Pop Culture Petri Dish

I'm fried. To the absolute nub, ladies and gents. A desperately-needed vacation beckons on the not-too-distant horizon (we fly out tomorrow), and it promises to be a true adventure to an alien land. It's my reward for toiling in the Gehenna of a fourteen-day work week. Tectonic shifts at work--and an inordinate amount of study in devotion to the aforementioned vacation--have eaten most of my leisure time. The Petri Dish usually becomes a haven for all things horror in October, and I pride myself in devoting some serious copy space--on a daily basis, no less--towards my most beloved cinema mistress every year at this time. But this year, sadly, I've had no damn time to do so. So there'll be no Horrorpalooza this month, but I am seriously mulling the possibility of a November Horrorpalooza (who says you can only memorialize the macabre in October, anyhow?). In the meantime, as a meager consolation to the throngs of you (again, Petri Dish Definition of a Throng = two or mo...

Every day I step away from Mundane Necessity for exactly a half-hour by taking as vigorous a walk as I can. I've clawed and scratched for this oasis of activity amidst the generic confines of an office environment, and these strolls have--I'm firmly convinced--kept me sane and improved my health. If the weather is inclement, that stroll takes place in a white, enclosed building. It consists of as many trips up and down a four-story staircase as many times as I can muster in the brief time alloted (I usually average a half-dozen times each way along these sixty-one steps). If Nature decrees to don some of her lovelier raiments, I hit the pavement around the neighborhood and walk. Whether indoors or out, an MP3 player (upgraded from my dilapidated old Discman shortly after these pics were shot) channels music in my ears--providing heart-pumping energy, melodramatic escapism, or intense contemplation depending on my mood. The neighborhood is an enormous Petri Dish whose industria...