If I've seemed morose lately, my best and only excuse is that I turn 40 a week from tonight. This blog has been a good escape for me, but lately I seem to feel that posting is a chore. I'm not that into the recall election. I would rather watch sports than write about them. My law practice, such as it is, doesn't keep me occupied often enough, and there is only so much I can write about the local bankruptcy court. As hard as I try, I just can't motivate myself to have a take on those issues that seem to obsess others, like whether the Bush Administration is deliberately exposing CIA agents, or whether Howard Kurtz is a tool.

One of the nice things about my blog is that it's small; if "Smythe's World" were to disappear tomorrow, few would notice. So maybe I'll just give this site a rest for awhile. Or maybe not; it really depends on whether my sense of outrage can triumph over my feelings of melancholy and entropy.

For those of you who are interested, a b-day party is being thrown on my behalf (dig that passive tense !!) at 14-Below, in Santa Monica this Saturday. Hopefully, the hosts are providing an open bar, and since anyone who visits this site is a friend of mine, I would be honored if you ventured out that evening. I'll be the bald man in the corner, getting blind-drunk, and picking fights with younger men.