I finished Did Adam and Eve Have Navels? last night. One of the later chapters was on people trying to validate their prophecies of the second coming of Christ, the antichrist, and other tidbits from the Book of Revelations. The book got to discussing theories that Ronald Reagan was the antichrist, largely based on numerology. There are six letters in each of his names (Ronald Wilson Reagan), hence 666, the number of the beast. That got me thinking ... Edward Elliot Graves ... 666 ... apparently i'm the antichrist now that Ronnie is gone. Mwa ha ha. Actually, my sister Hilary is also a 666 ... brother and sister beast?

Anyhow, the book was largely a disappointment. My main problem with it is that i don't think topics like end of the world theories or cults even belong under the classification "pseudoscience". There's no science in them to begin with. My complaints that the author doesn't really debunk and instead just classifies were addressed in a later chapter, where he responded to a specific accusation by saying he'd never waste his readers time by bothering to explain why something like remote viewing is baloney. Ok, there's some sense in that ... i wouldn't even know where to begin with a scientific explanation of why the Heaven's Gate cult's idea of UFOs hiding behind comets coming to take believers to a higher plane of existence is wrong. I suppose i expected a book subtitled "Debunking Pseudoscience" to deal with less obvious cases of misinterpreted science, and to demonstrate their errors. Anyone with half a brain can figure out that people claiming to be able to clairvoyantly observe distant places, planets, spaceships, or even subatomic particles are full of shit. Do we need a whole book cataloging all the nuts out there?

Too many movies ... along with needing to check out the aforementioned hooligan pic Green Street Hooligans, i'm also interested in the new David Cronenberg thriller A History of Violence with Viggo Mortensen as a small town family man hiding a dark past (something about those former Fellowship of the Ring folks ... although Cameron Crowe's Elizabethtown featuring Legolas/Orlando Bloom looks pretty awful). Annnnnnd, i'd like to check out Philip Seymour Hoffman as Capote, also featuring the wonderful Catherine Keener. Guy Ritchie has another gangster flick coming out soon, Revolver, although reviews of it at the Toronto Film Festival give the ominous warning "After Revolver, Swept Away now looks like Citizen Kane". Ouch. An even better zinger: "'There's only one way to get smarter at chess,' says everybody, 'and that's to play a smarter opponent.' Who the heck has Guy Ritchie been playing chess with? The Gumby character in Monty Python?".

Too many games ... i'm splitting my time on the PSP between Death Jr. and Burnout Legends. The former is an amusing third person shooter featuring a prepubescent grim reaper, his motley crew of friends, and hamster bombs. The latter is another brilliant entry in the Burnout series, excellently adapted to the small screen. Takedowns are a bit easier than in the last installment, but the assorted new modes (especially Pursuit) make up for the tweaks in gameplay. Then i have to check out the latest Burnout incarnation on the Xbox, Revenge. I've also been playing through a few seasons of Winning Eleven 8. That game definitely captures the soccer experience, both the thrill of ending a slick move with a goal, and the frustration of missing chances and having an off day. Entry 9 in the series is out in early 2006 for PS2, Xbox, and PSP, and will include online play. Eek. FIFA 2006 will also be out shortly, although other than the licenses the EA series can't really stand up to the Konami one. Every year they try to revamp their control system, and every year they come no closer to simulating realistic footie. The PSP installment of Grand Theft Auto, entitled Liberty City Stories will be out in a few weeks, taking the story back in time to the setting of GTA3. Meanwhile, the release of the Xbox 360 looms on the horizon. I'm curious how it will affect the release schedule for the original Xbox. The PS1 hung around for quite awhile after the PS2's arrival, but we'll see if Microsoft adopts the same strategy.

Too many records ... although my "listen to one album at a time instead of endless songs at random" approach is paying dividends, there's still a lot in my iTunes that i need to familiarize myself with. I found myself checking out the Soft Set (who are fantastic) because of a reference to Josef K, a group i picked up a while back. However, i have no idea what Josef K sound like. I've got a lot of late 70's/early 80's post-punk that needs listening ... the Sounds, Magazine, Felt, etc etc. Also a bunch of indie pop/folk type outfits ... Smog, Silver Jews, Wilco, Sufjan Stevens, and on and on. Not to mention trying to keep up with the recent releases (in a vain attempt to convince Jenz that i'm not past it). The new self-titled Broken Social Scene record is not as accessible as You Forgot It In People, but is revealing itself more to me with each listen. And the errant bands i can't remember why i decided to check out ... i'm playing the Young Tradition at the moment, who fall squarely in that category (although this first song "Gone are the Days" has a wonderful Pale Fountains thing going on). Also lost in the mists of my mind are Settlefish and Pale Sundays. Do not go gentle into that good night, Ted.

The weekend was as busy as expected. Thankfully V and i warmed up by a quiet evening at home on Friday, with tacos from Taqueria el Grullense and TV. Saturday we got up at the relatively early hour of 10am so we could beautify ourselves and make it over to Fremont for a 1pm lunch with my parents. They just got a Panera near them, so V and i were thrilled to revisit one of our favorite places from our days in Allston. We spent a few hours relating our experiences in Europe, and then checking out the Apple server my dad managed to get from his work, before heading home. We got in some minor house cleaning before leaving the dogs for the evening, heading north to the city for tapas and beers at Thirsty Bear with old friends Kevin and Nathan. We then adjourned to Leisure at the Cherry Bar. Billed as "classic Popscene", as near as i can tell the club is really a bimonthly current Popscene on Saturday nights. But it was fun nonetheless. Veronica introduced Jenz and Kevin to the wonders of the Adios Motherfucker, a sort of blue Long Island Iced Tea. Gabriel had been the first to order one at a Leisure last December, so i suppose he bears the blame for what ensued. The blue concoction had them flying by the time the lights came on at 2am. Nathan tried to rally the troops to a party down the street, but he and i, being the two sober ones, had a hell of a time trying to point three random-walk particles in a particular direction. Nathan ultimately asked me if i thought they were done for the evening. I responded with a resounding affirmative, and encouraged him to just head off to the party. I then managed the solo task of getting all three to my car, in my car, out of my car (for the occasional urgent stop), back in, and dropping them off. Like the weekend before, V and i didn't get back to Redwood City until late late late.

