Sunday In Brugge

I got to the Brugge train station at around 10:30 yesterday morning. I dragged my suitcase around the cobblestone streets of the town and arrived at my hotel about an hour later. Memo to the authors of Cadogan Bruges: the statement "The maps in this book will provide all the detail you need for this small and compact city" might be true if you labeled the side streets. Thank goodness for my compass, but will this push me over to buying a GPS receiver?

When I arrived at my hotel, my room wasn't going to be ready for another 45 minutes, but they provided me with a place to store my luggage and a map with the side-streets labeled. I used the latter to stroll down to the Markt and have lunch. I chose a restaurant that the Cadogan people derisively refer to as one of "the kinds of restaurants that offer menus in four languages." No matter. I was sitting in an outdoor cafe on a glorious sunny day. I had a view of the Markt square, I was reading a book and enjoying Stella Artois beer, mussels and Staffe Hendrik beer. If I had to die, I thought, forget Las Vegas; I wanted to go like this.

Ater a couple of hours, I wandered back to my hotel. My room was ready, thankfully. And it was gloriously luxurious -- huge bathroom, high ceilings and beautiful furnishings. I took an incredibly relaxing bath. Despite my understanding that it's better for avoiding jetlag to stay up until the next night, I couldn't resist crawling into bed and falling peacefully to sleep.

I woke up a few hours later and thought, "If I have to die, please let it be now." I had one of the worst hangovers I can remember having. Only the time I made the mistake of drinking a "Skullsplitter" right before going to be really compares. I noticed that registration still had a couple of hours to go, so I tried to sleep it off. Marginally better. I got dressed and made my way through town to registration. Having done that, I made my way back through the city to the reception, which was being held in the town hall. I didn't manage to eat very much at the reception, although I'm sure everything was good. I chatted with a colleague, excused myself, browsed the proceedings, and headed back to the hotel. I bought a Coke on the way back, and that pretty much settled my head and stomach back to normal. I watched some CNN and, exhausted, fell asleep. I woke up this morning, nicely on Belgium time. So my new method of adjusting yourself to a new timezone: a hangover. I probably won't try that on the way back, though.

Greetings from Belgium

Hi from Brugge, where I'm on a coffee break between talks at the conference. Since I don't drink coffee, well, this seemed like an appopriate use of my time. (Y'know, instead of actually talking to people.)

The flight over was the smoothest transatlantic flight I can remember. These direct flights are really cool. The only new things for me were the 2-3-2 seating arrangement (yay, no center seat for me) and the video monitor on the back of the seat in front of me. I dropped my headphones pretty early into the flight, so I set the monitor to show the map/airspeed/time display the whole trip. I really love that display.

The train ride from Brussels to Brugge was also uneventful. I was suprised that I managed to make the connections without screwing things up somehow. My impressions of the entire country of Belgium based on that one little trip...It seems very generically European. I mean, if you were going to make a movie set in "Europe", I think Belgium would be a great choice. It has no national character instantly identifiable to Americans, like England, France or Germany would. But it has the old buildings, the new, ugly-looking buildings, the signs, the people...the same intangibles that I've come to associate with Europe. The fact that I heard a wide variety of languages...French, Dutch, German, English, only adds to that impression.

Incidentally, I like wandering around in a country where I don't speak the language. I have that same vague sense of not knowing what's going on that I get when I'm in any unfamiliar place. Only I have an excuse...I don't know what the heck anyone's saying. In Brugge, there's the advantage that when I need to communicate, most people actually do speak English. Whoops, time for the next talk. More later.

Android on the Moon

"It is our goal, to land a robot on the moon, and bring it back safely, by the end of this decade."

How sad is this? For someone my age, too young to remember the Apollo missions, what does NASA have in store for the return to the moon? A freakin' robot. C'mon, can't they do any better than that? What about this idea?

And for something really strange, read this "review" of Man on the Moon.

