He: What does it mean when you feel like you're about to cry, almost all day, at almost every moment?

She: Like right now?

He: Yes.

She: It either means that something inside you has died or that something inside you is a little too alive.

When I started this site, it was with one, and only one, goal in mind.

To become the top-listed site on the "Bathingsuitsonline" "Raisin bathing suit" page.

I think it's quite clear that, the goal achieved, I can now retire from the online world a happy man.

On the way home from work last evening, with the sun setting and the highway burning off its late afternoon haze, I saw a flitting black shape fly toward a car about two car lengths up and to the left.

What I thought was a bird caught the sedan's antenna and seemed to get stuck on it. The black shape began to flap violently on the antenna, back and forth, shaking as if it was being struck with an electrical current. I watched as the thing shook and vibrated. The antenna curved back from the weight of the thing. That and the wind caused it to shimmy up the length of the antenna, then back down.

This seemed to go on forever, the shape convulsing and moving up and down until the antenna curved back far enough for the thing to get loose.

The dead bird flew toward my car in a looping, awful curve, seeming to grow as it came right at my windshield.

I swerved to the right, avoiding the thing and almost missing my exit as another car tried to maneuver around me.

I don't know if the driver of the sedan ever noticed the bird caught on its antenna. The car never seemed to slow or change course as this was happening.

We talked about it last night, wondering if it could be some sort of omen. The last time she saw a crow perched atop her car, cawing, an aunt died that night.

I wondered, if this was an omen, was it one meant for me, the witness to this? Or was it for for the driver, who might not even know they'd been visited by the blackbird's death?

A few new posts over at the new (and not oft-visited) Digital Savant blog.

The governer of the state in which I happen to reside said in a press conference, "Adios, mofo" off-mike about a reporter.

Which is pretty hilarious, except that he's, you know, the governor and stuff. He's also not too fond of gay veterans for some reason.

At least there's a t-shirt.

It reminded me that I once got busted in middle school for using the phrase, "Mofo." I was in shop class (hey, shuddup) where we did like metal welding and stuff, but mostly just ragged on each other about our skateboarding skills. (It was a different time, I'm telling you).

So, one day, our big, burly instructor was showing us these different acetylene torches. When he pulled out the really huge one, I said, with childish wonder, "Whoah! Big mofo!"

He looked right at me and informed me that we don't talk like that in shop class.

To this day I'm not sure if he was mad at what I said or that I didn't say something dirtier.

A new Space Monkeys! comic is up, one that brings back one of our favorite (and lumpiest) characters, The General.

He's not very good at living up to that title, we've found.

On awkwardly trading in games on a pre-order deal at Videogamey; on my search for a new laptop that isn't broken, on Digital Savant.

The first part is that I'm going to show you a short, run-of-the-mill Associated Press story, one that ran all over the place as part of that news service's feed. It ran in my city's paper. It might have run in yours.

Here it is.

Typical wire fare, right? Fairly well-known Latino actor takes Hollywood to task for not offering enough non-stereotypical roles for actors like him.

All is well, except... I was THERE. At that panel. Listening. And, despite what the story leads you to believe in its headline ("Leguizamo decries Hollywood's Latino roles") and its lead ("Actor John Leguizamo said he's become disillusioned with the stereotypical handymen and gang member roles Hollywood offered to Latino actors."), I'm here to tell you that this was not the thrust of John Leguizamo's gist (or is it "The thrust of his parry?" "The cut of his giblets?" I'm sorry, I'm not the AP; I can't whip this shit out on the fly, innacurately).

What Leguizamo was saying, and I tell you as a person who sat in a chair in a ballroom and listened to what was being said by Leguizamo and by the other panelists, which included two directors of Latino films, and two producers (One of the producers was Elizabeth Avellan, wife of Robert Rodriguez, who is as responsible for his success as a filmmaker as Robert Rodriguez himself), was, first of all, extremely positive. He was thrilled to have worked on the film Cronicas, a Spanish-language film of the independent variety.

In talking about how great it is for Latinos to have the avenues to make these kinds of films today (avenues that simply weren't available 10 years ago), Leguizamo reminisced about how he, Luiz Guzman, Benjamin Bratt and another small group of actors were often all offered the same kinds of roles: gangbangers and rapists, or gardeners and busboys.

Leguizamo's point was that Latinos, though they may have a ways to go, can now write and direct their own stories; filmmaking has become a much cheaper endeavor that's easily more democratic. His comment about stereotypical roles was looking back at the past; he even used as an example his new roles in The Honeymooners and Land of the Dead as examples of the diversity of the film roles he's being offered. He even defended his role as a drug lord in Empire, saying that despite what the role was, the complexity of character was what made it appealing to him.

So what panel did the Associated Press attend?

Because the panel I went to didn't feature an angry John Leguizamo railing against Hollywood for serving him shit parts lately. A story like this, which I guess has to have a lead that attracts attention, is simply wrong. The person who wrote it was either not listening or didn't understand what was being said (despite it being about 99.5 percent in English).

These kinds of things drive working journalists nuts; when we know that a story may not be on its face wrong, but that in spirit completely misses the point of what happened. You can send two journalists to the same event and come away with two completely different stories, but it's still disheartening to be the person who is aware of just how wrong an impression an event story is leaving.

I've looked and looked and haven't been able to find a byline for the story in any of the versions I've seen; all that's there is the monolithic "By Associated Press." I have no way of knowing if the writer was someone Hispanic attending this Hispanic journalist conference or someone else from AP assigned to the event.

But if it was a Latin journalist and that was what they got out of sitting through the panel, then that makes me even sadder than the factual inaccuracy of the story itself.

I used to really believe that the more you wrote, the better writer you would become.

I think the Internet has taught us very clearly that this is not the case.

Through the power of suggestion and HTML, the stuff I write for the XL Blog has magically transmogrified into the spiffy (if you don't count the photo of me) "Digital Savant" blog. I'll probably tend to write more tech stuff there instead of my usual rants about radio and TV.

The other XL Blog writers now have their own new homes, too.

Overheard at a Hispanic journalist convention:

"I got a job offer! ... but it's in Mississippi."