Buying a house will suck all your energy away. Like laying out in the summer sun. Since closing escrow, the headaches have shifted from the financial to the logistic. I always knew we owned a ton of crap, but not until sizing up our move did i realize just how much a house with a garage had enabled our packrat lifestyle. Also, V has drawn up a list of initial modifications and/or repairs for the house, including having the foundation inspected and bolted down, getting a new stove, installing a damper in the chimney, and repairing the water-damaged bathroom floor. Ack. Okay, enough whining. I'm happy to be buying a house. I'm just tired. So tired. I'm thinking about taking the second two weeks of December off from work. That would overlap with the holidays, and give me a chance to recharge my near-empty batteries.

In other news, V and i saw the Jude Law remake of Alfie with Naomi and Geoff a few weeks back. I'm not sure how i felt about it. I've never seen the Michael Caine original, despite its status as a mod classic. I'm no huge fan of Law, but he suited the role of a hopeless womanizer nicely. I don't think the story translates well to this generation ... the flaws of Alfie's behavior are now common knowledge, which makes it difficult to identify with his personal realization that treating women as conquests is not fulfilling. Most adults in this day and age came to that understanding long ago. I was pleased that Hollywood chose not to tack a happy ending on the film, but was still not totally satisfied with the movie as a whole. However, that didn't stop me from asking my barber to give me Alfie's mussed hairstyle when i saw him last Monday. I'm still figuring out how to use the "sumotech" product he gave me, but in general i'm happy with the results.

Last week was a frenzy of activity at work as Art Boyer (my division chief) asked me to reshape a few old grants into a new one to be submitted by yesterday. The project, adding a collimator to a small animal CT scanner to allow it to deliver conformal radiation therapy, is one that greatly interests me. Art and i recently arranged for the new Stanford microCT scanner to be installed in our clinic space so we can make the modifications and test the unit. Suffice it to say that preparing this grant turned into a big debacle. The evening before the submission deadline i received an email from GE informing me they would be unable to organize the support needed for the grant by the Tuesday submission deadline, effectively killing the grant. Never have i been more thrilled to get bad news. The text i generated will be used in a future submission, but thankfully for now i am free.

Outside of house and work, it's been video games and Chelsea. Having been hooked on Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas for the past few weeks, a week ago Tuesday i talked Veronica into letting me buy the brand-spanking new Halo 2 for the Xbox (i'd been writing a lot of perl scripts to help her at work, so i'd earned it). Now GTASA has been cast aside to blast some Covenant scum with dual-wielded plasma rifles. In many ways the single player mode of Halo 2 is an extension of the original ... no major changes, just fine-tuned. The addition of double-wielding is a nice improvement, and the story so far is a more compelling affair than the incomprehensible plotline of the first. I haven't gone online with it yet, but am looking forward to it once i move and get my home network in working order again.

The games keep coming too ... Metroid Prime 2 Echoes, Viewtiful Joe 2, and Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater were all released this week. I've halted my video game acquisitions until i bring GTASA and Halo 2 to a close. But by then, who knows what stack of suitors will be vying for my gaming attention?

Since being ignominiously defeated by Manchester City during the SMFA weekend, Chelsea have responded by reeling off eight straight wins, scoring four three times in that span. That included two Champions League victories giving us a perfect 12 points through the first four group phase matches, and a hard-fought 1-nil triumph over third-placed Everton that moved us top of the Premiership table, two points ahead of the Arse. The team that at the start of the season was ridiculed as "boring, boring Chelsea" are now putting together mesmerizing performances and destroying opponents. Best of all, Dutch starlet Arjen Robben has now scored in four consecutive matches, with each strike more impressive than the last. Against Newcastle in the Carling Cup, he left three defenders in his wake on a run that started at midfield. Then to outdo that, in the West London derby he bamboozled four Fulham defenders, leaving two flat on their asses, on his way to rifling a shot into the net. To close the match, he and Tiago then played one-two down the left side, ending with Robben at the end line executing a perfect back-heel to Tiago in space, allowing him to fire across the keeper into the goal. That had the commentators exclaiming in delight at the quality of football. Boring boring Chelsea my ass. You think Manchester United, in the midst of their current goal drought, are kicking themselves for making a near-insulting offer to PSV Eindhoven for Arjen last winter? Add to Robben's emergence the guile and pace of Damien Duff, the imperious Frank Lampard, the steel curtain of John Terry, Ricardo Carvalho, and William Gallas, and soon-to-be-returning hitman Didier Drogba, and the Blues are ready to make some noise.