On Sunday i arose to go to my friends' BBQ in Concord, but V was in no state to do much of anything so i made her as comfortable as possible before heading out. The event was fun, giving me a chance to catch up with a bunch of my grad school friends. Great food too. I miss those guys, i really need to get off my ass and keep in better touch with them. I went home via Diamond Heights in the city, where Geoff and Naomi were packing the last of their things into a U-Haul, bound for Naomi's dad's place in Sacramento. I helped move a scooter, a dresser, and some odds and ends, and was rewarded with a Guinness. N and G looked worked, apparently they'd gotten the s@#t end of the stick from U-Haul. I was very sad to see them go, as this obviously means the days of hanging out with them every weekend have come to an end. I'll have to get Geoff an Xbox and Xbox Live so we can continue our killing sessions from a distance. Tara and Pepe will be wondering what happened to those nice people who brought the mattress into the living room for them every time they came over.

I was too tired Sunday evening to do the work-related reading i'd intended to get to over the weekend. My postdoc Ivana and i did some experiments on Friday that had me questioning my knowledge of basic enzyme kinetics. All the predictions i had made about the outcome of the experiment were 100% wrong. I read my biochemistry text as well as an assortment of classic papers on luciferase kinetics yesterday night watching the Broncos kick the living snot out of the Chiefs (how in god's name did i let myself choose the Chiefs, in Denver, as my second highest-ranked pick of the week?), and was still befuddled as to our findings ... my recollection of Michaelis-Menten kinetics was fine, it was our results that were funky. Finally, after numerous PubMed searches i stumbled upon the correct set of search terms and found a paper from 1995 describing inhibition of luciferase by very high concentrations of substrate. Bingo. Experiment now makes sense. My grant writing continues, although to be honest my attention is really being drawn to these luciferase kinetic experiments at the moment.

I'm listening to an advance of the debut album by She Wants Revenge, who've been getting regular airplay on Live 105 lately. I can't tell if it's pretty good or the ultimate in poseurdom. Geez, if you thought Interpol were aping Joy Division, the recent crop of bands seem intent on digging up Ian Curtis's grave and parading around on stage with his bones. There's merit in the music of these acts (including SWR and Editors), but it's completely shameless the way these guys are putting on their best Curtis moan. I guess after 25 years those of us who still carry on the Joy Division torch are getting fewer and farther between, meaning new acts can come along and rerecord "Shadowplay" with new lyrics (doting on sex seems to be all the rage) and all the kids will be none the wiser.

The new Legends album Public Radio arrived at my house yesterday, along with the single He Knows the Sun. It's a different vibe than the first album ... less Primitives and C-86, more Seventeen Seconds-era Cure. Still has the great Swedish pop feel to it though, and i'm more than willing to wait for it to grow on me. I grabbed the Soft Set record Only Lovers Left Alive the other day, that's making me very happy as i type. Indie pop along the lines of Saturday Looks Good to Me, but with a distinct Go-Betweens flavor.

I thought i was in the clear when we flew back from Europe, and i managed to stay up until 11:30pm that night and sleep all the way to 7am the next morning. But the sinister jet lag seems to have crept up on me, as i've found myself completely sapped the last couple of days. It's not helping that i also brought a nagging cough back from Germany, one which appears to be viral as no amount of Nyquil or aspirin are knocking it back. As my doctor said during my last illness, just grin and bear it. Oh well. It hasn't knocked me on my ass, so i've mostly been able to just put up with it.

Bloc Party on Wednesday was just as brilliant as their last show at Slim's. V and Jenz were down in the floor, just a few feet back from the stage in an effort to attract the attention of their Brit heroes. I was happy to head up to the balcony, and had company from V's friend Raffi. After sending the girls inside so they could stake out their spots on the floor, i got to wait in front of the Warfield for Raffi to arrive. As such, i got to enjoy the parade of minivans dropping off 15 year olds, with parents giving last minute warnings and orders to meet them back here at 11pm sharp. Straight out of Almost Famous. While waiting, i ran into Nathan and Summerlea and got to chit chat for a bit. When Raffi arrived, we headed inside and grabbed a drink, and lo, ran into Nathan and Summerlea again. We got to our seats during the interval before second openers the Kills, and amazingly, there on the other side of the aisle were Nathan and Summerlea again. The Kills were great, a two person grungy blues/punk outfit. Most of the set was the guy playing guitar, both singing, and a tape playing drums and other assorted backing noises, but it was fantastic nonetheless. The girl tried to climb one of the PA stacks but was shooed off by a worried stagehand.

Raffi and i occupied ourselves discussing fantasy sports until Bloc Party arrived. The set was much as before, but no less entertaining. A few unplanned events livened up the evening. At one point just before the end of their main set, an unruly fan made it onto the stage. For some reason, instead of the security guy ushering him offstage, he ran straight at him, all but forcing him to stage dive into the crowd. Thankfully away from V and Jenz, but unfortunately he kicked some girl right in the face. Kele immediately put down his guitar, causing the rest of the band to stop playing moments after, and pulled the girl onstage to send her off for treatment. Amazingly, the crowd booed. I was dumbstruck ... how can you fault a performer for stopping the show to help out a fan who's been injured? Something similar happened at their show at Slim's, causing the bass player's last words of the evening to be "that's just not cool". When the band emerged for an encore, Kele made a brief statement about enjoying the show but using common sense at the same time. During their first song of the encore, he wandered in front of the monitors to interact with fans in the crowd (unfortunately not close to V). Backing up, he tripped over the monitor and fell right on his butt. He laid there for a while as the band played on, then got up, wandered over to the other side of the stage, and did the exact same thing again. He then took a page out of the Kills' book and climbed the PA stack, this time ignoring the worried security person's pleas to get down. He looked like he was going to swing on a set of cables from the ceiling lighting, but then apparently took his own advice about common sense. Anyhow, a great show and a band to keep an eye on. V, Jenz, and i got a late meal at Mel's and then went to the Arrow Bar to see if the band were at the after party. The answer was no, so we headed home.

That late night excursion destroyed me on Thursday though, as i could just not shake the drowsiness incurred by only getting five hours sleep. I made it to a 9-10:30am meeting and to a 2-3pm meeting, but got precious little work done on my grant. Luckily, i was super-productive Wednesday so i think i'll be able to meet my self-imposed deadline of next Friday. V caught the band's second show Thursday evening and then hung out with them at Popscene, while i vegetated in front of the TV. I got a little free reading done ... i got interested in a book called Did Adam and Eve Have Navels?, a collection of essays by Martin Gardner "debunking pseudoscience". I read the chapter on intelligent design while in Barnes & Noble and my curiosity was piqued enough to buy it. Unfortunately, many of the chapters contain little debunking and end up being a cataloging of all the instances a particular misconception has taken hold. I'd like more science on why urine therapy doesn't work, and less indexing of all the incarnations of urine therapy. Oh well. I also bought Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything, hopefully that will be more thought provoking.

