monday, 31 may

happy memorial day
overheard: 'can you move your vagina back a bit?' -tim

woke up grumpy with a sore throat today. but i got faust out of the chch library yesterday, so i'm looking forward to reading that today in the sun. since it's a bank holiday, we don't get breakfast, and my gym doesn't open until late. no good. maybe i'm dehydrated. yesterday was very nice. got some work done. had a good workout. ate two brunches. time for water. maybe insight will return in june.

sunday, 30 may

overheard: 'stop talking about georgetown day. it's making me cry. -some annoying jane hoya at the turf

no. i wasn't at the turf last night. i promise. i didn't even leave my staircase yesterday. i was not in a happy place. and then i spilled water on my cell phone. so don't try to call me on that thing. surpsingly, though, i'm not in an awful mood. perhaps because i read a lot of the the sunflower yesterday. quotes forthcoming. oh. yeah. i also ate next to nothing yesterday: half an english muffin. so now all i want in life is brunch. but it's 7.30 and brunch don't start until 11. i'd go down to london for dim sum with jack, but, well, i have no phone. and the gym doesn't even open until 9 today. might i actually be forced into doing some schoolwork? say it isn't so!

saturday, 29 may

overheard: 'i don't like to sleep too deeply; it makes me thirsty' -jack

note to self: remember last night. and then pass out again. today is the ultimate hangover day. that is all.

friday, 28 may

overheard: 'it's always nice out this week' -david sounding suspiciously like joe

i'd like to start with a public service announcement. today i realized that avril livigne and fiona apple are actually the same person. i thought y'all should know. which is why you never see them in the same place at the same time. like al franken and gary bauer. well, that or the world market only has room for one whiney heroine-chic vocalist at a time.

i'm in a better mood today. the lilies smell lovely. the sun is out. it's kinda chilly. but i can read whatever i want today, and i got a nap in yesterday afternoon. so the weekend is lookin gooood. must. get. cathedral. service. schedule. um. what else? i have no opinions about anything right now. maybe someday rca5 will get his website up and i can link to it.

thursday, 27 may

overheard: 'i would have sex with anyone once' -formal hall. graduates are weird.

i'm exhausted today. i think i've earned a nap. and a day of laying in the sun. now the sun has to show up. i don't have anything to say, much. glad to have that dissertation done. kinda excited about the prospect of starting on the next chapter. kinda want to get back into my news groove. and out of whatever other groove i'm in. grrr. need to go to the gym. feel like i'm not taking care of myself. ok. enough complaining.

wednesday, 26 may

overheard: 'no. because they've got a big penis' -unidentified rhoscho at sue's bday.

sorry about no update yesterday. the whole dissertation thing keeps getting in the way of me being a happy or functional member of society. but i'm submitting it today, should it please god to let me do so. i'll lead with two more quotes lifted from wonkette's gossip roundup yesterday. the first is from george washington university's president, at their graduation ceremony: "If anybody has a mortarboard, you can move your tassels from right to left, right to left, which is what I hope happened to your politics in the last four years." HA! ok. second one is darrell hammond on W: "I've never seen someone stop talking in the middle of a sentence because they're bored."

so yeah. now that i'm done with that thing, i can return to reading the news. and having opinions. and napping in the master's garden. and not sympathising with stressy finalists. i think i may also take this chance to buy my ticket home for the summer. the mac house reunion seems likely to happen, mid july, in chicago. get your geek squad mitts on now, kids.

monday, 24 may

overheard: 'i always have a pole between my legs' -mike

the first rule of blogging: if you don't have anything insightful to say, just whine (or, if you're wonkette, just talk about butt sex). yesterday's post is a good example of this rule in action. not the butt sex rule. today, more of the same. i recently read somewhere that ABC's the note is slowly making everything else obsolete. for all i know, the person in question meant everything else in life, though i suspect they actually meant every other daily news outlet. either way, i must say i'm inclined to agree. i do have some qualifications, though. first off, they need to get it posted daily by 3 am ET, with supplements at 9 am, noon, 3 pm and 5 pm. just as important, it needs to be more navigable. an index linked to body headings would do wonders. (pvt to the note: need an intern this summer?). if someone can get those two changes made, they'll be well on the way to my developing a full-on the note fetish, with all the attendant perks that such a fetish entails. ask for the brochure at reception.

back to my dissertation. there was a hair in my breakfast today. sorta gross.

