If only i could discover the kind of devil's work my idle hands would be set to. My rallying cry of late has been a call for a month or two of ... well ... absolutely nothing. My motivation is at an all-time low at the moment. Two months to play Halo 2 and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, play with my iPod, and watch The Family Guy. Basically, to find out how the dogs live. If only.

Last Wednesday Veronica and i met up in the city for another yummy Chai Yo dinner with Geoff and Naomi before hopping off to Slim's to see the Psychedelic Furs. We'd seen them a few years back at the Inland Invasion 2003 debacle and before that opening for the B-52's and the Go-Go's. A theatric live band with a collection of gripping songs that haven't aged too badly, certainly worth inspecting in a smaller venue. The great thing about Slim's is that when it's not sold out, it's fairly easy to get a spot close to the stage, and on this occasion we found ourselves in touching distance. Richard Butler and co. powered through a set featuring the requisites "Heartbreak Beat", "Love My Way", "The Ghost In You", and "Pretty In Pink", as well as standouts like "Highwire Days", "Sister Europe", "Heaven", "President Gas", and "Dumb Waiters". All in all a good show, despite the fact that after two or three songs i realized Richard was coked out of his mind. A benefit of being so close: the nervous energy and darting eyes are plain to see, even through the black sunglasses. A bit sobering to think the man is still living the rock star lifestyle at ~50, but hey ... he did put on a good show.

V and i caught Million Dollar Baby with Becky and Louie on Saturday. Very good film. It's almost impossible to sit down at the theater NOT expecting a boxing film, but as it turns out roughly halfway through the movie suddenly shifts to a much larger scope. I've always liked Clint Eastwood, and he's fantastic here as a grizzled boxing trainer. His directing is excellent as well, although he is guiding the ever-brilliant Morgan Freeman and rising star Hilary Swank. Highly recommended. After the flick we stopped by Pete's for some coffee, then Louie and i split a great bottle of Unti wine before he and Becky headed off to an office party. V and i met up with Geoff and Naomi for some pizza and hanging out with the doggies.

On Sunday Geoff had resolved to use our facilties to wash his motorcycle, so i headed out back and resumed painting the rec room. Before long Geoff joined in the fight, and pointed out that i was using very thin rollers. After a quick trip to Home Depot (also picking up a rotary lawnmower and some hedge trimmers), we resumed our work and i was amazed at how quickly and evenly Geoff painted with a 3/4" roller. Tonight he's again trekking down the peninsula so we can wrap up the task and get on with using the room for some actual rec. Geoff and i also got in quite a lot of Halo 2 killing over the weekend, staying up until 4am on Sunday morning. I finally recorded my second victory in an online match, highlighted by an excellent double kill where i leapt a railing and pounced on two opponents with my dual-wielded SMGs. Our skills are slowly improving, but we still frequently encounter foes that have us awed by their dominance.

The topics of choice in the British tabloids lately have been A) Chelsea's chances of winning an unprecedented quadruple (that is, titles in the Premiership, the FA Cup, the Champions League, and the Carling Cup), and B) potential illegal transfer negotiations between the Blues and several Premiership players including Liverpool's England midfielder Steven Gerrard and Arsenal and England left-back Ashley Cole. My thoughts ... A) all signs so far are good, but i'm more than happy to enjoy the success as it comes and not fall into the trap of polishing the trophies before they're won. B) The English media has a long and storied tradition of printing wild speculation, and here they go again. Gerrard may come to Chelsea in the summer, particularly if Liverpool yet again fails to rejoin the footballing elite. It's not our fault the scousers can't get their act together well enough to keep their star midfielder content. As for Ashley Cole, that story strikes me as pure bullshit. First of all, we're not hurting for left backs and if we were, Cole is not near the top of any list i would draw up. Second, the timing of this news is all wrong. Arsene Wenger analyzed the news as being organized to have a psychological effect on his Arsenal team, especially just before their second-third place showdown with Manchester United tomorrow. If Mourinho is behind it, he's again beating his rivals at their own mind games. Third, the rumor is Cole met with Mourinho. This is a two-way street. If Cole is so sympathetic to the Arsenal cause, why is he off meeting with other teams? This is a question Wenger has refused to ask, instead calling for Chelsea's head on a platter over what is still very much a baseless allegation. Wenger better worry about why his squad is developing Grand Canyon-esque cracks and not some back-page musings in the Sun.