I'm seriously considering trading in my Jetta for a hybrid. Given the tax benefit (although not as big a tax break as owning a hummer ... great idea, George W.), superior gas mileage, and recent law changes allowing hybrids to drive in the carpool lane with only one passenger, i think it's the way to go. Of course, V and i first need to replace the Tercel and get her something. She's been scouring for used Minis lately. I just got my yearly bonus as well as a nice raise, so now's the time to rectify our automotive situation.

I'm eager to see Green Street Hooligans, out in major release in the US today. The film is about soccer thugs in England, with former hobbit Elijah Wood as an American who gets sucked into the world of a West Ham firm. Looks very good, although the screenplay was written by Dougie Brimson, self-professed hooligan expert and author of the rambling, nonsensical Barmy Army. Apparently the movie is only playing at the UA on Sutter in the city, so i'll have to rally the troops over there sometime. Kevin is up from LA this weekend so i imagine there will be lots of partying with him over the next two days. Also on the cards is lunch with my parents tomorrow, and a BBQ in Concord on Sunday celebrating the marriage of Donna and Jove, two of my partners in crime from grad school. It'll be good to see the old gang after being out of touch for a while.

Forgot to mention the other day that in order to play my new PSP acquisition Burnout Legends, i was forced to update my PSP system software, which in turn forced me to set up a network connection between my PSP and wireless router. Luckily the process only took about 5 minutes, and as a bonus i got to check out the surprisingly full-featured PSP web browser. Works like a champ. Well, except for rendering this site, on which it fails miserably. Today i downloaded the now ad-free web browser Opera and had a look, and it displays fac13 similarly ... the animated buttons at the top right don't work, and it doesn't support the semi-transparent iframe background. So i apologize to anyone who's been trying to read my ramblings on those interfaces. I'm not quite sure what interpretation of W3C Opera and the PSP are using, when i get a chance i'll have to do some research.

Well, that was quick ... a brief Google search has informed me that Opera doesn't support the CSS directive opacity or its Mozilla-friendly cousin -moz-opacity, on which my animated buttons and semi-transparent background are based. Looks like more browser-specific conditional statements are in my code's future. Woohoo.

So apparently JD won Rock Star: INXS, although i slept through the entire show (i passed out around 8:15pm and slept straight through to morning). Up next for the smarmy bastard, recording an album and going on a world tour with the aging Australian "supergroup" (so says Dave Navarro, it must be true). Howard Stern had several choice quotes about the show:

• "All those INXS guys look like they're 80 year old! When they perform together it's going to look like they kidnapped this kid!"
• "They're supposedly going on a world tour now. That'll be great for the four people who will actually buy tickets."

I concur, particularly about the second point. INXS World Tour 2006, coming soon to the Konocti Harbors and Caesars Lake Tahoes of the world. Buy tickets early and the band will serve you a prime rib dinner before the show.

On to more relevant musical topics, i'm preparing for tonight's Bloc Party show by refamiliarizing myself with the album. It'll be strange to watch them from the Warfield balcony after seeing them at the infinitely more intimate Slim's a few months back. It turns out that interesting neo-blues/punk duo the Kills (fried my little brains!) are opening, so i'll have to be there early even. V and Jenz will be down on the floor to get a closer view of their latest indie heartthrobs, so i'll be with an as-yet unnamed show buddy. Bloc Party's debut album Silent Alarm is up there with Franz Ferdinand's self-titled debut as the record that most resonates with me from the latest indie crop. At the last show, the guitar dynamics between Russell and Kele were worth the price of admission alone.

i can't eat, i can't sleep
i can't sleep, i can't dream
like drinking poison, like eating glass

The new Legends album Public Radio was released on September 14, so naturally i ordered it from Sweden as soon as we returned from Europe. I'm now waiting impatiently for it to arrive at my doorstep (today, perhaps?), a process that has not been ameliorated by the catchiness of their single "He Knows the Sun", which i caught in video form on the Labrador website. More straight-up pop than Up Against the Legends, but with even more reverbed, entrancing vocals. These guys need to come over here and tour, or else i need to go to Sweden.

You get the feeling that Stellastarr* (is that asterisk really necessary?) are throwing everything but the kitchen sink into their latest album, Harmonies for the Haunted. The whole ends up an incoherent mess of modern hooks ... echoed guitars à la the Church's "Reptile", soaring, meandering vocals, a little guitar wall here and there. Definitely not an album that's grabbing my attention away from other things while coming over my headphones at work.

Speaking of work, i seem to be finding a million pointless things to do other than writing my ACS grant. It's not due until October 17, although i told one of collaborators i'd have him a draft by October 1. Discipline, grasshopper.

It's beginning to happen ... while perusing my music collection to decide what to put on my iPod, i found more than one album that left me scratching my head. Who are these people? When did i get this? In an effort to thwart my "acquire, add to iTunes library, and forget" tendencies, over the last two days i've been listening to entire albums instead of my typical 36k song shuffle. You can find reviews of two of them, Ladytron and American Analog Set, on my music page. So far most of my experimental acquisitions have been positive, although i must admit i tried to listen to the Perishers album and almost lost consciousness during the first song.

Speaking of experiments, i tried out a new self-conceived pasta formulation last night. I introduced some basil and cilantro to the zuchinni, peppers, and onions that i usually sauté and add to my pasta sauce. In addition, i sautéed some shallots, basil, and green onions with chicken to go on top of the pasta. I quite liked it. My one qualm is that i haven't mastered the timing of cooking multiple dishes. By this i mean starting each dish in turn so that all finish at roughly the same time, allowing you to serve everything nice and hot off the stove. This time, the pasta was steaming but the chicken had been done for 10 minutes and as such was only lukewarm. Practice, practice, practice.

Looking over my previous journal posts, i noticed that in my discussion of my wedding anniversary, i calculated that one year of marriage was equal to 31,536,000 seconds. Performing random mental calculations, i determined that 31 years should be about equal to 1 billion seconds. I therefore just wrote a perl script and determined that i am 986 million seconds old, and will turn 1 billion seconds on February 25 of next year.

I can see you cocking eyebrows at me already. Don't judge me!

