I've gone veggie

Well, not totally veggie, but I am experimenting with it. The week before last I went the whole week without eating meat. It wasn't that hard, either.

This week was Thanksgiving, and trust me, there's no point in going vegetarian the week of Thanksgiving. You have to start things off slowly.

I don't intend to give up meat entirely; just trying to cut down.


I bought some multi-vitamins from Trader Joes today. A 30 day supply. Much to my surprise, it came as a packet of about 7 pills you are supposed to take with a (large) meal. Crumbs! I wasn't expecting that! I thought it would be one pill...But then there had to be something filling up the big can I guess!

Well, I'm gonna try it for a week or two and see if I notice any difference.


I have noticed one change already; my pee has turned brite yellow.

Todd AO

The movie Oklahoma had been re-released on DVD with both the Cinemascope version and the Todd-AO version. Todd-AO is a wide screen format that was wider than Cinemascope, was projected on a curved screen, and shot at 30 frame per second rather than films traditional 24 fps. Kind of the IMAX of the fifties I guess.

They shot the movie twice; each scene was shot first with Cinemascope and then Todd-AO (or maybe vice a versa.)

The DVD has the Todd-AO version on the second DVD, along with a short documentary about Todd-AO. It was interesting. I watched a bit of the Todd-AO version, but was dissapointed to find that it was not as 'wide' as the Cinemascope version. Not sure why.

The sound was different - not sure if better. I watched the song Oklahoma and the mix of some of the voices was different. There also seemed to be a noticeable difference in the 'feel' of motion when things moved. But the real problem was color: the color was washed out or muted, and not half as good as that on the Cinemscope version. It looked very much like a television show from the late sixties, rather than a movie.

I don't think I'll watch the rest.

Al Frankin

I've been a fan of Al Frankin for a while, and have listened to his radio show, off and on, almost since it began. I even attended the last taping in Boston (election day, 2004!) which was a lot of fun.

So I was excited to hear that he was coming back to Boston to tape his show. He has a new book out The Truth, With Jokes so it's kind of a radio show/book tour. A friend, Matt, is a big liberal too, and was interested in going, so I put in for tickets and on the day we caught the train into town and walked down to the Wilbur Theater, where the show was being broadcast.

The ticket said to arrive by 11:00am, and we got there at about 10 minutes to. There was only a half dozen or so people milling about outside, as well as someone distributing literature for a democratic candidate for Governor.

They let us into the lobby, but we had to wait until about ten past before they let us into the theater. Then we quickly marched down the isle, and managed to get two seats in the front row, not quite directly in front of the table that was set up on the stage.

Of course, we were there to see a radio show, and between you and me, there's not often a lot to see. Al came out and did a little introduction before the show, then he went and sat at the table, and that was about the end of the action!

Al is funny, and interesting, and it's funny to see his expressions, particularly to things the guests said. And he had some interesting guests. Barney Frank was on by phone, but then a Harvard Professor came on to talk about relationships within society (he's the author of a book Bowling Alone.

There was also a couple of peopleon to talk about the woes of health insurance.

Matt had to get back to work, so before the show was over we went out to the back of the hall to get in line for the book singing. A good move on our part as we were about the sixth in line.

Definitely try and catch Al in person.

Bad Sandwich

Wild Oats (a supermarket chain) used to have these sandwich wraps which, though expensive, were pretty good. Now they have introduced 'Toasted Sandwiches.' Could this be in response to the introduction of Subway's toasted sandwiches??

I decided to try one today. There wasn't a lot of traffic at the counter. Actually just one other person (perhaps a sign?) and it took the woman behind the counter quite some time to make the thing...of course, a good part of that was toasting time. They obviously don't have high-speed ovens like Subway ;)

Also, she had to walk back to the kitchen (about 50 feet) to toast it, come back while it was toasting, then walk back to get the sandwich. Efficiency ain't the watch word here.

I got a Rustico Romano Chicken Sandwich. $6.99 plus tax.

It was worse than the Subway Parmesan Sandwich...

Firstly, by the time I got back to the office (about a five minute walk) part of the chicken was cold. Not warm, but cold, leading me to suspect it was never hot in the first place. This might be explained by the fact that it was a pretty big hunk of chicken. It was breaded. It was a little dry (or maybe the combination was.) All in all, it was less than appetizing.

I put it in the microwave and tried to bring it back to life. Warmed up it was a little better, but not a whole lot better. It kind of felt like I was eating a left-over sandwich.

Don't think I'll be getting this again.

That fact that I wrote about this (and even took a picture of the sandwich) just goes to show how dull my day is.

The Right Thing

"The Americans will always do the right thing," Winston Churchill once remarked, "after they've exhausted all the alternatives."

Semen Washer

....was listed as one of the ten worst jobs in science.

Here's the money shot:

"The hardest part is explaining it to friends," Schillinger says. "But we do have stories." Like what? "Like the donor who was in the room for the longest time. We had a big discussion about who was going to check on him. Turns out he thought he had to fill up the entire specimen cup."

Which I think was the punch line to a joke...

This Explains Something

Went and saw Good Night And Good Luck on Saturday night. It's a good movie; interesting camera work and editing; a lot of out of focus stuff that I couldn't tell if it was intentional, or part of the screening, or if my eyes were going.

That's not important.

I'd previously parked on the street. It was 6:14pm. I tried to read the tiny sign in the parking meter to see if the meters ran until 6 or 8pm (they run until 8pm in Boston, where I guess they are trying to get more money in parking tickets.) Since it was already dark, and the lighting was so poor, I couldn't read the damn thing. Asked a couple of people on the street; they had no idea. One person *thought* it was 6. No street sign explained the hours.

That's not important.

They had one of those slide shows at the beginning with ads and silly facts and questions. This is where I read:

At the age of 14 Tom Cruise joined a seminary, intending to become a priest.

Dig (at) Kansas

I have a friend from Kansas, so I enjoyed this...

The local free publication dig [Vol 7+Issue 44] contains an editorial about letters to the editor. It notes that often they get a bunch of similar letters from groups that try to make it look like more people are upset about a topic than actually are. It goes on to say: These are easily spotted, because the language used is alwaus similar letter to letter.

Then it continues:

On the joyous occasions when something we wrote winds up on, say, an Evangelical website somewhere provokes a disproportionate number of angry responses from places like Missouri and Kansas, riddled with typos and containing certain condemnatory buzzwords.'

Best Buy store names

Evidently Best Buy has names for it's stores:

At Best Buy we have segmented our customer base. We have:

Ray - he's your "average joe" so to speak

Jill - your "soccer mom" type

Buzz - the techno-guy that thinks he knows more than you do

Barry - middle age, high income bracket - shops on quality - not price

And we have a segment called Best Buy for Biz which of course are business customers. Each best buy is segmented based on the demographics of the market the store is located in. For example, here in Florence, we are a Ray store, but they are about to open a store in Hilton Head that is going to be a "Barry" store.

I like the description of Buzz:

the techno-guy that thinks he knows more than you do

Not 'the techno-guy that wants the latest gadgets,' but someone who acts like he knows more than you do (though he really doesn't.) It seems to suggest a certain contempt for the customer.

Of course, maybe most people that come in looking for techno-stuff don't know what the heck they are talking about, but it's been rare - in my experience - that I've found anyone at Best Buy that even know's when something out of stock will be arriving, so their knowledge on most anything is suspect.

Ops! Am I showing my contempt for Best Buy?