Some general complaints about Leipzig:

1. The main reading room in the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek is surprisingly drafty.  My fingers turned blue yesterday!  Blue!  Though this may also have been because I was wound up into a tight little knot (stress causes cold hands right?) reading Richard Wagner's wife, Cosima's diary entries about her relationship with Friedrich Nietzsche.  Talk about vitriol.

2. The stupid trams.  They fly around the corner with no warning!  Especially that Number 2 line.  I suppose it doesn't help that I'm staring at the ground, concentrating on getting all the words right to The Decemberists songs.  Still.

3.  The buttons on the remote control at my hotel here are totally lacking in labels.  I was stuck watching a show about ladybugs at a very high volume for a while there.

Some begrudging admissions about Leipzig:

1. The honor system beer fridge at the hotel is pretty awesome.  Not least because it's stocked with some wonderful beer.

2. Free summer evening chamber music concerts on the front steps of the Thomaskirche (where J. S. Bach and Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdys were both kantors) also classy.

3. Some evidence to further inform the ongoing debate over whether Kant meant his use of "noumenon" to be synonymous with his use of "thing-in-itself", both distinguishable from the "phenomenon" of appearance only: Taye Diggs dubbed in German remains Taye Diggs!

Also, I've been thinking a lot lately about children, whether I want any, etc.  I've come to the conclusion that while I'm still generally ambivalent about the prospect, that if I can name my child Ned Nederlander, then I'm 100% on board.