I showed up at 7:30 and caught Davey Von Bohlen hanging out before sound checks. He was a terribly nice guy. He told me a couple stories about the times he had been in Champaign and Collinsville, and even signed my business card for me (it was all I had on me at the time). The show finally started at 8:45, and after three ok bands, Maritime headed up. My friends Ashley, Kevin and Joel and I grabbed a spot right in front of the stage and enjoyed the rest of the show. Afterwards, I bought a t-shirt and a copy of their newest album. Even though they were busy tearing down their equipment, each member of the band happily took a little bit of time to sign my CD and thank me for coming out. Incredibly nice guys.

It's an absolutely terrifying experience the first time out. He stands directly in front of you, leaning on whatever chair is nearest. He slides his glasses down the bridge of his nose, points a pair of fingers, and fires questions like tracer rounds. The first day of class saw one girl nearly break down in tears under his tireless grilling.

When he looked around the class today for the student who would state the facts of Rasul v. Bush (2004), I had a sinking feeling that it would be my turn. He went up and down the rows asking if everyone had done a case, and with the exception of one lucky guy in the corner (how he was skipped, I'll never know), I was the only on who hadn't.

5:36 p.m.
Bud Light's fire breathing commercial came on. Kind of funny. Got a buzzed giggle out of me, but Alan is refraining since the agency he's applied for has the Miller account.

Audi's Godfather inspired commercial prompted Alan to declare that he has a "semi", which I can only assume refers to erections, which thoroughly creeps me out.

5:42 p.m.
Eli Manning has decided he is, in fact, an NFL quarterback, and has assembled what looks to be a scoring drive. This is a shock.

5:45 p.m.
Really? The Night At The Roxbury theme? What is this, 1997? Alan and I don't approve of a worn out meme for a bad campaign. We don't want to wake up, Pepsi. We don't want your terrible product. Red Bull does what we need it to do, and their commercials don't have Chris Kattan.

5:48 p.m.
Another Bud Light commercial. Guys sneaking things in to a party concealed in cheese and chablis. Yawn. Yeah, we get it. Guys like beer.

5:49 p.m.
The Under Armour commercial wanted to be Apple's 1984 commercial, but didn't have the stones. I doubt anyone will be talking about this after... now.

By the way, what happened to when stars on the team would introduce the defensive and offensive lines? The lineup just scrolls on the bottom now like the stock exchange. I guess Fox thinks we need to hear more of Troy Aikman.

5:52 p.m.
Fox just reminded us to log onto MySpace to watch the commercials we've missed. Alan says, "No thanks, MySpace.com." But seriously, who goes to MySpace any more?

5:59 p.m.
The Bridgestone commercial started off like a Geico commercial I had seen years ago, then got kind of funny, but ultimately sucked. We lost interest somewhere between the squirrel living and the end.

And Alan doesn't like having to read during a Super Bowl Commercial. This commercial for the Doritos and iTunes marriage blows. We also think the pairing is quite odd, and probably shouldn't have happened
More to come as the commercials progress.

I'm really sick of American Idol. Who's with me? I know ratings are down, so it's justified, but damn.

6:03 p.m.
Derek Jeter walking through the street, blah blah blah. Is anybody else tired of seeing Peyton do commercials?

GoDaddy's commercial to generate web traffic isn't working for me. I'd rather see Danica Patrick right now instead of having to navigate to your page. Thanks.

Dell's product Red commercial seemed interesting for the 15 seconds it was on, but like Alan says, "Such a cool commercial for such an inferior product".

6:05 p.m.
FedEx delivers in a big way with the carrier pigeons wreaking havoc on the city. Alan and I agree that it's the best so far. Not ground breaking, but pretty funny.

Death Match Cars.com, got a chortle, but nothing to write home about.

Tide's My Talking Stain seems pointless, too. I don't want to visit your website. I'm sorry. Compel me to go there. Give me an incentive.

