The night

I've been teetering on a major bout of insomnia for a few days now and tonight is going to be the night. I couldn't even stop myself, I took a vivarin (previous experience with this medication has led to three consecutive days without sleep, although I took three pills at once, but still...) Sometimes insomnia, and dancing endlessly for hours, has an appeal that is so beyond the ability of reason to counter it that reason and desire may as well have no common points of communication. This is one such night. For now it is techno and diet coke. We'll see as the night progresses.
As a side-bar (there will be many to come) I have only recently begun to judge my television watching habits on the commercials that populate the downtime. For example, only recently did it strike me as odd that my tv shows were frequently interrupted by ads for the armed services, or on other occasions, nearly constant appeals from the aarp. I am watching the tv that young and old men are watching.
Also, I am blaming my current state on my having gotten a flu shot today for the first time in my life. I am hoping that multiple flu shots will protect me against the avian flu. It may or may not work. No one really knows. But for 10 USD, pourquoi pas?

India

Oh, and I ended up going to India over Australia. I did indeed fall ill (3 times) and it was at times highly stressful but nevertheless a very interesting trip to the third world. I would post pictures but I've lost the necessary technical devices.

Political Futures

Good slate guide to resources. Personally, I can't see how anyone but Fred Thompson can win the election so it all seems rather irrelevant. However as someone who doesn't understand the concept of gambling when the odds are against you, this provides me with an outlet for my addictive tendencies.

As a side-bar, it would be fascinating if votes were counted not just as each vote being equal to another but as each vote having more weight depending on the passion with which the vote was cast. And there would be minimum thresholds of passion that had to be met, and in that way you could have a presidential election that would not result in a winner, because so many of the votes were motivated by something teetering on utter indifference. Maybe then we would have a second round of voting with the top vote-getters, with lower passion thresholds.