I kinda think I haven’t found the heart of Atlanta yet. I took MARTA up to the Buckhead station, and found a wasteland of shopping malls, alleviated only by a Borders with a stunningly friendly woman behind the counter. Midtown was nicer this morning — the Flying Biscuit is a short walk from the train station, and they do an awesome breakfast. Even if they only have turkey bacon. So maybe Midtown is the right place to be, but there weren’t all that many pedestrians. Hard to figure. ...

What, then, are the fair expectations? How do I judge the next four years? Things I do not expect of Bush: Peace in Iraq. Not because I think he’s incapable of it, but because I think it’s an incredibly difficult problem. I wouldn’t have expected Kerry to make Iraq work either. Things I am willing to judge him on: North Korea. He needs to make progress. I define that as North Korea reducing the number of nuclear weapons on hand without actually using them. He said he could do this with his approach, and he needs to follow through. ...

There is some desire for a Jon Udell-esque library bookmarklet (original) for Harvard’s Hollis Catalog (original). A little bit of research, and there you go. It’s not perfect, since Hollis doesn’t seem to use ISBNs as the primary index, but the first book listed on the results page will be the book you’re looking for if it’s in the catalog.

My friend Rob MacDougall has a nifty new blog, which I cannot recommend strongly enough if you are interested in the history of technology. Share and enjoy.

My pal Jamie’s doing a music exchange — burn a CD with your favorite songs of all time on it, send it to everyone on the list, you know the drill. In one of those fleeting moments of personal revelation I sometimes indulge in, here’s mine. (Yeah, that’s a pretty weak excuse for personal revelation.)

Ashcroft has resigned (original). That’s good.

“Listen… There’s another national anthem playing, Not the one you cheer At the ball park.” “We’re the other national anthem, folks, The ones that can’t get in To the ball park.” Available from iTunes, happily enough.

If anyone was paying attention to my list of criteria for judging Bush’s success, it’s been updated.

The Incredibles is really really good, but if you’ve been reading reviews, you don’t need me to tell you that. I teared up a bit, I forgot it wasn’t a live-action movie, yes it really is one of the best superhero movies ever period. I got nothing much to say beyond “Wow, awesome.” Go go go.

The song entitled “Going Through The Motions” on the new Aimee Mann live album (original) is not the song sung by Sarah Michelle Gellar on Buffy during the musical episode. So don’t get your hopes up like I did.