Egyptian Rat Screw

I've been playing a fair amount of Yahoo! Hearts lately. Pretty fun, although my skills are a bit rusty (and I may be playing against people better than I'm used to.) I mentioned that I was doing this to Ben, and we started discussing the disadvantages of playing card games on-line. For one thing, he pointed out, you can't play Egyptian Rat Screw on-line.
Egyptian Rat-Screw. Now there's something I hadn't though about in a long time. For a good description of the rules, check out the above link. For a bad description, read on.
The goal of Egyptian Rat Screw is to get all the cards. Players take turns placing cards face-up in a pile, without looking at them first. There are two ways to win the pile. One involves face cards, and I won't bore you with it. The other is that if two cards of the same rank (e.g., two sixes) come up, the first player to slap the pile wins it. This game is a great deal of fun.
I first learned it at a CTY summer program, and eventually taught it to my friends in Maryland. One thing I never learned at CTY was the advantages and hazards of playing with drunk people.
There are two main advantages. One is that drunk people may not be able to concentrate enough to remember to slap when appropriate. The other is that, in their enthusiasm, they often slap for no apparent reason.
Their enthusiasm, however, creates the hazard that when they slap, they slap hard. As in, you may not want your hand on the bottom of the pile. The most memorable example of this was when George slapped in without removing the beer from his hand. Ouch. Plus, it was pretty messy.
Anyway, it's a fun game. Unfortunately, I don't think I've played it again since that incident...

More Harry Potter

I finished the 3rd Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. It was very enjoyable, like the first two. So far I'd have to say that I liked the first the most, followed by this one, then the second one. Can't really justify it, though. This one was a lot about death. Someone's trying to kill Harry, Ron's rat seems in danger of dying, Harry's parents are of course...already dead. And several other items (that I won't spoil) play into this theme. It seemed awfully dark for a kid's book; I mentioned this to my friend Melissa, who teaches 3rd grade. She said, "Kids are thinking about death anyway." I guess this book gives parents a way to talk to their kids about death. And it deals with death in what seems to me to be a healthy way...not sugarcoating it, while not turning into the bloodbath that might seem appropriate in an adult fantasy novel. Anyway, I'm eagerly anticipating Harry Potter and the Doomspell Tournament. Thankfully, I'm 28, not 8, so I'm doing a pretty good job containing my enthusiasm.

West Coast Girl

Have a look at the on-line journal West Coast Girl - East Coast World for a peek inside the life of one of my fellow-Gladiator-sufferers. I even rate a mention. :-)

Lisa Gibbs Recruiting

I've started playing Sissyfight lately. My nom du sissy is "Lisa Gibbs". I started thinking about the origins of that name...(you Wayne's World fans start waving your hands, going do-diddle-do, and playing "Dream Weaver")...One day in college, I was walking down South University in Ann Arbor, when my eye spotted a plastic nametag on the sidewalk. I picked it up and looked at it. It said:

Lisa Gibbs

Recruiting

Cool, I thought. (I'm not sure why.) It was one of those rectangular plastic pins, and furthermore it was in maize and blue. So I pinned it on to my jacket, and from now on that was my nom du bowl -- whenever we went bowling, that's what I'd enter into the computer (LGR).
Then one day, as I was wont to do when I was young and irresponsible, I left the jacket in a classroom. I figured I'd never see it again, but I got a call from Campus Security saying they had found it, and would I like to come down and pick it up?
When I got down there, I was asked if Lisa Gibbs was my girlfriend. When I explained, I got a rather stern lecture from a kampus kop who had spent some time trying to track down Lisa Gibbs before finding my name on a library copy card in the jacket pocket. She explained to me in no uncertain terms that if I was ever to find anything lying on the street I was to turn it in to campus security.
So I asked her if she wanted the "Eat at Joe's" button I had found. She said "I'll let you decide that."
And that was the last I ever saw of Lisa Gibbs...

Gladiator

What can I say about this movie that hasn't been said by Slate: "Crapus Maximus" or by Salon: "We who are about to be bored to death salute you!". You might think...you might think that at the very least you'd have kick-ass gladiatorial scenes. You might think that. But the fight scenes were all blurry and camera moving around and everything. At first I thought it was the beers and the bourbon I had at Bertucci's beforehand, but Steve pointed it out too. And the plot...well, at least the plot was comprehensible. Simple, boring and comprehensible. I mean, it had your standard badder-than-bad bad guy (ooh, he's into incest) and your noble, self-sacrificing hero. Fine movie elements, but you have to do something with them. 2 stars, but only for the comprehensible plot. Sigh.

