So it is five in the morning and I'm up late watching a tape of the Bundestag's dissolution vote last week on C-SPAN2 and learning all about the structure of the German government from an unusually informative series of articles on Wikipedia. And geez, DEUTSCHLAND your government is insane. Five political parties! A parliamentarily-elected executive! A "fake president" whose only powers are to give speeches and--oh yeah--dissolve the government! And then there's the architecture, complete with a this-thing! I've always harbored this bitter thought that more people would be interested in American politics if there were a little more surface drama... and you can't get any more dramatic than the Gerhard Schroder telling MPs from his own party to vote against an upcoming vote of confidence in Gerhard Schröder.

So anyway I'm a big wonk, and that's what I've been doing in Iowa the past few months--working like a madman and in my free time reading the paper, watching C-SPAN and hoping this 'nuclear option' nonsense blows over and doesn't lead to the cessation of the 109th Congress.

But I digress. I've also been eagerly awaiting the demolition of two of the oldest buildings in town--Knapp and Storms Halls, the University's thirty year-old "temporary housing" solution, are finally coming down a week from Tuesday. It will be the most exciting thing to happen here this entire summer, and everyone in town will either be there or watching it from their offices. Granted, nothing else is really happening here besides... well, nothing else is happening here, so this is a Big Deal.

Barring that, though, I haven't had much to write about. Oh, I guess I have a new website for the radio show where I will babble about hip-hop and show off all these awesome records we get in at the radio station. I'm no Kevvvy Kev, but... oh yeah,

BONUS PODCAST OF THE WHAT IS THIS PODCAST NONSENSE: KZSU's The Drum, hosted by the indefatigable Kevvvy Kev, has been one of the best hip-hop shows on the planet for over 20 years. Turns out that now you can download the show weekly from some website that records webcasts of the best independent and college radio shows in the country. There is also a podcasting option, whatever that means.
(It is also possible, if you combine the mp3, the playlist thing and this handy software called mp3DirectCut, to make quality digital copies of all the hot new underground hip-hop songs but you didn't hear that from me.)