Return of the King

No, this isn't a post about Joe Gibbs returning, though maybe the excitement over that is my excuse for not seeing the latest Lord of the Rings movie until now.



The real excuse, though, is that between the holidays and Christina's extended stays in North Carolina and Rhode Island, we haven't had much of a chance for an evening out at the movies. So after calzones at Alario's, we headed to the Regal Bowie 14 to see Return of the King.

I don't have much insight to add to all the reviews. I will say that Chris Kattan has ruined Gollum for me. Overall, though, I enjoyed the epic sweep of things. It's been years since I read the book, but the memories of the story came back to me as I saw it acted out on the screen. Definitely a reasonable use of (yikes) $9.

Still Crazy After All These Years

One of my birthday gifts from my parents was The Paul Simon Collection. I really enjoy Paul Simon; I had the pleasure of seeing him perform on the Mall a few years back. The liner notes mentioned that the song "Still Crazy After All These Years" coined that phrase. I was somewhat surprised to hear that. It seems such a familiar phrase -- could that really be true? A little Googling turned up this 1993 interview, where Simon almost claims the coining of the phrase:

It's a title about which I've often thought - did I make that up? It seems like it's such a familiar phrase.

I think I'm right to be suspicious of claims for the origin of phrases. Recently, Gregg Easterbrook claimed, "The phrase "there's no such thing as a free lunch" originates in" Robert Heinlein's The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress. That struck me as odd -- I read the book, but never got the sense that was the phrase's origin.

According to the site Wordorigins.org, I was right to be suspicious.

The exact phrase, there ain't no such thing as a free lunch, is also first used in the city by the bay in the 1 June 1949 edition of the San Francisco News (although this is claimed to be a reprint of a 1938 editorial so it may be even older, but the original has not been found).

The science fiction fans come into the picture in 1966 with the publication of Robert Heinlein's novel The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. He did much to popularize the phrase and seems to have coined its acronym, TANSTAAFL. More recently, it has become a favorite saying of economists, buoyed by Milton Friedman's frequent use of the phrase.

Gertrude's Galley

Christina and I had a nice lunch today at Gertrude's Galley, a seafood restaurant up here in Rhode Island. She had a crab cake sandwich, and I had a blue cheese, carmalized onion and baby spinach frittata. I'm having a nice, albeit brief, visit to the Ocean State.

I flew up from National last night to celebrate the last hour of my birthday with Christina, who is working up here. It has been about two years since I flew out of National, but I took advantage of a US Airways e-saver fare to catch a direct flight from there to Providence. The last time I flew into National, I remember looking out the window and seeing the scar in the Pentagon just starting to be repaired. This time, it was healed over and looking better than new.

I've had a relaxing day bumming around the hotel room while Christina is hard at work. Maybe I should feel vaguely guilty, but it's not like I'm the one making her work all weekend, right? And she's being paid an hourly rate, so we both benefit from the long hours she's putting in. Tonight we'll spend some of those long hours (or associated per diem) at a restaurant. I'm thinking sushi.

www.salme.org

Christina's got her own domain now at salme.org. There's nothing really there yet, as I have just set it up and haven't turned it over to her yet. Until then, read her post at her old web site.

More Bowlin'

I took Christina to the airport yesterday morning -- she's off on a business trip. When she did the electronic check-in, the kiosk informed her that her flight had been canceled. Bummer. But the kiosk actually did a pretty good job of handling this, as it offered her a selection of replacement flights. We selected the next one, which was in a couple of hours, checked her bags, and wondered what to do.



The answer of course -- bowling. When driving around near the airport looking for breakfast, we had passed Greenway Bowl in Odenton. Since Christina was already checked in and had her bag checked, we just needed to get her back in time to clear security and get to her plane. So we bowled a couple of games. I bowled a 136 and a 116. The 136 featured 4 strikes and 1 spare, which is unusual for me -- I usually pick up more spares than strikes. The second game, I was back to form with 3 spares and 1 strike. I didn't bowl as consistently as I did a couple of weeks ago. And I had left my bowling ball in the car, and I think the fact that it was so cold caused me to chip it. I should look into getting that repaired.

The Dead Zone

With Christina in North Carolina, I find myself with some serious TV-watching time on my hands. Last night, I watched the movie The Dead Zone, which Christina had seen some time ago. We have been watching the TV series "The Dead Zone", which is based on the novel by Steven King. Well, actually it started up again last summer and TiVo got confused, so we missed a bunch of episodes, but we've seen all of them but seven, six of which we've now got stored on the TiVo.

