Max-stravaganza

The parable of the Prodigal Son has never made sense to me. There are a few gaps in logic that seem to run contradictory to the rest of the New Testament. A quick recap for those of you who slept through Sunday School (read: the cool kids/erstwhile Atheists): It is a story of two men: the perpetual fuckup, and his moral, hard working brother. One day, the Prodigal Son (who was out doing God knows what in the land of milk and honey) returns home. The father is overjoyed and slaughters the fatted calf in celebration and there is much rejoicing. What never made sense is why the good son gets skipped over. He's been a model citizen and never has there been a ritualistic slaughtering on his behalf. His consistent performance goes unrewarded by his father. The Non-Prodigal maintained a straight A average, but his college application doesn't look as impressive as the truant C student who gets his act together Junior year and starts getting A minuses. No matter how consistent

There are two sorts of people who go to the gym on Saturday morning: those attempting to sweat off their hangover and those who had no plans on Friday night. I won't specify my reasons for being on the exercise bike. It's Saturday morning, so naturally the only thing on broadcast TV are Ron Popeil infomercials, replays of SportsCenter and the Suite Life of Zack and Cody (sidebar: I nearly run over once by Ashley Tisdale. I'm not sure what was more disappointing: the fact that she is only 5'2" or that a child actress drives a luxury automobile that is unattainable for someone with my college degree). So as I'm pedaling away, there are two screens in front of me. To my right is a graphic infomercial for St. Jude's Children's Hospital. Marlo Thomas takes us through a montage of children in incubators, cancer patients, smiles that fight through tears. It's brutal, gutting and plays upon our guilt...albeit for a good cause. The screen on my

A while back, Pete Townshend was interviewed (wish I could find the transcript, but Google has finally failed me. Google insists that this has never happened to it before, but I have my doubts. This isn't my first encounter with search engine flaccidity.) about the current state of the music industry. The point that resonated was a comment about ownership of digital music. Not in a "Hands off, Napster! I'm still bitter!" Lars Ulrich-sort of rant. Townshend was mourning the loss of tangibility when purchasing an album. Back in the day, you bought a record. In addition to the music, you had a physical representation of the purchase. You had liner notes. You had cover art. You had the actual vinyl record. More importantly, they were your copy. A version of the record that was capable of being personalized (read: damaged). Townshend mentioned that his childhood record collection had plenty of scratches, but they were his scratches. He knew that his copy of