So today, W. said, "I want to defeat the terrorists. And I want our troops to come home. But I don't want them to come home without having achieved victory." But 31 months (yes, that's right, two years and seven months) ago, he said, "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.... Americans, following a battle, want nothing more than to return home. That is your direction tonight."

I'm so confused.

I'm taking a break from writing Christmas cards. At least the first batch. It sucks that I feel obligated to write at least some sort of personal message on each one. It sucks more that I failed to get return address labels for my new address prior to Christmas card writing season. Apparently I need to make a couple of $15 donations to March of Dimes and Doctors Without Borders in order to re-establish my limitless supply of address labels.

I love Paris. It's my new second favorite city in the world (following close behind Boston for the title of "best city ever"). Just got back from my first trip there, and I fell in love with the place (and with every cute little French girl walking down the street). I'm not sure where the "unfriendly Frenchman," or at least the "unfriendly Parisian" stereotype comes from, but as far as I could tell, the hospitality was exquisite. People don't go out of their way to be friendly and smile like they do in, say, Charleston or Oklahoma, but girls and guys in the bar were more than happy to chat, and I didn't encounter a single rude waiter, waitress, ticket seller, or bartender. I think I got a few bonus points here and there by speaking Italian, but I don't think it would have made much difference. And the city itself is just beautiful and, well, classy. You walk around, and the place just exudes class. Even the little dive bars are classy.

Also, I'm giving up my quest for an Italian model to bring home. The French women are far prettier. Maybe they just know how to dress better--even in the middle of Saturday's snowstorm they still managed to look great.

So the first day there, we check in to the hotel and go for dinner at a nice little French restaraunt around the corner. Within 15 minutes of sitting down, a mob of 45 Japanese women, all between 19 and 22, show up giggling and laughing. Given the reaction of the hostess, the only thing that people in the hospitality industry hate worse than American tourists is Japanese tourists. (We also won bonus points with her for speaking Italian, since her father's family and her husband's family are Italian.) We left dinner (after the Japanese girls filed out, still giggling), and grabbed a drink in this cafe where we met a couple Turkish girls who had been studying in, of all places, Hartford and Boston. (Apparently Hartford is the most boring place on earth, by the way. And Boston is a close second. It's opinions like that which guarantee Turkey will never become a major superpower.) We left there and went to what looked like a cool little jazz club. Which it was. After paying the E10 cover charge, we went down the stairs into this underground stone cellar, where a live swing band was playing. And the place was packed with people dancing. Oh yeah, and we were the only ones there under the age of 50. But it was the best swing dancing I've ever seen in my life.

Day 2--had a phenomenal Thanksgiving dinner, at none other than the world-famous (even before Nicole Kidman) Moulin Rouge. Had to settle for duck. But the show was fantastic, and, like everything else in the city, very classy--even with half-naked women dancing around. It was actually very Vegas-y, with acrobats and clowns and jugglers...just a lot of fun. And our seats were two back from the stage, so it was like we were in the show. The best part of the show is where the hottest girl in the history of the world (no, seriously) jumps into a giant aquarium with four or five huge pythons and swims around with them. Also, the can-can was invented here. And they do it well.

The next day we went to the Louvvvvvvvvvvvvvrrrrrrrrre. I've seen the Mona Lisa. You haven't. Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah. Also some other really cool crap. You know, paintings by dutch guys and rocks with ancient codes and stuff like that. It was night by the time we got to the Eiffel Tower and went up. Totally worth it. Except we froze our asses off in the line, and then again when we went up. The wind at the top had to be 30 knots or so, and there was ice forming.

Yesterday I was on my own, since my friend had to leave and come back to work today. I figured I'd walk around and see the other big sights I hadn't seen yet, so of course the weather decided to snowstorm. Notre Dame cathedral in the snow is absolutely regal. The towers were closed for the snow, unfortunately. Trudged miles through the snow to have a beer at Harry's American Bar (because every good story needs a Hemingway reference), and then grabbed lunch and hiked to the Arc D'Triomph, which was also amazing.

