Dear readers,

You might remember me from such blogs as "Fear No Recipe" and "Taste Buds." While I continue to enjoy my explorations in the culinary world (read: cupcakes), I've got way too much television to watch to cook anything super exciting these days (I recommend Paul Newman's frozen pizza to the other slackers out there).

My colleagues Jill Blanchette and Alex Nunes are doing a smash-up job on the food beat, and since I've successfully prepared every recipe in "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" and wrote a hit book and movie about it* the time has come for me to switch topics and blog titles.

Folks, meet Pop Blog, the place where I get to work out the latest manifestations of pop culture in all their cool, head-scratch-y, infuriating splendor.

I was an English and anthropology major back at UConn; fields for which I developed affection thanks to fabulous professors, including none other than state archaeologist Nick Bellantoni. Finally, I could justify my penchant for people-watching! Finally I could deconstruct the funny things people do and get college credit for it! Finally I could justify all those James Joyce classes! ("Well, yes, I did that as a cultural study of the plight of the Irish as reflected in literature." Booyah! I'm a scholar.)

But in the dark days of the late 1990s, there weren't too many places a bookish, introverted, Margaret Mead fan could go to report observations on their fellow homo sapiens.** Blogs were a new medium, and only massive dorks had them.

More than 10 years down the line, I'm letting the massive dork flag fly, because someone's got to figure out things like fake tans, Flex Belts, and the endorsers thereof, Glee and HGTV ("Property Virgins"? really?), the bizarre increase of people saying "It is what it is" and the fact that Lindsey Lohan got into another fricking car accident.

Or that Metallica is millimeters away from going all Ted Nugent, now that they're aiding the FBI in the man-hunt game.

In short, people amaze me. I love seeing what we'll pull next. And I'm pretty sure I'm addicted to the AP wire, so I've got to siphon off all the info I come across somewhere. Hey, it is what it is, right?

Join me as I explore the post-post-modern world, as seen on TV, the blogosphere, on the streets of New London and wherever else strange trends/odd behavior emerge.

For quick hits, follow me on Twitter. Seek ye @TheMDesk. Got something to report? Email me at m.nadolny@theday.com.

*Oh wait, that wasn't me. I was robbed! Robbed!

**Not true. It's called a master's thesis, but who's got time for that when, at the time, "X-Files" was going like gangbusters?