One year ago...

Bryan and Sabrina will probaly roll their eyes that I'm paying this any attention, but a year ago today, Rachal broke up with me. What a difference a year makes. It's nice to think back and see some of the positive things that have come out of it. I still miss her sometimes (Sabrina, roll your eyes here), and as much as anything I'd like to know exactly what the hell happened, but I suppose that's pretty unlikely. I just look forward to the day when I find someone else that I get along with as well as we did, while it lasted.

So, with that unpleasantness out of the way, Badly Drawn boy kicked serious ass on Tuesday night:



The Meridian's sound was, as usual, absolutely awful, but his set was still brilliant. I was pleased to see him touring with a relatively large band: guitarist/keyboardist, bassist, floutist (beautiful touch), drummer, violinist, and cellist. He approached his set(s) in a way I really liked: he played his new album in its entirety, took a break, and then came back and played some old stuff. It's a nice balance between pleasing new fans/promoting the new album and pleasing the old fans who complain that "he/they played too much new stuff". I enjoyed the new stuff more than I had previously; I think it's time to pick up that album again. And the old stuff...

Hour of Bewilderbeast is, to me, and absolutely classic, beautiful album which has permeated many moments of my life. When the strings started for "The Shining", I got an absolutely huge grin on my face (even though the horn part was covered by violin). I shed a tear or two during "A Minor Incident", a song which made my "Chance to Take" breakup compilation. Everything else was absolutely wonderful as well.

Older concert reviews said the his sets were often rambling and inconsistent, but this was tight. He had to restart a couple of songs, but that was due to the venue's shitty sound. They really need to do something about that. It really detracts from things. All in all, though, it was a wonderful, beautiful night of music that made me glad to be alive—

—despite the fact that my exam's on Tuesday. I'm finishing up my slides right now, and doing a practice talk tomorrow. Wish me luck. The good news is that I'm seeing Death Cab tomorrow night. Rock!

Special Homecoming 2K4 Edition!

Thursday night:

The Elected opened, and their alt-country/folk sound was nice enough, though Dan assured me that it was not a fair sampling of their material. Nex up was Tilly & the Wall, which is, I believe, the oddest set I've seen in quite some time. Here's how it breaks down: one male acoustic guitar player/lead singer; one male keyboardist; two female backup vocalists who would occasionally clap, play various small percussion instruments (maracas, tambourines, etc.), play bass (on exactly one song) or lead cheers; and (here's the kicker) a tap dancer, who more or less filled the principal rhythm section role. The songs were upbeat things; somewhat Polyphonic Spree-ish, but too homogeneous.

Rilo Kiley wasn't particularly impressive (not that I expected them to be), but enjoyable enough. Jenny Lewis (excuse me, The Wizard's Jenny Lewis) did not bring the hotness that I had hoped. Thursday night, I learned that rock concerts aren't the appropriate venue to appreciate beautiful red heads, as the lighting keeps the color from showing up.

Friday:

I got up, finished packing, and drove to Waco. Here was the playlist:

Weezer's Pinkerton
Stars' new Set Yourself On Fire (review coming soon)
The Walkmen's Everyone Who Pretended To Like Me Is Gone
The Arcade Fire's brilliant Funeral

I got my hair trimmed, ran some errands, put some laundry on, and then met up with Nick. We got our Vitek's on (note to self: the small gut pack is entirely insufficient), and then headed to Cricket's (additional note: Cricket's margaritas suck). I had a good time catching up with Nick, got him a little liquored up, and then packed him off with the wife to go visit his church friends. Around the same time, Bryan wandered over from Ninfas; we hung around for a little while, grabbed some Taco C to sober up, and then headed to Scruff's to meet the modern-day Charlie's Angels trio of (in reverse alphabetical order) Sabrina, Randa, and Michele.

After the three lovely ladies showed up, the drinking recommenced. At one point, there was a debate as to the color of a gentleman's shirt. When I looked at him in order to add my opinion, I realized that the man in question was, in fact, Bailey, close personal friend of Cousin Jer (hereafter, CJ). I went over and said hi, confirmed that I was in fact correct about the shirt, and then went in search of CJ.

