I am happily settled in Columbia, Mo., and my move couldn't have gone better. My car, which has driven all across California several times as well as all the way from Ohio, arrived safe in sound in the same state from which I embarked nearly three years ago. The move was kind of hectic but after some TLC, my new apartment is positively fabulous. I'm getting oriented and trying to find my footing here academically and professionally, but for the most part things are going well. I should be really excited, but to be honest, I feel so subdued. It's just me, after all. I'm just waiting for the fun to begin.

One thing I've been working on for several weeks is a new blog. I'm moving from MovableType to WordPress and I'm launching this week. I plan on bloggin a lot more (I know, you've heard that before), but this time I mean it. I have more time, I think, and I am anxious to sharpen my blogging prowess. I want to become a more respected voice on politics, news, film and all the crazy junk I write about. And I want to grow in a lot of other different ways too. We'll see, I guess.

Anyways, thanks for reading and hopefully you'll be reading more and more! Expect some downtime, but in no time everything will be up at nicksblog.net.

Thanks!

Three years ago, I began a new chapter in my life when my college experience ended. On Aug. 1, 2005, I left Athens, Ga., to live with my mother in Ohio. It was a difficult change to make but it eventually led me to my new home, Visalia, Calif., where I began my career as a journalist, serving as copy editor at the Visalia Times-Delta newspaper. After over a year of work on the copy desk, I began to show an interest in multimedia, prompting my editors to create for me the position of multimedia reporter — a position which afforded me the opportunity to produce video content for our newspaper's Web site. I have been in that position for over a year now, leading me to my next big change. It's August 1 again and I'm going home — again.

It's kind of a rush, to say the least. I find it rather ironic that this point of the year beckons me back to Ohio. Though it is true that I am moving to Columbia, Mo., to attend graduate school at the University of Missouri-Columbia, I am traveling to Ohio to pick up my mother, who will help me move into my apartment in Columbia. The journey begins at 5 p.m. August 1, when my employment with Gannett ends. I will drive to Las Vegas to see my college friends Padmini and Braniff. I will spend Saturday with them before embarking early Sunday morning for however far I can drive down Interstate 70 in one day. On Monday I assume I'll be in Kansas, on my way to Ohio. I'll drive past Columbia and into St. Louis, where I will pick up my sister. Together we will go to Brookville, Ohio, where we will rest and wait for my mother to finish her night shift at the hospital. Tuesday afternoon, the three of us will head back to Columbia, get a hotel room and rest before moving the things I packed this past weekend into my new apartment.

So, yeah, that's the plan. It's really ending. My time in California has come to an end. More experiences in this wonderful state are to come, I am certain, but this detour is necessary. Graduate school, the next chapter in my life, will afford me many opportunities that Gannett and the Times-Delta will not. I will have the opportunity to develop my new media skills beyond the editing prowess and content management understanding I've mastered at the Times-Delta. My dedication to coding and Web design will be re-invested and invigorated — at least I hope. I aim to be finishing up an internship at a major media or new media corporation or Web site by this time next year. I will be cultivating the connections necessary to acheive the career goals I have set for myself in the next 5 years. Hopefully, by the end of that time, I will have re-located to my dream location — Washington D.C. — covering politics and employing my skills for a company that values my skills, intelligence and experience.

That's the dream. And it all starts today, August 1. I have been waiting for this day long before I knew it would come this day, this time, this year. I always knew I would be leaving the Times-Delta. I knew that the Central Valley was not the place for me. I love the mountains, I love the Sierra. I will miss Yosemite. I will miss the Central Coast. Los Angeles will alas quake without me. And I will continue to curse San Francisco, who not only litters my car window with parking tickets but exceeds in thwarting my flirtations with alternative transportation (translation: My bike was stolen last month on Market Street in San Francisco). But all of this is not enough to make me stay. I must move on. Finishing graduate school is something I have known I must do. Now the time has come.

As for my blog, big changes are coming. More on that when I make it a little further from California.

Thanks for reading. See you on the other side.

I have just learned some very troubling news...

The Associated Press

LOS ANGELES — Estelle Getty’s son says the 84-year-old actress has died

I will write more later. Right now I want to curl up with my favorite season of "The Golden Girls" and Netflix "Mannequin."

