Well, I’m here. Checked in, unpacked, set up, kitted out, ready for business. Or learning, as it were.

I hated leaving this morning. Not because of Nellie this time; she has her mom to keep her company this week. But because somehow — I wasn’t in the room to see it — one of the cats got hurt last night. He’s limping around; we think his brother hurt him during one of their fights. He’ll be fine; I just felt like a heel leaving without knowing he’s ok. I can only imagine what that’s like for parents with kids.

Twelve hours from now I’ll be on way to my course, so my blogging will be spotty for the next six days.

Talk amongst yourselves.

I’m leaving tomorrow for about a week, so blogging will be erratic at best.

In the meantime, here are a few download-worthy (and purchase-worthy, if you like them) tunes:

• Blur – “This Is A Low”
• Bob Mould – “Underneath Days”
• Bright Eyes – “When The President Talks To God”
• Bruce Springsteen – “All The Way Home”
• Bullette – “Show Me”
• Eels – “The Other Shoe”
• Nada Surf – “Inside Of Love”
• Shelby – “The Wait”

Good advice from Ken Livingston. I’d love to see Toronto ban cars downtown — say from Dundas to Front and Spadina to Sherbourne — or at least charge people to drive into the core.

On my second-to-last night of freedom the three of us (myself, Nellie and Nellie’s mom) met CBGB at The Spotted Dick, a pub ’round the corner from us. We’ve been to the Dick several times, but they’ve recently finished some repairs and refurbishment, and find themselves under new ownership. They’ve replaced the furniture, given the place a good scrub and upgraded the menu (there’s standard congealed pub crap, but there’s also the sizzling jambalaya-like dish I had last night, the chicken tikka masala appetizer CB had, etc.). It still feels pubby, but doesn’t have the old dinginess anymore, and the servers are definitely a step up from what I remember.

And, for the first time since the great chicken-wing-vomit incident of ’98, I had a few pints of Smithwick’s.

Today is for running errands, doing laundry, and generally just getting ready for the upcoming six-day cram session.

Both the new Coldplay and the new White Stripes will arrive next week whilst I’m away. Oh well, it’ll leave me something nice to come home to on Friday.

Something very weird happened today. My wife got an email announcing the death of one of her cousins. She wasn’t that close with him, so she’s ok, but…does that seem weird. I mean, as entrenched as I am in the electronic world, it still seemed a bit odd to send a mass email letting cousins, aunts and uncles know about a death in the family.

This Salon article called The Atheist has been sitting in my ‘to read’ bin for weeks now, and I’m finally getting ’round to it. My god (ha ha), I love Richard Dawkins.

You delve into agnosticism in “The Ancestor’s Tale.” How does it differ from atheism?

It’s said that the only rational stance is agnosticism because you can neither prove nor disprove the existence of the supernatural creator. I find that a weak position. It is true that you can’t disprove anything but you can put a probability value on it. There’s an infinite number of things that you can’t disprove: unicorns, werewolves, and teapots in orbit around Mars. But we don’t pay any heed to them unless there is some positive reason to think that they do exist.

Believing in God is like believing in a teapot orbiting Mars?

Yes.

I agree with Antonia Zerbisias: today’s minute-by-minute salivating over the Karla Homolka near-appearance was embarassing to watch.

I’m on the last song of my first listen through The Woods. All the hype is deserved. Trail Of Dead, take note. This is what great bands do after they release an ass-kicking, critically-lauded album: they find a new way to kick our ass. See also: Radiohead.

And yes, I’m putting S-K on the same level as Radiohead.