The sound of democracy is silent

Years and years ago when I worked for a weekly paper on the Southwest side of Chicago, I wrote a short editorial on the one-year anniversary of 9/11 that spoke of my trip to Washington, DC and how I was impressed by how little had changed in the past year.

I wrote of sitting on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in the middle of the night with friends and how comforting that was in light of increased security at the airports and around the country in general. While it seems strange, I was most proud of the country when I was able to just hang out without an armed guard in sight.

With today's mid-term elections, the country is in the midst of a new round of growing pains as an energized electorate (in some sections of the country and the economic class structure) heads to the polls to shake up the Congressional makeup. It's foolish to deny that this is at least partly a reflection of how citizens feel about the Obama administration, whether you agree with the candidates and their platforms or not.

One important thing for me to keep in mind today is that despite the anger and opposing view points about what is wrong and how to fix it, on the whole this election should play out quietly and without violence in the context of our nation's history and when compared to contemporary attempts at democracy around the world.

When you go to your polling place today, chances are you will not be greeted by the National Guard, but at most a local police officer there to quell sandbox fights between supporters and to make sure no one is placing signs too close to the entryways. Compared to the fall of 1886, "when masked intruders burst into the room to seize the ballot box" from a black district in Texas (Donald Nieman, Equality Deferred), this year will be downright civil.

It's worth remembering that while the rhetoric gets ramped up at election time - my home state of Illinois featured an ad from the incumbent governor calling his opponent a puppy killer this year - that it has been worse in the past. Not that it makes things any more palatable or acceptable, but I can take a small degree of solace in knowing that we're continuing to improve the process. I got a small degree of satisfaction in voting this year with the benefit of a better perspective on our country's long history of exclusion at the ballot box and knowing that while over half the country will not vote, most of them could if they wanted to.

Look at any of the secondary stories today for the county's major newspapers and they will have at least one editorial or side bar on what voters have to go through in other countries to vote. Lines around the block. Threats and actual, physical violence. Widespread fraud.

Meanwhile in the United States, we will squawk about the process and the lack of civility. We will bemoan the role of the 24 hour news cycle and attack ads that annoy us as we wait out the commercial breaks of Dancing With the Stars. We will wring our hands over the gridlock in Washington and complain to too much or too little money is being spent to further our ideas of what we should offer our citizens at all levels of government. But aside from minor scuffles, I can't imagine there will be any sort of substantial violence as a result of the election.

Looking at the box score at the end of the night, we will still be miles ahead of most of the world and of our own history. Personally, my candidates will lose in my home district in the suburbs of Chicago. I've known this since I moved last October and considering I'm in the liberal minority of my community's residents, I can't really find fault in my representative's decisions to vote the way they will in Congress.

However, I also know that I will not suffer for my decisions made at the polls. No one has come to my house to threaten my family (the only contact has been the incumbent's campaign literature being left quietly on the handle of my garage door) for voting the way I do. I was not detained as a registered Democrat while I went to work this morning and there will be no rioting tonight as Republicans retake control. There will be nothing approaching the violence seen in Texas in 1886 and there will be no lynchings tonight in the town square. When the votes are counted, I will not be singled out or questioned by those in power. Most importantly for the United States in the big picture of our personal history, no one will be turned away from the polling places based strictly on race. While the 15th Amendment guarantees that, it's worth noting that it took nearly a century for that to become a reality.

We will all participate in (or be subjected to) the post-mortem analysis about what this all means for the country and how the mood of the electorate has changed since 2008. We will hope that things get better for ourselves and our neighbors, that the economy will get back on track, that our property will rise in value and that jobs will come back to a level that people will be able to provide for themselves and their families. While these are very serious problems for those impacted by unemployment or health care costs, these are what's known in the business as "rich people problems."

There are very real problems facing our nation and actual issues of inequality based on race, sexual orientation and class, but they are not at a point where any level of government is going to go knocking on doors tonight to round up people on either side of the issue.

We all want something better and assume that our views are the best way to achieve that end. We can all agree that there is room for improvement and that we have a long way to go before we reach our personal utopian dreams of what our government can achieve and how much or how little can be done for its citizens. In the meantime we'll just have to make due with a stable society that is covering the basics so well that we can focus on those secondary issues of policy and politeness.

(Image from SacBee.com)

Are we there yet?

Hopped up on the first episode of "When We Left Earth" I was pretty excited to see a story yesterday about missions to Mars. While most of these stories center on the costs, technological shortcomings or the existential question of exactly why we'd want to do that, this story had a different angle:

What if we planned a mission to Mars, but didn't have to worry about the return trip?