The point of this (I think) is that I'm familiar with a different version of the same basic plot-line, so I spent more of the movie comparing it to the TV-series than evaluating it on its own merits.

Well, the verdict is in: Christopher Walken is creepier than Anthony Michael Hall. (Well, duh.) That underlies much of the difference between the two plots. Hall plays a much more sympathetic version of "Johnny Smith". I suppose that makes sense -- in an episodic format, you want your audience to sympathize with the main character. I appreciated the creepy element of the movie -- it added an element missing from the series. But overall, I like the series better.

The comparison may be unfair, since the TV series has more time to develop characters. But I like various touches from the series, like Johnny being the father of his ex-girlfriend's son.

Bowlin'

I went bowling yesterday with Christina and some of her friends. I bowled 132 and 99. I knocked over similar numbers of pins in both games, but I couldn't get any marks in the second until the 8th frame. In the first game, I was happy that in the first 9 frames, I knocked over at least 9 pins in each.

Board Game Geek

My friends and I have been playing a fair number of board games lately. So I did some searching and stumbled across the BoardGameGeek web site. One of the features is a gaming calendar, where you can see what board games I've played recently. (Hey, I did say Geek, right?) I also added that link to my now slightly more detailed gaming page.

As you can see from the calendar, the two games we've played the most lately are Carcassonne and Robo Rally. Carcassonne is a tile-laying game, which sounds wierd, but it's actually fairly simple and fun. You place tiles, which have roads, cities, farms, and cloisters. You then have a certain number of people pieces (called "meeples"), which you can place on the various board elements -- for example, as farmers on the farms, or as monks in the cloisters. It has a number of interesting elements -- it's somewhat cooperative, and it doesn't have the "get knocked out of the game" feature of a lot of other games. I'm not very good at it -- we've played 4 times, and I've been last every time. But it's a lot of fun.

Robo Rally is an older game, and in fact is now out of print. The basic concept of this game is that you "program" your robot by laying down 5 cards in order. The cards say things like "Move 1", "Turn Right", "Back Up". Your robot does things in the order that you tell it to -- except if you run into another robot programmed by someone else. Then your robot keeps doing those things, but he might get bumped off course and do completely unintended things. The other possibility is not paying attention and having a "bug" in your program. Running into other robots and my continual inability to tell my left from my right worked together pretty well yesterday, when I started doing the wrong thing, got bumped by Martin, and then ended up on a "healing" square to end the turn. Another source of fun/danger is the board itself, which represents a "factory", complete with conveyer belts, crushers, pits and other dangers.

Christmas Day

Here are some pictures from Christmas Day.



Here's Christina opening a present.



Here's me opening my big present from Christina -- a laptop cart.



Here's Teddy wearing one of his presents.

Christmas Eve Dinner

Christina fixed us a nice Christmas Eve dinner. Here are some pictures.



Christina enjoys a refreshing beverage while preparing dinner.



I put myself in charge of the multimedia entertainment options.

Dinner at my cousin Sean's

Yesterday we went over to my cousin Sean's for Christmas dinner. Here are some pictures.



Here's my cousin Sara and her fiance Marty.



Here's my cousin Sara again.



Here's Sara and Marty's bengal cat, Squirt.



Here's my cousin Sean and his fiancee Jeannine. Note her newly acquired ring.

Oh, Christmas Tree

Here's our Christmas tree this year, as prepared by Christina. The tree itself is older than I am and accompanied my family and me back from Germany in '72.

Travel

Due to popular request, I've updated my travel page with trips from the past year and a half. (And links to descriptions, where available.) I also updated the maps.

Hugo Update: Forever

When we last heard from my project of reading the Hugo-award winning novels, I was at #22. I recently added #23 and #24.

I looked at the list of novels and decided to read the most recent one I hadn't read. That would be Forever Peace, by Joe Haldeman, the 1997 winner. But I knew that Haldeman's The Forever War had won the 1976 Hugo. Thinking that FP was the sequel to TFW, I decided I needed to read them in order.

Well, I was wrong, but that didn't matter. Forever Peace was another novel on the same subject as The Forever War, but in a different setting. The subject was war. I enjoyed them both, although The Forever War suffered from a goofy idea of what life would be like in the early 21st century. Forever Peace suffered from being too much of a cyberpunk novel -- I don't buy the whole nanotechnology hype.

On the other hand, TFW is the only SF novel I've ever seen that sets a section in the adjacent town of Hyattsville.