Freaky new cartoon or psychotic hallucination? You be the judge.

While in Iowa over the holidays i awoke late one night (somewhere in the 3-4am range) and groggily looked at the television that V had left on to go to sleep by. It was on Cartoon Network, and i saw a show that had me wondering if i was a) watching the latest bizarre addition to Adult Swim, b) still asleep and having a really twisted dream, or c) hallucinating in my sleep-deprived state. Further encounters have suggested the answer was a), although i can't rule out multiple episodes of c). The show is Super Milk Chan, a cuckoo Japanese-style cartoon about a spritely red-hooded girl and the insane characters she interacts with. That's about all i can say, i still have little to no idea what's going on in any given episode.

I remember in 1995 telling my roommate that i thought that Dave Grohl's post-Nirvana debut as Foo Fighters was pretty good. He had a contrary opinion, but i continued to harbor a fondness for the former grunge drummer. Granted, we all were a bit overexposed to Kurt Cobain by the time he died, but that shouldn't detract from what was a brilliant musical mind. Or from Grohl's continued rise to prominence. I think "Everlong" was the first indication that Grohl had emerged from Cobain's shadow, particularly the intimate acoustic version that got a decent amount of radio airplay. More recently, i find myself amazed by the song "Times Like These". I think it resonates at a level far beyond what was indicated by Grohl's promising but clumsy preliminary efforts like "I'll Stick Around". Again supplemented by an interesting acoustic interpretation, the song offers a compelling analysis of Grohl's musical history and the sort of wistful nostalgia that i'm a sucker for.

On Wednesday afternoon my new Dell Latitude X300 laptop arrived at work. After having lugged around my 10+ pound Inspiron for the last 3 years, i made a command decision to sacrifice performance for mobility in my next notebook. In practical terms that just means i can't run any computationally-exorbitant scientific programs on it, but it's great for day-to-day computing. I'm exploring wireless networking now ... it works great all over the house with my Linksys wireless B/G router, and i've found my office at work receives a couple of wireless networks. So now i'm posting on a Sunday morning, whoda thunk it.

As Soccernet puts it every week, Chelsea marches on. Another drubbing of a rival this Saturday, a 3-nil win over Portsmouth with Drogba netting two and Robben putting in yet another man-of-the-match performance, seting up both of Drogba's goals and scoring himself on an impressive turn around the Pompey keeper, slotting home from a tight angle. Our Premiership lead stands at 10 points, and as Arsenal and Manchester United try to mount a comeback they find themselves staring up at a Blues squad that shows no signs of cracking. Fergie and Wenger can play all the useless mind games they like , they're quite amusing really. With the weekend's footie action over, i can today turn to the AFC and NFC championship games. I like the Eagles and the Pats to fight it out in the Super Bowl, but i wouldn't be shocked if it was the Falcons and Steelers. I've been thoroughly impressed with how Bill Belichick continues to succeed with the Pats despite playing with a jury-rigged secondary, and would like to see New England win their third championship in four years, officially establishing them as a "dynasty".

We attended my department's holiday party (in mid-January???) last night, and had a nice dinner and some good drinks (V especially enjoyed the pomegranite and blood orange cosmos) with Becky, Louie, and co.

On Friday afternon i put Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater to rest. A very good game, although a bit long on the cutscenes and communicator conversations and short on the gameplay. I liked the story a lot, especially when you realize you're not playing as Solid Snake (the hero of the latter Metal Gear games) but as his enemy in the first NES Metal Gear, Big Boss. It provides a nice back story to the Metal Gear epic. I still have to give the nod to Splinter Cell as the premier stealth gaming experience, but MGS3 did a lot of things that SC would be wise to take heed. Up next on my video gaming plate: resuming my Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas adventure, conquering the gangland of San Fierro (San Francisco) and moving on to the climax of Las Venturas (Las Vegas).

Recap for the sports-impaired: last Sunday the Minnesota Vikings (a former favorite of mine) played a first round playoff game against the Green Bay Packers in Green Bay. The Packers are a storied team, rich in tradition and backed by a legion of ultraloyal fans. They also have a daunting home record in the playoffs. The Vikings managed the upset, in large part thanks to two touchdowns by star receiver and frequent troublemaker Randy Moss. After his second touchdown, he pantomimed mooning the crowd, during which he rubbed his behind on the goalpost. The media reaction? Sacrilege! Impudence! He just doesn't get it! In fact, so deep was the media outrage that i still haven't seen video of the incident because all the sports shows have deemed it too indecent to rebroadcast.