It's an interesting idea to kick around, but brings up a host of questions and related issues. How do you hold someone to that kind of "til death" contract? Assuming the crew is needed for decades on end, how do you account for changes of heart? What if there's an unplanned pregnancy en route? How long would the line of volunteers really be for a mission like this? How many of those volunteers would really be viable candidates? Worst yet, what if something goes wrong and there's no viable escape plan to leave Mars and return to Earth safely?

While this is certainly an interesting shift in the thought process, it seems like costs saved by planning a one-way mission would quickly be eaten up in research and development for creating a foolproof mission that would create a sustainable colony in space.

The logical thing to do seems to be a smaller colony on the moon first where there could be some proof of concept testing done with a shorter range if there's an issue. Plus, how much fun would it be to watch that happen? I'd be first in line for a telescope.

(Image from: Commons.Wikimedia.org)

Wait, you're not any smarter than I am, are you?

I got one of those "remember when" text messages the other night when Neal checked in to ask if I remembered an ill-fated late night bike ride to try and get a new Dave Matthews album in college. It's worth pointing out that we had no really solid idea of where the Best Buy was in Green Bay, my bike and fitness levels should have precluded me from trying this and it was the middle of the night when we started out (midnight CD release). Neal got it right when he concluded, "We're lucky we're not dead after that."

He has a totally valid point.

It's interesting to look back now and see just how determined we were to be the first kids in our dorm to grab the new album (Before These Crowded Streets, for the record). I have two, maybe three DMB songs on my iPod right now and really, I can't think of many reasons to be anywhere at midnight any more, aside from on my couch watching a movie or playing video games. That's just the hard driving rock and roll lifestyle I now lead.

The piece I've really been rolling around for some time now (that's where I was in the 18 months since the last post here!) is just how much your perception shifts as you get older and have the pleasure (or displeasure) of hanging around with musicians.

There's a definite point where it hits you that your buddy's band, which means so very much to at least a handful of people, is very likely full of shit. A few seconds pass and it hits you that your favorite bands are likely similarly full of shit.

Let me explain.

You get a new album and you furiously tear the plastic off and (if you're like me) cram that sucker into your car's CD player as fast as you can, sometimes with those stupid security stickers still attached to the CD itself. Then, you wait for something to grab you.

I normally don't know songs word for word when I buy a CD anymore, but I track down the songs that appeal to me musically, then start figuring out just what the hell they're singing about. It's an odd little afterthought in most cases.

Rarely do I pore over music like I used to, finding meaning in the lyrics that will give me clues about how to deal with a girlfriend or make it through the week or effectively fight the man. In short, I'm a little let down that music doesn't hit me like it used to. Granted, it hits me differently now, so I'm not a total robot, but I no longer turn to recording artists to explain my life to me or offer glimpses as to what it all means.

This is for the better, as hours spent in the company of musicians has taught me that they're by no means any wiser to the mysteries of the world and humanity than I am in most cases (in some cases, they are much, much dumber). It stops me just short of feeling sheepish for giving the idols of my teenage years so much credibility in my own mind, but I now find it oddly soothing when I catch a lyric or verse that makes me feel accepted or vindicated.

In short, I've gone from listening to albums for the answers to listening to them for the echoes.

Songs can now remind me of times in my life, specific people or trips or moments that we try to hold onto. "That's the song I listened to a lot when I drove to the hospital to see my son when he was born (Roger Clyne, Contraband). That's the song that reminds me of so-and-so's failed marriage (The Bottle Rockets, Gravity Fails). That's the song Neal played when he was showing me his new Harman Kardon speakers (Norah Jones, Don't Know Why)."

Again, not having any more or less insight than anyone else, I know I'm not the first to privately marvel at music's ability to serve as a cheap time machine, but the shift in how I interact with music has been something I'm cognizant of lately. The lyrics are still important, but are no longer the gospel I once assumed they were.

It's like Oasis sang when they said, "Don't put your life in the hands / of a rock and roll band / Who'll throw it all away."

Or something like that. I have a hard time keeping track these days.

(Image from: Metal-rules.com)

The 365th Day

My son turns one tomorrow. In theory, he should be turning one some time in May, but his early arrival leaves us with a February birthday and that's something we've now accepted.

