How's the book going you ask? Well...

I'm sure that all 4 of you readers are dying to know how Departmental is going, so here we go...

I'm almost though the read-through/note-taking. After that I'm going just go ahead and finish the thing straight through to the end. There's more to go than I thought - my deadline of late June is looking tight. After that it's on to the rewrites.

It's an interesting experience going back to a book that's been dormant for a couple of years. I feel like I've returned - prodigally - to a garden I planted out on the back forty acres and then forgot about. Now confronted with a nasty tangle of weeds and flowers, onions and potatoes, I whip out my hoe. But then I realize that all the plants are trying to eat each other and me. Mass chaos.

I think it feels like this because I don't feel and think the same way that I did when I started this thing. Whatever it was going to be, it's now going to be something different. It's still going to be the same song, just a different arrangement.

This morning I found some chapters that I had discarded or replaced. I'm glad I did. There some space in the story for them after all.

All in all, it's going well. I have yet to write anything new, but I'm getting excited (and terrified) as I get closer to doing so.

[Tools of the trade - I use Scrivener as my WP and Curio for brainstorming.]

[Liveblogging: There is a very cute little girl in a stroller near me. She's really enjoying/wearing her Funyuns. And... there goes the bag. Now I'm wearing some Funyun, too. Weak.]

Snakes on a Train.

I wish I were kidding, but I'm not. Both my wife and I have seen snakes on the Blue Line. She recently, and me a while back. The two sitings have a few of things in common:

1. Neither snake was caged.
2. They both involved a lot of ohhing and ahhing from the other passengers. Addie and I talked it over. We were not impressed.
3. Both people wore their snakes as clothing. The one I saw was worn as a belt. The one Addie saw was worn as a scarf. Even for fashion-trendy LA, this seems dangerous.

I have also seen hamsters, dogs, cats and a box turtle - all were properly contained. And none were worn as clothing - though a box turtle might make a good broach.

[Unrelated - I discovered this morning that a typical ride from Willow Station to the end of the line at 7th/Metro Center is almost precisely one Glen Gould performance of Bach's Goldberg Variations long.]

And now, some 'liveblogging':

[Related to 'Unrelated' - Someone is blaring soul music on a boom box this afternoon. I'm blocking it out with a kick-ass recording of Brahms' 4th. Take that, generic crooner!]

[Unrelated to either the previous 'Unrelated' or the 'Related to the Unrelated' - Some late-forties white dude is mining for green gold for all he's worth. Get me off this train.]

Fortunately, metaphors are cheap.

So the economy is tanking, and today Wall Street reacted by jamming its collective fingers in their collective ears, singing 'lalalala' and buying and selling at random. But this is normal. What's different from normal is that the economic punditry - Henny Pennys all - acknowledged that it was happening.

I work in a building almost entirely dedicated to banking. The elevators are equipped with televisions - usually glued to CNBC. Today, after the collective Bear Sterns groan, the powers-that-be changed the channel to ESPN, tore the knob off and watched blissfully as Dick Vitale popped a vein. And I was glad. Watching the Dow plummet, whilst riding down from the 45th floor makes for too strong a picture for me.

Fortunately, I personally won't have to cut back on anything. Due to school debt, I'm already doing it.

[Related - Pedro the one-eyed homeless guy is here. He's changed up his schtick. He's actually going out of his way to make folks who can't give him change feel better because of the economy. He even sounds like he means it. Now that's knowing your market.]

Does this sound familiar to anyone else? (Yikes.)

Back to physics. I ran across this dreck on the blog Cosmic Variance, which is spearheaded largely by (relatively) famous physicist - and popularizer thereof - Sean Carroll. It's a post about the recent Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe results. Non sequiturs abound, but here's the best quote:

The WMAP folks have produced an elaborate cosmological parameters table that runs the numbers for different sets of assumptions (with and without spatial curvature, running spectral index, etc), and for different sets of data (not just WMAP but also supernovae, lensing, etc). Everything is basically consistent with a flat universe comprised of 72% vacuum energy, 23% dark matter, and 5% ordinary matter.

Emphasis mine. The universe is flat? How can physicists say on the one had that spacetime (odious concept) is curved (also ridiculous) on the one hand, and then turn around and try and convince us that the universe is flat? It sounds familiar... Hmm... Christopher Columbus anyone?

Your cell awaits. One can hope.

Okay. Isn't waterboarding assault... at the very least? Should someone be pressing charges for something this disgusting?

Hating HRC.

It's been an ugly few days to say the least. The last set of primaries proved that negativity and fear still work. I was hoping that Obama would stay above the fray and stick to his message of hope and change, but alas, he was forced to defend himself and did so (somewhat) in kind.

