20 reasons why "How I Met Your Mother" is disturbingly realistic

Going through my bi-monthly "How I Met Your Mother" kick. Once again I'm noticing a troubling number of parallels between a CBS sitcom and the non-fiction that is real life. Yes, this post is more than a tad self-indulgent. But the blogosphere counts that one of its hallmarks, no?

1. Your average Joe can't act to save his life, much like the stars of the show. Except the suit-sporting, woman-killing, catchphrase-spewing Barneys of the world. They're just awesome.

2. Bob Saget should never be seen in person. Ever.

3. Long-distance relationships don't work. And yet everyone eventually finds him or herself saying, "It will totally work."

4. Loud techno dance clubs sound way more fun than they actually are. Best to just chill with the cute coat-check girl.

5. Barney's bamboozles to bag busty babes work about half the time. They guarantee slaps the other half. Don't ask how I know, just trust me.

6. Britney Spears is a crazed vapid slut.

7. Nothing good happens after 2 a.m. There's a reason bars shout last call 15-20 minutes before the clock strikes. That extra shot of Jagermeister can spell the difference between getting home with your dignity intact or waking up next to a butch rugby chick from Nevada.

8. Beard don't go with suits.

9. After drinking too much at the bars, it takes at least three eye witnesses to replay the night's events. Even then, part of the story will remain shrouded in mystery.

10. "Give me five" is back. If it ever left.

11. Going solo for brunch leads to nothing but scoffs and condescending stares.

12. Be wary of crazy eye. Seven out of ten dysfunctional relationships can be avoided by detecting the crazy early on.

13. Couples and singles can be easily distinguished at any bar or club, based on wakefulness, social lubricant and attentiveness to conversation.

14. "I'm Gonna Be" by the Proclaimers is the ultimate road trip track.

15. Close friends rarely notice each others' annoying flaws, until they're pointed out by a third party.

16. The Naked Man works. In theory, anyway. Haven't become desperate enough to try it. Yet.

17. Calling a girl before the three day mark is a bad idea. But guys do it anyway.

18. Canadian money isn't real.

19. The first weeks/months of a serious relationship lead to added poundage and inattention to one's appearance. Why dress up the cow when there's already milk in your cereal? Okay, bad use of that particular phrase.

20. Being single in a crowd of coupled friends sucks. You're inevitably the only one with the interest or energy to: hit the bars, get silly drunk, sing karaoke, sled down Blue Mountain at three in the morning, go to three movies in one afternoon, spontaneously hit the road for a weekend road trip to who-knows-where, dance on tables, sky-dive, walk to the nearest pub for a single beer. And relationship advice from said coupled friends (that by not looking around for a date, you'll find one) is BS. Unfortunately, being proactive doesn't work either.

If this list doesn't sell the show as a must-watch, I've got three words for you: Neil Patrick Harris. 'Nuff said.

Blowing a little time

Weird. The last five minutes just bled together into one very strange moment. I'm sitting at my workspace, standing in the kitchen, and standing outside the basement door all at once. I can't explain beyond that. Must be a side effect of drinking six cups of coffee in two hours. Or not eating anything since that Papa John's pizza last night. Or knowing I'll still be here in an hour. Tuesdays do seem to drag on endlessly.

Passed my weekend in the usual mundane ways: worked on some personal writing projects, hung out with the kid sister, got buzzed and moshed at a metal show. I did, however, pass a Friday on-assignment at Lookout Pass. Eighteen inches wasn't much, but I carved some pre-Thanksgiving turns and got my gas expenses covered. Sadly, I also found out how out of shape two months of relative lethargy in this basement have left me. Better get back to jogging before the season hits its stride.

Thanksgiving promises to be a different scene entirely this year. First year not going home for Dede's pickles and Grandpa's turkey. Instead I'm heading up to the cabin in Choteau on Thursday for my first-ever bout with deer hunting. John's got a burr in his ass about shooting a lowland whitetail and our property is more than a ticket to meat. Don't know yet if I'll be able to pull the trigger myself. A deer is more of a kill than a pine squirrel. But I do love venison. And meat's expensive at the grocery store, more expensive than a bullet and a few hours of gutting Bambi's cousin.

