Pseudorandom Thoughts

After a very long hiatus, I decided yesterday morn that I would prefer something other than my usual eggs sunny-side up (also, I had, in a fit of relative insanity, tried making sauce for fish a few days prior, and had mushrooms and onions to use). Heedless of the bloated disaster that had been omelet trials 1 and 2 (now safely in the mythical past), I proceeded ...
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I'd forgotten how much I like Chandler - it was the only useful thing to come out of my LA distribution requirement in college. The dialogue is amazing. By modern standards, it's ridiculously pugnacious and aggressive - did people ever talk like that? But it's also very very smart, and it leaves me wondering what's going on half the time, and deeply curious. I don't know my literary history well enough to know if Chandler was the first guy to come up with the world weary aggressive and cynical private eye, but he renders the voice perfectly. Such a very different sort of thing from what I normally read, and yet so much fun at the same time.

http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2012/01/16/29784/

Fate of IAS faculty housing project hinges on geohistorical brawl over the precise route taken by Washington's forces in their counterattack at the Battle of Princeton.

It shouldn't have been unexpected, given that she is an absent-minded mathematician par excellence, but she plays the Asian Mrs. Bennet so well ...

We went to the Met, for her to do some Christmas shopping, and some general touristing fun. The Mom picked out a nice poster, and told me that since they were doing some sort of 3-for-2 deal, I should go ahead and pick out two posters for my apartment (where the walls are bare, and the floors are crowded). I picked out a nice park scene and a seaside scene, and my mom remarked that I picked exactly the same ones she would have. This would never have happened to the BYS, but evidently it does to me :)

Then there was the Museum proper, which was awesome. We spent a lot of time admiring the Islamic art section, particularly the Korans and the calligraphy, and it was hilarious to see her enjoying the Japanese storytelling exhibit, which are honestly just comics painted onto scrolls with Japanese calligraphy instead of printed text. They had lion headed multi-armed monsters, heroes, vengeful ghosts, etc. The modern Japanese clearly follow in the footsteps of their ancestors.

The Mom completely nerded out over the Ming Dynasty calligraphy and started giving me a guided tour complete with humorous commentary about the various calligraphic styles and motifs and mores of classical Chinese scholars. She didn't notice, but she had attracted an admiring audience of 4 or 5 other Chinese people who followed along behind us. And to think I'd mostly thought that I get my liking for making humorous commentary about history from my dad ....

Halloween, technically.

A few weeks ago, my dad made a cryptic comment that I should open up my winter-suitcase before shopping. I didn't quite get it, since I knew that I needed hat, scarf, and gloves, and I knew the suitcase had none of the above when I packed.

I just opened it up now, and right on top, there are a brand new set of hat, scarf, and gloves! So warm and cheery, and I had not gone shopping in the weeks in between, so it worked out :) My dad's side of the family is very laconic.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/12/the-right-and-wrong-way-to-die-when-you-fall-into-lava/

Short version: lava has very high density and viscosity. If you fall into lava, you will not sink. You will displace your mass in lava very slowly, so you'll sink in maybe half a centimeter, and then float.

The application to D&D is obvious: get yourself some major protection from fire, and you can *run* over a field of lava, where your non-demonic, non-elemental enemies cannot follow!

My corkscrew just snapped off in the middle of the cork. I must admit, I've never experienced that particular failure mode when opening a bottle of wine before. New experiences ...

Nothing to Envy is the novelized story of six North Korean refugees who were interviewed after they made it to South Korea.
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I went to Ikea today. Ikea was its usual awesome-cool, blue-and-yellow self, with dozens of couches to lounge upon, lines of mattresses to flop on, and lots of shiny furniture to gawk at. The problem was that there were far too many people. I stood in line at the cafe for what felt like an hour, but the meatballs were worth it! I barely escaped the checkout line with a waste paper basket, some power strips, and some other odds and ends. The coffee table I had hoped to get, and the dresser, were all sold out. This was entirely forseeable, and entirely my mistake - next time, I will go to Ikea after school has started, on a work day, at 10 am. I'm a postdoc who sets my own hours; I should take advantage of this.

Afterwords I ended up at the Met's re-screening of Lucia di Lammermoor held in the plaza in front of Lincoln Center, which was fairly fun (except for the bit when the cops came to order us to return the chairs we took from a nearby park). Their Enrico looked extremely like Severus Snape (both hair and nose were correct), and their Edgardo had some passing resemblance to Sirius Black. Not understanding a word of Italian, I mentally substituted appropriate dialogue - resulting in occasional chortling and giggling, and weird looks from my neighbors. It may also be somewhat disturbing that I found myself wanting to give Enrico (the villain of the piece) advice on how to properly conduct an evil plot.

The clothes are in the closet, the plates are in the cupboard, the books on their shelves. Pretty soon, the room will be as close to civilized as I get! I just need to get rid of those pesky underfoot not-yet-emptied boxes of odds and ends ....