To start off, for those unfamiliar with the source of the reference in the post title, you need to check out Steve Coogan's hilariously inept talk show host Alan Partridge. Veronica and i picked up the DVD set of his fictitious BBC talk show Knowing Me Knowing You at Best Buy on Saturday. Alan insists on completely ABBA theme music, and greets guests by saying "Knowing me, Alan Partridge, knowing you, Ted Graves ... a ha.", to which i would be expected to give a polite "a ha" response. I refreshed my memory of a few of the episodes on Sunday afternoon, including his contractually-obligated episode from Paris in which he argues with his French co-host and guest that Peter Ustinov is the greatest living philosopher, and that he should open a steakhouse with famous restauranteur Bernie ... *someone* (ack, my quote knowledge is slipping). Also great is his short-lived public policy discussion with candidates for parliament, disrupted by the presence of Lieutenant Colonel Kojak Slaphead III of the Bald Brummies Against The Big Footed Conspiracy Party. Good stuff.

On Friday evening Bob popped by our place after a few days down in Monterey, and we grabbed dinner in San Mateo at Bombay Garden before catching the late showing of The 40-Year-Old Virgin. Quite good, very good-natured and lots of laugh-out-loud moments. I neglected to write that Veronica and i saw Wedding Crashers at the Metreon a week or two before we headed off to Europe. That nearly had me rolling in the aisles. A lot of wonderfully-concocted comedic bits. So that's two great comedies we've seen in recent months.

Veronica and Bob slept in a bit Saturday morning (we didn't get home from the movie until after 1am). I got up around 10am and tidied the kitchen and living room, and started the long process of washing all my laundry from the trip and before. I also managed to get out and buy some sundries. The bagel and Cocoa Pebbles i had upon returning kept me tided over until we got our act in gear and headed out of the house around 3:30pm. Bob was off to see friends in Santa Rosa for a few days, while V and i stopped off at Best Buy to get the aforementioned Alan Partridge DVD, as well as a few new PSP games (Death Jr. and Burnout Legends, which i literally had to convince the salesman that it existed), and a few Rock en Espanol cd's for Veronica. I haven't played Death Jr. yet, but Burnout keeps up the tradition of the excellent Burnout Takedown that introduced me to the series on the Xbox. Super fast, good controls, and some sweet visuals even on the petite PSP screen. How Nintendo expects the rapidly-aging Gameboy line to keep up is beyond me. They seem to have hedged their bets on hardware innovation (à la the DS's touch screen), but they are really failing to deliver any worthwhile titles. Their argument has always been quality over quantity, but they seem to be losing in comparisons to PS and Xbox software even in the quality department lately. The new Gameboy Micro appears to be a smaller Gameboy Advance with fewer buttons ... what problems does that solve? V and i watched a video of a press conference discussing the next-generation Nintendo console, code-named Revolution, demonstrating their new controller. It's intended to attract gamers put off by the complexity of today's controllers ... not a bad idea ... and looks like a remote control (usable with one hand), with a sort of Jeopardy!-buzzer thing usable by the other hand. It's motion-sensitive, and they showed footage of players using it as drumsticks, a baseball bat, a conductor's wand, and a sort of ... cattle prod to make Mario jump. I sum up the state of gaming as this: if Nintendo doesn't make an effort to get their games online and to challenge the technical superiority of Sony and Microsoft, they're going to be up s#@t creek.

After more shopping, we headed home, communed with the doggies for a few hours, then headed up to the city to meet up with Jenz at the evening's New Wave City vs. Popscene. The club was out in the boonies in the southern, industrial portion of San Francisco. We couldn't believe Jenz took the bus out there. Or that there was a bus that went out there. The club was fun ... i held my own aping Morrissey on the dance floor against more seasoned Moz impersonators, and V got to relive days of old in the gothic/industrial room dancing to Nitzer Ebb, Bauhaus, and Front 242. Told at the bar that the only beer available was Miller Lite, i made the tough decision to have a gin and tonic. I haven't drunk hard liquor in quite a while, ever since bad experiences with tequila and vodka shots in grad school. I felt distinctly weird after finishing that. I followed it up with a Campari and soda, made by someone who'd obviously never made the drink before as she mixed 90% Campari with only 10% soda. At 2:30am it dawned on me the club wasn't closing at the traditional 2am end of drinking, so we headed off the the Castro for a late-night meal at Sparky's. We didn't get back to our slumbering dogs until after 5am ... eek.

Sunday was therefore understandably spent mostly around the house recuperating. I did some more grocery shopping in anticipation of making a nice Sunday dinner, but that was shelved when Geoff and Naomi popped by on their way back from Santa Barbara. So we all convened to North Beach Pizza instead, before G and N continued their trek to San Francisco by way of Sacramento ... god knows when they got home. I'm planning on making dinner for Bob and V tonight, a hopefully successful experiment involving pasta and vegetables with chicken sauteed with basil. V's started a tennis class with one of her coworkers, so when she gets home there'll either be a yummy home-cooked meal or take-out and a garbage can full of an ill-fated culinary expedition waiting for her.

Chelsea continue to win, and attract the ire of the sporting press. This week Soccernet's "Team of the Week" is all Chelsea, and the text includes a conversation between Tedium and God where the latter has directed the former to take up residence in the Premiership. What a load of crap. Was everyone happier when Arsenal and Manchester United were the ones winning everything, year in year out? As the Soccernet Chelsea correspondent puts it: "Man U win the league 8 years out of 10 and everyone claps. Before that Liverpool dominate domestic football for 15 years and everyone claps. Arsenal go 49 games unbeaten and we all get to clap. Chelsea win the league and the Carling Cup once and the villagers light the torches and start running up the bloody hill." Our style of play, you say? I have to agree with Chelsea assistant coach Steve Clarke: "Ask our supporters if we're boring - I know exactly what they'd say." All in the eye of the beholder, i suppose. Anyhow, we are top of the table, the league's top scorers, and have yet to concede a goal. And we are still finding our feet.

I'm back in my friend's NFL pool this year, picking games every week and so far failing miserably. I think i'm picking winners based on my knowledge of football that is now three or four years old. What do you mean Green Bay is falling apart? Minnesota gets throttled by the freakin' Bengals??? What is this sport coming to?!?! As such, i don't expect to win much.

On the agenda this week is Bloc Party at the Warfield, and back to work generating funds for my lab.

I just found myself in the middle of a three paragraph email rant to Matthew discussing the merits of assorted contestants on Rock Star: INXS. Egad. Ted, how could you? But since i mostly suck at covering up my fairly obvious interest in the show, i'll recap my assorted thoughts.

