First off, Pete, I feel your pain. I long for the beauty that is the trimester. It's really hard to relax when your head is full of crap you have to complete in a riddiculously rapid fashion next week. I've already scheduled 3 meetings, 2 experiments and a partridge in a pear tree. Ok, I made up the pear tree, but I'll be damned if I don't get me a partridge. Ok, I made up the being damned part as well, but it would be nice to have a partridge. At any rate, I wish I could see all you nuts for New Years but I'm flying back from France that day. Ok, that's actually completely true.

On another note, I just wanted to post here a bit of hot new research findings that I've found. I've been conducting a study looking at Christian fundamentalists and their support for using extreme military force (e.g., chemical and nuclear weapons) over the last few semesters and I finally got some results. The first most obvious finding was that high fundamentalists were the most supportive of blowing the shit out of people, particularly after being reminded of their mortality. However, by priming them with compassionate hippie Jesus quotes I was able to significantly lower their blood lust. In fact, after mortality reminders and a compassionate values prime, high fundamentalist Christians became the least likely to support using aggressive military tactics. All in all, I guess the conclusion is that bleeding heart Jesus quotes have the ability to make wacko fundamentalists a lot nicer, at least temporarily. I find it nice to see that even they can't deal with the blatant hypocrisy of their kill'em all attitude and their devotion to a book that preaches love not war.

Just thought I'd share that with you.

Happy holidays folks.

-Z-

So my cousin Michael made a surprise visit here after going to a job interview in San Jose (and he's going to be making butt loads of money as well, if they only knew what they were getting themselves into...), and that was really cool. He got to look at our place here in Pullman and confirmed our assessment of it here: Pullman/our house is lame and Moscow/Co-op is cool. After work on Sunday, we drove through circuitous roads to get to Moscow Mountain. A drive that should have taken a half hour/hour ended up taking a bit less than two because we just got int the car and drove towards the mountain peak. Needless to say, finding the right road to the top is a little more difficult than that. The next day we drove to Bainbridge and hung out there for the night. The next day was super great because Christina and I checked out some cool music store on the island and we bought some books, we picked up Sylvie Davidson at the ferry and played a belligerent game of Hearts with her (then we drove her home) , and Michael and I stayed up until 4:30 am playing Super Mario Kart (which my mom over-night mailed so Michael and I could satiate our ridiculous competitve bloodlust). Oh, and we woke up every morning in the Ellis' new house which has huge windows that overlook the Puget Sound, and we watched the boats go by and gazed on the Seattle landscape (absolutely beautiful). Then Christina's sister Robyn was there by the next morning (cool) and then her brother Charlie was with us when we drove down to Portland to have Thanksgiving with her grandparents (he's not so cool). Watched a movie Thanksgiving night after a lengthy string of debates about what movie we were going to see (the group of 9 eventually split up and saw three different movies which I thought was weird and lame), I watched For Your Consideration, the new Christopher Guest movie about actors obsessed with possible Oscar nominations (pretty funny), and then I drove back alone for seven and half hours back to Pullman, and returned approximately 20 minutes ago. The fun company and joyous events I just described could hardly contrast more with what I felt when I walked through the front door of my ugly, isolated home. No Christina, (she stayed on Bainbridge for her grandma's memorial service, I have to work tomorrow), no kitties (Sam and Garth had to go back to Bainbridge or we would be evicted), and no Michael (gone back to Illinois). At least my resolve to leave this place has been hardened by the fun times of this past week. Hope everybody else had a good holiday, and I hope I see some of you around New Years (still trying to get my days off worked out to make it happen)

Peace
Adam

Sadly, I will be winging my way back from Florida around the time you describe, Pete. My Dad has reinvigorated the family tradition of traveling the orange filled state to visit his relatives. Forgive my abscence. Finals time is almost upon me. I will rock them! I hope all is going with you guys. Take care and have a good time on Turkey Day.

Happy Thanksgiving! It's almost 2AM Thanksgiving Day here in New Jersey, but i am up reading about Hurricane Katrina for class next Wednesday. (Oh how i miss the trimester system.) For something that will blow your mind, see... http://www.fema.gov/business/nfip/statistics/cy2005lsdl.shtm
Anyway, on a more positive note, the word goin' around is that a bunch of us folks will be in the state of Illinois in the days surrounding January 1, 2007. This means that we should have a gathering. Don't know when or where yet... I volunteer my apartment for a large gathering, but perhaps Clifton or somewhere in the Chicago Metropolitan Statistical Area might be more convenient for people. I expect to see all of you... Barlog, Parsons, Franciskovitch, Watkins, that's right i'm talkin' to you. Make your geographic likelihoods for the temporal vicinity in question candid upon this blog! Make some plans people. Go!