sunday, 23 may

overheard: 'i have a list of people to do after finals' -greg

today i'd like to address a very serious issue. appreciation for just how difficult my life is has dropped to unacceptable levels. to remedy this situation, i thought i would do a quick week in review to demonstrate my need for much greater sympathy from all y'all:
monday: my week of torment began with the realisation that oxford actually expect me to submit some of my work for assessment. and that, perhaps, the tyrannical system of supervision here might encourage/require that i produce said work before the eve of its deadline. the nerve. so i spent monday in libraries, reading books hundreds of years old that no one had ever read before. how do i know? because i had to cut the pages apart.
tuesday: a meeting with my supervisor at 5 pm required that the whole "masters' dissertation" thing be completed before then. no problem. until lunch, where christ church plied me with an endless supply of wine. i was therefore forced to finish said dissertation in a slightly altered state. the meeting itself required the consumption of more wine. dinner followed. more wine. then a walk in the master's garden. more wine. then a drinks party in the graduates' dining room. more wine. then ms meng's birthday party. more wine. i suffered through twelve solid hours of drunkenness and for what?
a hangover on wednesday. i don't recall much about wednesday. i think i took a nap. and had lunch at trinity college. the injustices i suffer on a regular basis have made me black the rest of the day out.
thursday brought scant relief. i was offered a room in college next year overlooking the lovely, green sports ground. i bought some lilies. i sat through a breathtakingly beautiful schubert recital in a breathtakingly beautiful room at oriel college. and then more free wine.
friday, i spent almost the whole day in my room writing, despite good intentions of going to the library. c'est la vie. but i had chinese for lunch and plenty of pajama and tea time. like i said: pure suffering.
i capped my week of unmitigated pain with the saturday from hell. an amazing free brunch at rhodes house surrounded by interesting and stimulating people. a play that i love directed by and featuring the acting of various friends staged in new college's medieval cloisters. and a surprsingly edible meal in hall that included fresh strawberries and cream for dessert.

like i said. y'all need to ratchet up your efforts at sympathy. i'm feeling entirely unpitied.

saturday, 22 may

overheard: 'that's feminism for you' -the turf tavern

jack smells like a baby today: kinda good and kinda bad. you know what i mean. was it just me, or was the ivory tower piece in yesterday's NYT a little incoherent? less incoherent was brian montopoli's piece in yesterday's campaign desk. hurrah.

brunch and freshers' photo at rho.ho today. and then arcadia in the new college gardens. which should be nice. and then prolly early dinner and working all night. somewhere in there i have to make it to the hfl and the rad cam. crud. this probably means i won't turn this paper in until tuesday. i guess that's not the worst thing that ever happened to me. but it may be up there.

friday, 21 may

overheard: 'i don't like to think and write. especially at the same time.' -brian

i had a dream last night in which i was talking with laura (brandon's laura) on the roof of my parents' house, next to the balcony. and then i slipped and rolled off the roof, and landed in africa. just on the north end; like in egypt. and the continent, i must say, looked quite small...i got to côte d'ivoire in just two big steps. but then i saw a cow laying down that was even bigger then me. and that put the continent in perspective really quickly. any ideas on what that means?

today i return in earnest to the dissertation. hopefully it will be done by monday. that would be the ideal, anyhow. maybe tuesday. i cut my finger yesterday. the left thumb. kinda a pain. other news: lillian's schubert concert at oriel last night was SPLENDIFEROUS. she is an amazing violinist. my jaw literally dropped. i avoided drooling, though. two last things: firstly, i got a room in liddell for next year. how damn excited am i? oh yeah. oh yeah. no train station for bubba. secondly, it drives me nuts when bloggers make grandiose predictions without giving nearly enough back-up ev. well, it drives me nuts when historians do it, too. but there are so few historian blogs out there. that i know of, anyway.

thursday, 20 may

overheard: 'have you ever tried to tie helium balloons to a woman?' -informal hall. first years are weird.

i almost forgot to update today. i really have to get to the bod. lunch with david at trinity yesterday. chicken fajitas. damn good. and good convo, too. too bad i was hung over. the viva situation is still up in the air. all i want is to make it to the beach. oh. apparently today is the feast of the ascension. i prolly have to go to mass, eh? done. oh. only one link today: bbc radio 3 featured chch's choir singing evensong yesterday. there's a link, so you can listen to the service thing that i go to most sundays. it's nice. and one of jack's flatmates has a solo. shibby.