JD is a total scumbag. Obviously a talented performer (although sometimes it's apparent that Michael Hutchence's range far outshines his), and definitely the most competent songwriter in the bunch (although as the movie Rock Star attest, replacement singers are not always recruited to come in and write songs). However his personality blows ... what a completely smarmy bastard. His gamesmanship early on was just atrocious. Like holding out for Queen's "We Are The Champions" during song selection, then realizing he couldn't sing it and trying to get Jordis to switch with him. And when she wouldn't, trying out some really awful "I want to get to know you" pick up lines in a pathetic attempt to manipulate her. While he has toned it down a bit lately, he doesn't get off that easy with me ... while INXS may buy that he's now a team player, i think he's genuinely an asshole who's just put on a different hat. I also find that his performances are pretty hit-or-miss. While he's nailed some songs, there's just as many that have fallen flat. I wish Marty would haul off and sock him.

That said, I'm not thrilled with any of the contestants, but then just as I don't accept American Idol contestants as valid artists, I probably won't accept the winner as the real successor to Michael Hutchence. I think Mig will win if only because he's got the Australian thing going for him.

One thing that has greatly pleased me about the show were the comments made by Ty when he was dismissed. Usually an entertaining performer, he somehow managed to keep ending up in the bottom three after the world voted. While the hosts of the show (INXS, Dave Navarro, and the utterly hopeless Brooke Burke) managed to concoct various explanations for this, there was one very obvious one that went unsaid: Ty is black. In leaving he didn't blame the band, and they to an extent commiserated with him, but he did state that he is disappointed that as a people we haven't yet put to rest our racial differences. It needs to be pointed out that there are some rather unsettling trends in reality TV voting, that reveal some unpleasant but nonetheless valid facts about the state of our society.

Of course, we are talking about people dumb enough to waste money voting for a has-been Australian band's new lead singer here ...

Despite the somewhat kitschy appeal of their post-Kick offerings, you have to admit that Hutchence et al. made some magic with songs like "This Time" and "Don't Change".

I'm learning that i need to feel some sense of honesty in music before i can enjoy it. I understand the business savvy of running INXS's singer auditions on national TV. I however put it in the "money-generating" rather than "artistic" category. Rock Star: INXS is the complete antithesis of honest in art. While there's certainly a spectrum ranging from pure art to pure commercialism, and it's not always easy to pinpoint a certain act's location along said spectrum, i tend to gravitate towards indie labels because of the lesser influence of money (ie, they don't make any). Green Day are a nice example ... ever since they left Lookout! Records for a major label, i haven't liked anything they've done. I don't trust their motives at all. If former Dead Kennedys frontman and Alternative Tentacles label head Jello Biafra got beaten up at 924 Gilman in the 90's for being an alleged sellout, Billie Joe Armstrong should get skull-f@$#ed. Now they're media darlings again with this new über-catchy but typically hollow album American Idiot.

Finally, and i've argued this point with Veronica until I'm blue in the face, i have little to no respect for frontmen/women that play no instruments and do no songwriting (and i don't consider writing lyrics "songwriting"). Throw into this category all the American Idol contestants, teeny bopper boy and girl bands, Madonna, etc etc. I realize this condemns a lot of sacred performers, but that's just my bias. I focus on the musical aspects of a song, am fascinated by the intricate songs crafted by masters, and just cannot see why i should get excited by Kelly Clarkson's rendition of something someone else wrote and to which she had no creative input. She's just the vehicle, who gives a crap?

I always come back from the Society for Molecular Imaging meetings with tons of ideas, and this time was no different. While i'm temporarily occupied writing a short grant proposal by Thursday, i've given my postdocs a slate of new experiments to try out. It's good to be the king, no? I suppose, except for that "buck stops here" problem.

Got an advance of the new Franz Ferdinand album You Could Have It So Much Better. The single on the radio at the moment, "Do You Want To", didn't really do much for me, but i must say it sits well in the encouraging first half of the album. The second half of the record seems to drag a bit, but then their first album took a while to grow on me before i found it thoroughly mesmerizing.

I impressed V in Europe by being especially quick to name all the music we heard on the radio, including Hard-Fi, Doves, and others. For someone who gets routinely lambasted for not listening to any new music, i was definitely putting her to shame. Bwa ha ha.

I caught up on the recent Chelsea highlights today. Despite the fact that we have a 100% record in all competitions this season and that we've yet to concede a goal anywhere, we're certainly not playing with any particular verve or dominance. I keep reminding myself that the same was true last season before the squad clicked (sparked by the mid-season arrival of the previously injured Arjen Robben) and we began to impose our will. This season Robben's in the thick of things, but everyone seems out of sorts, including previous stalwarts like Frank Lampard. José Mourinho has shown significant savvy before in getting his squads to achieve at their maximum level, and i trust him to do it again. I just hope it's soon because i'm getting sick of reading the press's criticism of boring, boring Chelsea. On the upside, the protracted transfer saga and eventual steep price tag of Michael Essien looks to be justified by his rapid establishment in the Blues' midfield. Hernan Crespo again seems to be struggling to find his form in England, however Didier Drogba is quietly shrugging off his critics and consistently putting the ball in the back of the net.

Wayne Rooney sent off again today in Man United's lackluster opening Champions League draw against Villareal. All matured now, as he said before the season? Don't bet on it.

Writing about the novels i read on the plane during our trip, i realized my reading-for-pleasure has come to a complete standstill since returning to California. The lack of free time makes me pine for the days of reading on the T for an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening. To rectify the situation, i picked up two books on the history of science at Barnes & Noble last night. History of science, you say? Pleasure reading? Absolutely! This is coming from someone whose most-watched TV network these days is the History Channel.

Experimenting with the new iTunes (v5.0) i downloaded yesterday it seems more less like the last one (4.8? 4.9? I can't remember), with a slightly trimmed-down user interface (in terms of real estate, not function). My listening statistics script still works fine, although (it may be my imagination) i seem to detect it running a bit slower. Veronica became entranced with the new iPod Nano after seeing it on the internet while in Europe, and is more or less resolved to getting one to replace my old 20 GB generation 2 iPod that she'd been using. I must admit, they're dead sexy. However, at this point what i need is a bigger iPod (say, 250 GB? You hardware development types listening?) rather than a more aesthetically-pleasing but smaller capacity one.