And in between, we managed to hit a few pubs and cafes, meet a few interesting people, have some great meals (the veal I had last night was superb; I think they actually killed the entire calf for me), and just generally have the best time I've ever had as a tourist in any city in Europe so far. Can't wait to go back. Now if only I could speak some French....

So I'm going to Paris tomorrow. The friend I'm going with made Thanksgiving dinner reservations today. I'll be having my turkey (well, duck, actually) at the Moulin Rouge.

Hey, it comes with a half bottle of champagne per person and a floor show. Just want to cover all the bases and make sure I'll have a lot to be thankful for.

Here's an interesting stat:

Back in the mid-1990s, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, aggressively delving into alleged misconduct by the Clinton administration, logged 140 hours of sworn testimony into whether former president Bill Clinton had used the White House Christmas card list to identify potential Democratic donors.

In the past two years, a House committee has managed to take only 12 hours of sworn testimony about the abuse of prisoners at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.

Also, a story on how Bob Woodward has failed us all.

No place with palm trees should be allowed to be 37 degrees. Those bastards tricked me.

A couple of us went to the beautiful island of Capri yesterday and stayed overnight; it's only an hour boatride across the Gulf of Naples. It was very nice. And I learned a few things:

1. The Roman emperor Tiberius had a kickass pad.

2. I'm moving to Hungary because their women are drop-dead gorgeous (this generalization is based on the sample set of the two that we met yesterday evening).

3. Margherita pizza has remarkable curative properties for hangovers.

4. I'm never drinking again.

Just watched "Batman Begins." Which is about average as far as action movies go. Good story, good action, crappy acting. Although it does make me almost understand why Tom Cruise would trade in Nicole Kidman for Katie Holmes. Almost, but not quite.

Got back this morning from Merrie Olde London, where I was forced to go for work for the last three days. No worries; I think we actually made some tangible contributions to national security, so your taxpayer dollar was well spent. And if I can have some fun and eat some good Indian food on top of that, well, better me than you.

One of my good friends from college is living in London at the moment, working on her Masters in Fine Arts. So Monday when I got in, she got us tickets to go see Mary Poppins (the new musical, not the old Disney movie), which is currently in previews. It was an absolute blast. Not only did they have tap-dancing chimney sweeps; they had a suspended-upside-down-tap-dancing-on-the-ceiling chimney sweep.

Tuesday night, our British colleagues were kind enough to sponsor a dinner for us. The food was very...English. You know--brown food, brown sauce. Three different courses of it. And lousy wine with a French name. I'm getting really spoiled living in Italy. On the other hand, dinner got much better once we got rid of the wine and started going with the English ales. And to their credit, they did take us out afterward to an underground pub with a cave inside and bought us all some nice port for dessert.

So despite having pretty much partied ourselves out the previous night, last night the same group of us, plus one other couple, decided to go out for dinner in downtown Napoli. I got to drive. It was my first time driving through downtown, and it wasn't nearly as bad as it seemed like it would be. Once you put yourself into the maniacal mindset of the Neapolitan driver, you can sort of feel the flow of traffic and just go crazy yourself without hitting anything. Well, without hitting anything important. (Note: if you happen to be my mother and ever have any intention of riding in my car when driving through downtown Naples, I recommend you first heavily sedate yourself, and then ride in the backseat with your eyes closed.)

Met up with a couple lovely young American ladies--friends of the couple whose house we had been at the prevous night--who work here doing biology research at the university. Had a great dinner, and then I got to drive them home. They live in the old city center of Naples. Getting there involved a lot of driving through alleyways barely wider than my car, and a lot of going the wrong way up one-way streets while honking at pedestrians to get out of the way. I think there's a video game based on driving through Naples. If not, there should be.

I know the four of you who read this on occassion are probably breathlessly awaiting my next post, since it's been almost a week. And I know you're saying to yourself, "man, he must have been busy this week. That means he must have some really good stuff to post." Which is correct, but I'm only going to talk about yesterday. Yesterday, of course, being Veterans' Day. So, what better way to celebrate the sacrifices of those who have made our country free, than to drink wine? Lots and lots of wine.