wednesday, 19 may

overheard: brandon wrote me this haiku...
dissertations due
far too drunk to write real good
damn you open bar

which essentially summarizes yesterday afternoon. in case you missed it, i was (more or less) drunk from 1 pm until i passed out at 12.30 am. which no small feat for me. (two beer queer, what?). the amazingness of oxford in summer is so alluring now, but (alas) i must now revise my dissertation. and apparently get it bound. crud. but while i'm going to spend the morning at the library, the afternoon may well be spent lounging and revising in the masters garden. being distracted by the sun and the lovely chch people. i'm sure there are about a million political rants i would share if i weren't in a fuzzy hangover state. oh well. there's always tomorrow. oh but here's a link to wonkette's coverage of the gay marriage stuff in mass.

tuesday, 18 may

overheard: 'i've been democratically outed.' -tim

yesterday i realized two things that drive me nuts. the first is people no sense of irony or metaphor...are you really so dense? the other, of course, is the fundamentalist. of whatever stripe. i mentioned my JV year to an evangelical christian yesterday. her response was to say how great it feels to help the less fortunate and to recount the amazing moment this easter when five homeless people at her church accepted christ into their lives...'i mean,' she said, 'how exciting for them, in their situation, to be saved!' i almost choked on my lunch. predatory religion is, at its core, hypocritical. OH, speaking of bullying and fait, what the f-k is up with the bishop of colorado springs? one might suppose that catholics, like other members of a democracy, should be free to vote, according to their conscience, for the cantidate they believe will do the best job. is there any way to investigate this areshole for interfering with an election? i'd love to see that. moral coercion: not my thing.

this paragraph is going to be completely inchoherent. you've been warned. first, read this article in slate about the mounting scandal. knives, apparently. lot's of knives. but it's about time the congress stopped grabbing its ankles every time W says 'bend'. or 'patriotism', for that matter. today is going to be intense. i have to get archer a draft of my dissertation by 5. between now and then, i have a 2 hour luncheon, and i'll be damned if i'm missing breakfast. so maybe i should get back to that thing. i'm pretty happy with how it's going. i'll post it and my other dealy online eventually. jack has recommended i wait until they've been marked, though. which is probably fair. and no matter what anyone tells me, the caffeine in iron buddha tea definitely kept me up late last night. or perhaps it was just like the night before christmas.

oh. one last thing: another chch grad student suggested that yesterday, being henceforth both the anniversary of brown v. board and of the first state-sanctioned gay marriages (in the once god-fearing colony of massacusetts), shoud be declared the national day day of tolerance for difference in the US. except we're still not so good with difference.

monday, 17 may

overheard: 'i haven't __cked a kangaroo' -jack

one of the grand problems with the terms at oxford is that you take a nap on an amenable afternoon in 0th week, and when you wake up, it's monday of 4th week. which means i'm making the rounds of libraries in the hopes of augmenting my knowledge of church courts, endowment court cases, and burial records. fun stuff, i tell you. the whole fiasco with powell on meet the press yesterday is ridiculous. but, moving on it's a day of firsts: first day of work for becky. first day of state-sanctioned gay marriages in the US (no, christian little, the sky is not falling). first day of my finishing my MSt dissertation. or something. brandon, i swear to god i'll write you a proper email when this dissertation is done. not only that. i'll write you a properly DRUNK email, complete with censor-evading quasi-profanity. woot.

sunday, 16 may

overheard: 'it's nicer here than it was in the radio' -lucy

today promises to be the most beautiful day of the year yet. so one might suppose that i would take the time to go punting. or lay in the master's garden on a blanket, reading a book. but one would be wrong. instead, i'm going to spend the next 60 hours in the chch law library writing my MSt dissertation. the problem isn't not having enough research. it may actually be having too much. or too much for me to synthesize in any sort of eloquent way in sunch a short time frame. but i'll be trying, anyway. breaks from the library will be allowable for eating, sleeping, showering, and maybe the gym and evensong. otherwise: no fun. none at all. i'm done with fun.

saturday, 15 may

overheard: 'daddy's gonna be writing you a big cheque' -jack

so, today we'll be featuring fun audio links. the first is from NPR, profiling an album full of donald rumsfeld's verbal diarrha set to music. and with his god-awful voice replaced by that of a woman. it's pretty funny. next up is the always popular lions in kenya, which beggars description. finally...well, there was a third one, but i can't remember it.