Saturday, August 27th
As previously discussed, Bob dropped V and i off at SFO around 10:15am, and we lugged our two suitcases, one duffel bag, one messenger bag, and one poster tube inside to check in. By 3pm we were in Dallas, and a scant nine hours later we arrived at London's Gatwick Airport. I spent most of my time watching the horrible Monster in Law and the much more acceptable the Interpreter, and finishing David Sedaris's Me Talk Pretty One Day, a collection of sometimes annoying, sometimes insightful rants. Interestingly the second half of the book focused on Sedaris's life as an expatriate in Paris.

Sunday, August 28th
After taking the Gatwick Express to central London and Victoria Station, we transferred to the tube (still bearing all our assorted luggage). Temporarily thwarted by a lack of working ticket machines, we made it onto the train and transferred once in our journey to Old Street. From there, it was a five minute walk to our old friend and English host Lucy's flat. We stayed awake for an afternoon jaunt through Camden. In the evening, i managed to limit myself to two half-hour snooze sessions while watching cricket with Lucy, while Veronica succumbed to a four hour nap. We then had a late Thai dinner before collapsing completely.

Monday, August 29th
Refreshed from our travels (although V professed to some lingering jet lag and disorientation), Lucy, V, and i bought tickets to the London Eye online and headed toward the Thames. As it was a bank holiday and London was an atypical 85°F and sunny, we feared huge crowds in the heart of the city, but were perplexed to find everything quite moderately populated. We were in our "viewing capsule" on the huge ferris wheel within five minutes of our arrival, and had a great view of the city. From there, we walked through Westminster to see the Abbey and Parliament, before i gave in to my footie compulsions and directed us towards Fulham for my mandatory visit to Chelsea. The place has undergone quite a renovation since my last visit in 2001, obviously spurred by Roman Abramovich's huge investment in the club. Fulham Broadway tube station is now a huge mall, with the old station converted into a TGI Friday's. I spent £150 on new kits for myself and Michael, and two track tops for myself. We then stopped for a late tapas lunch in Chelsea, before heading over to Piccadilly Circus and on to Covent Garden for some shopping. Meeting up with Lucy's brother, having arrived home after a weekend in Liverpool, we met up with V's friend Ant (aka DJ Scissorkicks) at a pub near Old Street for dinner and drinks.

Tuesday, August 30th
V was suffering from blisters incurred by walking all over London in flip flops, but she managed alright by switching to Docs. Our last full day in London, Lucy and Veronica again put up with my touristy inclinations and took me to the Tower of London. A really impressive collection of history, and certainly way more to see than we could manage in our three hours there. We again ended up in Covent Garden to shop, while i tried to get rid of an outdated £10 note (brought from home where V or i had kept it from a previous trip). The differences between it and the current version were minimal, but every time i tried to pass it off i got the impression i was about to be arrested for counterfeiting. From there we headed to Camden to have drinks in a local pub with Jeremy, in London for business/pleasure. Our voyage back to Old Street went via Brick Lane, the Indian mecca of London, where we had a great meal at a restaurant that may or may not have been the one recommended to us by several people.

Wednesday, August 31st
Wishing a fond farewell to Lucy, V and i bussed our luggage to Waterloo Station to catch the Eurostar train through the chunnel to Paris. I had my first baguette not five minutes after the train emerged on the French side of the channel, and an hour later we arrived at Gare du Nord. No sooner than we entered the metro station, we were beset by some sneak eager to help us part with our money, by "helping" us buy train tickets. We were fiddling with the machine to get a ticket to St. Michel de Notre Dame, when he offered his assistance and began punching buttons. Despite my piss-poor memory of my high school French, i still was able to deduce he was selecting high-price, long-distance rail tickets. V told him she was going to the bathroom to get rid of him, and we managed ourselves thereafter. The hot and sweaty Paris metro took us to St. Michel, where we walked (again carrying way too much luggage) to our hotel in the Rive Gauche. Great location, lousy room ... barely bigger than our double bed. We relaxed there for the afternoon, before walking out in the humid evening to see the nearby Notre Dame. We had a pizza dinner, where i again embarassed myself with my inadequate French.

Thursday, September 1st
We slept in a bit before setting out with the expressed destination of l'Arc de Triomphe. We made it across Ile de la Cité and towards the Louvre before stopping for lunch at the Hippopotamus Café, a Fridays-esque chain without the kitsch. Lunch consisted of seared burgers (burnt outside, raw inside) which had Veronica and i feeling lousy shortly thereafter. My French was not improving ... i kept using the wrong phrases for the occasion, with "c'est" ("this is") popping up all over the place. Somehow "merci" and "s'il vous plaît" were getting interchanged as well. I was incredibly intimidated by waiters in particular, feeling more comfortable to force Veronica (with no knowledge of French) to play the annoying American tourist. Anyhow, we continued walking west across Paris, passing l'Opéra and St. Augustin before hitting the Champs-Elysées and finally reaching the Arc. One of my favorite Paris sites from my previous visit in 1989, the Arc is truly massive and affords a great view at the top. We did a little shopping before continuing our trek south across the Seine, reaching the Eiffel Tower after nightfall. We went to the top, with Veronica especially freaked by the lower elevators that take you up the girders at an angle. Exhausted, we ended our walking tour of the city by cabbing it back to the Rive Gauche. We had a late dinner at a fantastic Greek place, enticed by the savory meat skewers in the window and the host's offer of a free drink.

Friday, September 2nd
Our excursions of the previous day must've worn us out, because we didn't make it out of our hotel until 4pm. We had a late late lunch at the Maison de Gyros in the Quartier Latin before taking the metro to the Gare du Nord to book our train to Amsterdam for that Sunday. We then continued the torture of our feet by walking up to Montmartre and the beautiful church-on-the-hill Sacré-Coeur. This area is featured in the movie Amelie, which i recognized quickly. What i didn't expect were the legions of panhandlers and grifters in the park below the church. V and i literally had to fight off hordes of men trying to tie some kind of friendship bracelet on our fingers. When V was cornered by an artist while we observed the rear of the church, she allowed him to sketch her. Naturally i was targeted by another chalk artist shortly thereafter, and we enjoyed conversing with the two and seeing their work. I'll scan them and put them up tonight. Despite their initial assurances of their intentions, they then told us it would be 50 €. I told them all i could pay was 15 €, to which they asked to make it 20 € so they could split it evenly. I angered Veronica by giving them a little more change to bring the final price up to ~18 €. At that point Montmartre's charm had worn off, and we took the metro over to the Champs-Elysées where V bought a swank pair of new Alain Mikli eyeglass frames she'd spotted the day before, and we had a mediocre dinner at a bistro along the avenue. We then walked away from the Arc down the avenue to have a look at the Egyptian obelisk in the Place de la Concorde, before hailing a taxi and heading back to our hotel.