Whoa

I finally got around to seeing The Matrix this weekend. It had been heavily recommended to me, but I successfully fought my contrarian streak and enjoyed the heck out of it. It was a little tough the first 1/2 an hour or so, as I had no idea what the heck was going on. I was afraid that it was going to be one of these "too cool for a plot" movies that was all style, and if I wanted to know what was going on, I'd have to check a web site later on.
Silly me. As it turned out, there was quite a bit of explanation. And maybe I've read too many SF novels, but it made a lot of sense. Despite my general anti-cyberpunk bias (I wasn't too thrilled with Neuromancer, frankly), the movie was a blast. The special effects were fantastic. Everybody in the movie just dripped cool, even the baddie "Agents". Very enjoyable. 4 stars.

Boy in the Bubble Update

CNN, among others, is running an article about the apparent cure of "severe combined immunodeficiency disease" by gene therapy. This totally knocks my socks off. Basically, these scientists found a bug in the DNA program of these kids -- and fixed it! (Unless they didn't really, in which case, never mind.) This is the same disease that the "Boy in the Bubble" had, so instead of living that sort of life, they're apparently as healthy and normal as you or I. Well, in reference to my previous "Boy in the Bubble" article, score one for the 20th century and progress.

The Kid with the Calculator

I never got picked on much in high school. This fact has always surprised me a bit, given that I seemed to fit the profile for bullying...bright, not very athletic, not a lot of friends...

I remember one kid in our high school who did get picked on a great deal. He was significantly more awkward than me, and he did a number of things that brought unfavorable attention on himself.
One of these was that he always walked around clutching a calculator. He was teased mercilessly over his calculator. Now, they say that people who are comfortable with who themselves turn out to be the most popular, so maybe it was a healthy behavior for him to be proud of his calculator. On the other hand, he never really seemed very comfortable. And I, who didn't wear my love of math on my sleeve (see, I even wince a little bit typing the phrase "love of math") certainly got hassled a lot less.

But the thing that really got to me was this: it just wasn't a very good calculator. I knew my calculators...the entire TI series, or if you were a real connoisseur, an HP (my coveted HP 28-C was soon obsoleted by the HP 28-S). It just seems to me as if he had proudly driven his new K-Car into the parking lot and spent half an hour polishing it. Dude, if you're going to be an obsessive, do it right. Study up on the subject. I would have felt so much more sorry for him if he actually had a decent calculator.

We're Not in College Anymore...

Slate has a diary entry from a 30-year old who teaches college. He looks at the students he teaches and realizes he's not one of them any more. I thought it was fairly poignant, and it did a good job of capturing the type of transformation some of us go through in our twenties. I can't relate to everything, but it was interesting reading.

More D&D!

I've updated my weblog for Ben's Campaign. This time, we fought a boar, and...uh, while the boar didn't win, neither did I.

The Cult of Harry Potter

While in Grand Rapids this weekend, Melissa lent me Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, the second book in the series. It's hard to say much that hasn't been said by others about this book (witness the 1304 customer reviews at Amazon). I decided I wasn't going to miss out on this cultural phenomenon just because I wasn't a kid and didn't have any. So I started reading the series, and I was very glad. Rowling takes many of the best elements of fantasy fiction and adapts them for a younger audience without dumbing them down. Very, very enjoyable.

One of the things that struck me about the 2nd book was the consistent disparagement of hero worship. Of course there was the insufferable Gilderoy Lockhart, who was derided and punished for the crime of being too full of himself and holding himself out for others' undeserving admiration. But there was also a lot of mention of Harry Potter dealing with his fame, as he acquired his first two groupies. And their groupie-ness didn't seem to bring them much luck, I think I can say without giving too much away. Someone once said that all good literature is subversive, and it's nice to see the Harry Potter books tweak the pop cultural worship of idols. It's nice to think that kids will be reading this and get the idea that just because someone is famous, they don't deserve blind devotion. At the same time, the books stress the earned respect Harry Potter has for Dumbledore and others, so it's not exactly anarchist. (I didn't see any of the World Bank protestors with these books under their arms.) Anyway, I liked it, but not quite as much as the first book. Looking forward to getting my hands on the 3rd. 4 stars.

