...off to Arwen's parents' place in Maine for the day. It's a three hour drive each way, and, well, it's Arwen's parents. Here's hoping I survive.

And a quick apology for the lack of blogging lately - I've been trying to wrap up all the large projects I've started for people in the office here before moving...while I'll still be doing the same thing for the same people once I've moved, there'll be a good month or so when I won't have the cycles to spare for anything but getting adjusted and transitioning things out there from the current guy to my group as a whole. I promise that there'll be more posting as the move gets closer - and photos a-plenty of the new apartment. Hell, I might even have a housewarming party, if I can find enough people to attend. =)

Just saw the Farenheit 9/11 commercial - on TV, opening with the "Now watch my drive" Bush bit. Wow. It was on Comedy Central - I'm hoping it gets some buys on the major networks too, because that's a GREAT commercial. Seriously. Bush is in sooooo much trouble.

Everyone at work keeps coming up to me and congratulating me on moving, or asking me how I feel about it, etc... I've had to come up with canned answers - well, the weather'll be a lot better, yeah, rent's higher, but I've got a great location, etc, etc... I'm not used to people being at all interested in me. It's strange. =)

I was predicting the Pistons in 7. Whoops. =)

I'm moving to the 49th richest zip code in the country. Eep.

I'm about 300 pages through Diarmaid MacCulloch's The Reformation, which Kevin Drum complains about here. His issue with the book is pretty simple and, it's fair to say, understandable: it's not the accessible survey history you'd expect from a book with a title like "The Reformation". Rather, it's a very detailed theological and sociological history of the various aspects, sects, and responses we know as the Reformation. As Kevin points out, there's far more detail on how the early Protestant thinkers differed on the Eucharist than I ever would have imagined possible.

But, unlike Kevin, this is what I was looking for when I picked it up. I'm an amateur student of early modern European history - one of these days, once I've finally gotten around to getting my degree from Oberlin, I'll get myself a master's in the field - so this level of detail is what I want. I know the rough outline of the Reformation already - I *want* the minutiae. This book definitely belongs in a general-purpose bookstore, contrary to Kevin's original (and admittedly poorly worded) post, but I would have given it another title, or at least a more in-depth subtitle. It's understandable how someone who's just looking for an introduction would pick this up and be disappointed - though, Kevin, as a note for the future, be wary of any hardcover over five hundred pages if you're not looking for intense detail.

Well, it is - you should see some of the queries I'm ranked highly for. Now, I can *maybe* see me being in the top 10 or 20 for "New Brunswick should secede" - after all, I'm a long-time proponent of Greater New England. heh. But #1? That's a little goofy - though not near so goofy as me being #1 for "Rip Hamilton". I mentioned him once, maybe twice, and I'm #1? Huh? My page rank is waaaay too high, all things considered. But here's my favorite - I'm #1 for "Instahack". #2? Instahack himself. That's Instapundit, for those of you who don't know what I'm talking about. Look out, world - if I mention you, I might suddenly become the first thing people see when they're Googling for you. Muhahaha.

Well, you should. He's got a blog called Loyal Opposition and it's really worth reading. You probably won't agree with a lot of what he has to say - I'm guessing here, but I'm pretty sure that most of my meagre readership tilts towards the left side of the political spectrum and Adam, well, doesn't. He's another Obie, like Rachel and myself, and, like many of us, he didn't much care for the far-leftist echo chamber that Oberlin most definitely is on many, many issues. But Adam's not Hitchens Mk II or Horowitz Mk II - he knows his shit, and can really, really write. In a comment responding to my post on Reagan v. Clinton, he dropped a magnum opus that almost made me reconsider whether Reagan was a bad president or not. Almost - sorry, Adam, but even if you're right about Central America (and I'm still not sure you are) and the fall of the Soviet Union, he still has a hell of a price to pay for his social policies (or lack thereof in the case of AIDS), among other things. Anyway, Adam's fun to read and knows what he's talking about, and he deserves attention. Give him a look.