We've also come to terms with the simple facts that not everyone we shared our NICU experience with had the same wonderful outcome and that premature births are going to continue to impact people as long as there are births of any sort. I get an uneasy feeling knowing that as I write this, someone else is being forced into that same situation we faced a year ago and that there have been no substantial changes made in the past year to accommodate the financial or emotional toll that two to three months spent in a children's hospital takes on a family.

I put one foot firmly on my soap box a few months ago to bring up the topic of health care and how it directly relates to care in premature babies, with the main point being that the family leave system isn't geared for these types of situations. My wife's maternity leave ended weeks before my son would be able to come home and there was fancy HR footwork and an understanding boss to pull us out of that mess, but some people aren't as lucky to be in a position like that.

I've learned from experience that some people emerge from their time in the NICU with a stronger belief that the system is fine as it is, because they were able to use their allocated leave and health insurance without a hitch, but I just can't get behind that. I am thankful that we were OK financially (due in large part to the hours my wife had to spend on the phone to sort all of that out), but I also know that as a community, we can do better. I honestly feel it's a disservice to the families that come up behind us to leave everything the way it is, sigh deeply and think, "Well, I'm glad we got through that."

Looking back a year later, we've had a better outcome than we could have hoped for on the day our son arrived. My wife and I have held together better than I had hoped as well and developmentally, our son continues to hit his milestones and run ahead of schedule on a few things. When we switched pediatricians, his full history wasn't on the charts and his doctors had no idea that he was born three months prematurely. These are minor and major blessings and we try our best to recognize that, without dwelling too much on what could have been.

In the interest of giving back in ways other than monetarily (which is important as well - The Ronald McDonald House, March of Dimes and others provide irreplaceable and incredibly vital services to families and patients) I want to share a few things I've learned in the past year. Hopefully this will somehow help someone who is in the same situation we were in a year ago.

* You'll be totally terrified, know that there's very little you can do to impact the outcome and have to move past that. As we sat in my wife's hospital room, a series of specialists filed through, tossing numbers and vital stats around just a short time before she'd be rushed off to the operating room. This was only the first of many times when I felt completely out of control of the situation, had to recognize and accept that and then get my ass into the game. This also came up that day when I began to worry intensely about developmental and physical issues that my son would face from an emergency delivery. There's just a certain point where you have to realize that worrying has its place to help you get a handle on some situations, but after that you need to get back to the task of being a mother, father or parent.

* You'll have to trust doctors more than you'll probably want to. We had nothing but confidence in the team of doctors at the University of Chicago, in the hospital itself and especially in our nurses, but especially in the beginning, there were decisions that needed to be made quickly. You play the odds and make the best decisions you can on the spot. I had underestimated exactly how much "that's my child" can freeze you in your decision-making tracks.

* There is no right or wrong - there is only what works right now. That became our mantra, whether it was navigating different treatments or getting a handle on how the whole process impacted our relationships with friends, family and each other. There's no go to manual for these situations and you have to find the courage to face the reality that what worked last week might not work today. Being able to adjust and move forward is a skill that we had to learn, and it wasn't easy.

* Know when to say "enough." My only minor regret was that I didn't take enough time off the first few weeks. I suppose on a subconscious level, I was trying to restore order to my life by trying to focus on my work schedule and staying within the framework of my company's vacation policy, but in retrospect I could have used a few more days to adjust to my new life. Take the time you need and don't be afraid of not being a team player at work. When my wife needed to take unpaid leave the weeks after my son came home, we decided that you can't buy time and that if we had to make due with a smaller budget, so be it. When you're being pulled in so many directions, you can get tripped up trying to keep everyone happy and in the end, it just burns you out.

* Know when to say enough (and just head home for the night). We learned this one fairly early on in our stay at the hospital, where we'd opt to go home and start again in the morning if our son was having a bad day. We were warned time and again by our nurses that it would be a roller coaster (luckily, it wasn't for the most part) but there were just some evenings where his numbers ping ponged up and down and we had to excuse ourselves instead of driving ourselves crazy by watching his monitors.

* You're not a bad parent if you're not living at the hospital 24/7. This is a convergence of the previous two - we had to realize that we weren't doing anyone any favors by being zombies who spent every waking moment in the NICU. Go see a movie or sneak out for a girls' night every now and again and realize that your life doesn't stop just because you have this new and important responsibility. This is easier said than done, but I did notice it became easier to skip a day once I'd broken the initial streak of consecutive days visited.