Keep The Faith

I just got back from spending the weekend in Grand Rapids. Last night, we went to see Keeping The Faith, the Edward Norton-Ben Stiller-Jenna Elfman love triangle movie. You know the joke, "A priest, a rabbi, and...uh, Jenna Elfman...walk into a bar." OK, so every reviewer makes a similar joke; they even make one in the movie.

Anyway, it was a cute romantic comedy that got serious towards the middle of the second half. It really buzzed along and never made me check my watch. It touched on issues of faith without getting too ponderous, and it portrayed the priest and the rabbi as real human beings while still taking organized religion seriously. Not what you always get out of Hollywood. Jenna Elfman shows she can play someone other than Dharma. Her husband, Bodhi, has a bit part as "Casanova." Did you know his father, along with uncle Danny Elfman, founded Oingo Boingo? Also making appearances are Anne Bancroft as Ben's mom, Man on the Moon director Milos Forman as a priest, and even Brian George -- Babu! -- as a bartender. As they say, a star-studded cast.

How helpful am I?

I have collected some of my reviews and posted them to Amazon.com on my Amazon.com member page. Unfortunately, a couple of people have found my movie reviews unhelpful. :-(

If you find any of my reviews helpful (and who doesn't?), feel free to go there and let Amazon.com know. Your karma will thank you.

Ask and ye shall...

Slashdot posted a link to a FNwire story called Interview with the Search Engine. It involves an "interview" with "Jeeves" of Ask Jeeves. It really, really cracked me up.

Martin on Linux

Martin has written an article called Installing Linux, Part 1. Anyone interested in, well, installing Linux should check it out. Hey, this weblog is called "The Android's Dungeon," so I'm obligated to have geeky links. You can also check out more by Martin. Extra geek points for the Magic: The Gathering article.

Sadly, Themestream is no more, so those links no longer work.

Heart of Glass

I went to happy hour at Haydee's last Wednesday night. Haydee's is in Mt. Pleasant, which while not the worst part of DC, isn't exactly the toniest, either. Since I had to park on a side street, I decided to be smart and use The Club to protect my car. I originally got this club for the minivan, and it's never really fit well on the Honda's airbag-enhanced steering wheel. But after a bit of fussing, I managed to jam it in there, and it looked like the steering wheel could not be turned.

When I got back to my car a couple of hours later, I had a little trouble getting The Club off. When I finished, I looked up at the windshield and noticed a huge crack where The Club had been pressed against the windshield. I'm not sure whether it had happened while I was gone, or while I was having trouble getting The Club off. I felt like a complete yutz for causing a couple hundred bucks worth of damage to the windshield while just trying to protect the car from being stolen.

Anyway, I found out that my insurance covers it with $100 deductible. Furthermore, I found a place that would come to work and replace the glass in the parking lot. Unfortunately, they ended up canceling because of the weather, but I was able to go in and get it replaced in about an hour. And they had some special where I only had to pay $50 for the deductible. So now I don't have to drive around any more being constantly reminded of my own incompetence by the crack. There's just the bright blue tape on the windshield that I get to take off tomorrow.

Very Limited

I just returned from Blacksburg, Virginia where I attended the SERMON conference at Virginia Tech. I got in Friday afternoon, enjoyed a colloquium talk by my advisor, and set out to find my hotel, the Ramada Limited.

Finding it was not easy. It was very foggy, but I was able to find the sign. I drove around and around the sign, but couldn't find the hotel. I eventually asked someone who explained that the hotel was across the road...the road having been built after the hotel, and the sign.

I checked in. When I got to the room, I noticed that the bed had not been made, and the trash cans were filled with fast food refuse. I called the front desk and said, "I don't think housekeeping has been to my room. The bed hasn't been made, and the trash hasn't been emptied." They replied, "Are there any other problems with the room?" Somewhat nonplussed, I asked, "Like what?" "Well, is the bathroom clean?" "I don't know; would you like me to check?" They did, so I put down the phone and checked. "There's a washcloth in the shower; it doesn't look like the towels have been changed." "OK,;come down to the front desk, and we'll give you a different room." Whew. I guess they figured dirty sheets and full trash cans were one thing, but they prided themselves on offering clean towels.