My country's national intelligence is now in the hands of a man so powerful that he is not publicly referred to with even a fake last name. Of course, it's nice to know that as mysterious as he is, "Jose" is a maximum of three shorts degrees of separation from me on the social networking graph. Add this to the list of benefits that come from knowing Nicholas.

Last night, I decided to check out the Boston Linux Unix webpage to find out when the next meeting would be and what the talk would be on. To my surprise, the talk is tomorrow and is slated to be given by none other than Benjamin Mako Hill. Hmmm. I vaguely remember agreeing to give a talk like this in general sense but don't remember ever agreeing to a specific day. In any case, I'm not one to disappoint and am working on my slides. If you're interested in some post-Breezy action in Boston, please show up! If you can't make it, I'm trying to arrange a proper release party for some point after I receive my Breezy CDs (a week or two I guess). I'm sorry for the short notice. Of course, I'm giving the talk on short notice so I'm not too sorry. Additionally, I am missing both a class and a Media Lab sponsors dinner that I was already double booked for. You should be able to cancel up to one of your prior engagements to attend. Information on the talk is on the BLU website. The talk will be held at MIT in E51-315.

Mika and I went to the MIT Press Bookstore loading dock sale today. It provided what was, by far, the most relevant selection at any bargain book sale I've attended. It was two small rooms and I could have easily walked out with 100+ books that I would have read. Even with most books at three, five, or seven dollars (US), my student budget was the limiting factor. At the sale, I bought a large coffee-table sized book called Manhole Covers by Mimi and Robert Melnick. It offers page after mesmerizing page of black and white photographs of manhole covers of all designs, shapes and sizes. At seven dollars, I felt like it was asking a lot but Mika and I decided that on a per-manhole-cover basis, the price was really unbeatable. The price was 3.3 cents (US) per full-page manhole cover photograph if you do not account for the small thumbnails of manhole covers that pepper the books front matter. If you are in or around Boston, you should go to their next loading dock sale -- probably in the spring.