One of the guys in the office arranged for a tour of a winery about an hour or so from here--Feudi di San Gregorio. So nine of us piled into three cars (I got one of the other guys and his Italian girlfriend in my car, so I got a free 45-minute Italian lesson, which was pretty useful) and drove into the mountains. And we had a nice tour of the winery; it's a pretty good-sized one, and they have a very modern production facility. And of course we had a nice tasting session at the end. And then we asked if we could buy some wine--two of the guys who came are leaving in the next couple of months, so they wanted to get some for their collection. And those of us who just got there wanted to get a good start on our collection. Unfortunately, the cash register had just closed for lunch, but the lady who gave us the tour agreed to open it back up for us. And I think she's glad she did, because the six of us who bought wine dropped a collective total of about 2,000 euro at the shop (yours truly being the big spender at e470, or about $550). I'm sure they didn't expect that when we showed up, since we probably looked like a bunch of 20-somethings looking to score a free wine tasting or something. And since your average tourist who swings by the winery probably buys, at most, a case. Since most tourists don't actually live in Naples where they can just bring cases and cases of wine home and then have the Navy ship them back to the States.

We also got the bright idea to get together at one of the couples' houses (friends of mine from nuclear power school and submarine school, actually) that night for a little wine-drinking party (although it was by no means limited to wine). We managed to put down a fair amount as we stayed up until 6 a.m. engaged in what I'm sure was very intelligent conversation. The guy's wife came out of her room at about that time and pointed out to us that the sun was coming up, so we figured it was time for bed. Fortunately they had two guestrooms (they had already invited us to stay over), so we crashed for a couple hours. It's been a long, long time since I've stayed up that long. I'm not sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing that I can still do it.

Why my life in Naples is good:

Friday.
Came home from work. The clementines in my yard are mostly ripe. (Can anyone tell me the difference between a clementine and a tangerine?) Had one while I chatted with the landlord. Like eating candy. We tried an orange--still pretty sour. December, he tells me.

One of the other LTs and his wife hosted "Late Oktoberfest" at their place. She's part German, part French, and a helluva great cook. Sausage, potato salad, and beer, beer, beer. I got to practice more high school German. Had "Schwarzwaldkirschentorte," which means "Black Forest cherry cake," which means, "best damn dessert I've had in my life." Also a very delicious pumpkin/nutmeg/cinnamon dip that goes with apples, for which I really need to get her to email me the recipe. Also, I finally had a navy wife make good on her word and invite her attractive single friends over to meet the single guys...for some reason, the wives on the boat were always all talk on that front. Anyway, another story for another time.

Saturday.
Spent three hours cleaning my house. About an hour of that was devoted to hunting down spiders. Now, as many of you know, like certain other men in my family (well, like pretty much all the men in the family), I'm not a huge fan of spiders. They are evil. But we've had sort of an uneasy truce going. In the summer, there were tons of flies, fruit flies, and mosquitoes that managed to make it inside the house, so I let the spiders hang out because they did a good job of cutting down on the insect population. However, it's recently started to get chilly here, and there aren't that many bugs around anymore. Which means that the spiders will start to get hungry and look for other food. And who's to say that they won't see human flesh as a reasonable substitute for fruit flies? So I banished them all to the outdoors for the winter.

Saturday night.
Went to a party at the house of a British officer in our office, for the coolest holiday ever. "Guy Fawkes Day." Have you ever thought to yourself, "gee, the combination of a bonfire, fireworks (the really big kind), and copious amounts of beer would sure be a lot of fun"? Well, the answer is, "yes." And have you ever thought to yourself, "where can I legally combine a bonfire, fireworks (the really big kind), and copious amounts of beer, and not get in the least amount of trouble for it?" Well, the answer is, "Naples, Italy." To keep the history lesson short, some guy (well, specifically, Guy Fawkes) was part of a Catholic plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament during the time of King James I (early 1600s); he got caught as he was waiting for the right time to put a match to the gunpowder kegs underneath Parliament, got sent to the Tower of London, and either hanged or burned at the stake, not sure which. But the Brits now celebrate the defeat of that plot every year by buring Guy in effigy in a huge bonfire. Which we did. And they celebrate further by drinking lots of beer. Which we did. And then those who happen to live in places where you can buy and set off your own fireworks displays with no safety precautions whatsoever (i.e., Naples and South Carolina) do so. Which we did.

