November 2005 Archives

I traveled to Maine for Thanksgiving (much of my father's side has migrated up north since the Strausses bought Camp Wigwam in '65). The roud-trip cost be less than $100, as I took NJT, the Chinatown bus (which did not catch on fire), and Greyhound up and back.

The best part of being in Maine: snow! Though the lake was still liquid (ice skating will have to wait til winter break), we had a great time playing the traditional Thanksgiving snow football. Also, mutiny brook looked gorgeous with flowing water and snow-covered banks. My cousins were as cute as ever, and the food was of course delicious. My brother even came home from Hong Kong to join us!

On the way home, I had a nice chat with a second cousin of John Kerry on the chinatown bus. Now there was someone with cause to be more disappointed than I was last November.

Back at school, work has hit me like a sledgehammer (after being a drizzle for most of the term). So I'm off to work on my presentation for tomorrow.

Honorary unsubscribe: Stan Berenstain of the Berenstain Bear books. I remember donning the Sister Bear costume for my Mom's bookstore about a decade ago. Good times....we'll miss you, Papa Bear.

Making something with frozen blueberries this Thanksgiving? Here's a trick I learned when making blueberry cobbler for West Wing last Sunday. When thawing the frozen blueberries, use a collander to hold the blueberries and catch the juice that the blueberries will release in a larger bowl. The resulting juice should be about 10% to 15% (by volume) of the original blueberry size. Simmer the juice on medium heat in a sauce pan for 10 minutes, or until the juice becomes syrup-y. Mix that syrup with your thawed blueberries into whatever the original recipe called for (ie, the cobbler base). And voila, fresh blueberry taste for a fraction of the price :)

In IM news, I had my first indoor soccer game on Monday night. We decimated the competition 11-1, as I almost recorded an improbable indoor soccer clean sheet in goal. Tuesday, in hockey, we also easily defeated our opponents by a score of 8-2. I had a pair of goals.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Well, no, not quite. But, while the Iraqi government--in a communique Monday--condemned attacks on civilians, they said the insurgents had a "legitimate right" to kill Americans. Ironically, it was our idea to bring the factions together and to produce a consensus communique. Nothing like a common enemy to bring factions together, eh?

Or perhaps this is just self-defense by the Iraqi government: "kill them, not us."

"Krum didn't cause nearly as much of a stir, however, as his teammate, chaser Jakob Levski, who refused to suit up for Bulgaria's second-round match with Luxembourg in observance of Yom Kippur." --Story at SI.com

Went to Hillel services and a local swing dance last night. At the dance, Paul and Jen--my favorite instructors--were teaching a lesson on Collegiate Shag. I got the basic shag step down, but my open position kicks needed work. After the lesson, Jen offered to help me with my Lindy. This gesture was quite gracious of her, but quite nerve-wracking for me. First, my mind was in Shag mode, and it took me a bit to transition to East Coast Swing. Second, Paul and Jen were the teachers at the five-week swing lessons I had recently finished at Princeton, so I was worried that my poor performance would reflect badly on her. Third, she was letting me lead--for real. Oy vey.

How did I do? Well, I was on beat, which in itself is a minor miracle for me. I was completely missing the 1, but I realize that will take more practice. I tried mixing the basic steps with some of the moderate moves I was comfortable with. Jen said that I wasn't leading "normal" Lindy patterns (though when have I ever been considered normal), but that I was leading nonetheless (ie, the signal was stronger than the noise). Progress, I think (I hope).

Back to New York two more times this week (I'm getting really good at getting into the city in about an hour). The first trip was Tuesday to see Wicked with Chicklet. First a disclaimer: I'm not a huge musical fan, so don't put a whole lot of weight on my opinion. That said, I thought the second act (when they finally got around to a plot) was quite good, and almost made up for the no-conflict, no-intrigue, let's-just-sing first act. One curiosity was that the audience clapped three times at the first appearance of certain cast members. I thought this was strange since if these people knew so much about theatre that they appreciate just the presence of a particular actor, how come it took them so long to see Wicked. Perhaps cast turnover has something to do with this phenomenon--in either case I felt a bit "out of the loop." (How am I supposed to know whether to clap before I've ever seen this person act?!)

Last night, I went with Seth's crew to the IMAX midnight showing of "Goblet of Fire." While book 4 is one of my least favorite in the HP series, I thought they did a very good job with this movie. The action, suspense, and humor were all excellent. Even if you're not a Harry Potter fan, I would recommend viewing this movie if only for one very wrong, but very funny scene involving a ghost and a bubble bath. Some key elements of the plot were left out (it was a long enough movie anyway), but I had problems with this plot in book form, so some of the deletions were welcome. I did miss Percy, though; it's unfortunate that they couldn't have made just one oblique reference to him. Thus, my recommendations are: (1) Go see "Goblet of Fire," and (2) Don't take the PATH home alone at 3:30am. (Some stuff need not be repeated on this blog.)