As a side note, where did Eli Manning come from? Give him better play clock management, and he might be an actual big-boy quarterback. Wait. As I write this, he throws an interception. Hold the Eli train.

6:14 p.m.
Budweiser uses the under-played Rocky Montage theme for poor Hank the horse. This will probably play to the "Nickelback" demographic. In other words, I didn't like it, but smart choice by Budweiser. Also, Iron Man looks cool, and I don't care what you say.

6:19 p.m.
The best thing about the Garmin commercial was Napoleon's tiny horse. This Super Bowl has lacked awesome commercials thus far. Wow us, ad agencies. Wow us.

6:23 p.m.
Although I liked CareerBuilder's commercial, Alan's only comment was "CRT monitors? Is this the 1996 Super Bowl?" Neither one of us thought the Thriller Life Water commercial was even mildly entertaining. Companies: cute animals are no longer funny. Maybe try people getting hurt again.

6:29 p.m.
Oh, Carlos Mencia, why do you still have a job? Budweiser: please do not encourage Carlos Mencia.

6:39 p.m.
The Planters commercial with that hosebeast causing a ruckus was pretty hilarious, especially the cleavage shot. Good job, planters.

The T-Mobile fave five thing wasn't bad, either.

6:42 p.m.
Please get hit by a car, Justin Timberlake. Nope. Drown? Nope. It started off well because I thought he was going to die, and then it got lame because he lived. Oh well. Pepsi, you've failed me twice. Please go consult with Planters.

Oh, and Doritos, you've been ignored all night.

7:30 p.m.
And we're back. Thank you, racist pandas, for making the best unintentionally funny commercial in history.

Oh, and Shaq riding a horse for the win. I love Vitamin Water commercials.
More to come as the night moves on.

7:37p.m.
The Bud Light commercials have been extremely disappointing this year, but the caveman one had a redeeming second or two at the end with the bottle opener.

CareerBuilder's second was pretty good. Take a hint, Bridgestone. Cute animals getting eaten are way more funny than cute animals that live.

7:52 p.m.
And the Bud Light miss parade marches on. Gift of flight, not funny. Sorry, Bud Light.

8:02 p.m.
The NFL kind of saves part of the day with their Chester Pitts commercial. Cute.com, as Alan would say. I don't know what that means, but it sounded funny.

The new Coke commercial wasn't too bad, although a nice twist would have been if the monster from Cloverfield had gotten the Coke bottle in the end. Who cares about Charlie Brown anymore?

8:12 p.m.
James Carville and Bill Frist sharing a day on the town is an awesome commercial. I'm a little surprised Frist was down for it, but I'm glad he was. Coke is coming in as the darkhorse to win this year's "Most Consistently Interesting Commercial" award.

8:27 p.m.
Bud Light finally throws a strike with the new Will Ferrel movie promo. Semi-pro looks decent, to say the least, and any commercial that ends with "suck one" is at least mentionable in my book.

I spent the next hour watching Wired, CrunchGear and http://www.macrumors.com for updates on the MacWorld keynote, and got pretty excited when the new MacBook Air was introduced.

Nick and I texted back and forth, as did two of my friends who work at the Apple Store on campus, which was broadcasting the entire keynote. Later, I would come home and hurriedly install the iPhone update so I could make it to class on time. When I commented on the new firmware update's features at CrunchGear and was asked to post pictures, I obliged. CrunchGear's editor, John Biggs, later asked for me to do an iChat interview that now lives here.

But it was later that I realized how much of an impact today's updates had on my friends. A bunch of people changed their away messages to "1.1.3" or something to do with the MacBook Air. One conversation online was interrupted by a, "hold on, iTunes needs a reboot". It's the first time I've really seen how one company can affect so many people all at one time. It's pretty cool.

