My movie watching has been less than stellar over the last year but I wanted to point everyone in the direction of Fantastic Mr. Fox. It’s not much of a secret that I’ve loved every single Wes Anderson film so I guess this isn’t a huge surprise. Having floated that disclaimer, Mr. Fox is a simply beautiful piece of art that no one should miss. We watched it Saturday night and I’m still playing back great scenes in my head. To take a book, turn it brilliantly to stop-motion animation, and have it voiced to perfection (Clooney as Mr. Fox? Perfect!) is something to behold. Honestly, I don’t know how it wasn’t voted film of the year by everyone. You have my full recommendation.
“They'll never catch me... because I'm fucking innocent.” – Dignan.
It must be March Madness at the pub as we made our way to 2nd place in last night’s quiz. After our last performance a few weeks back – the worst ever – it was a pleasant surprise. The only question that led to protest, at least from me, was this: What is the native currency of the following islands? Christmas, Aruba, Wight, and Canary. Feel free to look those up, we only got the Isle of Wight correct. I couldn’t come up with florin for Aruba even though we knew it was a Dutch property, and even with me writing down ffl on the napkin, just wouldn’t come to the brain. We went with the dollar for the Christmas Islands, sans Australian, so we misfired there. The Canary is where the debate raged – we were debating Portuguese v. Spain ownership issue and ended up going with the peseta. Well, that’s sort of right if you go with the ‘native’ portion of the question but is apparently wrong when he says that the Euro is the answer. The Euro? Native? To the Caymans? If we’d been asked “what is the currency of…” I could play along but I don’t buy the Euro as the native currency of anywhere. The analogy would be saying that the native currency of Germany isn’t the Mark. L. came along and managed to let us know that the Cobb Salad originated in L.A., told us that Singing in the Rain has a scene in front of Grauman’s in L.A., and that the largest U.S. fortune cookie factory was in S.F. – who knew? The Cobb Salad really surprised me. Small potatoes…
Here’s a piece at dcist.com that addresses the first month of the $.05 tax on plastic bags that took effect in January. A yearly review will probably be more useful – and accurate – so I’ll keep everyone posted. S.F. simply outlawed plastic bags so you have a total of zero in use out there, I’d have been more happy with that, but this has, at any level, had a serious impact on usage. I’d like NoVa and Maryland to get onboard and play along.
We’re gathering up the clan early Saturday morning and rolling over to the Tidal Basin for a lap around the cherry blossoms – or to the cherry blossoms with a lap around the Basin. There’ll be some baking on Friday night and coffee brewing early in the morning. Sunrise is set for 6:50 am so we’ll be there by 6:30 to beat the crowds and the Metro schedule. There’ll a nap when I get home; we’ll send pictures.
X has come down with one of those bugs that mostly affect the voice, her’s is disappearing into a gravel pit, to which I pointed out on the way home last night that she makes it sound like I’m hanging out with Bonnie Tyler…or Demi Moore in the St. Elmo’s Fire days. If you’re wondering…
L. and H. were off this morning to school - on a Saturday!, that damn Obama - to make up the final time from the missed educating during our two-fer blizzard this winter. The school made up a good bit of the time by extending the school days over the last five weeks and this is the final surge. I find it ironic (is that right?) that a private school is making sure to get the days of education in but the public schools, who fall under the 169-day rule (or whatever number of days it is), are filing requests to not have to finish the required number of class days. The above is L before heading out for her final Zoology exhibition to finish her quarter today. Most of the classes at the school, particularly the high school, required students to present their research and answer questions from other students, teachers, and occasionally, outside experts and parents. Each student does about 20-25 minutes and is expected to present their position and then defended their research. It's not so much a debate as it is a chance for the teacher to see that the student understands their chosen problem, done the legwork, understands the process, and has used critical thinking to present and explain the position. It's quite a process and today is the second day of scheduled exhibitions throughout the school. Her other presentation of sorts, in German culture was on The Ambassadors by Hans Holbein the Younger.
We set upon the back porch and the screening in of about 2/3s of it this morning. Corey is doing the design and actual man-work and I'm doing the painting of the structure. I'm taking some photos as we progress and the barn should be raised and done by sunset tomorrow. It'll be very nice to able to use the porch through the spring, summer and early fall without getting savaged by mosquitos. Feel free to stop by in your seersucker suits and have some mint juleps.
I love a good egg salad with mustard on toasted rye. I realized when I ordered this at the deli for lunch that I sound like a crazy, old man, “I want my egg salad on toast! Rye toast! Don’t try to slip any of that frenchy yellow mustard on it, either.” (hitching up my suspenders.)
