A nice collection of short reviews of restaurants in Berkeley. Looks like there are a bunch of promising places I have yet to try.

While it's up, check out some of the articles in the State of the Union section of the current issue of The Atlantic. I've read a few of them, and they've all been thought-provoking. Too bad I left my print copy of the issue on a plane; I think those pockets in front of plane seats are designed to make you leave stuff in them.

Oh, and check out David's account of one of the most ridiculous restaurant experiences I've ever witnessed.

My trip to Boston was a lot of fun, in spite of the unbelievable cold. It was weird to be looking back on MIT. On the one hand, it was nice to see the place again and relive some great memories. On the other hand, I knew more than ever that staying there for a Ph.D. would have been a mistake. The only real downers of the weekend were not being able to see a couple of good friends and the Eagles' pathetic effort on Sunday.

I finished reading East of Eden on the plane ride to Boston. It was a great book that really got me thinking about some fundamental philosophical issues. Anyway, this review matched my interpretation of the book pretty closely, and this gives a bit more information on the Hebrew word timshol central to the moral issues of the book.

So I'm back in Berkeley, trying to get back into doing research after the teaching hiatus...man, it's tough. There's just not enough pressure right now, which makes it much more difficult for me. Well, the deadlines will get closer and closer, and eventually they will start to scare me into working.

Went to see Juan Diego Florez on Tuesday, and the performance was amazing, as expected. My brother saw him in The Barber of Seville last night at the Met and said he rocked the house there too. Speaking of which, I'm going to Barber at SF Opera tonight; should be a good show.

I'm off to Boston next weekend for my first visit since I left to come here at the end of the summer of 2002. I'm really looking forward to it; I have a lot of good memories from there, and a few good friends that I haven't seen in quite a while. It will be weird to walk around campus not being in my standard lack-of-sleep daze from my undergrad days. I hope the good old Thai food truck is still outside the CS lab; I haven't found anything here in Berkeley to match the quality $3 lunch I could get there.