There's a special election for the Kennedy/Kirk Senate seat in Massachusetts coming up. AARP mailed out a voting guide about the candidates -- see for yourself (PDF). Of the six major candidates, five responded: Michael Capuano (D), Martha Coakley (D), Alan Khazei (D), Stephen Pagliuca (D), and Jack E. Robinson (R). The sixth candidate, Scott Brown (R), didn't respond.

AARP listed their positions on a whole bunch of Support/Oppose statements. Unfortunately, these statements are vague enough as to not be useful. Regarding health care, for instance, AARP supports "Affordable coverage for individuals age 50-64", as do all five candidates who responded. Well, duh. I'll bet they all support the statement that "Puppies can be cute", too. In fact, on every single one of the Support/Oppose questions, all five responding candidates answered the same way as the AARP's recommendations.

AARP allowed space for each candidate to give a short, free-response statement germane to the topics at hand. All four of the Democratic candidates provided thoughtful comments at all five opportunities. In contrast, Robinson "chose not to make additional comments" on four occasions and used the fifth to argue that the AARP's endorsement of the House health bill was wrongheaded.

Seriously, WTF is wrong with the Republican party? AARP members are aged 50+; this demographic (or at least the 65+ sub-demo) is the base of the Republican party. One of the two Republicans couldn't bother to find the time to respond to AARP, a very influential bloc of frequent voters. The other very nearly phoned it in, using his own words only to tear down the AARP's position.

In any case, I know which way I'm voting in the general. As for the much-nearer primary election, I'm leaning toward one candidate but am not yet committed to any of them. Maybe Tuesday night's Senate debate will help, but the last one I watched turned out to be pretty useless (and offensive, as the moderator kept rudely interrupting one of the candidates at the end arguing that he had gotten too much speaking time already). If you have any strong feelings toward (or against) any of the Democratic candidates, please let me know.

Dear Facebook,

Thank you for you kind suggestions, but I'm afraid that you don't know me very well. Please allow me to make a few suggestions of my own.
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* Interesting datum: At a meeting today at the observatory, there were 7 laptops among the participants. Six of them were MacBook Pros and one was a MacBook Air.

* The topic for tonight's Chronicle HD was Kendall Square. The Friendly Toast was among the many places featured in the show.

* Best game ever? (warning: may not make sense unless you're a fan of HIMYM)

So many leaves....

Today: Continue watching Glee from the beginning to catch up, breaking in between episodes to rake leaves.

Since it came up in conversation recently, here's the link to Mr.B the Gentleman Rhymer's myspace page. Chap-Hop History is a classic, and Straight out of Surrey is great for all you cricket fans.

Not unrelatedly, here are two very different takes on raps about tea. They're not bad, but the coffee-hate is unwarranted.

Also in the entertainment district of Toronto is The Second City, the world-famous sketch and improv comedy troupe. Their current mainstage show, Shut Up and Show Us Your Tweets!, made for another great evening out.

The show consisted of a loosely-interconnected series of sketches whose lengths ranged from quite long down to just a few seconds (e.g., the Canadian Basketball Hall of Fame). The American health care town hall segment was, embarrassingly, right on target, with one comedian on stage fielding increasingly louder, ruder, and more nonsensical questions/statements shouted by the other comedians embedded within the audience. The other standout (and very non-PC) sketch was of white people doing stereotypes. Three actors (playing a mom, dad, and son) watch as Muslim neighbours move in next door. "There goes the neighbourhood!" After a few stereotypes are hilariously demonstrated, the mother points out that the other neighbours probably felt the same way about them when they moved in. Flash backward to another family (played by the same trio) making similar jokes about the first family. Lather, rinse, repeat, getting progressively funnier along the way.

Another excellent segment had a French-language teacher being kicked out of his class by an Albertan teacher, who proceeded to teach us all how to speak Albertan. There's some audience interaction in this sketch -- for instance, when one person in the front row couldn't say his age in French (near the beginning of the sketch), the French teacher said that he must be American. Later the Albertan asked us whether we knew the nickname of his province; another audience member got a great reaction when he suggested "Lesser Ontario"! A later segment was set against the backdrop of the bloody Albertan military invasion of Toronto.

The troupe irreverently took on Dalton McGuinty (premier of Ontario) for not keeping his promises and David Miller (mayor of Toronto) for keeping his. They started to take on Stephen Harper, but the projected picture of Dear Leader (which had creepily looked down at us the entire time before the show started and again at intermission, as it decayed and came back to life) cut that segment short. Other easy targets included Indian tech support, Toronto's nickel-a-bag policy, living will negotiations, a married couple's attempts at phone sex failing due to Freudian issues, and the ethical dilemmas involved in whether or not to intervene as an impending natural disaster threatens to wipe out the entire Middle East.

Seating is cabaret style at tables (mostly) for four, assigned upon entry by the house manager. Food and beverage can be ordered (which I didn't realize -- the meal I had had at a nearby restaurant was really good, so I wasn't in the mood for further refection) at the tables. They also have a dinner-and-a-show deal with the adjacent restaurant, Wayne Gretzky's, where I had eaten the night before. (The food is excellent and reasonably priced, and you may even meet a family member there!) After the main show, there's an additional free improv show (which I think you can attend even without having purchased tickets for the main show).

