May 2007 Archives

The Food Stamp Challenge: Progressive elected officials are going on food stamps for one week. That's the equivalent of $3/day; Rep. Jan Schakowsky's solution was plenty of Ramen. NPR stories here and here. Kudos for Oregon Governon Ted Kulongoski for starting this whole thing off. I think I might take up the challenge the week before Yom Kippur in the fall (ending with the pre-fast meal before the 24-hour, no-food-at-all endeavor) -- that's probably the most appropriate time. Yes, as Schakowsky admits, the challenge is a bit gimmicky, but I think it'll be a good personal experience and will help spread the word about the need for increased food stamp appropriations.

The last Gilmore Girls ever was on Tuesday. Even thought they were still negotiating contracts when they wrote the episode, it's clear that they knew it had a high probability of being the last adventure in Stars Hollow. Other than the lack of Mrs. Kim, the epi really did live up to its role as the grande finale. I got a bit of emotional, and SethB-H informs me that he was bawling tears in Manhattan.

To celebrate/mourn, Miranda and I had a gathering at our apartment. I made a pop-tart themed cake: frosting with sprinkles and some strawberry jam hidden inside. This picture gives you the general idea, but doesn't quite do it justice:

We ate most of the cake -- I hope Miranda can finish off the rest, because I'm now in DC starting my four-state (DC, NY, MA, ME) road trip.

With the passing of Lorelai and Rory, I don't have any television shows that I'm really into (Ugly Betty is a poor substitute). I'll just have to watch DVDs of The West Wing, Firefly, and Dead Like Me instead.

Saturday, I celebrated being done with Generals by taking the train to NYC and seeing friends. Chicklet and I headed over to Queens and toured the hands-on NYC Hall of Science (where my BoA card got us in for free). They had lots of great exhibits, including a replica Mars Rover that you could control by inputing a series of movements. The Rover also sported an IR sensor that could look for water in the fake rocks they set up. If only Moses had one of those in the desert! I also noticed that the mathematica exhibit was a near-replica as the one in the Boston museum of science. I wonder if one company creates the exhibit and then sell it to various museums...

After museuming, we caught up with the rest of the folk at Blockheads -- this good but cheap Mexican join in midtown. The crew:

Then we headed over to Dave & Busters where we played trivia and skeeball. Thanks to Alissa's quick wit and Jessie's mastery of the 40-point circle, we collected 1240 tickets! The group generously redeemed those tickets for a talking Yoda as a gift for finishing generals (and possibly for paying for their D&B cards ;). An appropriate selection given the accomplishment I think.

Sunday was Souk! A middle eastern festival with great food (falafel), drink (funky juices), and dancing (let's just say I attempted). Pics:

Next stop: DC. Dinner on Wednesday night. Detailed email invites out shortly.

American down (I think I passed); methodology to go. It's on Thursday. Celebration dinner on NYC on Saturday (email invites out soon).

American Generals tomorrow. I created a game to help me study: now you all can have an idea of what I've needed to learn. There are (or will be soon) a bit over 100 entries that I need to learn/commit to memory.

But, in the spirit of "everyone studies too hard for generals", I attended Andy and Bracha's wedding yesterday. Mazel Tov! Here are the best pics I got on my treo. I'm sure they will be better ones up on the newlyweds' website soon.

I don't have much to blog about since it's the end of term and Generals are in a few days (yikes!). But, I did find this week's cartalk puzzler quite enjoyable.

RAY: This was sent in by a fellow named Dan O'Leary. He came upon a common one-syllable, five-letter word recently that has the following unique property. When you remove the first letter, the remaining letters form a homophone of the original word, that is a word that sounds exactly the same. Replace the first letter, that is, put it back and remove the second letter and the result is yet another homophone of the original word. And the question is, what's the word?

Now I'm going to give you an example that doesn't work. Let's look at the five-letter word, "wrack." W-R-A-C-K, you know like to "wrack with pain." If I remove the first letter, I am left with a four-letter word, "R-A-C-K." As in, "Holy cow, did you see the rack on that buck! It must have been a nine-pointer!" It's a perfect homophone. If you put the "w" back, and remove the "r," instead, you're left with the word, "wack," which is a real word, it's just not a homophone of the other two words.

But there is, however, at least one word that Dan and we know of, which will yield two homophones if you remove either of the first two letters to make two, new four-letter words. The question is, what's the word?