The earthquake? Really, it was no big deal

The few seconds of mild shaking during Tuesday's earthquake didn't do much damage, but CNN's coverage did. My daily productivity was cut in half when I had to spend all afternoon answering calls and e-mails from my parents, grandmother, cousins and everyone else I know on the East Coast to tell them I was a proud survivor. The only thing that broke was the cellphone system, because Sprint had an 800% spike in calls -- half of which were from my family.

Joel Stein

August 1, 2008