Back, but not Back in Black.

No AC/DC for you.

Anyway, I just got back into town from Ohio, and boy, is my brain tired. After making valiant attempts to hold coherent conversations in Welsh all week, I seem to be incapable of doing much more than sleeping and sitting on the couch. This could also be because, the last two nights of the conference, I spent just as much time drinking beer as sleeping. Of course, I was drinking really, really slowly.

Anyway, it was a fun time. Beer is very cheap in rural Ohio. (Can you believe $1.50 for bottled domestic and $2.50 for bottled imported? And Killian's counts as domestic! Yeah!) Plus, I found out what will be keeping me busy all next year. That's right; guess whose bright idea it was to try to organize a California course?

Hopefully the weather won't be anything like what it's been this week, which, judging from today, has been hot as hell. I have to say, though, 105-degree-weather and all, I'm glad to be back.

Babies on the Bookshelf

Remember that baby name project I worked on last summer? Probably not, but the book I helped do fact-checking and internet research for is now out, and it's called The Perfect Baby Name. I got my free copy this week and it's much cooler than I expected--that's always a good thing. Here are some of the resources I helped compile. And if you buy the book, look in the first paragraph of the acknowledgements, 'cuz I'll be in there, dammit.

Into the sea, you and me...

I was just watching VH1 Classic's "We Are the 80s" for about ten minutes while doing stuff in the kitchen, and I saw the Cure video for "Love Cats," thus answering the question "Was Robert Smith always that goofy?" Yes, and in fact, more so, because it was the 80s. Now I kind of wish I hadn't seen the video, because I like that song, and now every time I hear it I'll see these images of a young Robert Smith frolicking around with kittens. I also saw the video for INXS's "The One Thing"--full of truly, frighteningly godawful 80s hair. Remember that David Bowie 'do that was somewhere between a pompadour and a mullet?

Anyway. Rob and I have been exceedingly occupied lately. Here's the usual Unordered List O' Crap We Been Doin':

• Saturday: Went to Vik's Chaat House in Berkeley for lunch, followed by the Renaissance Faire in the afternoon. Chaat lunch was much better than the turkey leg we had at the faire. However, I did drink three beers, so I had a pretty good time.
• Monday: Went to see the Beck concert in Santa Cruz. It turns out you can get to Santa Cruz from Modesto in two hours if traffic is light and you fear neither death nor speeding tickets.
• Thursday (i.e., today): Rendered entire Color & Design class speechless with shock when Rob revealed that his wife had been in the class the entire time and was sitting right over there. I was rendered speechless by the fact that nobody guessed or was even suspicious. It just never came up.

So there you have it. Saturday evening I leave for my Welsh course for a week, leaving dry-and-excessively-hot for hot-and-excessively-humid. Perhaps I'll have a chance to post a report.

Forget the Do-Rag...

I found something even more painfully trendoid to add to your wardrobe. This guy who sits at the same table in Rob's Color & Design class had a tattoo magazine with him, because he's designing a tattoo for a friend, and inside this magazine was a most fascinating advertisement. This ad was for sunglasses which attach directly to your eyebrow piercings. (Note goofy drawings if you click on the preceding pdf.)

Of course, the ad we saw had an actual color photograph of said glasses, over which we oohed, ahed, and ugh-ed. I theorized that these would primarily be for fashion purposes. If you actually tried to, say, go jogging in these things, well...I'll just leave that to your imagination. I found the mental image both highly amusing and slightly disturbing.