, 1 of which was in Spanish and another a country station.

In other news, I've gotten into a fight with the car. She believes that as a reward for making this trip for me, she deserves a weeklong vacation in Cabo San Lucas after we arrive in L.A. I said no beans. You can tell I'm kind of starving for human social interaction when I start having full-on conversations with my car, no?

Two nights of Net access in a row. The Road Gods must be looking out for me. Especially since I'm streaking across the country at a decent clip but have yet to be pulled over. Whatever DJ I was listening to this morning who was running the "Narc on a Cop" bit of having listeners call in to tell everyone where the speed traps were, props to you. Need I comment on the Olympics? Not really. Will I anyways? Of course. And, as usual, Michele said what I was thinking before I could get to a computer. I guess that's why she says that we think alike. It's an athletic competition, people. Regardless of how much the odds-on favorite Michelle Kwan was, she fell. Too bad, so sad, end of story. She delivered a performance that was technically inferior to Sarah Hughes'. Therefore, no matter how much everyone wanted her to win, giving it to her would've really been favoritism well beyond that of this whole figure skating fiasco. Speaking of which, can't that French judge make up her mind? First she says she was influenced towards the Russians, then she says she was influenced towards the Canadians, now she says she wasn't influenced at all... It's not Olympic judging, it's a seesaw. Now the Russians are crying foul and saying if they don't get some equality, they're leaving the Olympics and taking their teams with them. I say have fun on your flight back to Moscow, I'm completely reminded of a little child saying "I want this, buy it for me or else I'll start screaming and crying!"

I've been hearing way too many commercials for that Aaliyah movie, Queen of the Damned. Is it just me, or does anyone else have a problem with selling a movie on the basis of its soundtrack? The section listing all the contributors to the soundtrack is almost as long as the part advertising for the film.

Before I left for the day, there was one other thing I forgot to mention in my last entry. I had stopped in a Taco Bell in Knoxville, Tennessee, to pick up some lunch when around 10 or 15 high schoolers entered the establishment. One tossed something in the trash and found that when he did, the garbage can replied "thank you" from a speaker in the front.

This made their day. All of them started buzzing about "did you hear the trash can?" and "the trash talked to you, man! It thanked you!" As a result, as more of their friends streamed in, each of them was greeted with "Hey man, throw something in that trash can!"

I was unaware that a talking garbage can could generate such a furor among local teens. I guess there must not be much to do in Knoxville.

And now, back to the road. The journey continues.

Howdy, y'all! I managed to find myself an Internet connection. It's slow going, mostly due to a downpour of rain two days ago. They really do things big here in the South -- even weather. Either way... it's so nice to be missed! I figured you guys would want to hear about some of my adventures, so here we go: - According to its "welcome to our state sign," Maryland calls itself "The Free State." Now, I believe in truth in advertising, so I'm going to ask them for the $5 in highway tolls back that I was forced to spend there. I spent the second-least amount of time in Maryland that I've spent in any state thus far on this trip, yet I spent the most money there on road tolls.
- While I'm on the topic of Maryland, someone needs to tell them they need to update their computers. I asked three different people at these tollbooths what time it was, and they all were an hour off. One woman was offended when I asked her, "Are you sure?" since I had just heard a radio DJ say something about "getting close to 4:00" and she told me it was just before 3. I didn't think I had already crossed the time zone line -- I was still too close to the East Coast -- and it's only February so it's too early for Daylight Savings Time...
- If a nuclear bomb exploded in Arkansas, no one would notice. They'd do one of two things with the hole: either (1) build a church at the bottom of it and name it "Our Lady of Radioactivity," or (2) wait for the torrential rains to fill the hole so they could fish for three-eyed catfish for Noah's World Famous Fried Chicken and Catfish Shack (an actual place I passed).
- Southern hospitality definitely exists. Everyone's so nice down here.
- The church-to-person ratio is staggering. I've seen streets that are literally lined with churches. I best not say anything about being a Northerner and being Jewish, they'd probably hold a ritual exorcism.
- There are just some people who need to be banned from the left lane on the highway. Just like we have registration for sex offenders that includes some kind of notice on their license plates, we should start giving "banned from the passing lane" stickers for people's cars. Doing 3 miles over the speed limit does not qualify you for the left lane, especially when people are passing you on the right.
- There's a reason why Memphis is well-known for barbeque. Oh. My. Lord. [insert Homer Simpson drooling noise] If you'd like to experience it yourself, you can order some to be sent to you via FedEx from Corky's BBQ, which is where I ate.
- If a radio DJ calls himself "Roach," change the station. The name should've told me initially how bad he was. I hate it when DJs talk over the beginnings of songs to the point where they run over the words that the lead singer is singing.
- Lewis Black is saving my sanity. I've listened to his CD at least once every day of this trip, and even though I know it very well by now, it still cracks me up. I'm sure I'm amusing someone who's looking at me in their rearview mirror and saying, "That boy's got problems. He's talking to himself and laughing at himself."
- Mountain Dew Code Red is my new best friend. And I am eating way too much junk food. All you L.A. people who wanted to meet me in person, you're going to have to wait until I can drop some of this poundage from all the fast food and relative inactivity. Although if it were proven that air drumming was an aerobic exercise, I'd be in great shape right now.

In other news, a small article from USA Today caught my eye, and I'm really surprised that no one pounced on it. Apparently, sometime last weekend, a group of British Royal Marines got lost on their way to a training exercise and accidentally stormed a beach in Spain rather than their intended target of a small British island. I fully expected to see this publicized on "The Daily Show," but I guess they didn't see it.

I'm finding it hard to terrorize the nation when I'm driving a Honda Civic. Somehow it just doesn't inspire terror in others. Maybe if I got myself a Plymouth Horizon instead...?