The past 2 weeks have been extremely intense. I had to crank out a revised manuscript for lab, edit one from our friends from Biogen, grade a stash of exams for the class I’m teaching, and prepare for a thesis advisory committee meeting … all while keeping up with all the movies I rented from Hollywood Video, of course, now that I’m paying $10 bucks a month for their MVP program. I must say that this whole unlimited movie rental business is starting to feel more like a curse, where I just feel like I’ve GOT to get more movies to make it worthwhile. Meanwhile, Melody’s been on night shift so I’ve barely been able to see her for more than an hour a day. Fortunately, things are finally beginning to shape up. I completed my TAC meeting yesterday with flying colors, followed by an hour of free pool for an HST TGIF, and some Indian food to celebrate a friend’s b-day. Today, I got a call from my boss, and despite almost peeing in my pants thinking I was in some sort of trouble, was told that our manuscript has been accepted for publication! Woohoo! (a la Homer Simpson) And just to make life a tad sweeter, my new desktop upgrades finally arrived too. After tonight, my computer will be sporting an Athlon 64-bit 3000+ processor, the MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum mobo, 1 Gig of dual-channel Corsair RAM, a pair of Seagate Barracudas for a RAID 0 stripe, and an NEC dual-layer DVD burner. What more can a geek-boy like me ask for? … except maybe a couple of WD raptors just in case Santa’s reading my blog. Anyway, I expect this baby to be running so fast I’ll have to bolt it to the floor! Though the goodies did set me back a couple of hundred dollars, I figure that even little old me needs a bit of pampering once in a while. =)