• The wind on I-74 was cracking today. Almost lost control of the car at one point, which would have meant joining the other wrecked automobiles in the median. Four cars, buried in snow. Nice.
  
• My afternoon class was cancelled due to a wreck on I-57. Slow down, people!
• Also: the pedestrian has the right of way when hu is in the crosswalk. And then I have the right of way, because the light is green and I'm turning right. You only get to turn left *after* the pedestrian has safely crossed the slippery street, and I've made my right turn. *After*, not before.
  
• I'm not going to comment on the whole retired mascot issue, except to say that if you ever start a sentence with "I'm not a racist, but..." you seriously need to shut up.
• This weekend we watched Jaan-e-Mann. Not sure what to say about it; some person over at imdb claims Preity Zinta "breaths fresh air in her role." Was she being all breathy when she was being played by a cardboard cut out? 'Cause I think that was the strongest part of role as written for her. Seeing Salman Khan in a dress almost made me not hate him...almost.
• Catherine bought me Jon Auer's latest CD, Songs from the Year of Our Demise, as well as David Einmo's new Head Like a Kite CD, Random Portraits of the Home Movie (which I would have called "Random Portraits of the Social Hygiene Filmstrip" but no one asked me). I shouldn't say that I like them, because it can only hurt their images to have middle-aged scholarly fans from the Midwest. Still. I've always wanted to say to one particular person, "Dude. Whatever. I'll call you when your dead." but never had the guts. Jon Auer says it better, anyway.
• No one ever bought me Too Loud for the Snowman, which rips me. I may need to game my Amazon.com list to get what I want.
• I need a new blog layout. The fact that my basic layout has remained the same for the past five years is indicative of how little I care about the web, web design, and web technology these days. I wish someone would redesign my blog template in such an extraordinary way that I would suddenly find myself caring about it all again.
• More important than a new blog, however, is a new website. I like the aesthetic of my old freelancing site, but it's impossible to update, and I need something with my current academic info in place of my professional info. Send me your bids, and maybe I'll hire you to redesign my life.
  

Okay, these are not my photos, I stole them from some people nearby. Still, this is what it life looks like in Rantoul:






































Wow...does the new interface for blogger really suck when it comes to images. I mean...really suck.

Well, seriously, I can do better than that. Things I considered writing about:

1. A funny conversation about long underwear I had in the women's locker room at CRCE with a retired school teacher. Funny because it demonstrated that no matter how old you are, you still worry about looking like a dork in front of undergrads.

2. The fact that the soundtrack from Pardes has been banging into the back of my head all week. It wasn't until I listened to it that I remembered all the scenes in the movie that were filmed in Fatehpur Sikri. We've been looking at FS in my Rajput Palaces seminar.

3. My hate-love-hate relationship with the ice rink. Spent three hours there on Saturday night watching a so-so game of hockey (didn't check out the heavily advertised wireless networking capabilities); spent a couple of hours there on Sunday watching a short-track competition. Why am I wasting my time?

4. The general sense of depression and confusion I go through every Wednesday after my a.m. seminar.

5. The weather.

6. Reactions to various movies I've seen lately. All I can say is that the movie we're watching in Hindi class better turn out to be telling me something other than "men suck," because I didn't need to watch all this stupidity to come to that opinion. I've pretty much got that one covered on my own.

6a. The fan letter I should be writing to Preity Zinta to thank her for her crystal-clear Hindi. SRK, no letter for you.

7. My own arrogance and the way it interferes with my academic career.

7a. The difficult transition from being in charge of your classroom to becoming a T.A.

8. Various opinions on various people with whom I spend my time. Not that I would write about that in my blog even if I was writing a lot, but it's still a potential topic, I suppose.

9. My research. Again, nothing I would ever write about in my blog, but again, that could be a potential topic.

10. The fact that the pipe underneath our back parking lot has broken three times in the last week. This should probably be topic 5-sub-a.

11. Sports. Genetically encoded in my DNA. Ask my wife.

12. And, no, I am not against gay marriage. That point should be probably be 4-sub-a.

13. Lucky number.

You know, I think to myself some two or three times a day, "Oh, I should put that in my blog." And often I actually type an entry, only to delete it before I hit the "publish" button. In case you're wondering, that has already happened three times with this entry. I just can't be bothered to finish what I've started. I sat down here intending to make a list of all the things I considered writing about this week, but then didn't. It would have been an interesting list, I think, but again, I just can't be bothered. If you're really creative, you can probably make a better list of potential topics, anyway, so really, I don't need to go through the effort, right?