And if anyone reading this is shopping for Charles but doesn't actually like him very much, allow me to suggest that you buy him this.

Thirteen fucking hours, if you count transit. Yeesh. Observations:

• The saying that US military bases are the only place in the world where communism works seems to be true. Also, the omnipresent aura of the 1950s gives things a distinctly Cuban feel. It was a brave aesthetic choice to subvert yourself, military-industrial complex, but I think you pulled it off. Bravo. The well-appointed skate park (really) was a particularly nice touch.


• My coworker makes almost no sense. I'll be saying something completely boring but comprehensible to the client -- "then you'll need to upload the file", for example -- and he'll loudly interject to say something like "it's like peeling a boiled egg!" And we'll all stand there, waiting until it's safe to resume making sense. But before we can he'll explain the analogy, inevitably by telling a story about his time in the navy that involves superiors or inferiors making some sort of ridiculously naive but uninteresting assumption about something. "You can't take a skiff that far out -- they've only got 100 gallons of fuel!" These stories are usually punctuated with sound effects, and they never, ever have an ending.


• The army is dysfunctional, and working through the bureacracy on this project is going to take approximately forever. But that's okay, 'cause I don't much feel like doing work anyway.


• Also encouraging: my new listen-to-ipod-instead-of-coworkers-in-the-car initiative is off to a promising start. You kids doubtless already know this, but the new Broken Social Scene is pretty damn gorgeous. Catherine recommended Rogue Wave to me, and they're pretty good too in a Shins/Nada Surf kind of way.

So what'd I miss? Are we impeaching people yet?

susan gets a visitor in THE REPUBLIC OF GEORGIA before i get ONE in CHICAGO? a major american city? with electricity? and several airports? and a visitee with a MAGIC FUTON?

for shame, puny people. i'm sure your pathetic excuses are legion. VISIT ME OR FEEL MY WRATH!

if you seriously want to warm the cockles of your heart, you should watch this video of butterstick taking his first steps. it is. so. freaking. awesome. isn't there some sort of hormone drug we can inject him with to make him stop growing? cause he's pretty much at a perfect panda size right now.