It's a quiet Saturday night, the kids are asleep, Alane is away, nothing to do but -- watch Cops on TV.

What a terrific show. Sure, other networks are offering "Lethal Weapon" and "Rush Hour," and other slick dramas that are nominally based on the intricacies of law enforcement.

Forget Hollywood. Cops has superior sets, engaging dialogue, and character development that makes modern screenplays read like stick figure storyboards by comparison.

The weather in Florida is beautiful. Its about 90 outside and 50 inside. Vin still insists that the fans be on.

How's the weather in Nebraska? New York has rain. And high taxes. Even higher, as of late.

Ree, you must be more expansive in your thinking. Exam preparation is not, at its essence, substantially different from food preparation. In fact, the latter is probably a much more rigorous test of your worth as a person.

Nonetheless, your objective is to accomplish both simultaneously. This is laudable -- maybe even honorable. And it just makes sense. Is sociology really any different from making meatballs? What is comparative literature if not the unrolled bracciole of human experience?

My advice: wake up early tomorrow morning and start the coffee. Take the Italian bread left over from today, cut it up and put it into the toaster oven. Have butter and marmalade at the ready. Relax and read an art history textbook. Envision sausage and Locatelli cheese, not just now, but thru the ages. Do what comes naturally. Not only will you be a better student, you'll be a fuller human being.

I'm having a hard time thinking of a way to balance out my work ethic. You see, I have two more days of school, and they're exam days. How am I going to make the sauce and study at the same time? This is truly bothering me... I'm thinking the best way would be to study all tonight and dedicate my precious sunday morning to making sauce, just like every week. The thought of sunday morning making macaroni, is pretty irresistible. I wait all week to do this. Just to use the awesome phrases, "Clean the basil leaf," "Put the water on," and the infamous "Who's eating with us?" Not everyone is cut out to make this delicacy, it takes great concentration and discipline, just so that you can be there at the crucial moment ...and not "kill it." There is nobody to help me. Anyone who is also a witness to my home life will agree, that Vin likes to watch sunday morning talk shows that rot the brain , which include: Meet The Press, and local crap, y'know the ones I'm talking about: "Leroy hits me because he loves me." He spends the whole morning point at the tv and yelling, "Can you believe this guy?"

I'll have to takes some more time to think this one out, If any of you have some ideas as how I can fix this problem, I will greatly appreciate it .

Oh, and Joe I think I'd be a little Orzo.

Good baseball ideas, all of them. I'm off to the kitchen now to make myself a cup of turkish coffee (which often resembles Franco-American brown gravy -- but tastes much better). Besides, the boys want applesauce. And juice. They already ate their lunch (which consisted of chicken, shredded cheese, strawberries, pineapple, and cherries -- but alas, no meatball hero).

The Microsoft-AOL antitrust settlement, which I first viewed as a WTF, then as an OMG, is now settling in as a ROTFLMAO. I've sympathized with Microsoft throughout its lengthy antitrust woes - based on my twin beliefs that big business ain't beanbag, and that most antitrust laws are unconstitutionally vague. But this deal is pure jujitsu. It takes the year's-old thrust of an antitrust accusation, creates virtue by appearing to accept responsibility, and spreads a fog of legality around the creation of a new monopolistic vertical combination. Ingenius!

My take: if it weren't for the antitrust litigation, Microsoft would've been more than happy to pony up at least $759M to have AOL lock in use their wares -- years ago. Why didn't they? Because they'd be accused of antitrust violations! So how can they do the deal? Make it part of an antitrust settlement!

Not that I'm all that worried about the boost to Microsoft: I don't see .WMA replacing .MP3 (could this be the deal's ultimate objective?); we could all live easily (better, perhaps?) without Time Warner digital content; and who cares which browser comes packaged with the enormity that AOL ships as connectivity software. Still, from a lawyering point of view, I am impressed by this deal. Very impressed.

Big Head
Blog? What exactly does that mean? Speaking of a mighty wind that sounds more like what this thing should be called. You want nicknames. Just think......If I were a Macaroni what would i be? Strong like the rigatoni or twisted like the rotini. I think neither.....i think I would be GNOCCHI and john would be either wagon wheel or tubatini. Steve is an acini pepe. Any suggestions? I know Joe would be Fusilli.

All different macaronis but all made of the same stuff. I miss Spumoni Gardens spumoni ices. Tell uncle Vito to say hello to Miss Sussman.

We're going to need a way to distinguish the Nebraska Joe Mastandrea from the Florida Joe Mastandrea. Is there a nickname setting we can mess with? (Not that their posts will be in any way similar.)

Just got the boys to bed (tho not quite asleep yet). We performed the nightly ritual that Alane and John Paul have somehow developed: a lion story, an elephant story, and a song. "Tell me a little lion story, Daddy," is what drew me into their room (a little past their bedtime, owing to their long nap earlier). So I made up a lion story. "Now an elephant story!" I obliged. "Now a song!" So we sang "Barbecue" by Brak. Then "On the Street," and finally Beeflog." John Paul can sing along almost the whole way thru each. When we were done, he said "Ok, you go now." So I left. And now I blog.

On the street!
On the street,
I think there's something stuck on my feet.
Life is great,
I feel grand
I could eat a whole pound of ham!
Hello, Mr. Sidewalk,
How'd you get so long?
Do you mind being under me?
As I sing this happy song
On the street!

Monsters Inc? Let me know how 'Looking for Nemo' is, I might have to see it in a theater. I saw 'Daddy Day Care' and 'A Mighty Wind' this month, which sets a "most new movies in theaters in a month" record for me. Congrats on the tuner card, I've had one since I built my 400 MHz Pentium box at home a few years ago. I have one at work, too. In fact, I used it this morning to capture a photo from videotape of a disaster drill we ran last year. It's going into a PowerPoint I'll use to instruct volunteers before the next major drill in July. Yawn. You haven't been bored until you've been bored in the midwest. Congrats on the blog, this is all new to me. Then again, you could probably tell that I've never done this before.

I've sent e-mails out to a handful of Mastandreas to get this thing started. Though I'm sure I can come up with enough ranting to keep this page full. We shall see who takes the bait. Right now I'm done with dinner (pork chops in mustard sauce, white rice and peas -- Mojo ate while Cookie continues to snooze). Now we've got Monsters Inc. playing on the TV, so I gotta watch the news thru my PC. No problem, since I got that TV-tuner card.

It's Daddy Day Care this weekend for me. Not the movie, but the cruel reality. Took the boys to the church playgroup this morning, then to the sandbox out back, then into the house and after them for various clean-ups and skirmishes. Right now they are napping (how did I pull that off?), so I've decided to start a blog. Makes sense, eh?