The only real nuclear memory I have is of my college physics professor talking about standing on a beach in the South Pacific with his physics colleagues and sipping martinis as they waited for the test blast at Bikini Atoll to go off. He said they were knocked off their feet and were very pleased.

I remember The Day After, but it gets mixed up in my mind with that scene from Terminator... 2? The dream sequence or whatever it was where Sarah Connor is standing by the playground and... boom.

Well, that was vague.

The Day aFter caused my very middle class, white bred college to have the biggest, hughest,actually- had- to -pay- for -damages, mud fight. a strange reaction, i supposes, but it freked people out that they reverted to early childhood. I do pity the pizza guys that ended up in our quad- which was one giant mud puddle.

can't watch the T2 scene. I look away.

Project Runway anyone?

I thought that Jeffrey's models sucked. How can so many people whose job it is to walk fail to do that so spectacularly? I liked his collection - but thought that Uli's looked the best on the runway. Michael, . . so disappointing. And all three of them chose sucky music that didn't enhance their collections. Laura's music totally worked, her stuff looked good -- but there was nothing surprising about it. After all the runway stuff was done, I thought that I would be happy if either Jeffrey or Uli won, I would understand if Michael did (for his whole season's effort) but I would not be pleased if Laura won. I think it was Michael's to lose going into this and lose it he did.

I finally read the Rolling Stone article on the worst Congress ever, which someone posted awhile back. I don't know if I'm going to cry or puke. It's not like anything in the article was a big surprise, but it's still depressing in black and white. What's even worse is that my state legislature is in a similar situation. It makes one want to move elsewhere, but I love my home. Crap.

I used to have nuke nightmares a lot when I was a kid, but haven't had one in quite a long time.

Until the last few weeks, when I've had a couple. On over the weekend that was quite intense and disturbing. Weird little details that really seemed to sell the dream in my head, like debris from the houses and stuff nearer to ground zero raining out of the sky shortly after the explosion. Then it started to really rain, and I remember thinking that that was VERY BAD, and then I woke up.

Do any Chicagoistas know why there have been cops and dogs everywhere on the red line downtown for the last week or two? I thought maybe it was Bush-related, but he is gone and the canines remain.

I didn't see canines last week when I was working downtown, but something was definitely up with the red line. Every day there were 3 outbound trains before an inbound would show up. Wierd.

I found out that the Rolling Stones saw King Lear at the Goodman while they were in town. Awesome!

Part of The Day After was filmed in KC (where I was in HS at the time). It was really spooky to see such familiar places in that context. Things were very quiet at school for a few days when that movie came out.

I remember thinking every big crash was a bomb of some sort. Since I lived in London in the 80s, at least twice it was a bomb. But if it was a big huge crash, I thought radiation poisoning first, nail bomb second.

No sushi tonight. I am quite sad. This is the problem with being spoiled.

Got irritable when teaching tonight. People need to be there, you know? Not just show up and amble through the class. I need more urgency and less chatter.

Hmmph. Pissy little mood. Luckily I can stay up late watching TV and eating chocolate cupcakes. That might fix things.

Skipping and poking head to post that, according to the Buffista Calendar,today is a double Buffista birthday: Burrell's and Calli's.

Happy birthdays! With lots of wishes for a great day and a wonderful year!

Can't talk about PR until this evening! Boy I wish I was at home watching that instead of here!

Happy birthday Calli and Burrell!

Have I mentioned that sushi is ridiculously expensive here? There are exactly two places you can get (non marks and spencer) sushi in this city, and both a ridiculously, hugely overprice. Por ejemplo: €4 for 1 piece of red tuna. One piece! Four euro! A small plate of sushi that would cost me about $8 in Kentucky, of all places, is €20 here. So sushi, she is not for me right now. Sigh. I can't wait to get to London where the sushi is plentiful and cheap.