AUSTIN VACATION UPDATE
Best time I've ever had with my pants on.

HOW TO LOSE YOUR MIND IN FOUR DAYS
Tomorrow morning, Lauren and I head south to Austin for 100 hours of drinktastic tom foolery and potential charges of first degree hijinks. While the weather in Chicago has warmed considerably over the last 100 hours, the boiler of the building this morning belched its last breath and so we cubicle-bound knaves now toil in utter frigidity. My fingers can barely type the facts. But the facts are that within 24 hours, I will be:

• Wearing a T-shirt
• Holding no fewer than two beers
• Hanging with the planet's finest people
• Fajita diving
• Doing some other things
• Total spaceship guy

Within 24 hours, I will have turned this speculation into factual, on-the-record shit. And so you will send your children to school 10 years hence and they will open their Social Studies textbooks and see a pie chart representing One of the Best Times Ever Had By a Human. The red part—17%—will read "Holy Crap Let's Play Frisbee!"

This time tomorrow. I would not shit you on the matter.

BLOW-UP
Just call me Innocenzi-ist.

Here's another.

DIVERSIONARY TACTICS
Let's play a game of Coffee.

Ready? Go.


. . .


I win.

NEW TERRITORY
The estimable Glenn Greenwald recently started writing for Salon.com. And, as you might expect, he's doing great work.

THIS COMPLETE BREAKFAST
I had an idea last night for the perfect cereal.

It's called Sugar Bunches of Doughnuts®.

DRUMBEAT
The Bush Regime is dead set on going to war with Iran.

And some in Your Liberal Media™ are all too eager to help them make it happen.

MAKE MY MONDAY
Austinist used one of my Black Angels photos.

(Taken at the Empty Bottle, 2006.)

SHIVER ME TIMBERS
According to the weatherman, Chicago is in the midst of what will be the longest stretch of continuous below-freezing temperatures in the last 23 years.

Twenty-three years ago, I was living on a fishing boat somewhere off the coast of Sicily. Times were tough because cartographers had recently discovered that Sicily was not actually attached to Italy. This meant that all the Sicilians who commuted to Italy had to start taking a ferry instead of driving to work.

While confusion reigned, the mafia took control of the ferry industry and began charging unreasonable prices. I remember one morning when my father and I tried to board for a day trip, only to be told that it would cost us each our gall bladder. "That's unreasonable," my father said as he handed over his gall bladder.

But here I've said too much.

By the way, here's a cool (and recent) "Infinite Jest" review from the author of "Infinite Jest : A reader's guide." (HT to The Howling Fantods.)

And here's a funny article about Playboy. (HT to Yglesias.)

Much too much coffee, much too soon. TGIMFF Mofos.

ON A LIGHTER NOTE: CATS BEING CATS

QUICK TURN
Remember a few days ago when I wrote this:

I hope ExxonMobil can pay some researchers to find out why over 1,200 of the world's top climate scientists continue their vast conspiracy to peddle anthropogenic global warming.

Well, that didn't take long.

ETA: Language Log is already on the case.