I've realized in the course of typing this entry that Pandora can't sort music worth a post Despos-grilled-cheese shit. The Fratellis should not prompt late career Modest Mouse or golden era White Stripes. Ugh. With that, I'm done with this post and (hopefully) out of the newsroom.

The job

Looking up at the newsroom storyboard, I realize I'm rapidly approaching the end of my eighth month at the Missoula Independent (our map at present extends through December 3). Hard to believe it's been over half a year. Even harder to believe I've been a regular presence, staff and freelance, here since June 2008.

I've covered a lot since that first Info about Ryan Alt, a guy infamous around here for rigging up cameras in artificial bear dens. Off the top of my head, I remember writing about: the last-place runner in the 2008 Missoula Marathon; University of Montana alumni getting squeezed out of the Homecoming football game; the short-lived "drive you home in your car" outfit Designated Driver Missoula; the cutting of the Capitol Christmas Tree in Ravalli County (bullshit fluff); the now-editor of UM's alumni magazine and her past meltdown on the set of MTV's "Miss Seventeen"; flooding in the courthouse basement in Ravalli County (more bullshit); union members picketing outside a Missoula bank; a dummy cop in Lake County that tricked me into slamming my brake pedal; a religious wacko running for the public school board of trustees; a UM football senior waiting, waiting, waiting for a draft call from the NFL; a religion-based group home for ex-cons, including four sex offenders, operating in a kid-heavy neighborhood; conservation dogs; the DMV's flunky new computer system; the current state of the notorious former Montana Freemen; cowboy polo; Missoula's new outdoor amphitheater; UM booting a satellite research group off campus, and footing the subsequent rent; the county health clinic dealing with rising patient numbers; ownership change at the exclusive Loft of Missoula club; a river ranger on the Blackfoot; the plight of the landless Little Shell Tribe; tainted compost in Bitterroot Valley gardens; a critical national study of Montana's public defender system; skatepark plans in Hamilton; a new group of parents pushing for harsher legal guidelines for guardians ad litem; more Little Shell plight; the new Whitefish Curling Club; more public defender system criticism; right-wingers meeting in droves in the Bitterroot; 358 homeless students in Missoula County schools, including 209 elementary students; rising foreclosures in Ravalli County; and KMPT 930 AM's switch from a progressive to a conservative radio format.

In that time, I've said the following relating to my job as a reporter (to sources, coworkers, friends and family):

"The only character flaw I can't blame on a career in journalism is my Norwegian cynicism."

"I can't believe in God. My editor won't let me."

"Journalism is like collecting piss in a sieve. The harder you try to get the job done, the faster it drains."

"If I felt politicians could change the world in a positive way, I wouldn't be a journalist."

"Journalism is a career tailor-made for the attention deficit and hyper active. By the time one story runs, you're half-way through the second."

What're you doing? "Surviving." Work suck? "Like a $20 hooker. All teeth."

"Sometimes after work, I just feel like I need to loofah my soul."

"What the hell did I write last week?"

"What the hell am I writing this week?"

"Oh, yea, I remember. We talked a couple weeks ago, for that story about the thing. That wasn't you?"

"You're who? We talked when? Um, I didn't write that."

"I'm sorry, the writer you're asking for hasn't worked here for over a year."

"I'm Alex Sakariassen, with the Missoula Independent...It's a newspaper...A newspaper...Never mind, I've got the wrong number."

"God, my job sucks."

"God, my job rules."

"I can't believe I get paid for this."

"I don't get paid enough for this."

"Grad school never looked so good."

"Grad school? Pshaw."

"Foreclosure notices are a goddamn goldmine."

"Bankruptcy filings are a goddamn goldmine."

"This shit's depressing."

"This shit's great."

