Yesterday was one of the longer travel days I can remember in my life to this point - coming back from Germany in '06 was close, but I don't remember that quite as well. I got up at 6:45 am in Genoa on Sunday to do the last bits of my packing-up, eat a breakfast, shower, and get to the airport.

..of those things, I was able to do all but one, as the apartment gave me one last metaphysical middle finger, refusing to produce hot water for a shower. I wasn't sure how to get revenge, or who to get revenge on, so I just ran all the water in the apartment for about an hour and a half because it made me feel better. It probably also prevented the hot water heater from recovering enough for a shower, but whatever. As I've said before and will say again, it's spite that sets us apart from the apes.

I arrived home in California around eight or eight thirty pm local time, which if you count it up is close to fourteen hours absolute time, plus nine hours of time difference for a grand total of
23 hours, during which I slept fifteen minutes on the flight from Genoa to Munich and fifteen more at the tail end of the flight from Munich to SF.

On the flight from Genoa to Munich I accomplished a feat that is practically unparalleled in the history of ... I was going to say humanity but should probably say 'me' instead. I watched five, count them, five movies back-to-back-to-back with only two short bathroom/walk breaks. The movies I watched, in order:

National Treasure : Book of Secrets
I think, reflecting on comments made earlier, that being an American historian is a lot like National Treasure : Book of Secrets. I maintain for all of us non-American historians that our work is a lot more like Indiana Jones. Sorry, Americanists. We love you. I love you.

Why Men Don't Listen and Women Can't Reverse Park
This is a romantic (ish) comedy in German I saw with English subtitles. It was pretty good.

The Golden Compass
I must need to read the books to get this film, because watching it was incredibly dull. Incredibly dull. The kind of film where you get a random shot of witches flying around so a character can randomly comment that you should look out if witches ever decide to come and get you because they'll totally wreck you up just so you don't get absurdly confused when a huge army of witches (their banners read 'deus ex machina') comes flying out of nowhere to save the day at the end of the movie.

The Game Plan
This movie isn't just stupid, it's actually borderline offensive.

Juno
I liked this movie about as much the second time around as the first, but found myself slightly more uneasy at its quasi-valorization of teenage pregnancy.