Last night I saw a commercial for a device called LapBand. It's an inflatable cuff that goes around the top part of the stomach. When it's inflated it puts pressure on your stomach so you feel full and stop eating. I started thinking about the psychological/emotional toll that something like that must take, not only admitting that you lack self control to that degree, but to be willing to go under the knife and have your organs sliced and diced over it. That's when I realized that the emotional toll is an essence cost, and the LapBand is just another piece of cyberware.

The other day I bought Medal of Honor: Heroes II for the Wii to take advantage of my new zapper. It's a neat WWII FPS. There's an arcade mode, which is a rail shooter. You get to zip around France and blow away Nazis. Hannah just beat arcade mode. I couldn't be happier.

Imagine that you want to know all you can know about World War II. But the only sources of information you have are a copy of Newsweek from 2004 and a newspaper from the 1823. Also they're both in shreds. Also the shreds are in a dark room. Also you can only look into the room through a keyhole. Also there are tatters of other periodicals that have nothing to do with what you're looking at strewn about as well. Now with that data you collected through that keyhole, figure out why the Battle of the Bulge was fought, how many hairs were in Stalin's mustache, and how many men from Gary, Indiana went to war and came home wounded.

It's absolutely amazing that we've been able to glean as much as we have.

My giant-robots email is back up and running, many thanks to Paco. Who knew google had a mail server service?

My giant-robots email address is out of commission for a few days. Should have it back up in a little bit (thanks for the help Paco!). I'll post again when everything is good to go. Phone or AIM are probably the best way to get me till then.

Midnight Madness is an event (the first annual I believe) where a ton of stores on 57th street stay open till midnight and have crazy sales. Tonight I got:

• Free haircut
• My picture in the paper, receiving aforementioned haircut
• A page from a 1530 edition of "Froissart's Chronicles" for a dollar
• A pizza and two drinks for a total of $5.70

I also bought a book (no sale there) and Hannah bought a calendar (20% off!). A fine evening!

Wednesday my stuff heads for Chicago in the wee hours of the morning. I'll be at Penguin pretty much all day if anyone wants to swing by and hang out.

I'm back! Hell of a trip. Lots of van time, lots of clastics, lots of carbonates. A fine mix of sedimentology and getting plastered every night for 15 days. I found a sweet 5 million year old shark's tooth, looked at ooids, managed to be one of the precious few who didn't puke the whole trip, killed a black widow (and may have brought more home unintentionally), swam with sharks and spotted eagle rays and other cartilaginous fish, bought dirty jokes from a homeless guy in Key West, and climbed a big ass light house.

15 days was a long time, but it was a great trip. The people were, by and large, fantastic. Matt will be happy to hear they took to thinking inside the box like a fish to water. By the end of the trip it was "box me this" and "box me that."

Proper anecdotes in person since I'm too lazy to type them out and they probably won't work well as text anyway. All y'all should call me so we can hang out.

NWSigil put up the Abyssal Market I made! It's a good thing school's about to end, for I am filled with a desire to build more planar places.

This is pretty neat.

Cut up a gala apple and put it on a roll with some salami and some high quality cheddar cheese. Bake this at 325 for about 8 minutes. God. Damn.

I got into UChicago's PhD program. The times they are a changin'

Chicago beckons
Many are called, few chosen
What will autumn hold?

Nunc exspectamus.

You know that feeling when you beat Twilight Princess? That's a good feeling.

Anyone want to come play chess? I've got a hankerin'

Yesterday Hannah lost her umbrella and I, being utterly up a tree about Christmas presents, went out to buy her a new one. I went shopping in the Prudential Center and the following conversation ensued:

Me: I am come to buy an umbrella so effective at maintaining dryness that it makes Neptune himself weep in frustration and woe.
Sales person: What?
Me: I want to buy an umbrella.
Sales person: Oh.

Now I don't know what I was hoping for in a response. Maybe something like "This model was forged by Vulcan in the depths of Hades and was carried by Hadrian during his long campaign in the notoriously dreary British Isles. The handle is a tusk from on of Hannibal's elephants, the shaft is carved from the femur of Vercingetorix. Wield this umbrella and the forces of wetness will quail with fear." That would have been nice. Certainly better than "What?"

Oh well. Maybe they have better sales people at the Umbrella Pavillion, across from Ralph's Rain gear. You know, in the umbrella district.