Fuldu

But never on time

2007-12-29T23:44:28Z

A Public Service Announcement from Wikipedia:

The United States Code states that MLK day shall be observed on the third Monday in January. In 2008, Martin Luther King Day will fall on January 21. Please schedule plane tickets and vacation time accordingly. This has been a Public Service Announcement, brought to you by Wikipedia.

The good war

2007-07-19T03:31:14Z

Just so that we've gotten this into a pre-Friday entry that isn't two years old, my Harry Potter predictions, in a nutshell:

Hypothesis 1a: Voldemort isn't the Big Bad.
Rowling has too much of a red herring/MacGuffin writing style for it to be as simple as finally disposing of the villain we've been ~~rooting for~~ following for the past six books.

Hypothesis 1b: Harry isn't the hero that will dispose of the Big Bad.
A prophecy is like a gun in the first act. You don't introduce a gun and then not have it go off; similarly, you don't introduce a prophecy and then have it turn out to mean exactly what everyone assumes it means.

Hypothesis 1c: Neville is the hero that will dispose of the Big Bad.
We keep hearing about how the prophecy could have been about Neville. We know more about Neville's family and backstory than we do about Hermione's (Muggle dentists, anything else?). If the prophecy isn't about Harry (and actually, I think it simply isn't only about Harry), it pretty much has to be about Neville.

Completely Unfounded Speculation 1c: Wouldn't it be awesome if it occurred to Neville, whose only skills are Defense Against the Dark Arts and Herbology, that he doesn't have to defeat the Death Eaters in a magical fight, he can just sacrifice himself to kill everyone in earshot by uprooting a nearby Nightshade?

Hypothesis 1d: Mr. Ollivander is the Big Bad.
He's been around forever and deals with everyone.
He gave both Harry and Voldemort their matching wands.
Unlike everyone else who was listed as missing in Book Six, he just cleaned out and vanished, rather than so many whose homes/shops were trashed.
One of the very last things he did before disappearing was sell Neville a new wand; keeping in mind that for Neville to be the hero of the prophecy, the villain has to mark him. Aside from this odd detail regarding the wand sale, the only other people who could fit that bill are the Lestranges, and they've been in Azkaban until just recently. I would propose that, as with Voldemort and Harry, Neville's new wand is the counterpart to Ollivander's. Rowling even tells us what's in Neville's new wand, but I can't find anything to compare it to anywhere.
He's pretty much the only character with any sort of screen-time without a first name, and {Tom Marvolo Riddle:I AM LORD VOLDEMORT::Ollivander:AN EVIL LORD}
He's just creepy as all Hell. Reread the Book One chapter about his shop. Creepy.

Hypothesis 2: A Weasley will die.
Another loaded gun that hasn't yet gone off - the Mortal Peril clock in the Weasley's front hallway. I think nearly any Weasley could make narrative sense, Ron as a major character and in keeping with the chess game of Book One, Ginny as a love interest for Harry, Percy as a way of finally choosing his family over the Ministry, one or both twins as a way of choosing doing what's right over doing what's fun, or Mr. Weasley as a means of earning the respect of all the wizards who think of him as a goof. But my guess is Mrs. Weasley. Every time the prospect of someone in the family dying comes up, she comes apart and embarrasses everyone else, but she's never given any thought to what would happen to the family if she died, and neither have any of the rest of them.

Hypothesis 3: Harry will live.
Yes, he's The Boy That Lived, and so it makes some narrative sense for him to die. But for me that loses out against Sybil Trelawney. It's made very clear that she only has genuine predictive powers when she talks in the spooky voice, and that the other one, the regular voice, is both a fraud and addled. But the regular voice is the one that has said, over and over, that Harry is going to die. The regular voice can't be allowed to be right, simply because Trelawney is a bumbler who doesn't get things right.

Hypothesis 4: Snape isn't a bad guy.
If there is a single character in the series who is more consistently an idiotic, addled bumbler than Sybil Trelawney, it's Snape's biggest enemy, Harry Potter. Harry is never, ever, ever, ever, ever, right about anything of any consequence. Whoever he suspects, generally turns out to be the good guy, and he's suspected Snape since Book One. I'll trust Dumbledore's instincts over Harry's any day. Offhand, I'd say he's probably one of the two characters Rowling is talking about when she says two characters are going to die.

Update: If you don't mind vague semblences of spoilers, the second-to-last paragraph of the NYT Review suggests I'm not totally out in left field.

Pity drowns in numbers

2007-05-12T03:04:17Z

On my flight to and from Milwaukee, I flew Midwest Airlines. I had not previously flown Midwest Airlines and, while I did not take advantage of the complimentary chocolate chip cookies, I can say that they smelled quite good. Big, comfy seats, too.