I have one more written test for class tomorrow and then I’m off for about a week-and-half before the next quarter. The big timeline says only one more quarter before I get my early summer vacation up in Stowe, and that can’t come soon enough.
I, for no good reason, started a debate on Facebook (what am I? 14?) about the healthcare bill with some friends – mostly from my military days. Being that the military is more conservative than a lot of areas – though my field was less so – it’s like debating any other crazies. I get it; I understand that probably half the population didn’t want this bill (or didn’t think they wanted it), but elections do mean something, voting means something, and a majority means something. Honest debate was, and is, very hard to come by and I’ve made loads of efforts to read and follow some of their talking points but they aren’t talking points – they’re yelling points. They aren’t true, they come from nowhere, and they mean nothing. There’s little compromise when half the players refuse to listen or move. So be it. I’m ready to move along to the next issue without them. I will say this, and it’s based on what I said a few weeks ago, by the time the elections come up in November we will end up with more Democrats in Congress than we have now. This has been a fatal move by the Republicans, they just don’t see it yet.
I have the Caps v. Pens at Verizon tonight so along with my decompressing from the Sunday vote and worries put forth about socialism, and whatnot, I get a great rivalry.
I don't have much love for baseball these days. I'm still a Cubs fan but that's not the issue. I find the 'salary cap' to be a joke, the PEDs, and the game to be boring. It's such a distance that I don't even know if the Cubs making the World Series would bring me back.
What has caught my attention over the last three years is Joe Mauer. I don't completely disconnect when it comes to sport and Mauer may be the best player in baseball. He's a Twin Cities legend, he was the Gatorade high school football player of the year and now he's the MLB MVP and three-time batting champion. If I had to pick an AL team, it'd be the Twins - the team of my youngest days in Edina. To see the Twins lock him up - with a beautiful new stadium next season - instead of the Yanks or Sox poaching him, makes me feel good. There will be many great summer nights in the Cities.
Today warrants an a goodbye to the great Alex Chilton. I was introduced to Big Star in early 1992, long after the band was gone, and I can honestly say they weren't a band I would have dug up on my own. The hippie/folk/pop combo from the early 70s wasn't naturally my thing so I could have gone my entire life, and sat here today, having never listened to the two great albums they produced - #1 Record and Radio City. In the end, they were really purely a pop band and one of my all-time favorites. Those two records deserve all the acclaim they've received over the last 35+ years. Man, only 59 and he's gone. Sort of feels like the day Joe Strummer died. Enjoy.
I got a text message from my friend, Buzz, and that title above is the complete transmission. There are any number of questions that arise from such a text.
First, was he walking through the airport, eyes up and alert to celebs, when he said to himself, “Why, I think that’s Donnie Osmond’s brother”? Or, did he think to himself, “My, my, what a massive set of smiley teeth. I wonder if that man is famous.” Under either of these situation, in order to determine who this might be, you’d have to approach him and query his lot in life (unless he’s just bullshitting me). With the former thought in your head, the answer from the “Osmond” would probably be, “Hey, yeah, I’m Alan Osmond, Donnie’s brother, nice to meet you”; or, “I’m only Donnie Osmond’s brother. Leave me alone.” Not likely. If the latter is the issue and you said, “Hey, are you famous?” He would have said something like “Sure am. I’m Alan Osmond. Nice to meet you. Who are you and why don’t you leave me alone.” Somehow, if any of these vignettes came to pass they were immediately translated, and transmitted to me, as “meeting Donnie’s Osmond’s brother.” What I also question is this: if he had told me that he’d met Jebediah Osmond at the airport did he think I wouldn’t be able to figure out that it was an Osmond brother? Did I really need the Donnie reference? Why couldn’t he be referred to as Marie Osmond’s brother? What about Jimmy Osmond’s brother? Wait, did he meet Jimmy Osmond? Granted, I can only rattle off Alan, Donnie, Marie, and Jimmy but that’s at least half of the clan, right? I have some Osmond skills. Speaking of which…
In my elementary school days I was a much bigger Donnie Osmond fan than Michael Jackson fan; though I did have three-ring binders with both on the cover. But I should also admit that I always felt that One Bad Apple, which I had on 45rpm and danced to all over my room, was much more Jackson 5-like than it was Osmond-like; sort of hard to tell the difference when you listen to it (apparently it was originally written for the Jackson 5). Well, take a listen…and a watch:
Those are some sweet moves and hot jumpsuits; channeling a later kung-fu Elvis. You might think that a white kid growing up in the flat Midwest would dream of being up on stage in a white, sequined jumpsuit and having the babies scream from beyond the stage. But, in my case, that wasn’t who I wanted to be in the early 1970s. Who I wanted to be, no question, was a Pip – plain-and-simple. I also had Midnight Train… on 45rpm and I remember watching Gladys and Pips on various variety shows when that wax was hot – mesmerized. There is nothing in this world cooler than being a Pip.
