In the Air Tonight (and Tomorrow Morning. And Tomorrow Night.)

One suitcase, less than 50 lbs (checked).  One heavy-duty trekker's pack, less than 50 lbs (checked).  One brand-new Columbia knapsack (on my back).  One briefcase (on my arm).  One Cross bag of plane food (on my other arm, and missing one jar of peanut butter thanks to airport security.  Who knew that even Extra Crunchy style counts as a liquid?).

For in-flight entertainment, I have one hardcover copy of Woe is I, one copy of this week's The Economist, three Esquire magazines, two iPods, and a netbook full of videos.  I ended up scrapping my decision to buy a Kindle, and instead opted for one copy of Infinite Jest, already read but which should nevertheless take me a full four months to pore through again.


A quick word about my netbook: it is probably the most important piece of hardware I'm taking.  I quizzed several friends about the best model, and ended up getting an Asus for less than $350, with more RAM and hard drive space than my preexisting laptop.  The best part is?  It's less than three lbs and extremely portable. Photographic evidence of both the netbook's amazing size and your correspondent's alarmingly large hands:

 

That's my status as of 4:30 on this snowy Tuesday evening.  In half an hour I board and fly to India until Thursday. In the meantime, I leave you with the best travelling music I know how.  Take it away, Phil.