When driving in the car...

...I do one of the following four things:

1. Listen to Sports Talk Radio
I'm not necessarily proud of this, but it is a guilty pleasure. I don't like the national stuff as much (except for Jim Rome, occassionally), but I really enjoy the local talk, especially The Loose Cannons and the PMS Show on AM 570 (no, not that kind of PMS). I like listening to the hosts debate with callers and one another about UCLA & USC, the Dodgers & the Angels, and the Lakers & the Clippers. (Sorry, I don't do hockey--actually, strike the "sorry", I'm not going to apologize, it's a silly sport played by men with names I can't pronounce.) Sports talk radio wears thin after awhile, however. One can only take so much "analysis" about steriods before one is tempted to inject something in oneself. That's when I turn and...

2. Listen to National Public Radio
I've had the tune to All Things Considered in my brain since before I knew what it was, thanks to my Dad boring myself and my brothers to tears on whatever trip we were taking as little kids. (Nope, no DVD players or Wiggles CD's for us. If we were "lucky" we played The Alphabet Game. And my parents wondered why we fought so much in the back seats.) Now I listen to it voluntarily, funny how that works. I like the aforementioned ATC, as well as Fresh Air, Talk of the Nation, Film Week and, when I'm around, Car Talk. But NPR can also cause one to glaze over after awhile; I've noticed lately the mind-numbing propensity to "breakdown" every nuance of the primaries and the candidates. This inevitably stears me back to sports talk, but I wish it sent me to...

3. CD's and i-pods
The CD player in my car has been out of comission for the last two-plus years. For someone who likes to listen to "his" music, this is like when Seinfeld went off the air. Sure, there were other programs to watch, but nothing was going to take the place of what you wanted. The radio still works (which is how I can get my fill of Sports and NPR), but pop music on the radio, to me, is like un-TiVoed reruns of Who's the Boss?: a lot of noise, punctuated by advertising (and, of course, Tony Danza). So here's hoping 2008 is the year I'm not too cheap to drop $150 at Fry's and bring some music back into my life. Of course I could always just...

4. Enjoy the Silence
I have a few friends who are pretty outspoken about "killing the television," blaming it for everything from low test scores and bland living to global warming and nasty cases of the stomach flu. And they may be right. (But I'm still going to keep watching Lost and good luck getting my wife weened off of her 7-10 shows.) Still, I think the car radio is just as dangerous. Mostly, I think what popular TV & radio do is distract us; they fill our eyes and our ears and our brains with a lot of images and noise. So I'm trying to be more proactive and turn the radio off in the car. The silence is nice. There is time to think; to notice the world and the people outside the windows. There is time to be aware of God.

Oh yeah, and sometimes I eat while driving too. And talk on the phone. And play games with my kids. And try to read something on the seat next to me out of the corner of my eye. And...