“I know you will…wooh wooh…” (spin, step, slide, spin)
I’ll spare you the He Ain’t Heavy Osmond video. Man, I loved the Osmonds back then..
We were doing breakfast stuff this week in class and Saturday night was tasked with crepes and fruit tarts from each team in class. On Friday night, as we were wrapping up other egg dishes (eggs benedict on my watch), our instructor pointed at the 'crepe' pans that we had available for the following night - about 6" and deep, teflon-coated pans. Based on what I've found during some intertube work today, I think they may qualify as crepe pans but I'd say it's a pretty loose interpretation in my house. Anyway, I brought in my four pans (2 x 6" and 2 x 8") that are of the style shown above and our associated crepe spatula; I was well positioned for success. Our team was up for about 40 crepes, savory and sweet, and do we decided on one set of shrimp newberg and I followed up with a smoked salmon, caramelized onion, and goat cheese with a havarti and green-onion sauce - but that's not so important here.
After all the teams' crepe batter was set - as if you really need to let it sit for 60 minutes - the fun began. Four six tops of teams trying to work 40 crepes each. With a simple spray and two 8"-ers, I was able to knock out all 40 shells in about 15 minutes. The deep, coated 'pans' were an absolute nightmare for the others teams so I doled out the 6" pans and passed along the eights when we'd finished. The crepe pans, along with a good immersion blender, a quality food mill, and a mortar-and-pestle are the simplest and most specialized pieces that most people really need. (Well, a three-cup food chopper ain't too bad, either.) Considering there are crepes in the house at least once a month - on a weekend morning - there's no way I'd be banging around with middling pans. You've been educated.
I'm in the middle of watching an early Sunday game that's seen the Caps come back from 3-0 down to start the 3rd - with no Ovechkin (ejected in the first) - to tie it at 3-3 with about 10 minutes to go. Another national TV come-from-behind win?
I’m a bit off-balance this week so I’ve been pretty quiet – or not, depending on where you live. A few things are gnawing at me and I haven’t fully sorted them out in my head.
First, I’m off meat in a much more permanent basis than the last five or six years. I’d say that I’ve been about 95% off since then – I’ll nibble on leftover scraps from the kids’ dinners – but we don’t do any mains for adults that include meat, and for varying reasons. You can ask X about her reasons since they’ve been well in place for most of her life and who am I to address her choices. Mine were primarily a cholesterol-avoidance plan that turned into the norm after years of not cooking anything with meat for meals. I haven’t missed it, really, so it didn’t even seem like much of a sacrifice back in about 2004 when it started. Right, there’s that. I’ll expand more on it at some point over the next week or so.
Second, (note: I just deleted and entire sentence of profanities and have begun, anew…) the healthcare insurance reform bill. I think it’ll get done over the next few weeks and we can move on to other issues that are presenting loads of other problems in our country. But, I need to take a few lines here to chastise people for ignorance. By ignorance I mean specifically the method of putting head to sand and refusing to have any type of debate on an issue that is causing so much wasted time and effort. I don’t even know that it bothers me when people yell and scream “facts” that aren’t actually facts – not much I can do about that. The rub here are the people that are too lazy, too unwilling (is that the same?), or too blinded by their people, to actually study an issue before screaming from the rooftops. Unless you can give me one actual fact that supports a position you hold (without using something like the CBO as a prop but then throwing it out when you don’t agree with you) then you don’t get to play. I’m fine with giving up a year of our governing life to get this done – I’d like it to do even more – but we are at the end. Maybe it might seem wrong to say but I’ll give it to you straight: it will get rammed down your throat and I’m cool with that. I’m not concerned about the elections – they’ll take care of themselves – and the time has come for this to be done. I’d say that it’s been a good debate but it hasn’t been: it’s been nothing more that an embarrassment. If you don’t have a plan you can go sit in the corner and color with Mitch McConnell and John Boehner. Good fucking riddance.
I feel better.