so i've discovered that academic years in england do build toward life-death battles against voldemort. only in my case, voldemort is called my MSt dissertation. in the service of which i'm headed into london for the day. bl.uk, here i come.

friday, 14 may

happy birthday, allison!!
overheard: 'why do you keep talking about my balls?' -seb

ok, today i thought i'd start with my political ramblings. and then maybe move on to the fun stuff if i feel like it. first off: i should have posted a link yesterday to wednesday's long overdue NYT story debunking the blue state/red state myth. previous articles had left me belieiving that the media had adopted the george w bush method of discerning the truth: start with an idea or opinion, then only talk about how right you are. until you're blue in the face. and we're trapped in yet another american foreign-relations debacle.

so i'm pleased about that. but what is all this about republicans crying foul whenever kerry opens his mouth about iraq? CJR's campaign desk did a little debunking yesterday, criticizing NBC's coverage of the whining. which is their job. but i'm still left with the feeling that the hypocrisy of the bush campaign has been underappreciated in this instance. let's think back a few months, to when the bush administration drew ire for including images from 9/11 in a couple of its ads? no permalinks. sorry. but check the 5 and 6 march issues of the NYT and WP for the stories. to quote washington post staff writer dana milbank, 'The White House says Bush has every right to make a campaign issue of his response to the terrorist attacks. Asked earlier this week about the awkwardness of raising campaign funds and remembering terrorism victims in the same park on the same afternoon, White House press secretary Scott McClellan responded indignantly: "The president never forgets September 11th," he said. "The president remembers it every single day." ' contrast that to the bush campaign's attacks on kerry's infrequent statemnts about iraq. as usual, wonkette probably said it best: 'Sure, we may have humiliated and terrorized Iraqi detainees, but let's remember the important thing: We never asked them for money.'

alternate quote of the day, from yesterday's CSM: 'The International Committee of the Red Cross has described these methods as "tantamount to torture." Many experts believe that they directly contravene the Geneva Conventions, which stress that all residents of an occupied country, even security detainees, must be protected from cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment. Contravention of this provision constitutes a war crime and sometimes even a "crime against humanity."'

so what have i been up to, besides sharpening my sense of moral outrage at the bush administration? funny you should ask. i've mostly been stressing about my work. which i'll go back to doing now.

thursday, 13 may

overheard: 'if i go down will i get any money?' -jack

no update today. must...go...back...to...the...bod. check back tomorrow. maybe i'll have some rant or other. no promises. seven. wow.

wednesday, 12 may

overheard: 'just learning how to use latex and leather' -charlie

becky left this morning. which was sad. but at leat i'll see her in like 5 weeks. and we had a great time while she was here. very relaxed. very yummy. now on to my work. so the next few weeks of updates may be pretty boring. just warning you. i had a dream last night in which i was in a venice/vatican combo, and there was this statue of mary in one water-filled room that was supposed to be able to tell the future. so we sort of punted up to it. and out of a hole in the bottom of the statue fell a small figurine of a boar standing on its hind legs with one arm outstretched. it was standing on a pedastal which said 'antonius domus'. don't really know what to make of it.

since the media have already gone poll-mad, i found andrew kohut's op-ed piece in today's NYT refreshing. bushies have claimed the polls as an indication that this race is kerry's to lose. kerry supporters (is there such a thing, really?) have despaired that bush's numbers have fallen precipitously, but kerry's have been rather static: as kohut puts it, 'if Mr. Kerry can't gain ground when the president is in trouble, when can he? ' but i think that kohut is on the right track. until the iraq torture fallout, bush's numbers seemed pretty impervious to the crap job he's done on every conceivable front in the past three years. ok ok. i'll admit that the economy is on the rebound. but i think it's too simplistic to say that it's from bush's tax cuts. especially since government spending has skyrocketed simultaneously...the dollars that were refunded to taxpayers are now being double spent, if that makes sense. but back to the poll numbers. i was willing to chalk the president's buoyancy to the all publicity being good publicity. but i think the tidal wave of the torture allegations manage to swamp him. in any case, as wonkette put it, if kerry would actually campaign it would be easier to mock him.

