mindpollution.org

Last week was one of the busiest five-day spans I’ve worked in quite a while, so that’s the best explanation I can muster for the lack of updates lately.

I found myself managing the MTV Movies Blog for about a week straight due to an unexpected convergence of editors taking time off, and ended up getting a crash course in the workflow of a massive news organization like MTV. I’m a bit of a process geek, so figuring out the way news was handled across the breadth of MTV News (even my small part of it) was actually pretty interesting. Everything seemed to go pretty well, and I’m happy to say that the site wasn’t a smoldering wreck when its editors returned. I was able to conclude my tenure as the Movies Blog’s manager in a big way, posting an exclusive photo from the set of J.J. Abrams’ upcoming “Star Trek” film.

Meanwhile, Jessica and I finally reached the breaking point in our ongoing struggle to justify keeping a car in our new neighborhood. At one point during the week, I found myself driving around the neighborhood for more than an hour looking for a parking spot. Between that and the frequency with which we have to embark on these “adventures in city parking,” we’ve finally come to terms with the idea that having a car around is simply not worth the trouble.

Make no mistake: this is a BIG decision for me.

I’ve always had a car around, and never imagined a time in which I couldn’t just jump in the driver’s seat and take off when the urge strikes. It’s always been a bit of a shock to discover people who don’t drive regularly or … *gasp* … don’t have a driver’s license. But the more time I spend inside the city limits, the more I realize that such a situation is not only conceivable but actually preferable for a great many people. Whereas having my laundry and certain purchases picked up and/or delivered to my door used to be something I considered a luxury, now it’s begun to seem like something that’s simply a local norm — and it all balances out in the end, anyways. The money you save by not having car or insurance payments is offset by the extra cost of having things picked up and/or delivered. The headache of finding a parking spot is offset by the trouble of having to determine the best subway/bus routes to the store, and then having to wait around the window of time they schedule the delivery. City living is full of these sorts of give-and-take arrangements, and after taking a lot of frustration the last few weeks due to parking problems, I’m ready to give up on having a car.

So, yeah, that’s what’s been keeping me busy, folks. Now, where were we?