(Enter less hostile Todd from stage left)
Everything here is going well – kids and school seem to be working in a temporary emulsion – and the weather has come to spring, finally. The damn cats (damn cats!) have posed a problem that initially seemed like a batch of bad cat food (we only feed them dry) but may be more centered upon warm weather, mole-snacks, and less eating required. I returned the first bag only to see the second bag receive the same treatment. I changed stores and brands, thinking I would avoid a bad delivery truck or company, only to get similar results. At this point, they can eat it or not – they’re smart enough, right?
The orthodontist issue is almost sorted out (see previous work), but not quite. We have a “consultation” appointment next week (“Hmm, you have braces, I see…”) and then hopefully everything will get off the start line.
The Eleven is planning a long (one-two week) crazy vacation for about a year from now. We’re tempted to just find the cheapest, late-booked, vacation packages and hit the road – nearly blind. But, if anyone has any suggestions on warmer and less-touristy worldwide destinations, please submit your inputs to our anonymous comment box near the door as you exit.
One more thing: the Formula 1 season kicks off this weekend in Bahrain and here’s a photo from yesterday’s festivities and practice session. If you don’t know me too well, or don’t follow F1, then you won’t find this picture nearly as ironic or sacrilegious as I do:
I’ve been remiss over the last seven weeks in not getting L. in to see an orthodontist. I actually did some legwork on this a few months ago at my semi-annual cleaning; I gave them a quick background and I asked them if they had an othro they’d recommend. Conveniently enough, they have one that comes to their office every Thursday to see patients and that seemed like perfect idea for L. She’s about 14-18 months into a two-year program so all we’re looking for are monthly adjustment visits until she returns to Omaha – or wherever – and has them removed.
I finally gave them a call this morning and rehashed the idea with the office manager and queried about getting her in Thursday afternoon. As if. What I unwittingly stumbled into was the maw of the “no people”; you know the tribe – can’t do, won’t get done, that’s impossible, are you fucking crazy? Yes, them. She tells me that he can’t do that kind of work because how could he possibly know (or learn) the inner workings of another ortho? How would he know what her plan was? What if this ortho would have done something different? It CAN’T be done. I pause momentarily before asking her a simple question: Are you telling me that no family has ever moved while having a child in braces? There was a long pause on the line. I followed up with: Do you think people decide not to sell a house and move because Jimmy has three more months in braces and they don’t know about the alchemy of braces in Nebraska yet? I told her that I had the contact information for her man in Omaha and all that needs to be done is to make contact, ask a few questions on the phone (I’m sure the two orthos understand the language), and then set-up an appointment. She takes my number and tells me that she’ll contact their ortho and call me back. Sounds good, I say, so I’ll hear back from you this afternoon? What? No? She tells me that she’ll talk to him on Thursday when he comes in; she is kidding, right? Does this guy live where there’s no phone? Maybe somewhere that requires him to teleport in from another galaxy? They are killing me.
(p.s. I just called back to get the number of the guy and do the work myself but the afternoon woman just said she’d give him a call and call me right back. Go figure?)
I had class on Friday night so I sent The Forty to see Orestes at the Folger Shakespeare Theater (I’d bought the seats about six months ago prior to getting my class schedule and child moving here.) They had a quick dinner in Rosslyn and then Metro’d in to see the show. When they picked me up after class there were great reviews (WaPo review here) from both girls so it appears their night out was a success. I’d taken L. to the Caps’ game the previous night and told her during intermission that she’d be hard-pressed to attend two more different events on back-to-back nights: crazy sports fans in red and a Euripides play.
I've been wanting to do a blog entry using only this online program and I think this is as close as I'll come. If you haven't been keeping up, and don't know about the Message to Garcia, then this will be wholly unfunny. I'm calling this my anti-Garcia:
After code was written and truth determined (it was bout 10,000 lines of repetitive numbering), the correct answers to the EHB game, if everyone is maximizing efforts would be this:
1st bidder: 75 2nd bidder: 25 3rd bidder: either 26 or 74
It's been noted by representation that I need to make a public apology to G. for his opening number of 77 that cracked open this can of worms. And so, I apologize with no additional input. The 77 was very close to the best possible option.
If you're wondering about the Price is Right version of the game (closest without going over), the max numbers for each player are:
1st: 67 2nd: 34 3rd: 1
There's no wiggle room in this one for the second bidder, and by default, the last guy in. The first set of rules allows the 3rd bidder to decide which end to attack and therefore give one of the two players (the one not attacked) as the most likely winner.
The 51 is off to see the Caps at Verizon tonight. Seems like it's been forever with the long Olympic break.