She will be missed!

Our lives are full of different distractions that bring us joy. I have been lucky to stumble on a few, many of which continue to distract and amuse. I enjoy listening to the band garbage, though they remain in what seems like an endless hiatus. I have seven seasons of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" to watch here at home, though a new comic book series named "Season 8" has continued this obsession for me. But, for the last six years, I have enjoyed a different kind of pop culture delight: Inuyasha.

It started for me as a late night excuse to avoid homework. I was still a college student at the University of Georgia and like many of my peers I would stay up late watching Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. At 12:30 a.m. every night, Inuyasha would come on, and as much as I resisted, I soon became sucked into the story. The anime cartoon chronicled the adventures of Kagome, a middle school student in Tokyo who stumbles upon the entryway to a door to the past — the feudal era of Japan, 500 years in the past to be exact. There she resurrects a half demon, Inuyasha, and together they go on a "collect the pieces" quest, which is an often repeated story gimmick in Japanese manga.

Well, it's been over 11 years and about two years since I picked up on the continuation of the manga version of Inuyasha, which is the ongoing storyline that the anime was adapted from. The past nine weeks have brought us the final volume of Inuyasha, where Naraku is finally killed and the Shikon Jewel is dealt with once and for all. It's sad to see the series end, but it's so refreshing that such a long standing story can be given such an appropriate send off.

Basically, if you're looking to be spoiled, Inuyasha and Kagome wish away the Shikon Jewel only to be separated by time again. As Kaede says, Kagome appeared with the Shikon Jewel and she disappeared with it as well. Three years pass and Kagome graduates high school, considering her future. She realizes why she has been unable to reach Inuyasha across time and makes the difficult decision in her heart to give up her live in the modern era and live permanently in feudal Japan.

The manga ends there, with epilogues revealing that Sango and Miroku marry and have three kids, Kohaku beginning to develop into a powerful demon slayer and Shippou training to become a powerful fox demon. The cutest part of the final chapter would have to be Kagome's heartfelt exchange with Inuyasha's older brother Sesshomaru, where she calls him brother-in-law. This is the perhaps the chapter's only clear implication that Kagome and Inuyasha have indeed decided to live on together romantically (though there other obvious implications that lead to this assumption). We're not given a kiss between the two, but their characters are allowed to drift happily into the sunset.

It might not be my chosen ending, but I'll take it. I always hoped that Naraku, the series antagonist, would live on forever coveting the Shikon Jewel. Kikyo, Inuyasha's resurrected ex-girlfriend, would curse him and drag him willingly to hell, the only place they could ever be together. Shattered and destroyed, Kagome would return to her time broken hearted, but forever remembering Inuyasha and regretting her sad fate. Thankfully for the fangirls and boys, that didn't happen.

I actually have a couple poems I wrote about the series Inuyasha, which I hope sometime I will bring to the surface of this incarnation of my Web site. For now, I've finally begun work on what may be my final poem about the anime/manga series, chronicling Kikyo's perspective of my vision of the fates of the series protagonists. I may save that for this blog or perhaps for my next blog's introduction. Who knows, we'll see.

Anyways, that's my sendoff for Inuyasha. It was a fabulous series and I will miss looking forward to a new and exciting chapter every week. Now what am I going to do!

Today there was a bombshell: Naraku, the villainous antagonist in the Inuyasha manga, has been annihilated! With one shot of Kagome's arrow, he's been finished.

Oh, yeah, I think it was a few months ago that I announced the untimely death of Kohaku, the one-time protector of the final Shikon jewel shard. Well, it turns out the little bastard survived (some loophole involving a dead miko's enduring light).

Well, Naraku is definitely dead, right? Well, that's hard to say. The coolest thing about Naraku's death is it appears he's taking Kagome with him. A few issues back, Naraku's last remaining detachment, Byakuya of the Mirage, used his mysterious blade to cut Kagome. It had recently absorbed Inuyasha's Meidou attack, which dispatches an enemy straight to hell. Mysteriously, Byakuya's attack didn't do anything. For the past three issues, everyone has been waiting anxiously to see what wound he had inflicted.