Down to #21

Despite two recent trivia outings, I've dropped to #21 on the Santa Fe Cafe's NTN rankings. Check out Christina at #48, though!

Unfortunately, our last experience at "the Fe" featured rather disappointing food. I guess we'll give it another chance when the students clear out for winter break, but we may have to look for a new location.

Dubious Achievement

Well, with the NFL season winding down and the Redskins all but eliminated from the playoffs, I have the question of what to root for. There's beating the Cowboys and the Eagles and hurting their playoff hopes (or positioning). There's going out on a winning note -- if the Skins run the table, they can avoid a losing season.

But I'm rooting for one sort of odd achievement. How about a Patriots-Seahawks Super Bowl? That would mean that the Skins would have beaten both of the Super Bowl teams -- a feat last achieved in 2000...by the Washington Redskins (8-8). OK, and the 2000 Titans (13-3). Still, the Titans had something else to root for that year...they were Super Bowl contenders in their own right. So I asked the questions: How often have teams beaten both Super Bowl teams, and have they ever been worse than the 2000 Skins?

The answers: 11 and yes (thanks to pro-football-reference.com).

The complete list:

• 2000 Skins (8-8)
  
• 2000 Titans (13-3)
  
• 1996 Cowboys (10-6)
  
• 1993 Dolphins (9-7)
  
• 1986 Seahawks (10-6)
  
• 1985 Dolphins (12-4)
  
• 1981 Browns (5-11)
  
• 1980 Cowboys (12-4)
  
• 1980 Chargers (11-5)
  
• 1979 Chargers (12-4)
  
• 1978 Rams (12-4)
  

Thanksgiving in North Carolina

Looks like I've been a little lax in posting recently. Let's correct that with a couple of pictures from our Thanksgiving trip to North Carolina. The first is of Christina and myself with our nephew, Luke.



The second is of me playing Magic: The Gathering with our nephew, Witt (and with Copper).

Xpu Ha

The last excursion we took from Cancun included a stop at the Xpu Ha Palace Resort. There's been a proliferation of "eco-parks" on the "Riviera Maya" south of Cancun. One of these, at Xpu Ha, failed and was bought out by the Palace Resorts corportation. They've turned it into an all-inclusive resort. Based on the few hours we spent there, I can recommend it with the following qualifications:

• You have to enjoy the idea of an all-inclusive resort.
  
• It's a relatively isolated location.
  
• It's great if you're looking for nature, but not necessarily a natural environment.
  

The best part of the resort for us was the snorkeling, both in the freshwater area and in the coastal lagoon.



An example of how it's not necessarily natural is the coastal lagoon. There are amazing quantities of absolutely stunning fish there. There is, however, a supply of fish food which brings them there. You're encouraged to feed them -- some other guests were annoyed that the fish were biting their hands when they went in carrying fish food. Duh.

The Eyre Affair

Christina read The Eyre Affair for her book club and recommended it to me when she finished it. This is a fun book with a very unusual premise. This takes place in an alternate universe where the Crimean War is still going on in 1985. Thursday Next's father is a special operative in the Chrono Guard, which may have something to do with the changing timeline. But this, as Douglas Adams might say, is not his story.

Instead, this is the story of Thursday Next, literary detective. She investigates things like literary forgery, but things get weirder when her uncle invents a device that allows people to step into books, and it is stolen by a master criminal. I won't give away more of the plot, as part of the fun of the book is learning the twists and turns of the author's universe. I think I would have enjoyed it more if I knew more about Jane Eyre, though.

Anyway, it is a neat universe, and I look forward to reading the next book in the series.

Traveler's Century Club

I ran across a reference to the Traveler's Century Club on FlyerTalk. It's an organization for those who have visited 100 or more "countries". They have a fairly loose definition of the term country -- Hawaii counts, for example. I fancy myself a bit of a world traveler -- so, how'm I doing?

15. Or 16. I'm trying to decide whether airport stopovers count. I was thinking of my times through the Frankfurt airport before recalling -- oh, yeah, I was born in Germany. To be fair, I have no memory of that, so I'm just going by what it says on my birth certificate. Anyway, the one in question is the Netherlands, since I changed planes in Amsterdam once.

The rest are:

1. Alaska
   
2. Australia
   
3. Austria
   
4. Belgium
   
5. Canada
   
6. Cyprus, Republic
   
7. England
   
8. Finland
   
9. Germany
   
10. Korea, South
    
11. Mexico
    
12. Poland
    
13. Scotland
    
14. United States (continental)
    
15. Wales