* Embrace the parents around you. It's easy to become isolated from the other parents surrounding you who are going through similar experiences. I was hesitant at first for two major reasons - I didn't want to bother anyone who was under as much stress as I was and chose to keep a low profile and after a while, I felt a bit guilty that my son was showing obvious signs of improvement, while other kids were not. Not reaching out was a mistake and I was pleasantly surprised that my wife was constantly making an effort to keep up with the other families. They understand more than anyone what you're going through (down to the same complaints about stuffy masks if there's a cold or flu that gets loose in the unit) and this little subculture of parenthood breaks all societal boundaries. Secondly, my fears that the other parents would somehow resent me for having a healthy baby were unfounded and instead, it gave them some hope that their baby would turn a corner soon. When all you have is each other day after day, it's nice to have that network to check up on everyone and bring new families into the mix after you've been there for a while.

* If you're a new parent, all of this is more difficult. In addition to the major shakeup in your life by having a premature baby, you have to deal with all the run of the mill new parent stuff. It took a while for the "you are this baby's advocate" stuff to take hold. For a while, there was a total disconnect between the little person that kind of looked like me and realizing he was my son and that I had a duty to not only be there, but to make decisions for him and protect him. That took some time. On the plus side, if it's your first kid, you have nothing to compare it to, so it's all in your realm of "normal." That helps a lot.

I'm leaving out all sorts of things here, but that's the basic list. Most importantly, you just need to roll with things as they pop up and try to enjoy the experience as much as possible. Despite the unnatural surroundings, we never felt at a loss for love or the wonder of the first grandchild for both families. Our NICU was incredibly welcoming and while we couldn't have our son home right away, at no point did we feel like our stay was robbing us of the experience (once the initial shock wore off).

While we were incredibly fortunate to have a baby that kept clearing hurdles, put on weight and was discharged without incident, we realize that even with today's medicine, that isn't guaranteed. Still, you do the best you can with what you're given and then wake up to do it all over again the next day. You try to create routines and keep on track and with a little hope and a degree of luck, you get to take your baby home.

If you're just adjusting to all of this tonight, I can't say enough about how rewarding the whole experience is. I also want you to know that there are thousands of people like you who have been down this road before and are around to help, even if you don't know us yet.

Welcome to the club.

If you build it, that's a start

It all started with such promise when my wife and I dipped our toes into the world of suburban public transit:

Bus-train-bus. No driving, no parking headaches for a change.
8:53 AM Dec 9th, 2009

Then, those high hopes sunk a bit a day later:

Two strikes, PACE! Way to suck again jackasses.
6:40 PM Dec 10th, 2009

And lately it's been downright hostile:

Dear PACE transit - in case you forgot, you still suck. Expect more letters or hire better drivers. Your choice, jerks.
6:34 PM Jan 7th

Dear PACE transit - in case you forgot, you still suck.
6:40 PM Jan 13th

Why the hostility? Because after a month of riding consistiently, PACE is failing me constantly as a rider. In that month, I've been left at the station several times, been taken miles from home in the middle of a snowstorm because a driver didn't know how to change their route number (and didn't tip off riders to the fact that the bus wouldn't be traveling the route indicated on the bus) and had to wait an average of a half hour most nights for my route to come back around.

I'll stop here to say that my wife, who rides the same train each day, does not have these problems. Her PACE buses run like clockwork and she has nothing but nice things to say. So, for some people, even in my own house, PACE is great. For me, they provide nothing but headaches.

My issue revolves around the fact that it's hard enough to get to and from the Loop when you live in the suburbs. Parking is at a premium (Naperville's lot woes are well documented) and travel times are unpredictable and maddening. The simple, sustainable answer is to take public transportation, but given how unreliable PACE has been for me, I have no desire to do the "right" thing and would much prefer the option that consistently gets me home in a few minutes.

When you read the schedule for the feeder route that services my block, you notice two things. One, you have between 2 and 4 minutes to hop on the bus once your train gets in (no problem, I'm a spry 31). Two, depending on when you arrive in the burbs, you'll take one of three different bus routes (and they overlap). So, you need to keep track of multiple, overlapping routes and you have to hope your driver doesn't try to drag race the train out of the station.

This is the heart of the issue for me. It makes sense to take public transportation into the city, and the best, fastest option for that is the train. Great. I'm in.

In order to get you to the station, you can drive or you can save a few bucks and take a bus from the end of your block. Awesome, even better - I like saving gas and money.

When you get home, make sure you hit your timing right, because while the route schedule lets you know you only have a few minutes to get on a bus, chances are it won't be there and probably won't arrive for a half hour or more. Oh, and when it does arrive, make sure you ask if that's the actual route, because sometimes it isn't and you end up miles away.

