I honestly don't think I'm at a place where I can really make that sort of investment right now, but thanks for thinking of me!

It's in my best interest to try to get good neighbors! (Plus think of the diabetic cat care trading opportunities.)

high-fives lisa.

I poke because I love.

That should be on a t-shirt.

It's awkward.

As awkward as a headline I read at USOpen.org which seemed to say that Andy Roddick was a 3-time consecutive winner of the US Open.

Welcome back, moonlit!

Happiest of birthdays to Trudy and Kara. I firmly believe that Kara is Trudy's successor in world-domination and flirtation.

Happy Buffistaversary to Fred Pete.

tommyrot, that sentence is very awkward.

I know.

Is it just me, or is this sentence really awkward?

Not just you.

The WX Natter thread is good reading, and I go back and read it through every now and then. Lots of people who've moved on, and a lot of you weren't here yet -- which is weird to realize. The aftermath of that day was the basis for our becoming a community, and so in my head everybody who is part of the community was there that day, even people I know weren't.

I can't imagine having those many, many arguments about voting and monkey-grooming and establishing a sense of community standards if we hadn't had that experience, as a board.

I'm rather skeptical of this, but it's in Chicago so I suppose I could check it out:

Homaro Cantu, the chef at Chicago's Moto restaurant, makes dishes by printing flavored inks onto edible sheets of "paper" and combining this papercraft food with elements cooked from the inside out with lasers. He also plans to levitate meals "using superconductors and handheld ion particle guns."

Perhaps Cantu's greatest innovation at Moto is a modified Canon i560 inkjet printer (which he calls the "food replicator" in homage to Star Trek) that prints flavoured images onto edible paper. The print cartridges are filled with food-based "inks", including juiced carrots, tomatoes and purple potatoes, and the paper tray contains sheets of soybean and potato starch. The printouts are flavoured by dipping them in a powder of dehydrated soy sauce, squash, sugar, vegetables or sour cream, and then they are frozen, baked or fried.

The most common printed dish at Moto is the menu. It can literally whet your appetite by providing a taste test of what's on the menu: tear off and eat a picture of a cow and it will taste like filet mignon. Once you are done with your sampling, the menu can be torn up and thrown into a bowl of soup - but only once you've ordered your two-dimensional sushi which consists of photos of maki rolls sprinkled on the back with soy and seaweed flavouring.

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Also, it really seems like just yesterday that 9/11 happened, and most of my memories are of the buffistas as we were keeping each other up to date in our offices and sharing our horror and shock with each other. I was grateful to be a Buffista that day and I thank you all.

Yes. This, exactly.

In fact, it was in Natter that morning that I first heard that "a plane" had hit one of the WTC towers. I was running late for work, and I knew it was Trudy's birthday, so I figured since I was already late, a little longer wouldn't matter, and I got online to wish Trudy a happy birthday.

And someone had posted what at first just sounded like a newsworthy fuckup of a small-craft flight. And then someone else said "Turn on your TVs, people."

I remember the roll-call of NYC and DC Buffistas so well -- each of them checking in when they could, or someone else who managed to get through on the phone posting that they talked to so-and-so, and that they were okay. Remembering that roll-call makes me tear up, even now.

And I feel so selfish, given how many people lost loved ones in the towers and Pentagon, to say this, but I mean it: I'm so utterly, utterly GRATEFUL that we didn't lose a single Buffista.

Praise Jesus and all of his groovy disciples, my hard drive is not completely dead, and everything is now absolutely currently backed up.

The chorus and symphony have performances this weekend, and half of the concert is John Adams' "On the Transmigration of Souls," which was commissioned by the NY Philharmonic. It's pretty difficult, technically, and that's very good, because it means I have to concentrate on counting and coming in at the right time, rather than paying attention to the text, which is mostly taken from statements of people who lost someone at the World Trade Center. It's a good piece, but I can't imagine listening to it on a casual basis.