Thanks all for the brooks advice/offers.. definitely food for thought.

I have so much to else to say that I'll break it down by username in this UBER-reply!

shapelike: nice to finally meet ya, thanks for showing me some of the brookses

tuz: but.. it's in GREAT condition!

operator: female CS students are not usually representative of the good kind of "female student types".. try going a bit north into arts-land Hotness is inversely proportional to proximity to college street.

pizza ppl: I've had recent success with many recipes (pizza, various breads [baking ciabatta as we speak], brownies) using "Professional baking" by Wayne Gisslen -- I think it's a textbook, and it gives all the recipes in baker's percentages so that they scale. The key to my baking success has definitely been weighing (i.e. by mass, rather than volume) -- I can post the formula/recipe for pizza dough if anyone's interested.