As Far As You Know

The unedited footage of Jon Stewart's appearance on The O'Reilly Factor is a must-see. Stewart brilliantly dissects Fox News as an organization and scores some good laughs along the way.

Ten days after the introduction of the iPad, I am even more convinced this device is positioned to emerge as a great success, carving out a new place in people's lives. As others have observed, the iPad is all about media consumption, not media creation--and so it really is different from a laptop or desktop computer. It certainly can't replace the computer, but it can extend the concept of the digital hub much more easily. Some things I've been mulling over:

• Living in an academic community, it's easy for me to imagine how an iPad might be successfully marketed to college and high school students: if Apple or a third-party developer could implement handwriting recognition (presumably using a suitable stylus on the multi-touch screen), a student could take class notes on the same slim device that contains all of her textbooks. She could also access her schedule, e-mail, and Internet sites of interest. No more bulging backpacks! This could easily become the must-have campus accessory before too long.


• Apple needs to get moving on the periodicals subscription front. I receive The International Herald Tribune daily on my Kindle; it was very simple to set up a subscription and takes no effort to download each new edition via Whispersync (at least in the States--doing so abroad means transferring a file from my laptop). The iPad has the potential to revolutionize the periodicals industry as I discussed a few days ago (and please do check out the tablet-optimized Sports Illustrated demo). If digital delivery to a tablet is the future of publishing, sign me up. (By the way, since Steve Jobs now is the largest single shareholder of Disney, he seems to be able to leverage this position into ABC providing content for iTunes; why can't he now do the same with recent Disney acquisition Marvel Comics? Seems the iPad platform is ideal for making digital comics work on a large scale.)


• Since I own about a dozen or more Kindle e-books that I can read on an iPhone app, I wonder if Amazon.com and Apple will allow me to read these on a Kindle app for the iPad? I hope so, but it would constitute an end-run around Apple's iBookstore and also encourage Amazon customers from purchasing the dedicated Kindle hardware. It will be interesting watching this unfold.


• Yes a camera--or even two, one facing each way--would be nice, but surely this will be a feature of iPad 2.0 once it can be implemented without making the device too expensive.


• Too bad the iPad won't be able to play Flash, but I predict the Adobe vs. Apple conflict will result in web developers moving away from Flash-based programming in favor of more open standards. I can't imagine them writing off iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad users by using Flash on any new web pages under development when there are alternatives available.

I just finished this week's installment of Fringe. Very good episode, with a fair dose of mythology included and a great cliffhanger at the end. Unfortunately, no new episodes until spring.

I managed to fly over the storm that is bringing the middle Atlantic states to a standstill today. The conditions are rainy and overcast here in Georgia, but nothing like the blizzard hitting D.C. As my plane was landing, we were flying through low cloud cover until the runway appeared just a couple hundred feet below. My flight was delayed leaving Hartford and my connection out of Atlanta is similarly behind schedule (I actually missed the plane to West Palm Beach I was supposed to be on, but Delta went ahead and booked me a seat on the next flight out, thankfully). But it looks like I will make it to Florida tonight. Good think I am not connecting in Charlotte!

I am posting this entry high above New Jersey, where I am connected to the Internet via the Gogo service on my Delta flight to Atlanta. First time for airborne Web access, which is pretty nifty!

This segment of my trip is delayed, so I am hoping the Atlanta-to-West Palm Beach flight I am connecting with will be behind schedule as well so I can get to Florida tonight. Otherwise I may well be spending the night in Georgia.

Late last year, the folks at Time Inc. assembled a demo of an interactive Sports Illustrated issue on a tablet that looks an awful lot like an iPad. If realized, this new form of media could become a "killer app" for the new device and also salvage the ailing periodicals business. Rumors are that Steve Jobs and company are huddling with newspaper and magazine publishers right now, trying to cut deals, presumably for subscriptions on the iPad. Will Cupertino be creating "iMags" before the tablet launches next month?

Scary stuff: this is data from a survey of self-identified Republicans, as cited in this article in The Economist.

Subscribers to U2.com will be getting Artificial Horizon, a collection of remixed songs by the band, sometime soon. Here is the list of tracks:

1. Elevation (Influx Mix)
2. Fast Cars (Jacknife Lee Mix)
3. Get On Your Boots (Fish Out Of Water Mix)
4. Vertigo (Trent Reznor Remix)
5. Magnificent (Falke Radio Mix)
6. I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight (Live U2360° Remix)
7. Beautiful Day (David Holmes Remix)
8. Staring At The Sun (Monster Truck Remix)
9. Happiness Is A Warm Gun (Danny Saber Mix)
10. Get On Your Boots (Justice Remix)
11. City Of Blinding Lights (Hot Chip 2006 Remix)
12. If God Will Send His Angels (Grand Jury Mix)
13. Staring At The Sun (Brothers in Rhythm Ambient Mix)