Let's put this in perspective. Unlike Janet Jackson's breast which actually was exposed, Randy Moss did not pull down his pants. He acted out a mooning. No exposure of flesh. And we're not talking about a sexually-charged act here, this was a prank. Apparently the Packers fans have made it a tradition to moon the visiting team's bus after they've been defeated by their beloved Pack, but for some reason this fully-clothed on-field reversal of the tradition is the real crime. Is our society so fearful of so-called obscenity in the media that this is what we've come to? I'll admit that Moss's disciplinary record is far from examplary and his attitude stinks, but in this case his post-game commentary was uncharacteristically wise: "I was just having some fun". If present trends continue we can expect a ban on babies on TV and film by 2010 because they are symbolic of the shameful sexual act that produced them.

The results of a poll on ESPN.com thankfully suggest that the American people are not as indignant about obscenity as the media figures who railed afterwards. 58% of those polled said the incident was funny, while only 15% said it was disgraceful and a paltry 2% found it insensitive. 54% are opposed to the NFL fining Moss for his alleged disgrace, while 87% would rather focus on the Vikings' unexpected victory over the Packers than Moss's antics. Part of the problem is we've created a culture of sports journalists who make a living raving about this and that, so a lot of media personalities see episodes like this as a paycheck. Apparently it pays to get pissed off.

The response of the English press to the introduction of brash young Portuguese coach José Mourinho has been curious. For years Alex Ferguson has won the praise of critics for his incredible success at Manchester United. However, despite his achievements his style with the media has always been one of brazen manipulation. In my observation of him since 1997 he has always been one to point out referee's decisions against his team and bemoan decisions that weren't given in his favor. In a sense this is characteristic of all sports personalities, but Fergie takes this practice to its extreme, almost laughing in the face of glaring contradictions in logic. He'll only admit mistakes when there's no way they can hurt him. For example, in the recent United-Tottenham Premier League contest, United keeper Roy Carroll fumbled a ball well over the goal line, but no goal was given by the refs. The match ended a nil-nil draw, and obviously Tottenham were furious and demanded video replays. Ferguson seconded their claims, knowing this response a) could not take points away from his team, and b) would make him look all the more magnanimous. Despite these quirks he has remained a darling of the media, overcoming incidents such as his deteriorating relationship with David Beckham (culminating with him kicking a boot at the petulant superstar) and even being knighted for his accomplishments. Compare this to the other most successful manager in the Premiership, Arsenal's Arsene Wenger. Despite sharing many of the same traits as Ferguson and regularly engaging in psychological warfare with the United coach as their two teams vie for superiority, Wenger has routinely come out the loser. Both on the pitch as well as in the papers. There are a number of possible explanations for this, from national differences (Wenger is French) to the style of play of their sides.

Enter Mourinho, a rising star in coaching in Portugal where he led FC Porto to victories in the Champions League and Portuguese League in recent years. Hired to lead "moneybags Chelsea" to footballing glory to match their newfound wealth, he arrived on the scene and immediately ruffled feathers in the press. In short, he doesn't mince words in interviews. Mourinho tells it like he sees it. Like Ferguson these responses are undoubtedly calculated for the benefit of his team, but with Mourinho there's a coldness and lack of emotion to it. I've seen interviews with the man, he is downright intimidating. After Wednesday's first leg of the Carling Cup semifinal with Ferguson's United, Mourinho questioned the referee's second half performance as he'd seen Ferguson walk down the tunnel with the official at halftime. This is essentially asking the FA to charge him with "bringing the game into disrepute" (the most ridiculous concept in English football, in my opinion). But Mourinho could care less. Screw everyone else. Give me a touchline ban, see if i care.

The response of the media has been to mock Mourinho and question his decisions. Again, i'm not going to assign a reason to these actions as there are many possibilities ... the same national differences as with Wenger, Mourinho's refusal to play the media's game their way, or perhaps the unwillingness of the British footballing community to add Chelsea to the elite circle that was previously the sole domain of Manchester United and Arsenal. Mourinho's confidence in himself and his team invites comment from the media, but his response has been to continue to succeed. Where Claudio Ranieri failed in forming a cohesive unit from a collection of brilliant players, Mourinho has succeeded and is forging a memorable debut season in English football that could culminate in one or more trophies. Fans of Wenger and Ferguson like to highlight the arrogance of Mourinho. I prefer to think they're getting upset that the Portuguese newcomer is beating their generals at their own game.