Anyway, on the return trip, I thumbed through the inflight magazine, MyMidwest. As most such periodicals do, it had a puzzle page, this one credited (in print, but not that I can find on the Web page) to one Tom Riches. It's an interesting mixture of puzzles, but I don't imagine it will take anyone very long to note why I've chosen to link to it.

Almost all of them vociferous

2007-05-06T13:27:00Z

Tomorrow begins Public Service Recognition Week. According to this, one of the ways in which the average person can celebrate is by taking the opportunity to increase their "understanding [of] emergency responses to the Y2K problem." Okay.

I will be in Milwaukee all week, making the world a better place by my efforts, though not (as I would prefer) by forcing Milwaukee to produce higher quality beverages. If you would like to take advantage of the PSRW celebration to tell me all the ways in which I've improved your life, please feel free to comment.

I warrant there’s vinegar and pepper in’t

2007-04-29T12:33:48Z

I was having lunch yesterday while I was out running some errands and sat down at a table next to a woman who had out a blank Scrabble board and a full score pad. She was poring over the pad as if trying to reconstruct the game entirely from the numbers on it (coming soon to a Mystery Hunt near you). After a few minutes, she was joined by a man and they started getting ready to play. Drawing tiles to see who goes first, he drew an R. I didn't see what she drew, but that was immediately followed by math as they determined how many letters there were between their two tiles. I can only assume she was handicapping him in some way. So he went first.

I could see his tiles from where I was sitting, and his initial seven tiles were ADEELOO. He saw DOLE, but, based on the way he then shuffled the tiles around, I guess he wanted to save the -ED, not an unreasonable choice. I came up with OLEO, thanks to my vague familiarity with crosswordese. He played LOE. She (and I) didn't think that was a word, so they checked and it wasn't. This is where I again assume she was handicapping him, because he was allowed to simply replay, this time LO. She played REX, making LOX, which he didn't think was a word. He'd drawn an N and two more vowels and as I was getting up to leave he was placing NERO across REX. I had to check just to be sure, but nope, there's no non-capitalized version of that word for use in Scrabble. I have a feeling it was a long game.

Unmistakable proof to the contrary

2007-04-26T04:06:41Z

Now I have to look into where I can get washcloths printed with my company logo.

Spiral of his own absurdity

2007-04-15T17:07:16Z

Did anybody else, and by anybody else I suppose I mean tablesaw, think of the end of Season One of Lost at the end of DROD: The City Beneath? Or the jerk shamans from Season Seven of Buffy? Do I watch too much TV?

I'll admit that I'm excited about the prospect of soon receiving the The Fool's Errand sequel that I pre-paid for 3-4 years ago, but DROD is still the best deal in town for computer puzzle games. Every new game smoothly integrates all the old mechanisms, modifies them in subtle ways that make an enormous strategic difference, and comes up with one or two entirely new problems to deal with that force you to rethink everything you've ever done before. Over the course of about 30 hours of gameplay (for me at least, although I think there were times I left the game running to answer phone calls, eat dinner, or watch TV), there were probably a good 40-50 a-has, which is about as good a junkie fix for something like that as I'm likely to get.

A thousand imbeciles together in the dark

2007-03-24T03:15:11Z

On my way home this evening, I made a mental list regarding concerts I've attended in the last year.

Unusual Things I've Been:
Uncommonly Certain of Myself [Kid Beyond]
Gobsmacked [Kid Beyond]
Zombie Chorus [Jonathan Coulton]
Evil Robot Overlord [Jonathan Coulton]
Worried that I Might be Forced to Watch a Couple Have Sex [The Decemberists]
Swallowed by a Giant Whale [The Decemberists]

I suppose I mostly go to unusual concerts, so this shouldn't surprise me, but somehow it does.

Pyes and Dawes and Rookes and Crows

2007-03-08T01:57:43Z

I arrived home from work today to discover that our heat was off. In speaking with the neighbor girls, they apparently smelled gas and called the landlord who called Keyspan who came out and determined that the heaters were leaking, turned everything off, and left with a promise to return some time before 1AM. I, frankly, would have been quite happy being exposed to carbon monoxide poisoning in exchange for heat, which is good, since there's an excellent chance that I have been for some time. The thing I find most troubling is that both we and the neighbors have carbon monoxide detectors, and ours, at least, is relatively new, but neither ever raised the slightest alarm. No, no, the thing I find most troubling is that I'm cold. The house seems to be managing to maintain about 58 degrees, which is certainly warmer than the outside, but I'm starting to think about how effectively I can sleep with an active laptop tucked under the covers with me.

The side of my face

2007-02-19T01:10:39Z

Stupid 60 Minutes. Kevin and Drew could be on my television this very instant. Instead, Kenny Chesney is. Stupid, stupid 60 Minutes!!