tuesday, 11 may

happy 23rd birthday, katie!!
overheard: 'must remove pants' -becky, on seeing st paul's

cathedrals just elicit that reaction from some people, i guess. no update yesterday on account of two things. the first: a sunday of napping and watching movies hung over provides very little fodder for talking about myself (and sundays provide so little political news for me to rant and rave about). secondly, though, beckers and i went to london for the day. further proof that i make an awful tourist, really. we did see most of the town on foot. took the tube out to canary wharf for dim sum. best ever. and best weather ever. which will hopefully be repeated today, so the my sister and i can spend her last full day here in the master's garden. maybe i'll have something in my pidge this morning.

i don't know if i've mentioned the little political convo group we have going here amongst my american friends. they're all frightfully politically proficient. IR people and econ people. makes my history skills look, well, useless. m&d: no jokes. anyway, yesterday's discussions focused on the silence of civil libertarians on the rights of the accused soldiers in the iraq torture row. now, also yesterday slate highlighted the growing 3-ring circus of the first court-martial. these two things go hand-in-hand, as best i can tell. and they are necessary. but they overlook the fact that the political fallout from this situation isn't about the individuals involved. it's about the torture. and it will be doubly unjust if this first court-martial becomes a sacrificial lamb. not only an injustice to the soldier being punished. but also in the sense that if he takes the fall for a system-wide problem, that system (ie the bush administration's 'trust us' attitude and its willingness to forego geneva conventions when that is more convenient for them) will not undergo the scrutiny--or the reforms--it so badly needs.

sunday, 9 may

overheard: 'if you're jewish or catholic, it doesn't matter if you believe in god' -peter

rhodes ball can only be described as a rousing success. primarily because when i woke up at 9 am, i was still drunk. so now i think i'm getting hung over. and listening to guster. becky adds, 'not the dog'. and now she's trying to fall asleep. just when brunch might happen. she's not very nice. and she kept disappearing last night. that sweet sparkling wine: wow. dangerous. but dinner was really good. those were good potatoes. but now all i want in life is i a bacon cheeseburger. i got a lot of work done yesterday. hangover day today. do you want to ride bikes? becky says i have add. or adhd. i can't recall. i was feeding the aligator. sidewalk's wet. but it's not raining. is it food time yet? bye.

saturday, 8 may

overheard: 'i can't speak english' -brian

tonight is rhodes ball, so don't be surprised if i don't update tomorrow. hangovers, you know. i haven't been properly wasted in ages. it sounds like mike/brian/jack/sean/etc managed to do so thursday night, though. i just found out my friend rob will be blogging for the american prospect starting this week. how jealous am i? in any case, now i can, in good conscience, harrass a real blogger to my heart's delight. which will be nice. yesterday, becky, jack, brian and i tried our hand at punting. i'm happy to say that we failed spectacularly. swept down the thames toward the sea, we made our way to the west bank, where brian dragged us upstream until we could make it back to the chch boat house. i blame the high water. ok. back to cspan.

friday, 7 may

overheard: 'JR, can you tell me how a camera works?' -mike 'no' -JR

i forgot to mention yesterday the surprise interview i had on wednesday. odd, but good, i guees. still no job offers. becky and i slept forEVER last night. so nice. very much enjoy waking up after enough sleep. someday i'll go back to the gym. and the library. eek. paper. not gonna freak out while the sister is in town, though.

ok. who watched the white house press briefing yesterday? how sketchy was mcclellan being on the whole 'when rumbsfeld was informed by bush' business? SO sketchy. viz. "Q: Scott, back on the question of timing. Is it really possible that the President wasn't briefed by Secretary Rumsfeld until after a press release about this was issued? ... MR. McCLELLAN: That is totally speculating. So I'm not going to get into complete speculation. The President was informed by Secretary Rumsfeld, so obviously he was informed at a point after Secretary Rumsfeld was made aware of these allegations of prisoner abuse." oh. and are we invading cuba next? i just want to keep my list straight.

thursday, 6 may

overheard: 'ben and i need to start tag-teaming' -gretchen

so today is the national day of prayer. whatever that means. i think y'all should take today to quietly reflect on the value of having an open and non-sectarian society. and then you should right a letter to your congresspeople encouraging them to reflect on the same. i didn't update yesterday. mea culpa. i was busy. and i'm wicked tired today from getting up at 4.30 to pick beckers up at heathrow. but now she's here: huzzah! now i just have to bake the most dilicious cake in the world. and go to edamame. and take a nap. oh. and write that dumb MSt thesis.