None of this makes me want to ride PACE again or rely on it for my transportation needs. I know it's the smart play for the environment, for local traffic and for my wallet. However, I have no desire to stand around, wasting time, when for a few dollars a day, I can have a parking spot of my very own.

So, in the chicken vs. egg debate of why suburbanites don't use public transportation, I'd like to add another option beyond lazy, car-loving and snobby people with a misplaced sense of entitlement. Let's add shitty service that no one wants to count on because it's unreliable.

I will admit on the odd days that I've hopped off the train and found a bus waiting, it was a wonderful experience. However, those days are the exception and not the rule. So, as a presently disgruntled PACE rider, what do I suggest (instead of simply bitching, which is much more fun)?

1.) Pick a schedule and stick with it. Run buses at half hour intervals from 4:30 to 7 p.m. for the feeder routes. Forget the lie that the buses leave every 20 minutes (as trains arrive) because that just pisses riders off. Run a bus every half hour - no muss, no fuss.
2.) Hire drivers who can at least operate the equipment. The CTA has their share of sub-par drivers, but I've never gotten on the wrong bus because the sign was too difficult to change. (To my knowledge, these are the same basic buses.) I need two things from my driver - leave on time, have the right route displayed. Folksy, small town charm optional.
3.) Simplify the routes. Yes, I know it's more cost effective to run combined routes, but that's no help when the bus I'm waiting on isn't arriving. Do I wait on my bus, assuming it's on its way or do I go looking for the combined feeder because it is now past an arbitrary time? If this costs too much, back routes off to 45 minute intervals (because that's what is actually arriving anyways).
4.) (Optional) Enable the GPS routes like the CTA does. Know what's more obnoxious than a bus that's 30 minutes late? Looking up every 2 minutes to see if just maybe that's your bus at the end of the block (it never is).

That's it.

Will it increase ridership? Who knows, but it would certainly get me to give PACE a second look. If the choice is between $80 a month and a little more suburban traffic because I'm a selfish jerk or standing around waiting for buses that arrive at random out of the ether, well, that's not much of a choice at all, is it?

(Image from PaceBus.com)

I know it's a rough economy, but some things just aren't helping matters

About a year ago, I posted an ad on Craigslist to hire a part-time staffer for office work on weekends and occasional hours during the work week. We were paying $10 an hour for this and in any given week, the staffer would be getting under 20 hours.

In short, it was a pretty basic job, not paying a lot and primarily on weekends and I figured the hardest part would be finding someone who would both want to do the job and be able to do the job. I was so very wrong.

In 24 hours, I received over 400 resume submissions from all kinds of candidates. People with 15 years of experience as office managers for major companies. People with masters degrees in marketing. People fresh out of college in some small town trying to get a foothold in Chicago so they could afford a tiny, rat-infested apartment in an up and coming neighborhood. Extraterrestrials practicing their English skills via e-mail before an impending invasion.

After 200 submissions between noon and 4:30 p.m., I left the posting up overnight just to see what happened. I was forced to shut it all down the next day. Frankly, I was shocked that many people were scouring the ads, period.

Through that process, I was suddenly struck by just how arbitrary the whole hiring process can be. Every time I half-assed a submission. Every time I just skipped the cover letter. Every time I sent a hiring manager pictures of a basket full of sad puppies with the message, "Me wanna job."

At the time, I swore I would post about this as it would be funny to some people and educational to others. Kind of like the Not Hired site.

With that in mind:

* Handwritten resumes are a no-no. I heard this second hand from a friend I'd temped with for a while at Northwestern. He was at a job fair where someone was shopping resumes hand-written on loose leaf notebook paper. We would discuss this when sharing tales of woe from our misadventures in temp work.

* If you are 18 or older and plan to look for any type of job, you need to have a somewhat professional e-mail address. I'm not looking to hire JakDanielz45, SnookieBear22 or PotLover420 any time soon. This advice comes to you from someone who has an e-mail address with the word "Poop" in it. I have never submitted that one to a potential employer.

* Check your cover letter and resume for spelling mistakes. I make mistakes (and plenty here) just like anyone else. I'm talking about the forgetting to capitalize anything on the page or "I would be a great addition to your team?" variety.

* If the employer asks for a cover letter. Make sure you include it. I don't think I called anyone in for an interview who missed this step. Think of it as the "brown M&M" test of the hiring world. When you hear about crazy things in a rock band's rider agreement, chances are it's there to gauge how effectively the staff at a particular music venue pays attention to detail (or that person is Mariah Carey). When I ask for a cover letter and you don't provide it, it tells me that you are not good at following direction. I don't want to hire someone who doesn't follow direction well.