Touched by any emollient

2007-02-16T15:16:05Z

A few unrelated thoughts while I futz around before my dentist appointment:

From this article about quantum computers comes the unintentionally amusing line:

[The CEO] said all the evidence the company has indicates that the device is
performing quantum computations, but he acknowledged there is some
uncertainty.

-----

Al Gore is helping to organize a global warming benefit concert that will "take place across 7 continents on July 7." Who exactly do they expect to get to perform from Antarctica in the dead of winter down there? Or is he just counting on global warming turning Antarctica into a tropical paradise by then?

-----

If I had the requisite time and musical skills, I would totally start a Shins cover band called Shin Feign.

Most famous split infinitive

2007-02-06T22:28:28Z

I wanted to post this last night around 9:55, but I was in DC on business and internet at the hotel where I was staying wasn't free, so I couldn't quite justify it.

In any event, if it were ever to become necessary to compile a list of evidence that the people over at Heroes know their audience really, really well, I would say this: Look no further than Hiro's father's limo's license plate.

Upside down in its own strange joy

2007-02-03T02:37:18Z

So New York, taking Europe's lead, is discussing banning underweight models. The official BMI at which WHO labels the break from underweight into normal is 18.5, so New York is making that the cutoff that it is considering using.

Now, I don't have a huge problem with the premise here. It seems like an unusually narrow law, but it wouldn't be the only such, so I don't especially want to discount it simply on that basis. But the "normal range" cutoff seems a bit much to me.

Based on a online BMI calculator, my current BMI is 16.8. I currently weigh more than I have ever weighed in my entire life, so that's certainly the highest my BMI has been since puberty and likely the highest it's been in my lifetime. I'd have to gain another 12 pounds to have a BMI of 18.5, and I can tell you that there's no place good for 12 additional pounds to go on my frame. And I know that at least some of you have seen me eat, so I hope no one thinks I'm starving myself to stay thin or putting my health in danger.

This isn't me trying to say "Oh, I'm so skinny. Woe is me." It's just me trying to point out that if this is something that New York (or anyplace else) genuinely wants to pursue, there ought to be a better measure in place than BMI. I don't know what it would be. Offhand, my recollection is that percentage body fat did a better job of accurately representing my health and fitness relative to my classmates in middle school, but that's been so long ago.

Spoiling for a technical knockout

2007-01-09T18:17:37Z

Is there an award for the most ridiculous injury of the year? Because I'd like to submit myself as an early frontrunner candidate.

It isn't uncommon for me to get a cold the first week of January. It's the cold weather coupled with the heavy traveling and the unhealthy eating. But it's usually gone or at least mostly gone by the Hunt. I've had a cold for a few days (stretching on from a cold I thought I'd avoided back before New Year's), but it hasn't been much more than a nuisance.

Except that, either last night or this morning, it became a serious problem when I wrenched my back sneezing. All morning I felt like I'd slept on it funny, but it was in my lower back, which isn't usually where I get those sorts of aches. It wasn't until I had a sneezing fit, coupled with some fairly intense diaphragm pain, that I figured out what I had done. So now I'm home, lying in bed, and irate at myself, human physiology, and basically anything else I can think of, because this is not the sort of thing that just works itself out quickly. And this cold is now a severely complicating factor because every time I sneeze again, I make it worse.

Wonder Jonathan and his Fluffy Battle Kittens

2006-12-22T19:14:18Z

I often complain that my hometown is the biggest small town in the country. But there are certain things I absolutely love about it. I'm just going to mention one, briefly.

McMenamins started out as a perfectly adequate brewpub chain. But it went from a pleasant option for an evening to major selling point of visits with the family when the company started making a business plan out of buying old buildings around the city and restoring them. In particular, I love what they've done with old theaters around the city. Two, the Bagdad and the Mission, are the best second-run theaters I've ever been to. It's not just that they're groovy old theater environments playing cheap movies, but that you can get pizza, burgers, and beer and take them to theater seating with tables. And apparently since I was last in town, the Mission started showing Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Three episodes, in order, every Tuesday, with a crowd and bar food. Seriously, TiVo should look into a service like that.

The extra unknown personality in any committee

2006-12-21T23:06:12Z

Astute readers will recall that I find Christmas, well, disturbing. Partly it's a reaction to the super-Christmas environment I grew up in. Partly it's the ever-increasing Wall of Santas that I face in returning home each holiday season. And partly it's that Christmas shopping nearly always requires that I go to a mall, places which always make me uncomfortable and which, during the holiday season, are about as near to my notion of Hell as any place I've ever been.