My new lap buddy. Pepe's lower left fang juts out at an angle, which causes his upper lip to curl inside his teeth on that side when he closes his mouth. The end result is that he's locked in a sort of perpetual Billy Idol sneer. Makes him look pissed off, but he's very friendly. Throw in the small dog syndrome and it's downright hilarious.
Pepe is a bit older than Tara so he's correspondingly a bit slower and a bit more likely to curl up and sleep. That is, when no one in the immediate vicinity is doing anything that might involve food.

I'm really digging Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. The first MGS was a genre-definer for the Playstation One, however my thoughts on the series were dimmed a bit by the sequel, Sons of Liberty on the PS2. For one thing, you played the vast majority of the game not as the series hero Snake but as some snot-nosed blonde-haired dips@#$ named Raiden. The story made no friggin sense whatsoever, and the gameplay was interspersed with intolerably long cutscenes and communicator conversations. It's almost-saving grace was that it was very easy on the eyes. The new chapter takes Snake back to 1964, where he has to eliminate his mentor who has defected to the Soviet Union and is backing a faction who have developed the first Metal Gear. Unfortunately it continues the tradition of mind-numbingly long cutscenes (Veronica had to wait 25 minutes for dinner the other day while i waded through one of them). However the improvements are bountiful. Most notable are the survival and stealth systems, which have been expanded to bring the game closer to reality. Snake must continually eat and heal himself to keep his stamina and life meters full. Since he's in the field, that means catching all sorts of things to eat (fruits, mushrooms, plus less palatable dishes like live snakes, frogs, birds, and rats). Also, he must tend to broken bones, cuts, and gunshot wounds or his life meter will go down, down, down. The in-game radar has been removed and replaced with more realistic devices like a motion sensor, removing one of the big crutches from previous versions of MGS. I'm only a couple of hours into the game, but it's playing great so far.

Chelsea line up for the first leg of the Carling Cup quarterfinal against Manchester United today. The Blues have been in stellar form of late, emerging from the mess of holiday matches with a perfect 12 points and a seven point cushion at the top of the table over second place Arsenal. Our squad has gelled into a powerful unit, spearheaded by Frank Lampard and captain John Terry and getting regular brilliant performances out of Arjen Robben and Damien Duff. Didier Drogba is back, and our defense continues to complete clean sheets. Nothing's won yet, but that doesn't change the smile on my face. The media is now hyping us for the quadruple, that is pipping us to win the Premiership, Champions League, FA Cup, and Carling Cup. That's a tall order. To be honest, the Carling Cup is the lowest priority, and part of me may actually be relieved should United (suffering through a rough patch the moment) manage to knock us down. I think Chelsea coaches José Mourinho and Steve Clarke have rightfully placed the emphasis on winning the Premiership, which would be a huge accomplishment for a club that last championed the English league in 1955. Inevitably, the club's gaze must also turn to the Champions League two-legged clash with continental noisemakers Barcelona beginning in February. Behind Ronaldinho, Deco, and Samuel Eto'o, the Catalans have been playing wonderful football this season and sit 7 points in front of Real Madrid in the Spanish Liga Primera. They knocked us out of the Champions League in 2000 during a fierce comeback at the Camp Nou in the second leg. But as i said last year, to be the best you've got the beat the best. And this will be a good test.

The fruits of my labor this weekend can be summed up in four photos ...