* Check your cover letter and resume for spelling mistakes again.

* The neck tattoo I saw today didn't seem to help with the other employers. When it is fully visible above a collared shirt, you can wear whatever suit you want, but I doubt you have a future in high end retail. Keep this in mind when you're 18, have no intent on ever working in an office (and totally selling out) and want the world to know your nickname in college is Captain Kickass.

* Check your cover letter and resume for spelling mistakes and then have your friend go through it one more time. Unless I'm wrong, I'm betting you don't really live in Chickago.

* While I know it's a mistake, don't send a cover letter for another business to me. Worse yet, don't send it addressed to a competitor/mortal business enemy.

* I know you think you're a people person / have a great work ethic / know how to throw around business buzzwords. Give me something I can work with.

Here's the bottom line (keeping in mind I've been on both sides of this equation several times in the past decade, so I say this out of love):

These points seem stupid and arbitrary, but if you needed to take 400 resumes and turn them into a more manageable 25-50, what kind of rules would you put in place just to keep your sanity? Always keep in mind that once you push "Send," someone has to receive it, sort it and start making cuts. Don't give them a reason to take you out of the mix because you didn't take an extra 30 seconds to confirm the business on the e-mail you're sending your resume to is the same one on the cover letter, KingCrapper4545.

(Image from: hs4he.com)

What a wonderful age we live in

The wash of end of the year "Best Of" lists was made much worse this week by the one-two punch of the year and decade ending. I even issued a minor plea via Facebook to call off the onslaught of lists that took up time and space on web sites struggling to get anything up in the week between Christmas and New Years.

Sure, it's nothing new, but with the advent of embedded video, it seems like this is getting worse. Don't get me wrong, I'm more than guilty of the yearly, "What did it all mean" navel gazing that is behind these exercises, but just once I'd like a little more variety in my best of the decade lists.

Without any research whatsoever (yay!) aside from the handful of posts I skimmed, I can safely say the majority of these posts listed the iPod/iPhone, a major video game console, some sort of digital book reader and an extra smart phone thrown in for good measure. Add another five or so gadgets and you can stretch it to a top 10 list and be home for brunch.

While all of these things are wonderful - and I fully admit to a moment of wonder on a road trip this week when I realized just how amazing it was as my wife Googled a random question from her iPhone as my GPS hummed along and the iPod powered away for nearly two days of traveling - I would like to drill down a bit further.

Of course, I'm talking about the rewind feature on Forza Motorsport 3 for the Xbox 360.

If you are a gamer and you are a parent, this is perhaps the greatest thing to ever appear on your console. Forget the game-changing graphics and always excellent gameplay - this is the piece of the puzzle that's been missing for too many years.

Let me explain the problem. I'll be happily racing along when my wife needs to know where I hid something in the kitchen. In the few seconds it takes me to transition from death-defying 200-mph speed demon to figuring out where the paper towels went when we unloaded the car, I have temporarily forgotten that I am piloting a digital race car at high speed.

(Anyone who asks why I don't simply pause the game has never tried to execute such a complex maneuver in a high pressure situation involving a missing can of baby formula.)

About the time I realize my mistake, I have take that ground-based rocket and slammed it squarely into a retaining wall. If the car still runs, it won't turn and there's no way to get back into the race or get the previous 10 minutes back. This has led to unkind words in the past.

No more - borrowing a gimmick from games like Prince of Persia, you can now back the game up a few seconds (when your car is still in one piece and has its structural components in tact) and pick up where you left off. No muss, no fuss, no in game penalty.

Yes, there are much bigger tragedies in this world than turning a digital Mustang into a few thousand assorted parts strewn across the track, but try telling that to someone who now has to start over against that damned, cheating computer opponent who keeps kicking your ass in an obviously underpowered car. It's not rational, but trust me, it just is.

(Bonus points if this happens on the track at Laguna Seca, which is the bane of my digital racing existence.)

I cannot say enough about this feature. If Forza decides to repeal this feature in the future, they will have an angry letter sent the next day and a possible visit to their offices, depending on how centrally located they are to my home and/or place of business.

While Apple has certainly won the technology decade in the broad strokes, Forza (more specifically its developer, Turn 10) has won for day to day bliss. Mark myt words, in the end, this will save more marriages than Viagra.

(Image from Gamespot.com)