Terri & Ezra Show

packing

Well, things are progressing on the new house front. We still don't have a signed purchase and sale agreement, which is a little concerning, because it means that things could fall through, we could wind up back at square one, and have to start our search over again. We're trying not to think about that too much for the moment, since we should know by Monday, and there's little to be gained by spending the next two days worrying about it.

Instead we're packing, in a way so methodical that it's almost uncharacteristic. But it's making it an enjoyable process. This is a major change for me. My parents came to pick me up after my freshman year in college; they called from a rest stop about 45 minutes away, at which point I started furiously throwing things into garbage bags. I never really got better about it, even after I was driving myself. I don't think I was much better in any move since (and I moved 5 times the first 2 years I lived in Boston).

This time, we are grouping things by their final destination, putting them into numbered boxes, and recording them in a spreadsheet. And throwing lots of stuff out. When did I ever use Dep hair gel? It's also kind of fun to get this early of a start so that we can go through our possessions one by one.

Terri is being DJ while we pack. She has been picking songs by running through our music alphabetically by artist. (Organized! Ja!) She started at about 10 this morning with Marc Almond (ha!). Since then, we've gone through Aphex Twin, June Christy, Nick Drake, Public Image Limited (and many others). Now it's almost 8pm and we're at Siouxsie and the Banshees.

While Terri watched the Penn State Lady Lions basketball game, I walked to Harvard Square to get a haircut. It was warm today; probably the first day warm enough to leave the windows open, which the cats enjoyed.

Hopefully we'll be calling it a day soon, so we can watch His Girl Friday, which we rented yesterday.

After 5 and a half years...

Yes, the rumors are true. After five and a half years with McGraw-Hill, I am moving on. My last day with McGraw-Hill will be April 2nd. I'll be starting a new job working on the Political Science list at Houghton Mifflin on April 10th. It's a bit of a promotion for me, and it'll be good to see what it's like at another company. What can I say? There have been good and bad things about McGraw-Hill (lots of you out there have heard me gripe about the bad). Houghton Mifflin seems like a good place to work. Everything always happens at once... So, new life begins April 10 and gets into full swing sometime in May (when we move)!

historical perspective

I should probably start putting all this non-Terri-and-Ezra-related stuff in a different place, but this will have to do for now. There's a good interview in Salon with Paul Berman, who contends that Islamism is another totalitarian ideology born out of World War I, like fascism and communism. There's more good stuff in there, too.

In my opinion, thought does much more for liberal values than "protest" (and there is actually a great deal of anti-liberal content to the protests I've seen).

ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

Much is afoot. We made an offer on a condo in Somerville, and it was accepted. Hooray! Here are some pictures. Today we go over with an inspector and a cast of thousands to make sure nothing is drastically wrong with the place. We should have some more pictures to come after the inspection.

It's an exciting and nerve-wracking process. Everybody keeps saying "wow, that's so grown up!". I guess so. I certainly have made more legal and financial transactions in the last week than I had in my life to date, and that's only beginning. But it doesn't feel grown-up. The prospect of actually living in a place we own makes me feel like a kid, which I guess I was the last time I lived in a place that wasn't a dorm or that I didn't rent.

Terri has some news too, but I'll leave that for her to post.

Update: The inspection went all right, and there are now more photos. Thanks to Alison's camera, they're much better photos than their realtor's photos.

Evacuation Day

Happy Evacuation Day, folks. Evacuation Day is one (of many) made-up Massachusetts holidays. It commemorates the day that British troops evacuated Boston in the revolutionary war.

We celebrated Evacuation Day by evacuating our house and going to work, just like any other day. Happy Evacuation Day.

fog

Strange fog outside today. Going down Memorial Drive on the way to the gym, all the fog was concentrated on downtown. It looked like the financial district was burning, actually. Terri's guess was that it was from ice in the harbor melting.

Had dinner with April and Yuri and Frances last night. Simon was guesting in Dallas. It seems like there are big changes afoot for all of us.

open letter to Nader voters

Scathing opinion piece in Salon:

I sneered in 2000 when one of you guys said on CNN that you were willing to risk a Bush victory because you believed "things have to get worse before they get better." But I'm not sneering now. Now's the chance for you overwhelmingly white, middle-class, college-educated Nader voters to show that you really do care and aren't just willing to let someone else do the dying for you. You put Bush in the White House, so why not sign up for his invasion -- what better way to "make things get worse"? In this time of uncertainty and fear, your country salutes you.

robert reich has nothing to hide

Oh dear. Former Clinton Labor Secretery, former Massachusetts gubenatorial candidate, and Cantabridgian Robert Reich is posing nude for a CCTV calendar. I'm not sure if this was the greatest fundraising idea. I certainly don't expect it to mean that CCTV programming will be something other than a camera trained on Central Square 18 hours a day.

waterskiing squirrel

The world might be going to pot, but maybe this waterskiing squirrel will ultimately save us:

"Twiggy's gonna be the Smokey the Bear of water safety," Best says. "Maybe the next president or the next Billy Graham will be saved because Twiggy taught him to use a lifejacket."

Grendel's Den

Terri and I went out to Grendel's Den last night. I lobbied not to drive home in the most recent snowstorm, after hearing about the 100 car pileup on I95. So we took the T and met up at Grendel's in Harvard Square. Being there made me feel all happy to be staying in Cambridge. It's is probably second only to the Thirsty Scholar as my friendly local pub of choice.

Seven Warning Signs of Bogus Science

Slashdot points to this article about The Seven Warning Signs of Bogus Science. Forward this to all your journalist friends.

Tom Lehrer lives?!

I had no idea that he was still alive, but here he is, giving interviews in an Australian newspaper!

Apparently, he withdrew from performing in the mid-sixties, like Glenn Gould and the Beatles. But unlike Glenn Gould and the Beatles, he also stopped recording.

Who is Tom Lehrer, you ask? Perhaps you should read the interview...

It's funny that he also mentions Peter Cook, whom Terri and I have been enamoured with since we saw Bedazzled.

"The audience usually has to be with you, I'm afraid. I always regarded myself as not even preaching to the converted, I was titillating the converted.

"The audiences like to think that satire is doing something. But, in fact, it is mostly to leave themselves satisfied. Satisfied rather than angry, which is what they should be."

His favourite quote on the subject is from British comedian Peter Cook, who, in founding the Establishment Club in 1961, said it was to be a satirical venue modelled on "those wonderful Berlin cabarets which did so much to stop the rise of Hitler and prevent the outbreak of the Second World War".