I just handed a thick packet containing a printout of the final grant to my admin assistant Becky, who is now running it over to Research Management. They have a few days to peruse it and recommend corrections, mainly of the formatting and organizational variety. Then i get to print up 6 copies and mail the resulting mass of papers off to NIH. For the most part, this means the R01 is now complete. I can sit back and alternately congratulate myself on a job well done or contemplate the various criticisms reviewers may throw back at me. On the whole i'm quite happy with my first attempt at an R01. I like my argument, and i like the research i propose. Check back with me in six months to see if the NIH agrees.

V called me yesterday afternoon and asked if i was done with the grant, to which i responded that is was basically complete save for a few quick figure corrections and insertion of a couple of supporting letters from colleagues. Turns out her query wasn't based solely out of concern for my sanity. I got home around 6:30pm, and fed Tara dinner which she greeted with typical rapture. I awaited Veronica's return from work, and fell asleep watching Jim Gaffigan's Beyond the Pale special on Comedy Central ("i bought the extreme chunky peanut butter, it was just peanuts. That is extreme, trying to spread that stuff ... aww, this is radical!"). Despite Veronica's assurances that she was leaving work at 6:30pm, i awoke around 8:15pm and was still alone except for a lazy white dog. I called her cell and got no response, but she called back a few minutes later saying she was on her way down the 101. She picked me up and we grabbed a drive-thru dinner in the Mini, then returned to eat in front of the final American Idol showdown of the season. Our friend Lucy is coming for a visit from England on Thursday, so we began cleaning the apartment, beginning with breaking down the huge box and styrofoam pieces that encased our new Pottery Barn lamp. When i moved on to tidying the kitchen, V asked me if i would go grab a box from work she'd left in her car. I grabbed my keys and some recycling to put in the bins outside, and went out back. And there in the trunk of her Mini was a beautiful white box containing an Xbox 360 Pro bundle, which V had bought on her way home to reward me for finishing the grant. That girl knows how to take care of me.

After letting V finish watching the day's All My Children, i removed the old "super Xbox" from the entertainment center and wired the new 360 in its place. The old one will most likely go live in the rec room now. I was amazed by the sheer size of the 360's AC adapter, and had a look at its specs. Wall AC in, 12 V DC out ... 16 A? 16 freakin' amperes?!?! What in god's name is going on inside that sleak little white case? Oh well ... as long as it doesn't burn my house down. I plugged the 360 into my AV setup using the component inputs, and fired it up using one of the wireless controllers. My Xbox Live account was quickly converted into a "gold" account, and i loaded up Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter, which Veronica had correctly selected as my maiden 360 game. Playing through the training level, my first impression was that this system may be too hi-def for its own good. It was very difficult to read some of the in-game tutorials, particularly the miniscule diagrams showing which button does what. But the visuals are undeniably mesmerizing. Before long i was ordering my squad around and taking out enemy soldiers using an impressive array of next-gen technology (on a next-gen console ... how fitting). I was patrolling a street in Mexico City when i noticed my HUD began experiencing a weird kind of distortion, a bit like when you lose the vertical hold on a TV, for anyone still familiar with pre-cable television. My first thought was my new baby was already crapping out, but i quickly calmed down and ran the other direction down the street. Distortion goes away ... hrm. So i advanced again, and the ripples reappeared. I had a quick look at my surroundings and noticed i was standing directly underneath high voltage power lines. Sweeeeeet. I'm still mastering the mechanics of the game, but so far, color me impressed. Tonight i'll explore more of the online features using my "pr0f3xx0r" alias.

The new Radio Dept. album Pet Grief is absolutely wonderful. The neo-shoegazing Swedes have wrested the title of "best Scandinavian indie act" from their brilliant but inconsistent compatriots the Legends.