As Naraku fought desperately against the combined force of the Inutachi and Sesshomaru, he finally faced the purity of Kagome's arrow, allowing his body and the jewel to at last be purified. Earlier in the battle, Kagome mused about the true purpose of Naraku's quest to gather the jewel shards. What wish did he want the jewel the grant? The woman he truly wanted, Kikyo, was dead, so that wish was not granted.

As Naraku hovered above the well through which Kagome magically appeared, returning the jewel to the feudal era, he conceded that his true wish could not be granted, so he made another. His wish would be granted the moment his life was extinguished. As it turns out, Byakuya's strike was integral to this wish: With Naraku dead, a path to hell opens behind Kagome.

OMG, how cool is this manga? This is freakin' Hades and Persephone! What is going to happen next?!

I'll be sure to tell. The manga is on the verge of ending, possibly in the next two months! Sadness :'(

I've been dying to see this movie for months. And finally, the celluloid gods smiled down on me.

See, I live in a "small town." Well, it's not that small really, but it's far from what some might consider civilized society. I usually associate this with decent concert venues, a multitude of delicious restaurant fare (especially vegetarian) and most importantly a decent independent cinema. I mean, come on! I lived in Dayton, Ohio, the armpit of American civilization (and interestingly enough my birthplace), and even they had a kick ass independent cinema!

Well, Visalia finally brought a decent independent film to town. At the beginning of the month, Control came to town. For two nights only, the black-and-white film by noted photographer Anton Corbijn, came to Visalia and I was front and center during the first showing. The film chronicles the formation and demise of the band Joy Division, a post-punk British rock band whose influence can be heard in many of the artists that climbed to prominance in the 80s and beyond.

The film focuses its narrative on Ian Curtis, the ill-fated lead singer who desperately wants to escape his drab life in Macclesfield, England. Soon after joining musicians Peter Hook and Bernard Sumner, Curtis finds what might be his golden ticket. After adding Stephen Morris and dropping the name Warsaw, Joy Division is born. The band rocket to success in England amongst contemporaries as the Sex Pistols and Iggy Pop.

Things turn sour for Curtis as he is diagnosed with epilepsy and has to undergo a brutal drug regiment in order to handle the demanding tour schedule of Joy Division. He also becomes swept up in a love affair with journalist Annik Honoré, causing significant strain with is wife Deborah Woodruff, who lives in Macclesfield with her and Curtis' daughter.

Of course, the plot of the film spirals to inevitable end of Curtis, who hangs himself on the eve of the band's American tour. This tragedy was a great blow to music, as the world will never know what potential Curtis would have had if he could have risen above his internal struggles. So true for other musicians as well.

What separates this film from the parade of other musical biopics is Corbijn, who has photographed and filmed musicians for much of his professional career. Responsible for album art such as U2's Joshua Tree and music videos such as Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus," Corbijn makes this film just about the coolest I have every seen. The first half of the film feels like a photographer's portfolio, as even routine scenes of crossing the street are infused with such artistry that would take your breath away.

But the best thing about this film is the music. Not only does it introduce you to the wonderful band Joy Division, but also the artists which influenced the band's development. Oh, to live at the dawn of the 80s. I can think of so many worse things. If you have any sense in your brain, this will bring you back to the film over and over again.

The demise of Joy Division led Hook, Sumner and Morris to form New Order, which carried on in the shadow of Joy Division, influencing and changing the course of music in its own right. I've always been a fan of New Order, but not so much Joy Division. Happily, after this film, that has changed.

Pick this one up, definitely.

If only I could publish every little thing that came through our newspaper Web site. Such as this?

The following review was submitted for the site Gumbo Chinese Express.

Title: THUG MAN GIVIN THAT 411
Rating: 1
Pros: NO PROS
Cons: ERTHING

DAM DIS PACE AINT THUG LIKE ME MAN I BE THUG TO THE RUG AND THE SPACE OUT THERE ABOVE THE BLUE SKY GET THAT MAN THIS PLACE GOT RATS AND SNITCHS TELLEN THE PO PO ON ME

Reviewer Name: thug man

Those dang snitchs.