Saturday, September 3rd
We planned to hit the Louvre on our last full day in Paris, but V was feeling pretty lousy so we delayed that excursion for next time and instead just visited the much closer Saint-Chapelle on the Ile de la Cité. A beautiful gothic church nestled inside the Palais of Justice, featuring immense stained glass panel windows telling the first several books of the bible. I took 30 photos or so, and could've taken many more. I remember spotting this cathedral in a National Geographic before coming to Paris in high school, and asking my hosts to take me there. Saint-Chapelle and Sacré-Coeur were my two favorite Paris sights this time round. After that, we headed back to the Hotel Moderne Saint Germain so V could recover a bit. We whiled away the afternoon watching the MTV Video Music Awards, one of the few non-dubbed programs on French TV. We had a late night dinner at the L'Authre Bistro across the street, where my bad mojo with waiters continued. This time, in addition to trying to communicate poorly in French (here i ordered a "ham OR cheese sandwich" as if it were something in and of itself), i for some reason kept trying to give the menus back to the waiter after ordering, despite them being intended to remain on the table. After doing this a second time, the waiter literally threw it at a nearby empty table. Eek.

Sunday, September 4th
Goodbye to Paris, beautiful sights and iffy personal interactions, and on to Amsterdam. My misadventures in French ended on a positive note as i successfully argued with our non-English speaking cabbie that he had shortchanged us by 10 € on our drive to Gare du Nord. Although this did eventually involve me writing the subtraction problem 50 - 14 = 36 on a piece of paper. It seems i bought first class rail passes for our trip (no wonder they were so expensive!), so we got the royal treatment on the 4 hour trip to Amsterdam. I noticed that the man opposite our seats had a Feyenoord Rotterdam bag with the number 21 on it, and later i eavesdropped him on the phone discussing his manager. He got off at the Rotterdam stop, and looking at the Feyenoord roster i see number 21 is striker Salomon Kalou, who looks very much like our neighbor on the trip. Hob-nobbing in first class! We arrived in Amsterdam and cabbed to our hotel near the Tropenmuseum in the eastern portion of the city. Much nicer than the Moderne Saint Germain, although Veronica did remark that everything in the room looks like it came from Ikea. Scared of "Amsterdam after dark" by an assortment of travel books warning of the horrors that can befall you in the wrong part of town, we opted to have dinner in the hotel and hang out for the evening.

Monday, September 5th
Our first real day in Amsterdam began with breakfast at the hotel at 9am, then reverted back to bed. We left the hotel around 12:30pm and began walking towards the city center. I didn't get many pictures of Amsterdam, in part because i extrapolated from the travel guides warnings not to photograph women in the red light district to not photographing anything. Amsterdam had a very low key atmosphere, in stark contrast to the hustle and bustle of London and Paris. We explored various portions of the city, seeing a lot but not focusing on anything in great detail.

Tuesday, September 6th
We opted to check out the Amsterdam zoo (Artis), not far from our hotel, on our last day in Amsterdam. A decidedly wholesome activity compared with how most twenty- and thirty-somethings occupy themselves in the liberal Dutch capital. Making our way towards the city center afterwards, we again meandered around, stopping for fantastic tapas. During dinner i spent a while observing the workings of the coffee shop across the street, trying to figure out the mechanics of buying one of the things Amsterdam is known for. I was all set to do so after dinner, until we learned the restaurant didn't take credit cards and i had to use all of our cash to pay the check. We wandered around for a while before we found an ATM, by then far away from the shop i had scoped out. We passed others, but my mojo was dashed and i chickened out.

Wednesday, September 7th
On to Cologne, effectively ending the honeymoon as i was due to attend the Society for Molecular Imaging meeting beginning that evening. We again took a first class train, although this time i was on edge for the journey as we didn't have specifically-reserved seats and i kept expecting someone to claim ours at each stop. It didn't happen, thankfully. During the trip V watched the TV on the back of the seat in front of us, and saw an image of a fantastic gothic cathedral. She asked me where it was, which i didn't know. She then said we should see that next time. Arriving in Cologne, a city neither of us knew much about, we were amazed to find said cathedral just in front of the train station. We hopped in a taxi, too tired to try to figure out where our hotel was on our own. The taxi driver looked at the address i gave him a bit quizzically, then pulled out. He literally drove a block down the street, made a U-turn, and came a half-block back before stopping in front of our hotel. Doh. However, inside the concierge told me they had no reservation under my name. Showing him the printout of the internet reservation i'd made, he told me the hotel had no contract with the company, something called hotel-rates.com. Uh oh. He was very nice however, and took me to the internet café next door so i could find out what was going on. Getting their customer service phone number, i called and had the concierge talk to them. They arranged to have the reservation faxed over, but as i waited at the desk nothing came. I was seriously agitated, but not with the concierge. He however must've thought i was furious as he decided to give me a room, then changed his mind and gave me a better room, then gave me two drink tickets for the bar. V and i went upstairs, but i remained on edge as there was still no proof of my reservation. I called customer service again an hour later, and to my great relief was informed that the reservation had been faxed and everything was set with the hotel. V and i then got horribly lost trying to walk to the opening reception of my meeting, eventually hopping in a cab. We met up with my old Boston compatriots and had dinner in the sweltering basement of the Gürzenich Kongress.

Thursday, September 8th
V was on her own as i headed to the meeting. As in years past i was happy with my interactions at the meeting, although to be honest there was not as much "super-exciting" stuff as previously. After i returned from the day's events that evening, i took V down the Schildergasse, a shopping area near the conference center featuring a building with an ice cream cone stuffed on one of the corners, and an older tower with two happy-looking horse heads sticking out of an upper window. We dined at a nearby pub, having a traditional sausage and sauerkraut meal augmented by the local standard beer Kölsch.

Friday, September 9th
More meeting for me, although V stopped by for lunch with my postdoc Ivana and i at an Argentinian restaurant. That evening was the SMI member's event, a dinner cruise on the Rhine. The weather threatened rain, but luckily it held off. Ivana, Veronica, and i had a good meal with Antoine, Kim, and Steve, a few newer additions to my old lab in Boston. We then headed out to the top deck of the boat to sightsee, although i missed much of it as i kept running into old friends from the east coast. Can't lose either way.