I let my guard down for a second, though, and in that time CJ spotted me and grabbed me, causing me to lose about half of my drink. He replaced it, but then managed to spill part of the new one in the process of handing it to me. We chatted a bit and then he went back to terrorizing the female customers (including Sabrina) before asking for a ride back to his hotel. I took him, and came back, only to discover that there was a line to get back into Scruffy's. I informed the door man that I was only going back in to close my tab (fairly devious for me) and went back to enjoying the good company.

I was in the bathroom at one point when Randa's beaux pulled up to the urinal beside me and began a conversation which lead me to the conclusion that the man is either an astute judge of character and a skilled observer of the human condition; or, alternatively, completely insane. His assessment of me is garbled, but I'll give my best summary of it. He informed me that I was not living up to my potential; that I needed to go to jail for a night; that I needed to get in a fight; that I needed to find two whores for myself in Mexico; and that I needed to get my nose broken in the process of hitting on girls and getting slapped. He then informed me that all of this was OK because people wouldn't remember what I did twenty minutes after it happened.

I told him that I understood his point and that I would think about it. He said that no, in fact, I didn't get it. I had not idea how to respond at this point, but kept saying things along this line for the rest of the night, or vaguely hinting at them in the general conversation back at the table.

Saturday:

I was awoken at 11:57 AM by Sabrina, who seemed surprised that I was still in bed. Randa had left town, and consequently, Sabrina needed a bed for Saturday night, which my parents were, of course, thrilled to provide her. I ran some errands with the parents that afternoon, finished up laundry, and enjoyed a Schmaltz [sandwich] with the parents.

Sabrina and Michele came by that evening to pick me up for dinner. While they were talking with my parents, CJ called and left me a message inviting me to join him at [Waco strip club] Two Minnies, which I respectfully ignored. Sabrina, Michele and I went to Barris (thus continuing my culinary tour of Waco) before heading to Malone's for some drinks, and then, ultimately, to Scruff's again, where we spent the rest of the evening. That bastard Bryan never even dropped by.

Sunday:

I went to church, got to see Kelly, Phil, Leslie, and a few others from the ol' Seventh crowd, and then we went to lunch at Johnny Carrino's. That bastard Bryan, again, did not join us for lunch. I came home, packed up, and then headed back to Houston. The return trip playlist:

Interpol's Antics
Magnolia Electric Company's debut self-titled album
Modest Mouse's The Moon & Antarctica
Stars' new album (again)
Nedelle & Thom's Summerland

All in all, a good weekend to catch up with old friends. Nothing terribly wild this year, but there's always plenty of time for that. After a bit of time at the apartment, I went to catch a show at the Proletariat. 8-Track Charade opened, and their organ-and-trumpet-based jamming was entertaining for a while before it wore thin. They need to tighten up their arrangements and song-writing, and they'd be pretty enjoyable. Dios Malos (formerly Dios—thanks Ronnie James Dio) played next, which is what I was really there for, and proved to be disappointing. The mix was quite unkind to them, and the relaxed beauty of their kick-ass self-titled album didn't translate well to the live setting. It made me sad, but I wondered how much of the problem was caused by the venue itself. Also, there was nobody to do the harmonies, which are pretty important for this style of music.

The Fiery Furnaces closed out the set. Dan had warned me that they didn't play a good show, but I thought they seemed pretty good. I was kind of tired (why does church have to be in the morning?) so I didn't stick around. They had much more live energy than I expected; much more punk. I'll have to go back and give their album another listen.

In closing, this is the greatest thing since sliced bread. That's a movie link, so only click if you have broadband.

Random observations

I've been enjoying this guy's columns, thanks to a link from Glorious Noise, about his quest to become a rock star in New York City. Your mileage may vary. Start with the oldest column and see if you like it. Every time I see that he's posted a new one, it makes me happy.

On one of my long trips down the hall to the water machine, I saw a bottle of blue liquid labeled "Coffee Pot Cleaner". I had no idea such things existed. Has anybody else ever seen this? One would think that you wouldn't need specialized cleaner, but perhaps I'm missing something.

On Tuesday, when I went into our coffee shop to purchase a bottle of water before the ethics seminar, I saw a girl wearing a shirt that said "Boys Cheat". This is not the first of these (or similar) shirts I've seen, but they've always mystified me. I recognize that this statement is somewhat factual, if not universally true. Why wear it on a t-shirt, though? When she decided what she was going to wear that day, was she thinking, "I'm going to look bitter today!"?

