Lilty, I suspect the thing he needs most is laughs, cheap or not.

eta: Is there something we can send to him or to people in his unit? Does he know someone who doesn't get any mail and would like some?

Is there something we can send to him or to people in his unit? Does he know someone who doesn't get any mail and would like some?

Ginger, you are spectacular. I will ask. Also, get off my own booty and send the things I've been collecting for him for months.

Oh my word, Cashmere. What happened to Juliette Lewis? I think your Iggy Pop bobble head theory is spot on.

Lilty, I have three neighbors from the teeny street on which I grew up (Mum still lives there) serving in Iraq. It was four. The family next door had both the son and the father there at one point, but the father is home now. A girl in the next house up is there, as is the wife of the woman directly across the street. The ones I've spoken to (well, them or their families) completely believe in what they're doing, so I approach conversations like this -- I love that Saddam is gone. I love that the Iraqis are voting. I hope your loved one comes home soon.

Heh. That perfect-looking apartment ad from a few days ago? Looks like a lot of other people thought it looked perfect, too. I just got an email back from the guy who placed the ad, and he said he got 70 responses.

Also, once the serious bit's out of the way, it's still ok to work in a few cheap laughs, right?

I'd say absolutely.

I just got an email back from the guy who placed the ad, and he said he got 70 responses.

D'oh! Time to show some leg.

Ah, yes, apartment hunting in DC. Strength to you, Hil. Where are you looking? The City Paper ads come online on Tuesday afternoon, so you can get a jump on the paper version that comes out Thursday.

Ah, yes, apartment hunting in DC. Strength to you, Hil. Where are you looking? The City Paper ads come online on Tuesday afternoon, so you can get a jump on the paper version that comes out Thursday.

Thanks. I'm mostly looking around Arlington, but also some around Adams Morgan and Friendship Heights. (Pretty much, I want something that's got a not-too-difficult commute to campus, feels like a city neighborhood rather than a suburb or an office park, and is, at the absolute highest, $950 a month. Unfortunately, this place does not exist. I can get the neighborhood and maybe the price in Adams Morgan, or the commute and maybe the price in Arlington.) I've been checking the City Paper on Tuesdays and emailing and calling about the ones that looked good, but most of what I've been seeing there has been too expensive.

Hil, I love your tag.

(For posterity: "A mathematician who is not also something of a poet will never be a complete mathematician." -- Karl Weierstrass (or possibly Sonya Kovalevsky)

Also, once the serious bit's out of the way, it's still ok to work in a few cheap laughs, right? I'm afraid he'd think I'd been hijacked if I didn't.

Absofuckinglutely. He'll probably appreciate it and remember it more than anyone else he hears from.

Well Lilty is fabulous. No laughs and brain pod is the only plausible scenario to account for it. If there were no laughs, taken over by a brain pod could be the only plausible scenario that accounts for it. And we want our Litly unpodded.

vw, you okay? I mean, it's late for me so later for you... Um, hi, nice to meet you, my name's, "Pot," and this here is, "Kettle."

eta a hell of a lot of sense, I hope.