And, in between trips, I had my first IM hockey game of my Princeton career (we tied, 5-5). I came away with 0 goals and 0 assists, mainly because I hadn't played in about three years. I put myself in good positions to score goals, and I have faith that my old scoring touch will return soon enough. We'll see next week.

Friday and Saturday I toured NYC with the (original) West Wing crew. They were up north to celebrate Amy's acceptance into grad school. We visited both the MoMa and the Met, strolled through Central Park, and ate lots of tasty food. Sunday, back in NJ, I got my first taste of a "New Jersey State Park," which I assure you is of the exact quality that you're imagining in your head right now. A few moderately difficult stream crossings did leave us muddy though.

Monday, I saw Will and Meryl of Primarily New Hampshire! They were on a college tour, spreadign the gospel of campaign staffing. As one of the first 25 students to arrive, I received a free copy of PNH. Flipping through the pages brought back a lot of memories. Khicks, Hughes, Mookie, Ebars, and Dale are in the book lots, and even Chicklet gets a full two-page spread. I'm in the background of one pic, which is good enough for me.

Oh, and back on Friday, when I was bored at the MoMa, I filed this on my Treo:

I'm staring at a Rothko and trying to divine its meaning. Like 99 percent of the works here, I don't "get" it. And I think I've discovered why.

I had always assumed that I was indifferent to art because of two related facts: my colorblindness and my low aesthetics coefficient. Clearly my colorblindness means I perceive the world differently than a normal person. Hence I put less emphasis on color and on aesthetics in general. However, I now think there's a wholly separate reason that I don't connect with art.

My epiphany began with a realization that I would appreciate a huge canvas of psuedo-code a lot more than the massive painting in front of me. In the case of the psuedocode, I would discover the problem the author was solving, examine the code to determine the underlying algorithm and judge how clever I thought the "artist" was.

A few minutes later I overheard a tour guide explaining Picasso's "Philosophical Brothel." She said that this painting led to the discussion amongst artist which led to cubism. The word "discussion" caught my attention, because I had never considered artists sitting in a room and trading ideas back and forth. I had never though of art as a dialectic, as a pursuit of something larger. If art was working toward a (Platonic) ideal, maybe that was an idea I could get behind.

But in this case cubism did not mark another milestone on the path to understanding or perfection. It only led to a fad. And that's my problem with modern art: it's not part of something larger. Back at MIT, an acquaintance told me that artists attempted to recapture reality on the canvass until photography was invented. Once you had a physical picture of reality, uber-accurate paintings were no longer necessary. Art ceased to be a dialectic and became a cacophony of ideas.

This chaos is in contrast to the sciences, where scholars are in continuous pursuit of the truth. Instead, modern art is the pursuit to be the first to paint a black square on a red background. And I'll never appreciate that.

First the Red Sox, then the White Sox, and now my streak is over. After depressing my way through seven straight "victory" parties over the years, I attended my first VICTORY party tonight! Saw all the Mellman Group folks, as they came north to join in the Corzine fun.

New Jersey! Virginia!!! California!!! Woohoo! The Democratic party lives!

My fall break adventure continued in New Haven on Thursday. I hit traffic on I-95 but avoided the "one hour late" label by a few seconds. There I met up with the usual Yale crew and after another great dinner at Claire's, we headed over to Mara's for a 5-way game of Scrabble. We crowded all of out tiles in the lower-right half of the board, which resulted in many oddly formed patterns.

Friday I visited my old stomping grounds of MIT and had dinner with my old professor and his two great kids. (They had to answer a history and a multiplication question correctly to be excused from the table.) After brainstorming thesis ideas, I headed over to Karen and Mike's, where I saw my first ever episode of the Muppet Show. My previous introductions to the Muppets were limited to (1) Kermit the Frog reporting on Sesame Street, (2) the Muppet movies, and (3) the parody of the Muppet's opening number at one of MIT's Purim spiels. (It's time to end the story / It's time to set things right / It's time for the closing number / In our Purim spiel tonight // (H) Why do we always hate them? / (M) I guess you'll always lose / (H) It's kind of like a hobby / (H&M) To try to kill the Jews!) I fell asleep during the Candace Bergen episode.

