No Excuses, But ...

Man, once again I'm here to apologize. It's a pathetic excuse, but, just like last year, this part of the spring is a killer. Teaching two classes is like a second full-time job, and by the time Tax Day comes around, I feel like I don't even have time to sleep, much less blog.

It's not a good reason, and I'm a pathetic excuse for a human being ... or, er, a blogger ... but I'm going to give it the ol' college try from here on out to mid-May, when things will get better.

Anyway, I'm on vacation right now. Does that mean I'm in some sunny location, sipping alcoholic beverages with umbrellas in them and eating jerk chicken or something?

Nope. I'm on my couch. It's comfortable. No foam is filling up the room, though. But this vacation isn't exactly a vacation. What do I mean? Well, I have to get up at 6 a.m. tomorrow to teach the children. Then I have to teach a different set of America's Future at 7:30 p.m. Poop.

That's OK, though. We're in the homestretch and school will be over soon enough. What will that mean? Well, I'll have more time to blog. And of course the children will be so much smarter. Oh, and I'll also have more time to watch baseball. I like baseball.

Speaking of my favorite sport, I'll be heading to my second Red Sox game of the season on Saturday. I caught John Lackey's first Sox start last week, but that didn't go so well. Nope. Here's hoping the Laptop Warrior will fare better.

Over the last few weeks, I've had so much I wanted to mention on this here blog, but now I can't think of anything. Nope. Not a thing.

But I do want to talk about something. I'd like to discuss the Rychalsky family of Seymour. This group of four, who I'm sure are all nice folks, have been sending me countless e-mails over the last few weeks. You see, as a family, this group calls and votes for Katie Stevens on "American Idol" thousands of time.

This isn't just because she's from Connecticut, though. These people choose someone each year to call in about. We wrote a story about them around four years ago. So far, we've been refusing to do the story again. Clearly, other media outlets are not like us.

Anyway, the dad, Konnie, sends out a message each week, with a PDF attached, detailing the group's calling patterns and how often their calls connect. Or something like that. I refuse to read it that closely.

So basically, this guy, his wife and their two 20something daughters spend a night (or two, I don't know anything about the "Idol" voting process) frantically calling Fox. I kind of find this odd.

Well, actually, let me be more specific: I enjoy some weird things. I'm not making fun of them because they get together as a family, watch a show they love and call in and vote. Whatever. I like to drink beer and argue about fantasy basketball or something.

Who am I to judge?

Of course, I don't chart my arguments, make a PDF file and then basically beg for press about my fantasy basketball arguments. That's the part I'm mocking here.

Why are these folks so hellbent on publicity? Every year? And, more importantly, at what point is this not a story? I feel like some of our local media is pretty lazy to do this story over and over again. Go click on that link above and see the Google search. And that's just from this year.

I'm going to make a sweeping generalization right now, but this is another example of how reality television is killing us. Heck, lord knows I like some of these shows, but it's helping bring about this culture of how we all think we should be famous for nothing. If you like to do a family activity, then do it. Awesome. Families all around the world should spend more time together. But don't beg for publicity.

As the editor of the New Haven Register's entertainment coverage, I don't care that you're voting a gazillion times for someone on "American Idol." I especially don't care because we wrote about you before. I also especially don't care because you're begging for this publicity from each and every media outlet possible. That's not news. It's your odd hobby.

When the final basketball game ends tonight, I will have won my fantasy basketball league, and my friends Harris, Jay, Rob, Eric and I won't have anything to argue about. I'm not going to have the newspaper write a story about this. Who gives a poop?