	On Friday afternoon our friendly Sears delivery men popped by to drop off our new Amana stove. Per recommendations made by Alan and Arlene, we got the relatively high end model with one 16,000 BTU "superburner" and a convection oven. It was still a fairly good deal, and got good reviews from Veronica who used it to make dinner on Sunday night. Best of all, it fills in that ugly gap in the kitchen, although there's still a six inch gap. We're debating whether to move the cabinets or find some sliding shelving unit to pull in and out of that space.
	After receiving the stove and getting in a little time with Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater on Friday (which i'd bought to get some use out of a few about-to-expire Best Buy coupons), i took Caltrain up to the city to have dinner with Veronica. We had a low key meal at Firewood in the Metreon, then stopped by the Container Store to look at closet organizers. Veronica had gotten a schematic of how we should set it up from their online utility, so we had a look at how it would come together and asked some questions of the sales associates. Satisfied with their proposals, we came back on Saturday afternoon after breakfast with Naomi and bought it. On our way home we stopped at OSH to get paint and supplies. V spent the evening painting the closet a nice lavender. The next morning i spent a while frustrating myself trying to screw things into the wall (it's made up of a quarter inch of plaster over a quarter inch of wood, something i'd never seen before). I finally succeeded by substituting smaller wood screws for the large ones that came with the unit. After mounting everything, V reorganized the closet. All in all, a huge improvement.
	While V was painting the closet, i began painting the rec room in our detached garage. We'd decided to make it a deep red. For some reason i thought painting a dark color over a white was much easier than painting white over a dark color. Not so, as you can tell from the photo. I finished one coat on Saturday night, and applied a second to about half of one wall on Sunday morning. It's getting there, albeit slowly. Once done though, it'll be a cool place to hang out and play music. Maybe we should get some of those velvet black light posters in there.
	Last but not least, Veronica convinced me that we should adopt Tara (an 8 year old white terrier mix) and Pepe (a 10 year old chihuahua) from our local rescue mission, Pets In Need in Redwood City. We got there around 4pm on Sunday afternoon and told the receptionist that we wanted to adopt those two. She looked at us amazed and said "Really?!" Turns out they'd been there for 9 months and were favorites of all the workers. They'd been hard to adopt since they're older dogs and because Pets In Need wanted someone to adopt both as they'd been together their whole lives. V and i became local heroes. When we got them home we found them to be very well house trained. Both were thrilled to have a yard to explore, and to have a warm fuzzy bed to relax in. They're definitely fast friends, but their personality differences are hilarious. Pepe is older and more prone to lounging. He immediately found the bed and laid down. Tara however wants to explore, and followed Veronica and i all over the house. When she wants to lay down though, she just throws herself down regardless of where Pepe might be. Pepe seems to accept this occasional annoyance. I'll head home in a bit to see how they're doing. They woke me up twice during the night to go to the bathroom, but i'm glad they did rather than doing their business in the house. It'll take a few weeks for them to adjust of course, but all signs point to them liking their new home.

I haven't posted in a few weeks, but not for lack of content. Quite the opposite ... i keep wanting to sit down and write down all the thoughts shooting through me head, but when i find myself in front of a keyboard i'm intimidated by the volume of things i want to convey. Well, it's a new year, so on to the resolutions ... #1, write more in this journal. Check.

My winter holiday begun with a trip to exchange gifts with my parents on December 17. I got my mom a nice set of kashmere gloves and a scarf, and my dad a handheld GPS unit (we're both gadget freaks). We then had dinner at the ever-delicious Kan Zeman in Palo Alto. The next day Naomi's boyfriend Geoff and i begun a one day jaunt down to LA to pick up Veronica and Naomi's grandmother. We hopped in the Jetta around 1pm on a Sunday afternoon and headed down the 101 to the 152 to the 5. We made good time as Geoff and i swapped stories of motorcycle racing and paintballing, and compared and contrasted the twenty/thirtysomething generation of de la Moras. We arrived around 6pm and had dinner with Kevin and his girlfriend Kelly, then headed over to spend the night at Matthew's after first getting some gaming in with FIFA 2005, James Bond: Agent Under Fire, and the quite impressive Stars Wars Battlefront. The latter would've kept Geoff and i up all night had i not been fearful of passing out during our return voyage the next day. Monday morning we saw off Matthew and Dionne, then had a quick bite at Denny's before picking up V & N's grandmother and heading back up the 5.

Our midwestern holiday commenced the next day as V, her grandmother, and i flew to Kansas City where we were picked up by V's mom Arlene. After the 3.5 hour drive to Ames, we arrived to a warm welcome from Alan and Ana. The frozen weather kept us huddled inside for most of the week, where Ana kept us busy playing all manner of games. Christmas was very nice for everyone ... V had given me an early gift of a Nintendo DS, which i had fun with on the plane. Christmas morning i got to open a nice biochemistry text from AAA, a Kenneth Cole Black cologne set from V, and the pièce de résistance, the kickass 60GB color iPod photo that i had been bugging Veronica about for the past six weeks. Booyakasha. I didn't get a chance to put music on it until we came home, but it was worth the wait. Unfortunately my batteries (my body, not the iPod or Nintendo DS) seemed to continue to drain over our stay, until i was more or less a zombie on the last day. I fought with Ana for nap time and watched a documentary on hell through the ages on the History Channel in the basement while more or less catatonic.