Sunday.
Went to church, because I'm a good boy like that. Went to a great Italian lunch with one of the guys from the office and his Italian girlfriend (he has one because he actually bothered to learn the language before he came out here...who would have thought?). Good opportunity to practice my Italian; learned a couple more good new words. Apparently, roughly 80% of the Italian language is a double entendre for something else. Helped him put together his wine rack/baker's rack (that's actually not a double entendre). Drove through a torrential downpour and flooded streets that came up to my car door in order to go for dinner with another friend. The pizzeria wasn't open yet, so we went to a nearby bar and ordered rum and Cokes. There was WAY more rum than Coke. Went back to the pizzeria and got "pizza by the meter," which is pretty much just like it sounds. And not that crappy American pizza. Fresh Neapolitan pizza with fresh mozzarella and fresh tomatoes, cooked on a wood fire...I'm never eating Dominoes again. Drove back through the rain and did my Italian homework.

How can you argue with a weekend like that?

So this just got posted on one of my alumni email lists:

A large bedroom ($1227/mo) is available with a move-in date of December 1. The room is in a 5th floor walk-up of a brownstone building in the heart of Chelsea. It is very big (about 10 by 10) and gets great light. There are three north-facing windows and access to a small balcony area facing an interior garden. It has hardwood floors and exposed brick. There is a shared kitchen and bathroom. Roommates are two late-twenties professional females. We are looking for someone who is relatively quiet, considerate, clean and friendly. No lease required, just a one-month's security deposit to move in. No smokers and no pets, please.

Jeez. I just got done spending $900 a month in mortgage, taxes and condo fees on an 830 square foot condo in CT (in which my bedroom was 12x15). And a 100-sq ft room in NYC runs $1230? (Which, if you do the math, means it costs 11.35 times what I pay for my condo, per square foot, and you don't get the equity or tax break.) Remind me again why people live there? Also, is "exposed brick" supposed to be a good thing (I mean, "two late-twenties professional females" clearly is a good thing, but exposed brick?)?

So you know what's not a good dinner combo? Edamame (you know; whole soybeans that you boil and salt and then suck the beans out of the pod) and jalepeno-and-cheese crabcakes. I mean, they taste great, and they actually sort of complement each other while you're eating them. But that's what I had for dinner last night. And today has been one of the most gastrointestinally horrific days of my life.

Not that you needed to know that, but I really wanted to use the phrase "gastrointestinally horrific."

Ummm...are we insane? Can somebody please explain to me how this is a good idea?

No, Theo, don't go!!!

From Dan Shaughnessy:

Theo has been the John F. Kennedy of Boston baseball, a shining prince. He was born and raised to be GM of the Red Sox and should have stayed in the job forever.

Exactly what I was thinking. But with fewer swear words.

...As a political candidate, Mr. Bush had an extremely useful ability to repeat the same few simple themes over and over. As president, he has been cramped by the same habit. The solution to almost every problem seems to be either to rely on a close personal associate or to pander to his right wing. When the first tactic failed to work with the Harriet Miers nomination, Mr. Bush resorted to the second....

...Whatever the answer, this nomination is yet another occasion to bemoan lost opportunities. Mr. Bush could have signaled that he was prepared to move on to a more expansive presidency by nominating a qualified moderate who could have garnered a nearly unanimous Senate vote rather than another party-line standoff. He could have sent a signal about his commitment to inclusiveness by demonstrating that he understood his error with Harriet Miers had been in picking the wrong woman, and that the answer did not have to be the seventh white man on the court. But he didn't, any more than he saw Sept. 11 as an opportunity to build a new, inclusive world order of civilized nations aligned against terrorism.

Anyone who imagines that the indictment of Lewis Libby and the legal troubles of Karl Rove will be a cue to bring fresh ideas to the White House should read the signs. With more than three years to go in this term, the bottom line is becoming inescapable. Mr. Bush does not want to change, and perhaps is not capable of changing. The final word on the Supreme Court is yet to come, but the message about the presidency could not be more disheartening.

This one is for all you tree-hugging types out there; it's pretty funny. It's probably even funnier after 4 or 5 beers.