Not related to the main subject of the entry, but since my last post, my classmate and friend Tina Wallace made her first fiction sale ever, to Shimmer. It's an awesome story, and should more than justify the cost of the issue when it comes out.

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So last night I went to the most ridiculous-sounding-but-given-that-surprisingly-interesting philosophy talk ever, on "Wine and Aesthetics," which was actually a combination philosophy talk and wine tasting. Go figure. I don't know anything about wine, but it was still reasonably interesting, and it gave me a good idea.

I suspect that if they dragoon me into giving another Forum talk next year, it might be on "Single Malt Scotch and Aesthetics." Plenty of time between now and then to come up with a paper idea that would justify it.



Anyway, after the talk, a bunch of us went out to this restaurant in Coconut Grove called Monty's (the place in the picture), and then to a nearby bar, Scotty's Landing, which is kind of cool because it's literally right smack on the edge of the ocean, and it has entirely outdoor seating. In any case, in the transition between the two, I accidentally left my packpack in the restaurant. (Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't have brought it, but there was no obvious place to put it.) In any case, when I realized my mistake, I walked back to get it, and had the following conversation with a waitress who'd looked through it for an ID:

"I think we found your backpack."

"Oh, good."

"Is it the one with the laptop, the charger, the CDs, the camera with no pictures, the cigars and the science fiction novel in it?"

"Um....yeah. That's me."

If they'd gone the extra step and turned on the latop, or opened up the container of CDs and see what music I was listening to*, they'd probably have enough information to train an actor to successfully impersonate me.











*For the record, the container contained stuff by the White Stripes, the Cribs, the Dead Kennedy's, the Pogues, the Dropkick Murphy's and the Clash, plus two DVDs of "Fraggle Rock" that Tina gave me a while back to fill that particular hole in my cultural education, and a mix-CD that my younger brother burned for me called, "Music You'd Listen To If You Were Cool."