We trekked home on the 28th, enduring a horrific 12 hours of travel including multiple airline delays and some nasty turbulence. Collapsing shortly after passing our threshold at 2am, i made the command decision to take the rest of the week off from work. I got some good housework in over the next few pre-new year days, most notably removing the autumn's worth of leaves from our front lawn and tidying the kitchen into a semi-workable state. An exhausting evening trip to and from Sacramento in driving rain to take Veronica's grandmother to stay with her uncle convinced us that New Year's Eve may be better spent relaxing than out clubbing, so we invited Naomi and Geoff over for pizza, pie, movies, and video games. Marcus and Javier ended up coming by as well as they confused our New Year's Day party with a New Year's Eve one, so the six of us watched a few flicks and lazily sipped booze. Our New Year's Day was even less productive, spent with the girls (V and N) and boys (T and G) fighting over control of the TV to play either Animal Crossing or Halo 2. I'll leave it to you to figure out who wanted what. We ended up compromising on Mario Kart, after which Geoff and i continued our Stars Wars campaign on Battlefront. After arising on January 2 to find ants marching around our kitchen, Geoff and Naomi returned to SF and their lonely cat Una while V and i cleaned the house. We spent the rest of the day shopping for a new stove (any comments on Amana?), with me growing increasingly depressed with the thought of returning to work today.

The political baloney that i have to deal with daily at Stanford is part of my frustration, but there's something else that i can't quite put my finger on. I feel dangerously unmotivated at the moment. The three year old kid in me (the one that doesn't get along with Ana) wants to pick up my ball and go home when i run into static of whatever nature from my colleagues. I don't have an answer for why that is. My experiences at UCSF and MGH were definitely more positive than this, but then i encountered my share of dickheads there too. So why do the ones here bug me so much? It may come down to my 12 month rule, the warmup period i've noted in previous jobs during which i feel alternately helpless, useless, and pointless. Got to keep my chin up and keep making progress. Part of me just wants to take two months and sleep late, play video games, and write perl and html all day long. No two ways about it, i'm due a serious vacation. And none of this travelling vacation, i'm talking a complete mental shutdown vacation. I feel so overloaded when a problem arises anywhere in life ... work, home, whatever.

Buyer's remorse is bad enough when it's a $50 video game or $100 gadget, but extrapolate that out to the price of a house and you can get an idea of what i'm going through at the moment. Every time something goes wrong ... ants, doors not fitting in bowed doorframes ... i find myself sucked into a hell of "what did i get myself into?" Hopefully some more familiarity with home repairs will assuage my nerves and give me more confidence on maintaining a home.

I ended up seeing a buttload of movies over the holidays. Bad(der) Santa (totally hilarious), A Christmas Story (a real holiday classic with so many great lines, only slightly dulled after watching it 3.5 times during the 24 hour marathon on TNT), Garden State (wasn't too keen to see it, but it really hit a note 40 minutes in and held me fascinated thereafter), Napoleon Dynamite (even with Veronica's buildup, it was really funny), Eurotrip (an unexpected gem on late night cable), Scary Movie 3 (this time with the Airplane director instead of the Wayans, but still good for a few belly laughs), The Bourne Supremacy (a worthy successor to the original, again with lots of beautiful shots of Europe). Maybe some others that i just can't recall at the moment.

I'm still listening to tons upon tons of music, although mostly drawn from the cult classic section rather than new releases. The new iPod is sweet, particularly with the new "Now Playing" display that shows off album artwork embedded in the mp3s. I didn't spend countless hours adding those pics for nothing. Lately i've been reconnecting with my high school metal roots ... Anthrax, Ratt, etc etc.

I find myself thinking of Cobi quite a lot these days. Some wistful nostalgia, some genuine sadness. Veronica's found two dogs at our local rescue mission that she wants to adopt, but i don't think i'm ready. Partly because of Cobi, and partly because i fear the potential stress they could bring into our new home.

So far blue is the color of the new year, both for good (Chelsea is playing excellent at the top of the Premiership table) and the obvious bad. We'll see how each blue thread fares as the months pass.