So South Carolina has moved its primary up to January 19.

South Carolina’s primary was originally scheduled for February 2. But then Florida scheduled its primary for January 29 to get ahead of South Carolina. South Carolina got annoyed at no longer being the first southern state with a primary, so it moved its primary.

This means that New Hampshire and Iowa are legally obligated to move their primary and caucus. Under state laws, the New Hampshire primary has to be held at least seven days before any other state primary, and the Iowa caucus has to be held at least eight days before any other state votes at all. So New Hampshire’s going to have to move its primary up from January 22 to at least January 12. And Iowa’s going to have to move its caucuses from January 14 to January 4.

If the leapfrogging continues, the Iowa caucuses could wind up happening in late 2007.

Isn’t this a bit ridiculous, the first primaries occurring nearly a year before the general election? The major party candidates will be chosen by February 5, and we’ll have a Democrat and a Republican sniping at each other for nine months.

That’s quite a long time, isn’t it? Maybe we should just move up the general election from November to, say, July. And we can move Inauguration Day up to September 2008.

Heck, we may as well start the 2012 primaries now. Candidates can declare their candidacies today and start railing against President X’s administration before President X is even elected or nominated.

Why don’t we hold the 2016 Olympics next year? And can I retire tomorrow?

I’ve been continuing my uncluttering kick. I got rid of around 40 books last night, give or take. They were all books I figured would be difficult to sell and that I knew I’d never look at again.

My first book-purging goal is to get rid of enough books so that all my remaining ones fit on my two six-foot-tall bookcases. Even that goal is hard. I haven’t achieved it yet. I have tons of books. I have such an attachment to them — they’re like my children. Each one has a story behind it and is full of ideas. And collectively, they make me look and feel studious. I admire people who have lots of books.

I did a book purge when I moved out of my old apartment two years ago, but I’ve since acquired more. When we moved in together, Matt jokingly told me that I wasn’t allowed to buy a new book without getting rid of an old one. It never happened.

I have conflicting reasons for doing a book purge: (1) I want to get rid of stuff in order to make a potential move easier and to just have less clutter around, and (2) I want to make a little money. These reasons conflict, because it’s actually a hassle to make money selling your books — it’s easier just to donate them. I’m going to take a bunch of them to the Strand this weekend and try to sell them; those I can’t sell I might just donate in bulk to the Salvation Army down the street. Getting rid of them book-by-book on Amazon seems way too slow and inefficient for the money I’d make off them. Andy made a good amount of money selling books on Amazon, but I’ve sold only one so far out of the several books I’ve put up for sale. And I had to go to the post office. I can’t imagine doing that 50 to 100 times. I’d rather just get them off my hands in one fell swoop.

As for my CDs, last night I ordered a bunch of ultra-thin CD sleeves, which should reduce the physical volume of my CD collection to about 1/3 of its current size after I toss out the bulky jewel cases. Of course, I had to spend money to buy the CD sleeves, so I guess I value the uncluttering itself more than the small amount of money after all.

Sometime in the last two months I crossed over into positive net worth. The assets contained in my 401(k), my savings, and my checking account are finally greater than my outstanding debt (student loans).

Of course, the 401(k) is basically untouchable, and that’s where the bulk of my assets are. Still, it feels good to know that my net worth is above zero, even if just on paper.