But it took the wisdom of modern existentialist philosopher Jonathan Coulton to make me realize precisely what it is about Christmas that I find so disconcerting. The plot doesn't cohere. Hallowe'en coheres, mostly. Bloodthirsty monsters have taken to the streets of your town and must be pacified with candy. See, that makes sense. To the extent that people (and I will admit to having been guilty of this myself) dress up as things that are not bloodthirsty monsters, it seems to me that they've forgotten the true spirit of Hallowe'en, but that's not the holiday's fault.

The Fourth of July, fundamentally, says "I love my country, and I plan to show it by blowing things up." And, frankly, what could be more quintessentially American than that?

But Christmas... I mean...

So if you're good, a fat man will come down the chimney of your home, bringing you presents in return for cookies and milk.
If you're bad, the fat man will bring you coal.
If you're particularly good, but having a bad year, Panglossian angels will come to show you how much worse the world would be if things had gone any differently.
If you're particularly bad, ghosts will come to threaten you with visions of your own mortality.
If you've forgotten the true meaning of Christmas, you will be visited by a terminally ill child, to rekindle your Christmas spirit (speaking of which, where is my terminally ill child? I've been waiting for years for a terminally ill child to rekindle my Christmas spirit, but it never seems to happen).

And then there are the supporting cast: the reindeer, the dentists, the Abominable Snowmen, the magical top hats, the crotchety weather gods, the roast beast. It's just too much.

And that only covers the secular holiday. In isolation, the religious holiday makes better sense, from a plot standpoint, but can overall only contribute to the larger sense of muddle that is Christmas.

Admiring relatives and disinterested friends

2006-11-26T20:47:32Z

Yatta!

So much as they want somebody who'll listen to 'em

2006-11-19T02:51:38Z

Following up on Monday's entry about Will Shortz's life bring threatened...

I don't recall which Wordplay star posted the review that described the movie in terms of an unsavory picture that I really don't need in my head, but let me just say that twice in a year (not the linked instance of his name, but the following one) is two times too many.

ETA: The Village Voice review.

Take heed of a gluttonous curiosity

2006-11-14T02:11:42Z

It's unusual to watch fictional characters threaten the life of someone you know, even in jest.

Take the cube root and prepare wonderful diagrams

2006-11-13T23:57:41Z

It says something about my life and priorities when a philately story makes my day. I neither know, nor care, whether this is true. The very premise of this article lifts my spirits far more than can be justified by reason.

The hate had to be drained

2006-11-13T01:22:37Z

Hands down the funniest inadvertent moment in Amazing Race history:

On tonight's obnoxious product placement AOL screens, the news story with a photo of President Bush with the title "Is He Making a Comeback?"

Naval tradition

2006-11-10T04:27:41Z

If you haven't already seen this, I invite you to guess which news organization broke the Rumsfeld resignation story in advance of the press conference announcement...

...and then click here.

Greek chorus to your rehearsed nightmare

2006-11-08T23:47:57Z

One of the things we'll be seeing for days, if not weeks, is punditry attempting to explain the whys and wherefores of yesterday's election results. These stellar displays of self-important hindsight are one of the little joys of election season, for me, and in tribute I'd like to present my view on how best to explain the substantial shift in Congressional power.

I think the main turning point for the Democrats was, as is often the case, a fortunately-timed, not strictly political news story that energizes one side or demoralizes the other. And in the case of this election, I don't feel that there's any question as to which story that was. Democrats were brought to the polls in record numbers by the realization that, if Britney Spears can extricate herself from the strangely seductive spell of a creepy, talentless troll with delusions of grandeur, then perhaps so too can America.

Decisive individual touches that it never gives

2006-10-07T03:15:06Z

Today's inconsequential wordplay discovery:

The phrase "stray cats" reverses to the not-totally-meaningless phrase "Stacy arts."

Throwing arm gone bad

2006-10-04T23:21:08Z

I'm not sure how I feel that Piz grew up in my hometown. It seems like an open opportunity for in-jokes about Ramblin' Rod, but at the same time, it seems like an open opportunity for jokes at my expense. Also, it leaves me wondering which high school he went to. Which train of thought, sadly, puts me in the unenviable position of having to wonder whether the substantial discussion of "Frak" in the episode was an unduly elaborate in-joke. The answer, of course, is "no," but I'd have preferred not to be asking myself such questions. Also, why would any Wikipedia user (or more particularly, Steve8675309) care to edit in the fact that an actress's high school mascot was the Apollos?

I'm fairly confident I'm not happy with marketing's decision to call our hometown "The 'Ton," a nickname I've never, in nearly thirty years, heard, and unsupported by my brief Internet research. I will, however, commend marketing for the bang-up job they did of conveying a near-pitch-perfect personality stereotype with his Interests. Although, magicians? Upcoming plot point, anyone?