In the meantime, HRC has said that McCain is better than Obama. An Obama surrogate called HRC a 'monster' and then resigned.

People are seriously pissed and despondent. And after Obama managed to energize a new generation of voters and reinvigorate some older ones, HRC is going to kill it for the sake of a personal power grab. She's going to fragment the Democratic party the way Bush fragmented the GOP. And she doesn't seem to care. Why are the party leaders allowing this? She's killing the party in the year that should be a slam dunk.

I can't vote for John McCain or any other Repub. I thought I could vote for HRC if it came down to that, and for the sake of the future of the Judiciary I might still have to somehow bring myself to do so. But it's getting harder and harder as she stoops lower and lower. I hope (see? - I still have some) that Obama can regroup his message and his people and get back to doing what he's best at: inspiring and uniting. But I also know that he's got to defend himself.

(Paging John Edwards! Please endorse Obama at your earliest convenience...)

Pepto Primary: The Hangover.

So people are still voting for HRC. More Pepto please.

Her speech was great... if you want her to be president. And as it turns out, I don't. Obama's speech was much better; I liked his bit about "the world is watching" - our standing in the world needs a defibrillator in a hurry, and contrary to what some might have you believe, this is only getting more important as the world shrinks.

I have to admit - I was hoping that Obama could do something spectacular, but still - it's really a wash. Obama is going to have nearly the same delegate lead. Whatever crazy spin HRC and co. come up with, that lead will make liars out of them. Let's see what happens in the next couple of days when Obama announces his new superdelegate friends and his $50 million+ donation haul in February.

Gotta keep my optimism, no?

Well. Color me surprised.

McCain wins the nomination. Almost everyone saw this coming.

The only downside? No more of this virtuosity.

I was right. It's the Pepto Primary.

I'm watching CNN again. The Silver-bearded Bastard calls the night "fascinating." I'd prefer a landslide or two. But hey... at least the math doesn't work for HRC.

Counting out time.

Time flies when you're having fun. When you're not, it doesn't. As humans get older, a day seems like an hour, and hour a minute and a minute an eye-blink. But what if you're older and not having any fun? Right on time, I suppose. Maybe this is the real reason that so many old people stay cranky. They're just slowing things down, holding off the approach of the big D.

I must be getting older. I'm always having the feeling during the workweek that I'm not sure if it's already Wednesday or only Wednesday. I'd prefer to think that this is due to an intrinsic property of Wednesday, but I'm guessing that the universe doesn't give that much of a crap about our 'Wednesday' designation. Alternatively, I could anthropomorphize a bit and call it Wednesday's evil plan to fuck with us. After all, it makes sense for a grown up Wednesday's Child. But more likely, I'm just cranky, too. Fortunately, it's only Tuesday, and though I have no idea what that does to the calculations, I do know that somewhere in the world... it's half-price margarita night.

All aboard!

As crazies go on the Blue Line, some are easier to take than others. Nobody likes the speaking in tongues lady. But the 'All-aboard' guy is a different story. He was on the train recently. He always brings a little old-time flavor to our modern light rail. He's this harmless near-deaf guy that gleefully yells 'all aboard' at every stop just as the doors close. As weirdos on the Blue Line go, I'll take him every time.

Grab your Pepto, it's the TX, OH, RI, VT Primary!

It's been tough watching the negative rhetoric ratchet up in the Dem primary while McCain seemingly gets a free pass. It's also unfortunate that the Democratic party electorate seems to be just as much divided as the general electorate's Red-Blue divide.  I'd be less concerned if the debate was at all healthy (ahem, HRC blathering at length about a health-care plan that doesn't have a chance at passing doesn't count.)

With Obama showing surprising strength in Wisconsin, HRC had no choice to turn to what amounts to negative, vacuous character aspersions. That Obama had to respond in kind to defend himself is also unfortunate. One of the strongest things he had going for himself was his reticence to go negative. He's proved he can do it, but HRC has proved that using the politics of the lowest common denominator, she can stop the bleeding.

I should know better than to drool over every poll that comes out, but I've been unable to stop looking. (I even got emotionally involved in this near-banality, refreshing like a mad-man.  FYI - I voted no.) If the Dems are bitter and worn out, and the electorate is bitter and worn out, that doesn't bode well for the general election season. I hope they can regroup.

It's going to be interesting to see if either candidate can affect any meaningful movement in the pledged delegate count. If it's a wash, it's ostensibly a win for Obama. If HRC can narrow the gap at all, the spin is going to be... dizzying.

The way this primary has been shaping up, there's bound to be a surprise or two in store. Hopefully the shine hasn't plum warn off of m' boy Obama.