Back! Finally!

You don't realize how much the phone has become part of your life until you're without one for a week. I finally got my phone service at the new digs at about noon today. And that was only after threatening to call the state utilities board to complain about the fact that they'd first turned the service off at the old address a day early and then as of Wednesday afternoon were saying "maybe" I'd have service by Friday - after originally promising it for before noon on Tuesday.

(I should mention that because we were phoneless, my wife was the one who handled making complaints and threats, calling from work. You go, tigerwoman!)

It's going to take me a bit to catch up and get reoriented, so I may still be a light poster until tomorrow, but since -

- John Kerry has apparently convinced a sufficiently large number of people that the best alternative to reactionary Republican wackoism is centrist Democratic corporatism;

- the sweatshop owners and death squad leaders are back in charge in Haiti (and wasn't it sweet of George Bush to call on Haitians to "reject violence" after the bastards had won); and

- it now appears certain that Mars used to be a warm, wet planet and there may still be a considerable amount of water underground there;

at least we have somewhere to go.