oh my god. i nearly died today. the internet at my company was broken up until this moment, and i think my head almost exploded. i had nothing. no email, no IM, no washingtonpost.com, no blogs, no eonline.com...holy jeez. it was a bad day.

in other news, props to jeff for updating his site, and for taking what is perhaps the best photograph EVER of tommy and me (tommy oftentimes looks like a corpse attempting a smile, and i'm generally not that photogenic either). plus many other pics of the new years party.

no deep thoughts about the new hampshire primary. i expected those results, and now we'll see what happens in the south and the midwest. but to lawton: i haven't yet made up my mind who i'll vote for in the primary, but it is between dean and kerry. i thought dean's concession speech last night was very good, and made me lean a little bit more towards him.

and of course you should vote with your conscience. i'm as concerned as anyone about electability and who can really beat bush, but when it comes down to it, if no one trusts their own instinct and judgement when they vote, it's likely we won't pick the one person who might be able to win. if your gut says go with dean, go with dean. if its says go with sharpton, go with him. if you're standing up for one guy because you honestly believe in what he says and you think he can change the country, then it's likely a lot of other people will agree come election time.

in any case, the only thing i'm sure of right now is that i'm an ABB hardliner - anybody but bush. and i will support the eventual democratic nominee with all my heart and 110% of my efforts.

i shall step off my soapbox for the moment and turn my thoughts to something more pleasant than bush running the country for another four years -- italy! yes. once again. just in case anyone wants to change their mind.

i'm still not sure when i'm leaving, but it will probably be either like april 2-12 or april 28-sometime in may. 9-11 days worth of vacation i'd guess. first three or four days in milan, and let me list the attributes: the duomo (fantastic gothic cathedral. you can walk to the top and see all of milan and sometimes as far as switzerland); da vinci's the last supper; the brera district, a super arty fancy pretty area with cobblestone streets and antique markets; la scala opera house (though it's undergoing repairs, not sure if it's open yet); the massive castello; the navligie canal mercato, where you can bargain your way into owning any knock-off purse or 'designer' sunglasses that you like; j menalat and lo chalet, two of the best pizza places in the world. may i also mention the eurospin grocery store, where no bottle of wine costs more than 2 euro. i might also take a day trip either to parma (and buy me some cheese and ham) or to the lake region between italy and switzerland.

then i'd probably leave on a sunday to hit florence. i'd like to stay here, because it's centrally located and moderately priced and looks so darn cute! i'm thinking about doing a day-long bike trip to fiesole, a village with roman ruins, and maybe a day trip to the towns of cortona and pienza (pienza being where the english patient was filmed, aww). and just basking in the florentian-ness of it all. i'd stay there for 3-4 days, come back to milan for a night, and head home the next morning.

just to let you know! come for some of it, come for all of it. hopefully tommy will be able to come for some of it, and jeff and my friend claire (who was with me in italy last year) have expressed interest. let me know!