...in downtown Palo Alto, near University Ave. It's a few blocks away from the train station - pretty much perfect. No air conditioning, but it's good-sized, with a dishwasher (one of my absolute requirements) and new appliances (no washer/dryer, but such is life). It's a little pricey, but that's ok - I'm just happy to have this done. Now I can relax - just in time to go home tomorrow morning. =)

Sopranos season finale just finished and it...well, it resolved the storylines from this year, more or less, but it didn't end in a way that actually makes you feel like there was *resolution*. That's an HBO drama trademark, I realize, but I'm beginning to get a little frustrated with it. I think that may be part of why I like the Wire so much more than anything else they're doing these days - while the season (and therefore the story) endings aren't simplistic or straighforward, let alone predictable or cheesy, they're not frustrating or confusing either. You get from Point A to Point B - even if Point B looks a lot like Point A, but with some people dead, and some people in jail. There's a sense that things *changed*. That's missing from the Sopranos - this wasn't as bad as the end of Season Three, with Uncle Junior singing in the restaurant for no obvious reason while Meadow runs out, again, for no obvious reason, but still...there's only a few significant changes since the beginning of the season - one of them is as much the result of casting issues as deliberate plot choices (Adrianna's death) and the rest, well, are kind of external to the core and not *that* interesting. Am I just missing something complex and brilliant that my feeble little mind can't grasp?

The weird thing about jetlag is that if I were at home right now at 11:30pm (it's 8:30pm here), having woken up at 8am (I woke up at 5am here), I wouldn't be having any real trouble staying awake. I slept 9 hours last night, six hours the night before. By all rights, I shouldn't be tired. But I am - very, very tired. I'm not going to sleep until at least 10:00 - I'm watching the rest of the Pistons-Lakers game and then the Sopranos season finale. I drank a can of Pepsi an hour ago, too - hopefully, I should be able to push through long enough to sleep until daylight tomorrow, which (I think) is the problem up until now. We'll see - wish me luck. I'm sooooo sick of jetlag.

Though I actually did, over in a comment at Pandagon. Anyway - Detroit in 7. They're deeper, they've got a better coach, they've got superior defense, they're younger, they're faster...basically, the only ways in which they aren't clearly the better team are Shaq and Kobe. And I'm not 100% sure I'd take Kobe over Rip Hamilton - in fact, given the rest of the team, I'd rather have Rip Hamilton on the Pistons than Kobe. So yeah - Pistons in 7. Bet on it.

Go read Atrios - he's got a fabulous series of posts showing that Clinton, well, kicks Reagan's ass. The country did better under Clinton than Reagan in every category but toppling the Soviet Union (which I still think would have happened by '92 or so regardless of Reagan - Afghanistan, Solidarity, and the crappy Soviet economic system would have all had the same impact no matter who was in the White House), and Clinton was - wait for it - more popular than Reagan in every way, except at the ballot box. He had a higher average Gallup approval rating - 55 to Reagan's 53 - and a higher peak - 71 to Reagan's 68. Oh, the last Atrios post links to a Gallup poll from last year that moved Clinton to third best president of all time, according to the American people. I wouldn't go *that* far - he's behind FDR, probably Teddy Roosevelt, Lincoln, Madison, and Jefferson in my book, but not by a huge amount. He's actually right there with Eisenhower for me - neither did anything that spectacular, but both did a good job consistently for 8 years, which is pretty hard to do.

Anyway - do you think the media is going to be this adulatory when Clinton dies, or do you think they'll just be talking about his dick?

Though not as bad as the previous times I flew out to California. I kept myself hydrated better this time. Anyway - yeah - I've been working too much, and now I'm in California to work more, and apartment-hunt. Hopefully I'll find a place - since I'm moving out here in 6 weeks. Eep!

The Pistons just beat the Pacers in an ugly game - but the Pistons fans just endeared themselves to me by breaking out into a rousing "BEAT LA!" chant. It's aaaaaallllll about beating LA. This won't be as good as Celtics v. Lakers, but it's a good old-fashioned '80s rivalry, and I can deal with that.

Last year, I whined about 'FNX's top 500 alternative songs of all time. Time to whine again - while they haven't posted the list online yet, they did the whole countdown over the weekend. I didn't hear much of it, but I heard #1 - "Should I Stay Or Should I Go", by the Clash. Eh? That wouldn't be in my top 10 Clash songs, let alone top 10 alternative songs in general. Oy. It's basically just the first Big Audio Dynamite song - and that's not necessarily a good thing. Ah well. I'm a whiny little git.