Perhaps there are other reason. Perhaps it's reverse psychology; she's hoping that some boy will look at the shirt and say, "I'm going to prove that shirt wrong!". These shirts are often small and designed to accentuate the breasts. Could this be some female empowerment thing? Is she hoping that girls will pass her in the hall and shoot her a look that says, "You go girl! You be empowered!"?

Ranting aside, I'm about to go see Rilo Kiley and watch Jenny Lewis in all of her red-headed glory sing sweet songs. Then I'll pack. And then, tomorrow morning, it's off to Waco, which I'm quite excited about. I should be in a much better mood this year. Looking forward to seeing you kids that are going to be there.

Catching up

The paper's in. Now comes the fun part. But first, in summary...

I showed up Monday for lab meeting and little else.

I showed up Tuesday for the ethics seminar I'm required to take this semester. Now the ethics of science are a very interesting subject, but we're not discussing stem cells or cloning or bioengineered crops. This is things like "What constitutes falsified data?" or "What constitutes plagiarism?" and such.

Wednesday and Thursday I barely left the apartment and worked on the paper.

Friday, I went to Rice for the Keck seminar and the Keck Fellows meeting, not because I thought it was particularly important that I be there, but because I wanted an excuse to leave my apartment. It was nice. Plus, the Star Pizza that was ordered for the meeting showed up late, after most people had left, so I scored a whole pizza to take home with me. I think that makes up for me breaking my free meal streak.

Saturday was more work on the paper. I finally packed it off to Jeff to read for me. Around 9:00, I decided that I probably wouldn't be accomplishing anything else, so Jeff and I went to see Team America.

The parody of summer action movies was spot on. Trey Parker and Matt Stone's eventual "take" on the ethics of American interventionism showed their typical common sense, but was unsatisfyingly moderate, as they often are. The movie itself failed to consistently entertained, and was often as boring as the material it parodied. The songs were funny, though. Still, like good parody, it did a nice job of capturing the zeitgeist. The best part of the whole damn movie? Panthers.

Sunday was a matter of finishing off the bulk of the paper, getting Jeff to read it again, and then going to see the Pixies.

For those not familiar, the Pixies are a terribly important, hugely influential band. They've also never been a band that's done much for me. I'm sure that some people will react to that in the way that I react to people that don't enjoy the Beatles: total disbelief and incomprehension, followed perhaps by some screaming, and, finally, acceptance.

So, with that in mind, when I heard that the pixies were doing a reunion tour, I decided that I should go. I felt that, musically and culturally, this was an important event, and missing it would be completely irresponsible of me as an appreciator of music.

It was a good show. It was in Reliant Arena, which would certainly not be my first choice for a venue, but it didn't exactly get in the way. We only caught the last bit of the Thrill's performance, so I can't really comment on that. The Killers weren't particularly impressive, but had their moments. I also ran into a girl from school there, and she gained appropriate "cool points" in my estimation. I like to think it was a two-way exchange.

The Pixies rocked out appropriately. The crowd was a bit crazier than what I normally see, but not bad. There was some nastiness at the opening of "Mr. Grieves", and at one point, a group of largish guys tried to push their way up front because they were more important than everyone else. I made a particularly valiant effort at pushing back, which was satisfying in some small way.

Monday, I showed up to lab expecting to have the rest of the day to put the finishing touches on my proposal, instead finding the lab in chaos. The boss was trying to finish up a grant application; one of my lab mates was trying to finish up her proposal; and, consequently, there was a bit of a to-do over the use of the printer. The boss wanted several lab members to put some bibliographic information into EndNote, which I had to teach them how to use. He also wanted me to proof the grant for him, since I am a "native English speaker"—the first time somebody has ever really considered that to be a valuable asset in me. Maybe I should start listing that under "special skills" on my CV.

In the end, the grant got submitted and I turned my proposal in, though hitting the send button on that e-mail took an act of sheer will, knowing that there just had to be some sentence that could be improved, some figure added, or some typo corrected.

I've enjoyed my slight break. I ran some errands today and yesterday. Monday night I went out for beers with some of the other guys who just turned their proposals in, and then came back home, took the iPod and the Grado headphones down by the pool, and smoked a cigar. It was nice.

Now, it's time to put a presentation together for my proposal defense. I am completely and uterly mortified of the process—scientists are a combative bunch, and having to deal with between one and two and a half hours of questions from them is very scary. The process seems so arbitrary. Some people purposely leave out information from their presentations in hopes of influencing which questions get asked. Plus, they can ask me any "general knowledge" questions, which is particularly scary since we didn't have any real required curriculum. What constitues general knowledge that we are supposed to have acquired?