Saturday, September 10th
Last day of the meeting, and not a moment too soon as my energy reserves were more or less tapped at this point. Ivana had flown home that morning, so i mostly flew solo that day at the meeting. I had several reassuring conversations with colleagues about my current work, and came up with a host of new ideas for further work while bored during one of the plenary lectures. A gala dinner and concert at the Gürzenich ended the meeting. V and i showed up about 15 minutes late and spent a while trying to locate a table with openings for us. Koji, another old friend (from UCSF, not Boston), noticed our plight and was kind enough to find chairs for us and make space at his table. We had a good time over dinner and the concert meeting his cohorts at Gamma Medica.

Sunday, September 11th
Our free day in Cologne was also unfortunately the day the incredibly hot weather we'd experienced in Europe soured and turned to rain. It was also the day of the Cologne marathon, which we saw in pieces while walking around the city. Despite not being in the forefront of our consciousness prior to the trip, both V and i as well as my friends at the meeting were all impressed with the city and its friendly citizens and wealth of culture. Because of the weather we chose not to ascend the impressive Cologne Cathedral spires, and instead meandered around for random sightseeing. Late that evening we packed for our return voyage, a process that unfortunately revealed Veronica had lost her wallet sometime that day. She called and cancelled all her credit cards, which thankfully had not been abused since their disappearance. We surmise it must've happened when we had lunch, but of course the restaurant was closed by that point and would not open before we headed to the airport the next morning. Oh well ... the silver lining i collected was that at least it happened at the end and not the beginning of the trip.

Monday, September 12th
Only fourteen hours of flying time stood between us and home. First up was a one hour flight on Easyjet from Cologne/Bonn Airport to London Gatwick. There we gathered our luggage, went through customs, and checked in for our American Airlines flight to Dallas and on to SF. We made it into the terminal in time for V to pick up a few cd's at HMV (she was ashamed she had not yet gone record shopping on the trip), but were then forced to run off to the gate to board. The flight to Dallas was not as comfortable as the reverse direction, in part because the plane was not equipped with the individual TV monitors allowing you to choose what movies you want to watch. Therefore, instead of getting to see the Will Ferrell soccer comedy Kicking and Screaming promised in the AA magazine, i had to settle for the mostly boring Madagascar and the more entertaining and also animated Robots. I'm getting the impression that the CGI animation studios are making the same movie over and over with different casts (animals, robots, fish, toys, birds, ...). I spent most of the flight reading Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, one of the few Tom Robbins novels i hadn't yet checked out. I finished it halfway through our flight from Dallas to SF (by which time my patience for being on a plane had more or less completely evaporated). Robbins's novels seem to vary from explicit philisophical discourse with a plot loosely laid on top (Cowgirls) to intricate stories with definite if subtle philosophical messages (Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates, Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas), and everything in between. I find the former too heavy-handed, particularly Cowgirls as it was written in the late 60's/early 70's and hence has a lot of poorly-conceived but fervently-delivered hippyish ideas in it. Arriving finally at SFO at 7:10pm, we grabbed our luggage, headed out to meet Bob, and went home to two near-rapturous dogs who no doubt thought we were gone forever.

Photos of the entire epic can be found on the photos page. It was a great trip, but it's always good to come home.

Arrived home after a total of 14 hours of plane travel today, from Cologne to London to Dallas to San Francisco. Bob picked V and i up at SFO, and i swung by Taqueria el Grullense before heading home to relax in front of some Monday Night Football. Although i was up at 6am Cologne time and only managed to sleep during the second half of the fairly crappy Madagascar on our London flight, for some reason i am totally awake at the moment. Odd.

More European wrap-up and photos coming tomorrow ...

V's overheating a bit today (temperatures here have been averaging 90 degrees), so we've cut short the sightseeing on our last day in Paris after visiting the beautiful gothic church Saint-Chapelle and are back in an internet café. This one doesn't have the luxury of English keyboards so i'm having a right old time with this French one. Do they really use so many semicolons that it gets priority over the period (for which you need to press shift)?

I'm cutting this short to avoid any further typing headaches ... Montmartre and Sacré-Coeur were beautiful, although a bit too inundated with various types of panhandlers. We were sketched by two artists near the church, only to be told the drawings would cost 50 €. We settled on 18 €, although Veronica was still peeved at that price. In the evening we headed back to the Champs-Elysées for dinner, but were unable to squeeze in a movie as well. We took a walk down to see the obelisk in the Place de la Concorde before hopping in a taxi and heading home.

Signing off ... damn keyboard ...

The big gap between posts can be attributed to:

1. Trying to get a mess of things at work organized before heading off to Europe, including three posters, two grant proposals, a progress report meeting, and invites for next year's seminar series.
2. Coming down with a cold one week before our flight to London, and drinking copious amounts of fruit juice while watching the History Channel in bed.
3. Purchasing the last needed items for our adventure in the old world while shirking the last remnants of my illness.

But lo and behold my health came back, work came to some semblance of order, and V and i made it to SFO last Saturday morning to fly to Dallas and on to London. Luckily, V's stepdad Bob agreed to come relax at our house for a few weeks and look after our pesky dogs. Our overnight flight to Gatwick on American Airlines wasn't too bad, although as usual i didn't get much sleep. Instead i watched the totally awful J.Lo/J.Fo abomination Monster in Law, followed by the much more engaging Sean Penn/Nicole Kidman thriller The Interpreter, and finally the last half of Shrek 2 when i just couldn't achieve full slumber. We arrived at 10am local time, and caught a series of trains to get to Lucy's flat near Old Street. We spent our three days in London going shopping in Camden and Covent Garden, sightseeing at the London Eye, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, Parliament, and the Tower of London, hanging out at pubs with Jeremy and Ant, and of course stopping by Stamford Bridge for a variety of photos and for me to spend £150 on new kits for Michael and i and a couple of jackets for myself.

On Wednesday we caught the high speed Eurostar train to Paris, checking into our nicely-situated but incredibly petite hotel in the Rive Gauche around 6pm. We spent yesterday walking clear across Paris, starting at Notre Dame and skirting by the Louvre on our way past L'Opera, down the Champs Elysees, up L'Arc de Triomphe, down across the Seine and up the Eiffel Tower, before taking a taxi back to the Latin Quarter to rest our aching feet. Today has been much more relaxed, but we're currently hoofing it towards Montmartre.

On Sunday we head on via rail to Amsterdam for a few days, before going to Cologne and the Society of Molecular Imaging meeting. Then it's 3 quick flights back to SFO, Bob, and the dogs. I'm a bit homesick already, but we're both having loads o' fun.

Five minutes before my cyber-cafe time expires, maybe a quick jaunt to Soccernet before torturing my feet again up to Montmartre ...