I've come to terms with the fact that I have rolling obsessions. When I'm into something, it consumes me until the itch is scratched, and then I can leave it for a while and move onto something else. I try to keep these obsessions in check — rein them in as best I can — and live my life as normally as most humans (at least pretend to) do. I'll dig on books and lock myself in my apartment or a coffee shop until the three or four books I have to read get read. I'll watch three seasons omnibus fashion on DVD because that's the best way to find out what happens next (big love/hate shout-out to Netflix for this). Check-off the same for movies, and less so for sports or the occasional video game, and you get a pretty good picture of what it's like to be me on a day-to-day basis. Throw in a hot/cold obsession that I'm trying to wrestle to a happy medium, and you get nary a boring day.

Politics is one of my biggies as well. Since I spent about 10 of the last 10 months obsessing over the "most important election in our lifetimes" (please say it wasn't so...) I'm more than happy to spend a little down time rocking out my first novel, amping up Dumpster Bust: The Blog, hanging out with the wife, family, and dog, etc.

Nonetheless, when I want the occasional political fix nowadays, there are several ways to go. Online is among the best, as it's possible to scan many different points of view and get a read on what the big (and little) stories are with the right (read: left) click of the mouse. Newspapers are still great, though why pay when you get almost everything out there (with updates!) online. As sad as it is to say — I grew up in a coffee and paper household (Newsday, Long Island edition) I'll only buy a newspaper when I'm at a coffee shop or on the road and in real need of a fix.

I find a lot of news on television to be a waste of time. Either it's trite and watered down (the Networks) or Talking Heads yapping so that you wish your head would explode as in Scanners (most of cable).

All in Dumpster Bust land now cry in unison:

Get to the bloody point, man!

Okay. I've always had an odd affinity for Chris Matthews, host of Hardball on MSNBC. First, the program focuses solely on politics, which is a rarity nowadays (see: the billion programs where you can get all your Kobe/Michael Jackson/celeb infotainment/regular infotainment/Mike Tyson/Laci Peterson news). Second, and most important, the guy has an unabashed, boy-like enthusiasm for politics as game and politics as (deadly serious) sport.