Sleep Spent

So you’ve seen the diagram of Napoleon’s ill-fated march on Russia during the Napoleonic wars. And you thought, “gosh, that’s neat.” And maybe you take a look at the InfoPorn that shows up in Wired every month. You have a simliar reaction, but the diagrams there attempt to explain more specific things, so the sense of awe isn’t quite the same.

Enter HistoryShots.

It’s the site of a guy who creates and sells amazing diagrams, all of them even cooler than Minard’s. I found the site through a blogad on TPM. It is extremely neat! It’s all I could do to not pull out my credit card and buy the lot of them.

I’m looking forward to the “Conquest of Everest” diagram he’s got coming out next month.

Since March 23rd, I haven’t been able to use the Internet at home. First my parents turned it off at my old residence. Then I moved to Palo Alto, and my roommate hadn’t gotten DSL yet. But tonight, all that changes.

I’m so excited! I’m going to go download something huge. :-)

I’m no InPassing, but I was in the Metreon the other day when I heard a girl yell out this gem:

“No! I refuse to go to Starbuck’s! I don’t have anything to throw!”

I’m sure most of you are familiar with a Googlewhack. I just found my first one today:

Image search

Don’t ask. Just don’t ask.

Holy shit! I’m done!

That’s right, folks, I am officially finished. Five days late. But I’m not going to let that distract me from the fact that I just completed the last essay of the quarter. Let the (frugally budgeted) partying commence!!

In other news, Jordan and Rob arrive in 6.5 hours. (American Airlines, Flight 136.) Just enough time for some sleep....

Today being Halloween, I went out with some people. We left at 22:00; apparently, bars here close at 23:00. We got down to Picadilly Circus by 22:30, but it took us until 22:45 to find the people we were supposed to meet there. Then we had to decide where to go. Someone wanted to go to Soho, but no one really knew where that was. We stumbled onto it and found a club some people wanted to go to, but the cover was £6. The group split up, then split again. I wound up back here by 0:00.

But I did get a great piece of sponge cake at a little Chinese bakery! It was nummers, and not too terribly expensive. Topped with pineapple jelly. Mmmmm....

Mmmmm.

M.

I got a package from my mom today! It’s been sitting there for awhile, I fear, so I hope it isn’t anything perishable. I’m going to open it right now!

First impressions: Rome is a very dirty city. Took awhile to find the hostel, but I had flown with other people from the group, and we eventually located it together. I’m going to plan my three days here tonight, and maybe go out to see the town after dark... I’m NOT excited about the “Pub Crawl,” though. Our receptionist claims that if we come back sober, he’ll run naked down the street. At €15, it doesn’t sound worth it.

More updates later!

2 October

Leave LHR on Alitalia flight 203 at 10:15 GMT

Arrive FCO at 13:40 CEST

Stay in Alessandro Downtown Hostel (directions)

5 October

Leave Rome, travel to Florence by train

Stay in Ostello del Chianti

7 October

Leave Florence, travel to Cinque Terre by train

Plans undetermined

9 October

Leave Cinqua Terra, travel to Rome by train

Leave Rome on Alitalia flight 718 at 12:55 CEST

Arrive AHN

Stay in Zorbas Hotel

11 October

Leave Athens on Alitalia flight 731 to Milan at 17:15 EEST

Arrive MXP at 18:55 CEST

Leave Milan on Alitalia flight 248 to LHR at 19:50 CEST

Arrive LHR at 20:50 GMT

No sooner had I put up an entry about traveling to Italy then I go to Google News and see that Italy’s power grid collapsed last night.

What is it with everyone and power these days? Italy is the third major instance of lost power in three months that I can think of. (The others being the US and Canada and London.)

The Guardian has a left-leaning look at the recent phenomenon which mentions outages I didn’t even know about.

I hope the terrorists don’t get any ideas. If this system is so fragile that it’s breaking all the time on its own, I don’t even want to think about what could happen if it was helped along.

I have arrived, and I had enough time to set up MT for a little blog action.

I know I’m generally terrible about reading other people’s blogs, so I’m not expecting much. But this is as much for me as for all of you. I want somethinig to remember my current trip by!

If you’re interested in just what’s going on right now, you’ll want to head on over to the photos page.

It’s getting late; tomorrow I’ll update and tell you all about the production of The Taming of the Shrew that I saw tonight at Shakespeare’s Globe Theater. (Suffice it to say, it was fantastic!)

Peace, love and all that jazz.