A few weeks ago we sent off a couple of letters to the great north but they were returned about a week later by the USPS. Both included the standard, yellow sticker that said something about undeliverable as addressed – clearly a mistake since both addressees were correct. Not really understanding what the problem might be, I grabbed a new envelope (both items were cards), addressed it (again), stamped it (again), and fire it out yesterday morning. As expected when one tries to sort out an issue, another card was returned yesterday afternoon but this time it included some very official mathematical directions and chastisement (is that a word?) sticker covering the entire face of the envelope. It appears that unless you are mailing a perfectly standard-sized card you’ll be paying an additional $.20. Just so you don’t think that we were mailing those 2’ by 3’ cards full of pandas and balloons, here’s a picture of the returned card with a reference so you can size it yourself (that's a CD, by the way):
Here’s a zoom on the rules and directions. When you’re done with the math problem, please turn in your papers. I’m guessing that they’ve decided that if they must hand sort anything then you’re paying more. Have they purchased new sorting machines? This is complete bullshit:
I also wanted to update the progress of our snow-clearing equipment around the neighborhood. If you remember how they were stuck by feet of snow last month (see here), then rest assured they’ve finished their work. J.O.B.
We are in the midst of what I’d dubbed the “Extra Hash Brown (EHB)” game theory. It started accidentally when I asked which of the three blockheaded kids were interested in the extra hash brown at breakfast the other morning. (Background: the big pan only fits four hash browns for cooking. Yes, I could have only made three. Yes, I could have cut the last one in thirds, but where’s the fun in that?) I wrote down a number between 1 and 100 and starting with G., followed by H. and L., respectively, (they were all interested in the hash) and told them that whoever was closest to the number would win the gold. G. started with 77 – I now don’t remember the other guesses because I immediately lost interest – and after all the bids were in, H. had won. Why I lost my focus was because I immediately thought that 77, when you know two others are guessing behind you, is a poor opening salvo. What this became over the last two days – and now involves my workmate/probability geek as well as X – is this: what are the best numbers to choose if you are picking first, second, and/or third? I’ve added variants to the game that include closest without going over (the Price is Right version), and writing down a number on a secret ballot where if two pick the same number they are eliminated (the You Can’t Just Write 50 version). I’ll save you our endless discussions and thoughts and just let you play the game on your own. If you have three kids around – or two kids and a crazy wife – have them give a try and see what happens…but don’t give them any background before the first round. One additional input: since humans aren’t actually good at randomly selecting a number, go online and Google-up a random number generator and use that as your source for the final, winning, answer.
The Atlantic online site, or at least the commentary sites, have undergone an overhaul of sorts and the one comment-allowing site that I read, Coates, reposted his comment rules; it seemed a natural point to do so. I have to say that the commenters on his his site are very involved, and the discussions, more times than not, add some depth to his his posts. The only reason that I'm hitting on this is because he brings up a great new rule, #6, that hits upon one of the funniest threads that ever evolved.
I've created a new vocabulary word that may seem harsh but somehow fits many situations: fuckstration and/or fuckstrated. Feel free to roll it around in you head and use when you feel it may be appropriate
I've dove into Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer last night; one the few books that got me in pretty deep after just a few pages. Of course, what he points out - what you think the book will be when you first read the title - is indicative of the road he'll take me down. You have no idea how much discussion can be covered when consider dogs v. other animals.
Last week I printed out a copy of the short essay entitled Message to Garcia after a discussion at work. I'd never heard the story but I know gold when I see it; and this is gold. The Eleven spoke about it on the phone for a bit and she ended up sitting the kids down and reading them the story on Saturday afternoon. From the other room, in mid-story, I suddenly heard H. say, "wait a minute, I think I know where this is going..." Smart boy, that one. Feel free to google away
I only have a few weeks left of this first quarter of school - going very well.
I think there's a bit of snow possible for Wednesday and I'm calling it the final snow of the year
My movie watching has been less than stellar over the last year but I wanted to point everyone in the direction of Fantastic Mr. Fox. It’s not much of a secret that I’ve loved every single Wes Anderson film so I guess this isn’t a huge surprise. Having floated that disclaimer, Mr. Fox is a simply beautiful piece of art that no one should miss. We watched it Saturday night and I’m still playing back great scenes in my head. To take a book, turn it brilliantly to stop-motion animation, and have it voiced to perfection (Clooney as Mr. Fox? Perfect!) is something to behold. Honestly, I don’t know how it wasn’t voted film of the year by everyone. You have my full recommendation.