Anyway, two weeks, and it's over—I hope. Homecoming's this weekend. I'm excited.

Canadian Thanksgiving

In honor of Jennifer and sundry other Canadians, we celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving tonight. It quickly turned into culturally ignorant Americans night, as Nathan asked Jennifer various things about Canada, and then asked Stephanie (whose self-identity is very tied to being Jewish) about when she found out that Santa Claus wasn't real. It was good fun, though, and a free meal. If only it had come last night and I hadn't broken my streak.

Also, I met a redhead (Turkish this time—why are they foreign lately?) whom I had seen around Baylor before. When it rains, it pours.

It's crunch time for the proposal. Considering I had intended to have it done a week ago, and then today, so that I could get some people to read it, I'm a bit behind. But thankfully, I can impose on Jeff at the last minute to read it for me; hopefully, though, I'll be able to put a lot into it and kick ass so that my defense is easier.

We went to the store before dinner to pick up ice cream to go with the cobbler. Stephanie insulted the good name of Blue Bell, claiming it wasn't as good as Ben & Jerry's. I informed her that of course it wouldn't be as good as Ben & Jerry's since it probably had about half the fat. Honestly, I thought that was an exaggeration. Stephanie didn't believe me, checked the nutrition facts, and it turned out, I was right on the money. Score one for the Wardster.

OK. Time for some music before bed, and then back to work tomorrow. Here's hoping.

The week in Ward

OK, this one will be a little long. I've got some catching up to do.

Nothing terribly exciting earlier in the week, other than the beard happenings.

The Keck Center had a "retreat" for us on Friday. Basically, there were six speakers who were relatively new faculty, and then all of the fellows had to show posters, which meant I had to make a poster. Here it is:



I was kind of disappointed—none of the judges asked me questions about my poster, or even appeared to give it more than a momentary glance. I felt left out. Lunch was lame too—sandwiches. As much money as they have, you'd think they could give us something decent. There was no alcohol there, either. I held out hope—there was a happy hour on the schedule. It turned out, though, that they just told us to go to the hotel bar. $4.50 for a beer is not a happy hour. Plus, I had to get up while it was still dark outside, which is a crime against God. Actually, for all my bitching, it was enjoyable enough, but I could have used that day for working on my proposal.

Friday evening I went to Nathan and Melissa's for dinner, and then we watched the debates. There was one girl there who was a Republican and took a lot of crap for it—really, though, she was just a single-issue voter since her dad was in the military. Well, and there was the anti-abortion thing. We tried to make a drinking game out of it, but it ended up being too much. I'm pretty sure if we had followed the rules, we would have all been dead. We watched School of Rock afterwards, which was pretty enjoyable if largely predictable. It helped that it was a lesson in the importance of rocking, which is a subject near and dear to my heart.

Saturday afternoon, the apartment complex held a "barbecue" for the residents. In reality, they were just grilling hamburgers and hot dogs, which, in my mind, does not constitute a proper barbecue. But it was free food, so I didn't complain. I ran into BCM medical students Jen and Michelle. Jen's pretty cute, and I was disappointed when she mentioned, a while back, that she had a boyfriend—six months after we had met. Anyway, I was eating with them when a hot redhead asked to join us. I was a happy man. I don't think she was the one I had noticed a few weeks back, but really, one can never know too many hot redheads. Turns out she's a graduate student in Finland, but is doing her lab work abroad here at BCM. Excellent.

Saturday night, nothing was going on, so I went up to Woodrow's to hang out. Will wasn't working, but Leroy was, and it ended up there were others there that I knew: David and David of the SCBMB program, and David's girlfriend. They had been drinking heavily, which proved entertaining. When we went to Two Rows for liquor, I introduced them to the glory of the Four Horsemen, which always reminds me of toothpaste.

We had a graduate school picnic in Herman Park today, which was nice. Free barbecue (real barbecue this time) and two kegs. Shame that I was nursing a hangover and had to drive home, too, or I would have loaded up a bit more.

So, for those of you keeping count, I had five free meals in a row this weekend. Five. It was excellent. I was really hoping that I would be able to pull off the hat trick and score a free meal for dinner tonight, but it didn't happen. It was like my solid week of drinking that ended a day or two early. Sometimes, though, you just have to deal with your reach exceding your grasp.

