I've pretty much stopped trying to explain exactly what it is TV critics do during these semiannual migrations to Los Angeles, not only because there's no way anyone's going to feel sorry for someone whose job involves regular stays in some of the world's most luxurious concentration camps but because, well, after 11 years, I'm still not sure I always understand it myself.

Those who know me have noticed, though, that I tend to return from sunny southern California with the same fluorescent-blue Irish skin tone I left with, and with no more information about what's up with Brad and Jen or Brad and Angelina or Brad and his hair than anyone else.

Truth is, the only time I was near enough to Jennifer Aniston to have been able to inquire about her love life was at a cocktail party a couple of months before the premiere of "Friends." I couldn't imagine then that anyone would care. I certainly didn't.

I still don't.

But while I think the best description of the Television Critics Association's meetings -- a k a "press tour" -- was long ago coined by Fort Lauderdale critic Tom Jicha, who dubbed it "a death march with cocktail parties," you can find a lot more about the pros and cons of tour in the spring issue of the Journal of Popular Film and Television, where Denison University professor Amanda Lotz writes about the summer two years ago when she ran away to join the circus, spending 17 days holed up in the Renaissance Hollywood, attending press conferences and parties and doing just about everything the rest of us did, except write a daily column.

(Glad to see you've finally filed, Amanda.)

You can read about her amazing adventure (and equally amazing survival) here.

And for the next two and a half weeks or so, you can read about mine right here (and in the Philadelphia Daily News, of course).