On my drive back from a wonderful brunch at The Friendly Toast, I had the radio tuned to WGBH. The announcer said that the next piece would be Capriccio Espagnol, op. 34 by Rimsky-Korsakov, arranged by Easley Blackwood. Whoa! That Easley Blackwood? No, his son, but still... mind temporarily totally blown, then still partially blown.

One of the pleasures of going to Toronto is the entertainment district. As with any big city, there are plenty of shows to take in. During my recent visit, I attended a beloved classic of a musical.

The Sound of Music is an Andrew Lloyd Webber revival of the Broadway musical. The story of TSoM is a familiar one, but that did not detract from seeing it on stage. The role of Maria, given to the winner of a CBC television series last year, was excellently played. I'm not normally a fan of kids, but the von Trapp children were well cast, and the scenes in which they interacted with Maria (especially the first-act Do-Re-Mi) were an unexpected joy.

Going into the show, I was not aware that the musical numbers in the original Broadway show and the movie differed. The Canadian production included a couple pieces not in the movie (How Can Love Survive and No Way to Stop It) as well as a pair of songs in the movie but not in the original theatre show (I Have Confidence and Something Good). The character of Max was far more amusing than in the movie version. My mom was impressed with some of the technical elements of the set, such as the "rain" (a trick of the light that was done much better in Chicago's Wicked, I thought) and the "hills" (a gigantic tiltable platform that changes orientation during the introduction of Maria in the title song as well as at the end when the von Trapp family leaves). The Nazi political angle seemed more prominent than in the movie. The immersive effects of the concert in Act I (including swastikas and the eagle insignia projected on sheets that dropped down into the "audience space") were (intentionally) discomforting.

It was a great way to spend an evening. My mom enjoyed it even more than I expected her to. We got a great deal on tickets, spending less than I had expected for seats that were much closer than I had been planning to sit (front row of the lower balcony), thanks to the kindness of someone in the box office. If you want to see it, hurry! The final performance will be on 3 January 2010.

long day today: Sheppard line, delicious pierogi in Roncy, chatting with Walter in the only good "99" (not the crappy New England chain), and seeing the winner of How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria? in action

Yesterday: hug from a random stranger in Kensington Market

Today: burned by hot water from the hotel room's coffee maker

I'm almost halfway through season 4 of BtVS. Watching the series off of DVD is so much better than doing it at Hulu, both because it's not rushed (Hulu had a takedown deadline on series 2 & 3) and because I don't have to wait when the connection decides to make the bits trickle in at a less than useful rate. There are so many good episodes in season 4: Living Conditions, The Initiative, Something Blue, Hush... and hopefully more, but that's as far as I've gotten so far.

Congratulations on your purchase of Heavy Metal Superstar (US), also sold as Little Lead Smelteroy (UK), My First Lead Smelter (Aus, NZ), and Terry Sawchuk's My First Lead Smelter with Free! Hockey Cards(Can). Upon advice from international legal department at Happy Patriot Fun America Corporation, we are including these supplemental instructions. Any advice you read in this document supersedes any other literature provided in the manual, and, by terms of the user agreement (available upon request by providing a self-addressed stamped envelope to the Happy Patriot Fun America Corporation), which by reading this far you have de facto accepted, we have no further legal responsibility for misuse of the included materials.
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BibTeX is not a tool I've used before, but over the past week I've had to use it in connection with someone else's document. While the idea of grabbing BibTeX reference information directly into a master reference database is appealing in principle, I am astounded by how much incomplete/incorrect information is in the clearly autogenerated ADS reference database information. Has anyone else noticed this, or do all my astro friends opt for including manual \bibitem's directly in their manuscripts?

Tarek Mehanna...was arrested early Wednesday.... He was charged with conspiring... to support terrorism. ... Prosecutors say Mehanna and his friends used code words such as "peanut butter and jelly" for fighting in Somalia and "culinary school" for terrorist camps....

vfish.livejournal.com has come across audio recordings of a conversation, a transcript of which appears below with the prosecutor's translation in brackets.

"Are you crazy? I did not attend culinary school [al Qaeda terrorist training camp] to make peanut butter and jelly [warfare in Somalia]! Let's make something more fitting to men of our tastes: pumpkin risotto [chaos in Waziristan]. First, we harvest and prepare the pumpkin [heroin]. Next, we make sure we have plenty of hot [agitated] stock [Taliban sympathizers]. Heat oil [bribe tribal leaders] in a pan [tribal region flashpoint], partially cook the onion and garlic [soften the local population] and add the rice [rocket propelled grenades]. Stir in some stock keeping things at a low boil [on fire], but don't add more at a time than the mixture can absorb [avoid creating a conflagration that attracts a military invasion]. Repeat the process until the risotto [Waziristan] is softened up [softened up]. Stir in the pumpkin puree [drug money], then reduce the temperature [violence] to add the butter [popular support]. Finally comes the secret ingredient: a half teaspoon [ton] of cayenne pepper [C-4]. Bam [Boom]! Yum-o [Allahu Akbar]!"