Saturday I ate out for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Breakfast was with Karen and Mike. I met old Dean friends (Manch field!) for lunch. Afternoon snack (as well as candlepin bowling and cryptic crosswords) with Priya. Later, Monica and I discussed the workings of rat brains over dinner. We then rented Fever Pitch and Spellbound to watch. Fever Pitch was terrible, almost at the level of The Wedding Date. Spellbound was interesting but overrated. We had aimed for Corporation and Super Size, but we found Blockbuster's selection a bit lacking (just as we had in C'ville.) Now I remember why I don't rent movies (well, that and a lack of free time).

Sunday I left for Princeton without my contact lenses (whoops!). But, no worries, as I now have 20:11 vision after a trip to the optometrist today. Perhaps my newfound, elf-like eyesight helped me during ultimate frisbee (where I played well), though I stunk up the field during flag football.

Oh, no word on the laptop....and VOTE TOMORROW!

I aimed to blog in the middle of my fall break, but some computer trouble (see below) precluded me from doing so. In any case, here's my south->north->south adventure thus far.

Saturday I visited Chicklet at SLC and we went ice skating. On he ice was a 10-year-old girl doing double jumps in her figure skating outfit -- absolutely amazing. I'm curious as to how much she has to practice; I'm sure it's more than I ever wanted to commit to an extracurricular activity. After free skate, we watched a youth hockey game, and left after the first period (it wasn't competitive: blue/purple was destroying white). Chicklet then took me to the best Thai restaurant I've ever been to...I really needed to write the name of that place down.

Sunday the real road trip started with a journey to DC. After a catch-up lunch with my former roommates, I took the metro to Eastern Market where I met up with Taren and Portia at which point we headed over to the DC United game. Our group trickled in as we tossed a disc around outside the stadium--a great name-learning activity. The score of the DC United game won't get mentioned again (see prev post): let's just say everyone had a great time.

Sunday night I hung out with the West Wing crew, where I'm happy to report that yet another West Wing arranged couple seems to be forming :) Emily and Justin were gracious enough to let me stay at their place. However, that's when my laptop troubles began. I attempted to start up the machine, it would try to read the CD drive (nothing there) and then stop...completely. After a bit of dissection and drumming on the keyboard, the computer started up and I thought everything was fine. Especially since it booted up fine the next day at Panera.

But, alas, when I arrived at the next leg of my trip, UVA law school, the computer regressed to it's previous state of total darkness. I tried not to let that keep me down, and Janeite was kind enough to let me use her computer. We made Pumpkin Pie (using W&S's Pecan Pumpkin Butter) and watch Time Bandits--a Monty Pythonesque kids movie. Also during my stay at UVA, I sat in on two law school classes. One word: bore-ing. Wow that material is dry.

Oh, I almost forgot: Janeite and I stopped by the main lawn on Halloween to watch the kids trick or treat. There were thousands of little ones dressed up--even the local media came. Our "best costume" award went to a kid who dressed as Napoleon Dynamite. Worst I think was this robot costume that the parents' clearly didn't realize would severly restrict the poor kid's mobility. I think he had better Halloweens.

Tuesday I turned around and headed north, stopping at DC to have dinner with my former colleagues at TMG. We had dinner at Amma's Vegetarian Indian, which I highly recommend if you're looking for cheap eats at Georgetown. I stayed over night at a ex-coworker's place, and continued to solicit advice about my laptop (thanks PreLifeCrisis!).

Wednesday I returned to Princeton and shipped my (under warranty) laptop to Acer Support HQ in Texas. With that off of my mind, I enjoyed a great evening in NYC with other Princeton grad students. A second car had trouble finding parking at PJ, so all five of us piled (pretty comfortably) into the Datamobile and we took the PATH from Jersey CIty. First stop in NYC was "The Daily Show" with Jon Stewart. We got in line just in time to secure tickets, but we ended up in the front row. (They give out the front row toward the end of the process since they are partially obstructed view seats.) I got to ask Jon Stewart a question before the show and offered him a Milano cookie--he decline (as he's a Snackwell's man). In response to my query, Stewart called CNN's anchors "retarded," which I think (in some cases) isn't too far off the mark. The guest that evening was Mike Wallace, and Rob Cordry produced a great segment on gas prices in America.

The weather was gorgeous for exploring the city, so we walked from 11th Ave to 6th for dinner (where we met up with JonK), and then moved on to 2nd Ave for dessert. I ordered a slice of velvet cake from the dessert place, which turned out to be about three normal slices put together. I'm still working on finishing it.

Speaking of finishing, I'll have to continue this post later (most likely after break is over), as I'm off to meet with my former MIT professors.