"Compared to some of these people, I'm not doing so bad."

Could be the sleep deprivation, or the five cups of coffee, or the fact I'm skiing this Friday on-assignment, but I'm riding a high right now. This time next week? Who knows. Half the fun is guessing. The other half is drinking when I guess wrong.

Another end to another week

The newsroom is relatively quiet this afternoon. Editor took the day off, one writer left early, and the rest of us are just looking to knock out a few interviews before heading to our respective homes/bars/breweries early. I'm thinking it's another four o'clock day.

I spent my morning reworking draft one of my upcoming feature for Headwall Magazine. For those of you out-of-the-know, my paper launched a quarterly outdoors mag in May. Issue four hits stands in December, followed by a spring edition with yours truly. But I've said all this before. In fact, I think I said something about it a few days ago. Guess I'm suffering early onset senility. Fuck.

Received some interesting news this afternoon. The Society of Environmental Journalists invited me to join a 20-member panel this month to plan their 2010 Northwest Regional Conference. We're appointed to discuss the conference theme, as well as potential guest speakers. Not sure where they got my name, other than I'm one of SEJ's thousands of members. But it sounds like a blast, certainly a great excuse to skip an afternoon at work.

Until later, folks.

Are we back on track to good old isolationism?

I found an ironic juxtaposition in my afternoon. After finishing my annual post-Halloween viewing of Casablanca, arguably the most poignant statement on the crumbling of America's early 20th Century isolationist mindset, I read an article in the latest issue of the New Yorker titled "The Predator War" by Jane Mayer. Elements of the two got me thinking: has technology set us back on the track to isolationism?

Richard Blaine, Humphrey Bogart's signature role, stands as the single greatest example of the American isolation mindset through the first half of Casablanca, set in Morocco during World War II. He's politically neutral, preferring to watch emerging global conflicts from the unassuming position of local saloon owner. His bar, Rick's Cafe Americain, is a place for music, liquid pleasure and gambling. Yes, it attracts much black market business, but Rick himself is never directly involved. The problems of others, even friends, slide right by. In response to the arrest of Ugarte, a man recently implicated in the murder of two German couriers, Rick says simply, "I stick my neck out for nobody." Ugarte is one of the few men in the city of Casablanca whom Rick respects. Despite that, Rick refrains from getting involved for the sake of his own safety. It was the same with America, which didn't get involved in WWII until a few weeks before the film was released.

America's involvement in World War I certainly set the stage for the departure from isolationism. But the domestic troubles of the Great Depression interrupted that transition, and WWII stands as the first real step in turning our country's attention to global development. Sentiments within the country certainly reflected outside concerns, as many citizens were recent transplants or could still easily track their family's history to some specific European hamlet. But as with the management at Rick's Cafe Americain, the U.S. government kept its eyes firmly focused on domestic affairs.

"The Predator War" hints at some upcoming return to that same ideology. Thanks to technology, Americans can happily involve themselves in international affairs without leaving the house. Hell, with the Internet, you can scope out the streets of Paris or London without putting on pants. Mayer's article discusses the latest developments in remote-control killing, specifically the unmanned drones used to kill upwards of 500 people in Pakistan since January 2009. All attacks have been sanctioned by President Barack Obama, Mayer writes, and executed by CIA operatives or government contractors operating joysticks from secure locations within the U.S. Mayer quotes Mary Dudziak, a law professor from the University of Southern California: "Drones are a technological step that further isolates the American people from military action, undermining political checks...on endless war."

Yes, our government is still steeped in foreign affairs. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are far from over. But if soldiers can execute key leaders of Al Qaeda using the same technology gaming nerds do to slaughter hordes of goblins or aliens or whatnot, how long before we see no reason to stick our necks out for anyone? We may wage war for decades to come, but the loss of a multi-million dollar aerial drone hardly constitutes sacrifice. Clearly that's all the problems of others in this crazy world are worth to us. Killing enemies from a Laz-E-Boy? Can't get much more isolationist than that.