In related news, the FBI raided the headquarters of The Food Network. Anyone who sees Emeril Lagasse or Rachael Ray is advised to act natural and contact the authorities immediately.

There's something about going somewhere new by following a map, isn't there? It's a joy that future generations may never know, what with their super GPS satellite navigation systems constantly tracing out routes and announcing where to make the next left turn. Not long from now, our entire society will be filled with people who never get lost but never really know where they are, either. Where's the fun in being a mindless automaton chauffeur for a micromanaging computer? I'll turn left where I want to turn left, thank you. I'm sure there are times when satnav has its advantages, such as when you're driving a rental car in an unfamiliar city and you just want to get there and back quickly, but charting your own course lets you place importance on the journey as well as the destination.

Navigating with a map requires a sense of awareness of your surroundings. Hurtling at high speed toward the northeast, checking off a mental list of intermediate destinations as you do so, is made possible by internalizing the map and making it your own. That new knowledge is with you, if not forever, at least for a long time. Printed map errors -- all too common, unfortunately, such as the misnumbered road I ran into on Saturday -- can be frustrating, but a sense of direction (and a second map, if you thought that far ahead) can compensate.

[a lecture hall in Białystok in the 1870's]

"...and that's my language for the masses. Thank you, thank you! Any questions?"
[long uncomfortable silence, until finally a voice emerges, cracking with incredulity]
"Yes, Doctor, did I hear you correctly when you said that there are eleven verb conjugation patterns?"
"Twenty-three actually, two of which are technically already archaic, but how could you not include conjugation paradigms from Gothic and Tocharian? A new speaker can probably get by with knowledge of only eleven. Plus about 180 of the 310 irregular and defective verbs, of course."
"About that, Doctor, could you run through a sample conjugation?"
"Of course. As I said, verbs conjugate for person, gender, number, and direction the speaker is facing. For simplicity, let's assume north-northeast, which is in the direction of the back wall. I eat: Mi manĝasabom. I will eat: Mi menĝosotran -- note the stem change. I eat: Mi manĝaroloj. I ..."
"Wait, I thought you just said that 'I eat' is Mi manĝasa... I've forgotten already."
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Fox [News Channel] argues that its news hours — 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and 6 to 8 p.m. on weekdays — are objective. Protip: If Fox claims that it's being objective for 45 hours each week, you can bet your bottom dollar that it's being a mouthpiece of the Republican party (or in Republicanese, "entertainment show") at least 123 hours per week.

I now have in hand all episodes of BtVS on DVD. It seemed appropriate to celebrate by watching an episode from where I left off, i.e., the first episode of season 4. The episode itself was underwhelming (though not bad), but it was nice not to have to wait numerous times for the Hulu buffer to catch up. Does my internet connection from home just suck (I mean, even more than I know it does), or is it a problem on the other side?

With some effort, I made it through series 1-3 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer before Hulu takes down series 3 later this week. Is it worth seeking out further series of the show, or have I seen the best of the series already? It's hard to tell from, for instance, Amazon reviews. A lot of people seem to think that series 2 and 3 are [among] the best and that some of the later series are weak. Indeed, the story arcs in these two series seemed particularly good, but if the rest of the series are(*) primarily filled with episodes like the one with the hyenas or the one with the praying mantis or the one with the fish(**), I should just stop here whilst I'm ahead. Many (both?) of my frequent readers watched BtVS in first run, so please comment if you've gotten this far.

(*) "is"?
(**) Is it just me, or are the ones that are animal[-ish] episodes the worst of the early seasons?

Yesterday was a great day for food. My mom and I spent the afternoon going from place to place in Cambeltown. First stop: Iggy's, home to some of metro Boston's best bread products. A slice of Iggy's pizza and a Grown-up Soda later and we were fueled enough to pick up some lamejun. I had intended to stop at Eastern Lamejun and get on with my life, but somehow we ended up going to three other bakeries as well: Sevan, Arax, and Massis. There are some great deals at some of these Armenian / Middle Eastern markets and some surprises too; for instance, my mom found gyulai!

Watertown Square ended up being a bust. Ordinarily I would have picked up cookies at Tabrizi, but we had already gotten some sweets already. The Faire on the Square, coincidentally going on there yesterday, was a big disappointment compared to similar festivals in Harvard Square or Davis Square. In other disappointing Watertown Square news, Cafe Cakes has apparently closed. I never got to try one of their green tea eclairs as featured on Chronicle HD.

Going back via Trapelo Rd. was a good excuse to stop at another Chronicle feature: Silk Road BBQ. Jamaican jerk Uzbek shashleek with Korean carrots is good fusion food. My mom liked the pulled pork but didn't care too much for the vinegar-based sauce. (As anyone who has lived in SC can tell you, real barbecue sauce is mustard-based.)