Random act of free will

First off, Sabrina, don't panic. It'll grow back—in time for homecoming, even.

I'd been sort of curious over the last few months what I looked like under the beard—what the last six years had done to my face. I decided that I would find out and reevaluate my choice of facial hair.

So, as of about 8:30 last night, the beard's gone. It's weird; I feel like I'm looking at somebody else in the mirror. It doesn't seem that different from what I looked like in high school, but there's some non-obvious difference I can't put my finger on, though that may just be the hair. Also, my face is cold. Being able to feel the open air on my face again makes it feel sort of like it's wet all the time. It's strange.

I don't really like the new look. In fact, I think I'm not going to shave again. I'm going to jump right into growing it back.

The reactions have made it entirely worth while, though. I dropped by Stephanie's last night, and she opened the door and had a look akin to complete horror on her face. Jennifer handled it a little more calmly. I ran into SCBMBer Ezgi while waiting for the elevater; I said hi, watched the look of recognition and then surprise dawn on her face, and then she said, "What happened?" as if I had run afoul of a weed whacker or something. Office mates Rupa and Martin were surprised; Rupa's comment was that I looked like a someone else. I was headed out the door of my office when lab mate Dan was coming in and got to see the look of surprise on his face, as well, and then I got the same thing from lab mate David. I headed into our lab meeting, and the boss said that I "looked like a new man".

So, now, it's your turn. Leave an approximation of your stunned reaction in the comments below.

Thomas "Cosmo" Carlile

The big Tee-hom came to the Great State this weekend to attend a wedding here in the Bayou City. He brought with him Brent and Dave. I stuck around after the Keck seminar on Friday afternoon until the beer was gone, headed home, and then waited on the delayed Thom and crew. They showed up about eight and we headed off to grab some dinner at Pappasitos (my impressions—good food, but overpriced).

Afterwards, I called to check in on the West Alabama crew. I reached Kennedy on Graham's cell phone:

Me: "Are y'all still at West Alabama?"
Kennedy: "No, we're at Harry's Place."
directions follow
Me: "And what did you say the name of the place is?"
(not knowing any Harrys)
Kennedy: "We're not at a bar, we're at Harry's place."

I informed the gentlemen that we were crashing a party. We stopped off to pick up beer. I selected a thirty pack of the champagne of beers, which is the biggest bang for your buck at Randall's. Thom picked up a six of Shiner; Brent, a classy twelve of Schlitz Beer, the beer that made Milwaukee; and Dave a twelve of the Beast, light.

We arrived at one of the better parties (not that there's much competition) that I've attended here. Turns out it was not Harry's place, but instead it was Ari's place (or Hari's place; I don't know how to spell his name—point being, he was in fact someone that I knew, and my confusion about Harry's place was legitimately founded). There were lots of people, some I knew, and some I didn't know. It was kind of a shame that I had to look after Thom & crew, because I would have liked to have socialized a bit more, but I was feeling a bit shy that night, so perhaps that was just an excuse. I did get to catch up some people whom I don't see often and establish that I was not in fact a Nathan Boles (BCM, CMB program) look-a-like and was instead the superior specimen. I also finally had an excuse to introduce myself to the girl that I see every day when I make the long walk down the hall from lab to the departmental water cooler, which was good, since she's cute and she'll be at our joint retreat in a month.

I got pretty drunk. I didn't do anything particularly stupid, but I didn't really keep track of how many beers I had (though I do remember quite clearly the two shots of So. Co.—brings back memories of being in Europe with the littlest Ward). Not a bad evening, all in all.

Saturday night, after the guys got out of their (well, not their) wedding, they met me, Dan, Kristin and John at Rudyard's. I partook in an excellent Rudyard's burger, which was 45 minutes late, but did not get comped as we had speculated it might. Still, it was a damn good burger. Dave showed up thoroughly trashed, and Thomas was good enough to look after him while he wandered around hitting on random girls. We were pretty sure he was going to get kicked out at some point, and subsequently elected no to join Dan, Kristin and John in hopping to the next bar and instead returned him to my apartment, where he seemed to be suffering from a bout of alcohol-induced Turet's Syndrome.

