sarameg, the Temple of Debod looks awesome, I wish I'd gone to see it in Madrid.

The Springsteen show was awesome: he played for three hours, did a bunch of great stuff from the new album (my current favorite might be "Rocky Ground"), and also did "Rosalita", "Thunder Road", and "Born to Run", and closed out with "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out", which included a really moving tribute to Clarence Clemons. Oh, and they also played "American Skin (41 Shots)", that song he wrote for Amadou Diallo.

They had a five-man horn section (which made me laugh: they need FIVE people to replace the Big Man!), including Jake Clemons, Clarence's nephew, on sax. He also sang and played percussion, and he was great, and got a lot of cheers from the crowd, who obviously knew who he was.

I fell into bed around 1:45 and slept until 9 and now I'm at the office and all my projects are falling apart, ARGH.

Dear dudes whose company I have enjoyed for the past few days: the reason I suggested that time was because the bartender told me the chef wouldn't be in until at least 8. I have no control over that, so if you want to go a whole 30 minutes earlier, have at it, but you might have to eat elsewhere if you can't wait that long.

Love, me

...

I know I've been very much not linear with the conversations going on here. I can barely track between the time difference and, well. Vacationing?

(Also, I hope we don't miss them, cause I really don't mind listening to their french accents. HAH.)

But don't French people think of French as an ethnicity? The best, most obvious one, but I think there's a weird erasing of "culture" here, what with the (also problematic) "melting pot."

I prefer Food Borg, Jesse.

Yeah, it's totally problematic. I don't know if the French in France think of themselves as ethnic, but as the default. Oh hey! I can go ask a French person. She's down the hall.

Ethnic is a weird word -- but what about culture? I think most Americans really don't think of the default culture here as being "a culture," when it totally is.

Do you guys feel a little off-kilter about the huge amount of major press Joss is getting?

I don't know if I'm reacting to what you are, but I think it's cool. It's like, we've loved him for so long thanks to Buffy et al, but now the rest of the world will get to see what he can do.

They had a five-man horn section (which made me laugh: they need FIVE people to replace the Big Man!), including Jake Clemons, Clarence's nephew, on sax.

Aw! Sounds like a great show, Consuela.

Chatty!co-worker (who was responsible for the whole " 'ethnic food' is a racist term!" argument) said "Every food is an ethnic food. Macaroni and cheese is the food of a specific ethnicity; you [specifically meaning me] just don't think it's exotic, so you don't call it 'ethnic'."

I asked him what ethnicity macaroni and cheese is from, and he said, "American." I said that was a nationality, not an ethnicity, so he quoted the dictionary definition of "ethnicity" at me, which -- in his dictionary, which is Webster's 10th, I think -- said "the fact or state of belonging to a social group that has a common NATIONAL or cultural tradition."

I can't win this one with him.

Having a banner week:

1. Debit card spoofed and $300.00 stolen from my account.
2. Broke my kindle
3. Went in to doctor - will need more tests (sigh)
4. Twitter account phished.

Silver lining: not much money in my acct because my tax refund was delayed.

sumi, your week so far is a great example of why we need do-overs. I hope it gets better soon.

Thank goodness my boss gave me the gift of dark chocolate truffles for Administrative Professionals Day.