I flat-out love Russell Brown. Check out the questions he wanted to ask Christopher Hitchens on February 12. Let his fame spread throughout the world!!

Remind me never to work eight straight days at the library again. I am weakened.

How did I manage to post that twice? Odd, odd.

The fact that it occurred while I was sleeping isn't the only dreamlike thing about it. Beating South Africa on home turf, in a make or break World Cup match, by *nine wickets*. Ohhhhhhhhh, that's great. I'm what I call a 'cricket goth' most of the time: expecting the worst and not even hoping for the best. But there's the thing about New Zealand cricket: we'll suck, and suck, and suck, and our openers will be crap, and our middle order will collapse embarrassingly, and then occasionally something completely wondrous will happen and we'll be brilliant for a brief eight-hour period. It's what keeps me watching.

Yay, protestors. Sort of. I mean, yay that they exist, but as Alex says, do they have to be so simplistic and annoying? Bush: not Hitler. No one is Hitler *but* Hitler. Bush = retarded corrupt dickhead. But Hitler, notsomuch. (We historians tend to get our knickers in a twist about these things.) Perhaps the signs should have read: War to Distract People Is Wrong. I could get behind that a little more wholeheartedly.

Enthusiasm! I seem to have been sadly short on it lately, but here's something to feel joyous about: there is a woman in Auckland who belongs to the library and whose name is (all officially-like since we don't enrol people under pseudonyms): 'Miss Thang'. Doesn't that make you all squashy with love for humanity, that she cared enough to change her name by deed poll like that? Someone has talked to her on the phone, however, and she is apparently not as sassy as her name would suggest. Of course, it would be hard to live up to that name on a constant basis.

Awwwww. I just noticed that Alex (who has finally fixed his fucking template, thank god - I wasn't going to whine, but I note I wasn't the only one having borderline acid flashbacks reading that thing) has added Husband Brent to his Leftside List O' Blogs. Bless.

Further and explanatorily (word coinage!) to my previous post: I think my problem is that I'm terribly wishy-washy about Very Important Issues. For example, I'll be as adamant as you like about The Essential Lameness of Dave Matthews, because it's obvious and - let's be honest, here - not particularly important. I am reminded of that scene in High Fidelity (both the movie and the book, I think) where Laura says she likes both Marvin Gaye *and* Art Garfunkel, and Rob says that's like liking both the Israelis and the Palestinians, and she responds with 'no, because they're *pop records*'. And the thing is (since that movie is totally My People - if you could combine that film with Topless Women Talk About Their Lives, you would probably have my life story) that I really incline more towards Rob's point of view there, but I know he and I are wrong, essentially. But other things are almost too important to be adamant about - is that the essential Mediocre Historian-ness of my nature? I can see this side, I can see that side, I can work out a vague but ultimately inconclusive position which is worded like a Douglas Adams aphorism. 'War: mostly really bad. Except occasionally when it isn't'. Mostly, I feel ignorant and like my brain is full of cotton wool. I'm the antithesis of incisive. I think I'm fairly gung-ho on the 'Dubya: just this side of special' theory, however. Let me work on this for a while.

Alex makes me feel like a lamearse. He is as clever as shit (couldn't think of a more appropriate simile, I'm sure there is one) and he actually has opinions about things that matter instead of the stupid crap I'm interested in. (Brent, to a lesser extent, also makes me feel this way, but he loves me so I don't have quite so much of a complex about it.) Since coming back to NZ I've become a cocooned isolationist with a 'lalalalalala-I-can't-hear-you-up-there' attitude. I have become a NIMBY person. I don't *want* to be a NIMBY person. Maybe this is my 'I'm home and I'm decompressing' time. Or maybe I just really *am* a lamearse. Distinct possibility.

I just saw Casino all the way through for the first time (my initial viewing of the film when it first came out was affected adversely by an unfortunate wine-tasting incident, pre-show. Well, let's be frank: due to my pathetic tolerance, I was drunk off my ass and fell asleep for two hours in the theatre. Not one of my better moments, that). Who is Scorsese's set designer for that film? I am desperate to own the orange pleather stuffed lounge bar and the red and white lounge suite. It also reminded me that I want to spend an evening in the company of Don Rickles. It is one of the great regrets of my life that during our wedding trip to Las Vegas I didn't get to see a Rickles show. He's an old, sassy, senseless, hilariously funny train wreck of a person. Other notes: if I were Ginger, even *if* I was a sad alcoholic also doing 40 eightballs a week: I'm *not* giving Joe Pesci a blowjob. It's just not gonna happen. As Brent is wont to say of particularly errant Jerry Springer guests: if you're gonna cheat, cheat *up*.