The Misspent Life

Fancy Dinner

Although I have a slightly negative cash flow and will for the next, oh, several decades, I try to keep a decently enjoyable standard of living.  This, perhaps, explains why my cash flow is slightly negative, rather than being slightly positive (where all my money went when I was working, I will never know).  Part of this is treating myself to a nice meal every now and again.  Since my dining experience in The District is limited I always end up going to the same place, Les Halles.  While there are fancier places, I find that it provides pretty good food at a comparatively reasonable price.  In short, the idea of it is more expensive than the actual experience.  That being said, a few days before the Super Bowl I blew a large amount of money there.  It was worth it, however.  I will tell you all about the food, but I will not tell you anything about the lady who accompanied me. All you need to know is that, gentleman that I am, she did not spend a dime for the dinner or the evening's activities.  See below for some words on the food.   

Your Heart Must Be...

...very fond of me, since I have been absent so long. Frankly, it is getting to the point where I should explain WHY I am posting not why I haven't been, but I won't let that stop me now.

I did finally finish my work from last semester and it was mildly received, to put it, erm, mildly.  I then followed it up with two applications that needed to be written on two completely different research topics.  I won't hear about the important one for a number of months (about me getting $$$ to go abroad for the whole summer), but the good news is that I already received a positive response to the other. Using the phrase "good news" is something of a stretch, since in the short term it is anything but because I now have an even harder work load than my previous harder than usual work load.  So now, not only am I taking four classes instead of the standard three and then performing teaching duties for a fifth, but I am a research fellow with a little institute at the university.  It is no money and potentially no work, but being the good little student that I am, I will make it more work than I need to, thus adding the equivalent of a sixth class. But this is not all.  I have decided to rework my mildly received paper into something better which moves the load up to a 6.5.  Finally, by incorporating the irregular jaunts with a young lady, this 6.5 may quickly approach infinity.

The new position that I have just added to my list of obligations has many perks, including my own office.  Yes! An office of my own, with a door, a nice big desk, and some book shelves.  There are no windows, but still!  My own office!  I've never had one before.  When working, I always had to share with a group or follow a first-come-first-served hoteling model.  I am excited about that and am looking to get into a more regular schedule.  The hope is that this will allow me to get more work done.  Of course, it will mean that I am going to start working as much as I did before I went back to school while making a quarter of the money.  I even had trouble getting internet connectivity with my laptop in the new office--just like old times visiting the client site for the first time!!

This constant activity has caused me to fall behind in my required reading, forgo any other reading I want to do, and also to keep up with my little circle of blogs.  Tragically, it has also meant that I haven't been getting my standard dosage of media intake.  Would you believe that I have had the same three movies from Netflix FOR A WHOLE WEEK!  I shouldn't make it seem as though all is lost, however.  You see, I have also been having some fun.

Danish Buns

Thanks, CO!

Hip Oldsters

Have you been reading Commentary Magazines new blog, contentions?  I have been giving it a look every now and again.  It is interesting, but lacks the kind of fun and zing of National Review's The Corner.  This is not terribly surprising given Commentary's serious and somewhat old person style.  It has a lot of good people writing for it, that is for sure, but the posts and long and demand a lot of attention in order to get through them.  They aren't things you can quickly zip through and still come away the better for it. 

Anyway, it isn't so much the content that I want to share with you.  It is, rather, a strange disconnect between the serious oldster feeling of the site and the fact that it incorporates some of the hipper things on the web blog scene, like del.icio.us and most surprisingly Facebook.  That's right, all the high schoolers and drunken college freshmen can with one click of their mouse upload a link to a particularly insightful contentions post to their Facebook site.  Perhaps I am being a bit harsh on contentions and making it sound more fuddy-duddy than it is--and I do like it, which might say something about me--and also a bit harsh on Facebook, since after all some of us can be found there, but I do find it a bit of a weird intersection of worlds.

Bear Down, Chicago Bears!

The Bears are in the Super Bowl.  What am I going to do to celebrate?  Read on below.

No Commentary Necessary

American Idol.

Olivia Newton John.