Skye and I are visiting her parents for a week and a half, so I won't be updating. Here are the finals thoughts that I will leave you with until I return:
RIP, Eddie Griffin. This was one troubled man, and I feel as if we let him down.
Skye and I saw Sicko tonight. It was good, and makes you want to overthrow the current health care system.
I finished Watchmen, and really enjoyed it. I'm looking forward to the movie.
Maybe that is enough for now. I'll see you in September.
Skye and I just got back from my first trip to New York City (for the purposes of this post, NYC=Manhattan). I found that I don't particularly care for New York. I could grow to like it, I suppose, but I liked Madison and Boston immediately. Ultimately, I think that the city is too crowded, lacks chlorophyll, and the buildings block out the sun and sky too much for my liking. That being said, I could live there; I just would prefer to live in Boston, Madison, or Minneapolis.
Here were the highlights:
We went to Liberty and Ellis Islands first. The Statue of Liberty was nice, although I had seen it by plane. These two islands were interesting, although Skye was more excited by them, so I'll let her describe them.
We saw the World Trade Center location. It was an impressively big hole, although you couldn't see much of it.
We took a tour of the UN. This was the highlight of the trip for me. The UN is an organization that I can really get behind; check out their goals for 2015. It just makes me all the madder that President Bush tries to screw it up by attempting to put John Bolton in there.
We went to the Museum of Modern Art. Frankly, I can only handle about 10 minutes of art at a time, although I enjoyed the Van Goghs (I like expressionism a lot, in so far as my ignorance of art allows me to have a favorite) and Dan Perjovschi's mural.
Central Park was okay. It was big, it was crowded, and it was a park.
I think that I would have been just as happy spending 2 days there, but Skye was happy that we stayed for a third, so it was worth it.
I still love traveling by bus.
I just read a book on the Revolutionary War, saw the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, viewed the site of the World Trade Center, took a tour of the UN, and re-watched Fahrenheit 9/11. I cannot believe how much President Bush is demolishing the ideals of this country; it is borderline treasonous. I cannot believe that any of our founding fathers would support his general policies.
(I am not an expert on American history).
I also re-watched the video for "The Saints are Coming." This might now be my favorite video of all time, as I find it extremely moving. The video is below, and let's remember that point of this video is not that the U.S. military is incompetent because it drops stuff into the water.
Congratulations to Santana on his 17 Ks. Remarkable.
Now that it is official, I will say that I hope Michael Vick gets the maximum possible sentence.
Speaking of sentences, why don't we complain more that fines are too regressive? I'm not saying that we should complain, I am just wondering how this works. How much is a $250,000 fine going to hurt Vick? Not much. How much would it hurt me? Quite a bit. Do the judges take this into consideration? If so, this might be an appropriate fine for a mult-millionaire, but then the billionaire would get away with only a slap on the wrist.
Or maybe I don't understand why we fine people. I have been assuming that it is for punitive reasons, but maybe $250,000 is the theoretical maximum restitution that would be needed to repair the harm done to the country for dog-fighting. Or maybe losing $250,000 hurts no matter if you are worth $10 million or $100 million. These are questions I don't have answers to.
I'm all for punishing Vick harshly, though; I really like dogs.
Skye got a ring today. Reasons to like the ring include:
It looks nice.
It has a history - it was made in the 1940s.
It is the most environmentally-friendly ring out there. A part of me would have preferred getting a ring made from recycled gold and a synthetic diamond, but that would still require energy to make. This is a re-used ring, which means that it took virtually no additional energy to make (and also did not require any mining, which can include any number of environmental/human rights disasters like funding wars, strip mining, and putting cyanide into our drinking water).
I watched The War Tapes last night. It was good, but not great. It made me really like Zach Bazzi.
Skye and I went on a tour of Boston that was put on by the Histrionic society. It was excellent, and I am sorry that I didn't take my family on it.
Finally, I am starting to think that I should support Kucinich. I've always held this idea that he is unelectable, and he probably is. However, he opposed the Iraq war from the start, and I think that it would be really nice to have a president who could get things right the first time. I'll think about this...
I had a successful family visit. We saw the sights of Boston on a trolley tour, went whale watching (and saw four humpback whales), went to Martha's Vineyard, saw The Simpsons Movie, and took a tour of Harvard/went to Salem. For more details, read Tsajz's weblog.
Ira Glass talked about "nerds" on This American Life this week. He said something that I have been internalizing for some time now: so many adults seem to categorize themselves as "nerds," or "dorks." Glass was talking about people reflecting on their youths. He said that people seem to identify their teenage selves as nerds if they were different in any way - even if they were popular. People wear this appellation as a badge of honor. This seems wrong to Ira and me somehow. Why does everyone get to be a nerd? Shouldn't people have to earn that title?
I don't consider myself to be/have been a nerd, even though I have a Ph.D. in math, like Buffy, and am currently reading comic books. I haven't earned it (nor do I want to).
Here is a cool video. It is eight minutes long, but stuff keeps happening, and so I recommend that you watch the whole thing.
I ran today. In fact, I ran without my right calf starting to hurt, which is a first in a month and a half (I haven't been running much in an effort to let the calf heal). I think that there were two keys:
I started by walking for three or four blocks, and then jogged for a mile before running.
I got to the running portion; my previous runs have been more like slow jogs.
I think that the latter played more of a role. I have had this happen before: getting hurt because I run too slowly. I think that my form breaks down when I doddle, and so I should run quickly more often. It makes sense for so many reasons.
I am concerned because Cape Cod is expecting rain on Wednesday and Friday. Wednesday sounds like it would be better, but it doesn't look great. Thursday is ideal, weather-wise, but Skye can't come that day. I'll figure something out.
A series of small things are coming to an end today and tomorrow. I finished re-watching Arrested Development last night; I finished work on my chapter of the textbook (for now); I am about to finish reading Collapse. I will probably have something to say about Collapse when I finish; until then, I will just say that I am enjoying it a lot.
My family is visiting tomorrow. Before now and then, I need to come up with some ideas for interesting activities, meals, and...I can't think of a third thing.
I am liking the new Tegan and Sara album. I am hoping to write a critique of JW's GBV mix, which was very good.
The Twins have a big game tonight against Cleveland. A win will put them at only 3.5 or 4 games back, depending upon the outcome of the Detroit/Tampa Bay game. I hope I didn't just jinx them.
Skye had a visitor this weekend, and so we spent some time entertaining. Actually, the friend was more accurately entertaining us, since she had a series of social events planned for us. It included a trip to Chinatown, where we got a Go board.
Did I mention that I got side-baskets for my bike? I did. They are great. They make me think of my bike in an entirely new way. Now, it is not merely a method to move me around quickly; rather, it is a method to move me and my stuff around quickly. This is great when it comes to groceries.
There have been a couple of things that I have been trying to remember to write about. I don't remember them today, either.
I just finished this week's version of The McLaughlin Group, and it had its All-Star line-up:
Of course, I have a bit of a man-crush on LOD, so I was happy to hear the quote of the day (see below). Of course, McLaughlin is a professor/grandfather figure, so it was nice to hear him tell O'Donnell:
"I agree with you - I think you've summed it up well...which is a deviation we want to encourage."
