And here, we see the mysterious and beautiful MAGMA-FISH...

One of the greatest things about this job is getting to see the crazy books that economists write. They sometimes have the absolute best titles. Like the one I'm working with right now:

TSUKIJI: THE FISH MARKET AT THE CENTER OF THE WORLD.

Isn't that wonderful? It's like a delightful Jules Verne adventure. I can just see a band of Hardy yet Slightly Mad Adventurers getting in their subterranean motorcar with a Big Drill on the End, and setting off in search of China, only to find a Wondrous Molten Realm where one can...well, buy fish wholesale, I guess...

Except that it's actually an ethnographic study on a seafood market in Tokyo. Bah...life has no imagination sometimes.

Huzzah for us, we're calling our landlord today and making trouble about the hellbeasts upstairs. Last night it wasn't the music. It was the talking. Yes, talking, which we could hear very clearly from every point in our apartment. Until 2 AM. I don't know what they are doing to make themselves so bloody loud. We never heard the last few tenants unless they were...well, I don't know how to put this politely, but there are sounds that are very difficult to ignore when they're filtering down through your ceiling at midnight. Tawdry, yes, but these are the perils of living in an apartment building with thin walls. I can only assume that we've been infested with a plague of Undergraduates, who don't know what inside voices and sleep are. I'm not feeling charitable toward Undergraduates lately...they cause illness, and are far too young to be attending college. But in positive news, we now have DSL. And will actually have it plugged in 24/7 once we get a phone cord long enough to string across ceiling, floor, and countryside between my bedroom and the computer. I'm very pleased...when 2004 started, we were woefully technologically impaired. Currently we have a PS2, a Gamecube, a decent computer, good internet access, and a DVD player. Being employed does have some benefits, I guess. But if/when I get a TAship next year, I'm out of here, because I can also see the benefits of being a starving academic.