We hit Buffalo Wild Wings for lunch, and I ran into Will and Val and joined them for a bit after Thom and co. hit the road. Will and I wandered over to Woodrow's and played some darts and enjoyed the beer specials in honor of the Texans game that was on the TV. I also went appliance shopping with Stephanie, who is in the final stages of acquiring a condo. It was exciting.

Mt. Eerie? More like "Mt. Sucky"!

As you probably conjectured based on the post title, the Mt. Eerie show was a disappointment. More on that shortly.

I started the drinking early on Wednesday; I had a beer after dinner (the stock is getting dangerously low; I think I'm down to a few Dos Equis and Coronas, and I've been out of Shiner for a week—it's pathetic) and then a margarita (I made a batch last weekend; I'm trying to find a recipe I like and then perfect it). Jeff still had his rental car from his brief business trip to Austin, and since he was picking me up from the GSC happy hour to go to the show at Mary Jane's, I decided to walk to Brian O'Neil's. The weather was hotter and the walk longer than I had originally conjectured, but it was fun for a change, and it meant that at no point did i have to be sober enough to drive home.

I didn't go overboard, really, but I was feeling pretty nice: three beers and two T&T's at the happy hour, and then two more beers at the show. The happy hour was a bit sparse while I was there and just seemed to be picking up when we left.

We timed things perfectly to catch Mt. Eerie. Mary Jane's was sold out; a first since I've been going there. This guy got up on stage and did a sound check, and then said, very sheepishly, "I'm going to start now." He had to repeat it a few times before the audience heard him.

A little background is in order. Phil Elvrum recorded a goodly number of albums under the moniker "The Microphones" with whoever he happened to have around and makes experimental, highly textured low-fi indie pop. It's frequently beautiful, kind of weird, but the man is capable of writing a great song. His The Glow, Pt. 2 was Pitchfork's album of the year for 2001. In early 2003, he released Mt. Eerie, an allegorical concept album. He then announced that he would be performing under the Mt. Eerie name. This year, at the start of this tour, for some reason, he decided that he was now Phil Elverum instead of being Phil Elvrum.

Out of the three of us at the show that had at least a passing familiarity with his work, none of us knew any of the songs he performed. Many of them were thirty seconds or a minute long. It was absolutely absurd, and pretty much awful, and this on the heels of glowing reviews by people who'd been to his other shows. I don't know if it was the crowd, the venue, or Phil, but it was a huge shame. I expected so much more. A few songs in, he completely lost the audience, who had started talking. Halfway through the set, I lost interest in buying an album from him, then, in the end, decided that it'd be worth my $12 to have an excuse to talk to the man.

Me: "Should I buy Song Islands (a singles compilation) or Don't Wake Me Up (his first album on K Records)?"
Phil: "Um..."
long awkward pause
Phil: "I guess Song Islands."
Me: OK.

Explosions in the Sky played next. They did their atmospheric, instrumental thing, and it sounded like so many other bands of that genre that I'd heard lately. It's nice, but I wasn't particularly in the mood for it.

I returned home, thankful that I hadn't had to drive, and opened the album. I didn't get Song Islands. I got Island Songs which is the Japanese version—sort of. The tracklist is about 90% similar, but some of the songs are titled differently, and some of the songs are entirely different. The eccentricity of it all was maddening. The man's musical catalogue is just impossible to get your head around, with albums taking the name of songs on other albums, songs whose titles differ from other songs by one word, limited release vinyl albums with hand painted covers; it's just crazy.

But I put the CD in, and it was beautiful. I still wish his set hadn't sucked, though.

I watched Mean Girls with Stephanie tonight. It was surprisingly enjoyable (until it got preachy), a feature I attribute to Tina Fey—sweet, beautiful Tina Fey.

Also, Time Warner Houston has finally entered the late nineties by making their Digital Video Recorder (generic Tivo) service available. Tivo's kind of like the Macintosh of the category; I feel bad for not buying their superior product, but this is almost half the price, and I didn't have to throw down a couple hundred bucks on the box, too. For $7 a month, Time Warner's product is to cheap to pass up, even if it's inferior. That doesn't stop me from feeling like a sellout, though.

It's really sweet, though. I don't have to worry about being home in time for shows I want to watch. I can skip commercials. I can pause while I'm on the phone. It's one of those enabling technologies that I love, the kind of thing that you don't appreciate until you have it and wonder how you ever did without it, like broadband, the iPod, a laptop, a cell phone... and this is just the first day. Sweet.