There's not really anything in particular to blog about. I found this cool site called The Victorian Dictionary, which is full of information (often primary-source, as in Thackeray's description of a hanging or "Walter's" encounter with a prostitute. Check it out.

The Vanguardia is starting to piss me off. There used to be six or eight idiotic homegrown anti-American articles a week, and now there's just Robert Fisk, and they can argue that it's fair do's to print Fisk because he's an internationally recognized journalist who's there on the scene. But with their "new reasonableness" policy, there goes my dependable, automatic source for red-meat Old-Europe-bashing material. Now I'm going to have to dosome work, damnit.

Yeah, you start thinking "there's nothing to blog about" and then you remember, oh, yeah, some psycho bomber blew herself up in a Haifa restaurant; twenty dead, fifty injured. But we're used to that, so it doesn't count.

It's certainly lovely in Barcelona right now, warm but breexy, temps in the low 70s by day, low 60s by night. Since weather here is nothing but predictable, we're due for another month of this and then some heavy rain with temps in the forties. So we might as well enjoy this San Diego weather while we've got it.

Oh, yeah, I got some new glasses. I sid to hell with fashion this time, I'm tired of breaking glasses, give me those Buddy Holly or John Lennon army glasses that are unbreakable. Wound up with Buddy Holly.

I'd like to lay the Pope controversy to rest by saying that I do not doubt that John Paul II is a good man- I am not an expert on either the Pope or the Church, so maybe I should be more careful and better-informed before I opine. I do know what I'm talking about as regards the Vatican's attitude toward the Iraq War, though, and it was Old European all the way. I wrote about it several times in January-March of this year.

More sticking my nose into other people's business: the archbishop of Vienna just came out saying that the Pope was near death. A replacement will be needed. Perhaps a non-European Pope, maybe even an African Pope, might be a good idea, if the voters think there are any suitable candidates.