oh, and just one little tidbit from the world of politics: the note wrote yesterday about W's trip to ohio: "President Bush appealed to the GOP faithful and volunteers, telling them 'I'm here to fertilize the grass roots.'" i won't even complete the metaphor. you get what i'm saying.

tuesday, 4 may

national aardvark day! old man.
overheard: 'if you'll be the factory owner, i'll be the worker.' -jack, who won't be joining organized labor anytime soon.

i had a dream last night that started off with trying to get into one of the many secret gardens in college. unsuccessfully, i should add. but to follow up, mike and i decided to take a walk through the woods. the ones near oxford. we were sort of rock skiing down a steep hill when we caused a little rockslide. so we had to move off to the side. where it was icy. and when we got to the bottom of the hill, we went into a dentist's office. where an episode of friends was taking place. odd.

really, all i did was work yesterday. but i did manage to make some progress. i'm torn between the idea of writing and the idea of researching today. i discovered there's a lot more stuff in london that i should consult, too. urgh. it never ends. but at least becky comes in two days.

monday, 3 may

overheard: 'it controls the vacuum in the vagina.' -tim

i forgot to mention in yesterday's update that saturday evening it smelled and felt suspiciously like gramma k.'s back yard in the summer. i'd forgotten how much i miss her house. but don't worry, i remember now. today is very the beauty of the rain-like. i'd like to say that this bank holiday no brakfast but you get brunch in hall thing is utter crap. there are no bank holidays at oxford. our terms are 8 weeks long, and i've got crap to do. i'm writing the food rep. ok. i have a lot of work today. no more talky.

sunday, 2 may

overheard: 'i can't tell if she reminds me of the first four weeks of college or the last three months of college' -collin

yesterday was rainy, but good. the geography of nowhere while interesting, strikes me as being about as out of date as the nine nations of north america, but otherwise much in the same vein, though perhaps not as well-researched. then again, my knowledge of cultural geography lit is pretty low. i was appalled to learn that the author of nowhere didn't even cite jane jacobs. who does that? otherwise, though, i didn't really do much yesterday. birthday brunch for suzie. birthday drinks for suzie. birthday dinner for suzie. got really drunk on sangria and red wine. suprisingly, i'm not hungover. no punts today, according to the plodge. but there's always the master's garden.

i know i mentioned a couple days ago my disgust with the torture of prisoners in iraq by US service-men and -women. i have since discovered my reaction to this situation to be very visceral. the thought of it, let alone the images, makes me physically ill. matters aren't helped by revelations in a new yorker article covered in today's nytimes, or by what i read in london's observer (the sunday version of the guardian. my first reaction was to wonder why these people would do such things. and as both i and talking points mused, who needs to know the specifics of the geneva convention to know that torturing is wrong? unless, of course, they've been told by their superiors that it isn't. in any case, i am curious to see how it plays out in the coming weeks and months. not the torture allegations. though i do hope that the news doesn't prematurely ejaculate with this story and then roll over and fall asleep. it's important for both americans and britons to know what's being done in their names. no, i'm more interested in how this affects american and british standing in the rest of the world. listening to bush and blair use words like 'disgusted' or 'apalled' has not effect on me. the threshhold for spin in these two administrations is so high, thanks to rove and campbell that anything out of either man's mouth strikes me as fundamentally insincere. is that just me?

saturday, 1 may

overheard: 'do you think she's from jersey?' -undie

turns out she's from wyoming. but you really couldn't tell. happy may day, by the by. and a hearty welcome to the ten new (second class) members of the EU. i may have reservations about the constitutional makeup of the union, but i still think it's a good thing. wait. that's how i feel about the catholic church too. weird...no. i didn't get up for the singing thang at magdalen. prehaps next year. the essay is in, which means i can now stress full time about my MSt dissertation. i suppose that's reason to celebrate. breakfast is, in any case. i did, in fact spend my afternoon at the rad cam reading some urban design stuff. big plans got big points for alluding to both brideshead and the motel of the mysteries. the former reminds me of, well, the present. the latter reminds me of 3rd grade christmas, when my parents bought me motel after i heard about it at nerd school. speaking of books! i just figured out that, aaron having been robbed blind in barcelona last week, i have lost my copy of howard's end. none too happy about that. the [a.ho] library is from this day forward a strictly reference library

you probably already noticed the link list to the right. yes, i caved to blogging protocal pressure. so now you can link to my favourite news sites/blogs directly from this page. and eventually i'll start making links to my individual posts. just because i have nothing better to do.