Since Music Biz was such a big part of my life for so long, it's hard to see it go. It was one of those jobs that I'll tell my kids about, and probably a job that they'll never have the pleasure of experiencing. The people at the indie stores like Music Biz end up being like a second family, and with the exception of Krannert (and even then, just barely) I've never actually felt happy to go to work every day.

"Here at this happy time of year, a few confessions from my beating heart. I have no freaking clue who Nick and Jessica are.

I see them on the cover of People and Us constantly when I'm buying my dog biscuits. I still don't know. I often ask the checkers at the grocery stores who they are. They don't know who Nick and Jessica are, either. Who are they? Will it change my life if I know who they are and why they've broken up? Why are they so darned important? I don't know who Lindsay Lohan is either, and I don't care at all about Tom Cruise's baby. Am I going to be called before a Senate committee and asked if I'm a subversive? Maybe. But I just have no clue who Nick and Jessica are. Is this what it means to be no longer young? Hmm, not so bad.

Next confession: I am a Jew and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish, and it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautifully lit-up, bejeweled trees Christmas trees.I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against. That's what they are — Christmas trees. It doesn't bother me a bit when people say 'Merry Christmas' to me. I don't think they're slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. I shows that we're all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year.

It doesn't bother me one bit that there's a manger scene on display at a key intersection at my beach house in Malibu. If people want a crèche, fine. The menorah a few hundred yards away is fine, too. I do not like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it being shoved down my throat. Or maybe I can put it another way. Where did the idea come from that we should worship Nick and Jessica and aren't allowed to worship God as we understand him? I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where Nick and Jessica came from and where the America we used to know went to."

Wellllll... that about covers it.

So many things have happened this summer. The great, and simultaneously bad, thing about the end of the summer is thinking back on all the things that happened- or should have happened. I took the LSAT, got lost in Chicago, got together and broke up with a girl, missed what I think may have been a great opportunity (I think it was, anyway. Details are still hazy.), saw a fireworks show in someone's back yard that completely outclassed some of the cities' fireworks I've seen, and met some great people. Busy summer.

Friday I'll leave for Disney. Carl, Greg, Eric and I have been planning it forever. I know I'll be excited for the trip, but I know I'm going to miss Motorola and its people.

Which is not to say that it's unrewarding. I've learned a lot so far about volatility and instability in a Fortune 500 company. When talking to a host in the newly-opened Innovation Center the other day, I was dumbfounded to learn that his co-worker (who I had talked to a day before) had been the most recent victim of Motorola's workforce reduction. I imagine that there are thousands of stories just like mine all around the company.

In any case, I can't imagine a more productive or educational use of my summer. My experiences so far have been nothing short of fantastic and unbelievable. It's still incredibly humbling to walk out of the elevator into the hallway of the seventh floor and look through the Motorola "batwing" logos that adorn each conference room door and see the faint outline of Chicago in the distance. It is a reminder of how lucky I really am to have such an opportunity, and how it just as easily could have been someone else feeling this way instead of me.

It's a nice feeling. After a couple weeks where it seemed that nothing was really going the way that I'd like it to, here is a pretty big win. And it's amazing how it seemed to have sparked a pretty nice week, too.

Over the next four months, I imagine that the Motorola category will expand at a rate comparable to the experiences I have while working there. Check them out, comment, discuss amongst yourselves.

1. Small Sins/Big Within::Small Sins::Small Sins
2. All Is Full Of Love (Greatest Hits Remix)::Björk::Björk's Greatest Hits
3. Pretty Ugly Before::Elliott Smith::From A Basement On A Hill
4. Ocean Of Noise::The Arcade Fire::Neon Bible
5. Misread::Kings Of Convenience::Riot On An Empty Street
6. Going Missing::Maxïmo Park::Stranger Than Fiction Soundtrack
7. Is This Love?::Bob Marley And The Wailers::Legend
8. God Bless Mom::The Frames::Set List
9. West End Girls::Pet Shop Boys::Discography
10. My Curse::The Afghan Whigs::Gentlemen