So the two-hour Lost premiere answered a couple of questions--we now have a better sense of the conflict at the heart of the saga (Jacob vs. his nemesis, who now looks a lot like John Locke when he is not a smoke monster)--and, as expected, raised a bunch more. The show appears to have branched into two storylines: one in which the nuclear explosion reset our characters onto a 2004 Oceanic 815 flight that does not crash (but still experiences some strange happenings and divergences from the established backstory, such as a "lucky" Hurley) and another in which the protagonists stuck in 1977 return to their "proper" time in 2007, wherein apparently the nuke did not explode. All sorts of intriguing possibilities could unfold in this final season. This was a compelling start to the final 16 installments of Lost.

No huge surprises among the Oscar nominations announced this morning. I thought that with ten Best Picture nods, Star Trek might have earned one, but I guess District 9 is the sci-fi sleeper instead (of course neither of these would have a chance in hell of winning the big prize). You have to think that the five Best Director nominations indicate the films most likely to earn Best Picture votes, no?

(Thanks to Boing Boing.)

I just ordered a ticket to a Timon Of Athens performance on June 10 in Boston, which will be the last of the 39 plays in the Shakespeare canon I'll have seen staged. I plowed through this list in a little over two years (and I even included Edward III and The Two Noble Kinsmen--which some scholars don't consider part of the "official" canon--in my quest).

This summer's season at Shakespeare's Globe in London is "Kings And Rogues," and I have booked tickets for three of the history plays--Henry VIII, Henry IV Part One, and Henry IV Part Two--around the beginning of August. Shakespeare's Globe is a recreation of the original outdoor space used by The King's Men in the early 1600s and it's a fantastic place to see productions of The Bard's plays in period costume.

Super-heroes say the darnedest things (and so do their pets). [Click to enlarge.]

Just finished the last of the backlog of rented movies from the iTunes Store: Food, Inc. This was another exploration of the American food industry, though one with a broader focus than King Corn. This film certainly gives me plenty to think about next time I go to the supermarket.

Spent some time today planning my summer schedule, the centerpiece of which will be a trip across Canada bookended by two major North American Shakespeare festivals: one in Stratford, Ontario, and the other in Ashland, Oregon. I am taking a four-night train trip from Toronto to Vancouver, and this journey is supposed to be filled with gorgeous scenery. I'll spend a couple of nights in Toronto (the men's ATP event will be up and running while I'm there) and in Vancouver as well.

I set the DVR to record the men's final in Melbourne and caught the tail end of the Federer victory when I woke up. Hard to imagine a year ago it looked like the era of Roger as the man to beat had ended; here he is today with three of the Slam titles under his belt (and he probably should have won the fourth) and none of his rivals looks up to the challenge right now.

Spotted at the Georgetown/Duke game in D.C.:

For the fourth time in five years, the Bryan brothers won the men's doubles title in the Australian Open. While American players have not been in the winner's circle in Grand Slam singles events since the 2003 U.S. Open (Andy Roddick), the Bryans have assembled a very strong record in the majors over the past decade.

No classes today. My team has the day off. The athletic office is covered by one of my colleagues. No big plans at all. This meant I got to stay in bed until after noon today. I was awake most of the last few hours, but very much enjoying the chance to veg out a bit for a change!

Now off to the Hart Pool, the Johnson Athletic Center, and the Remsen Arena to see our teams in action this afternoon.

I woke up to find out that Serena Williams prevailed in a three-set final over Justine Henin to cement her position as the WTA's top player. If she can dial in her game consistently this year, there is no reason to think Serena can't be a dominant force. The landscape of the women's game is certainly more attractive now that the two Belgians, Clijsters and Henin, are back in the picture.

Barack Obama was awfully impressive in facing down House Republicans at their retreat in Baltimore today. He is so quick on his feet, so even tempered, and has such command of details that he really took over the occasion. It was a coup for the White House to have this exchange of ideas played out in front of reporters and television cameras.

The official team photo for this year's varsity and JV girls' squash team:

I've been pretty faithful in putting in 45 minutes a day around the indoor track in the Johnson Athletic Center this past month and have gotten into the habit of playing either some music or lectures from The Teaching Company while racking up the laps. Doing the latter makes me feel especially productive: I am immersed in classical mythology this week while getting my workout done.

Got caught up on the State of the Union address I missed while in the city last night. I was impressed by President Obama's tone: not exactly defiant, but firm enough. I liked the way he called out the Supreme Court majority on its disastrous campaign finance decision. Looks like there's still plenty of fire in the belly.

I was summoned to report to Superior Court in New Haven at 8 a.m. this morning for jury duty. I was in the first batch of potential jurors brought into a courtroom to begin the voir dire process. The dates of the case next week conflict with my scheduled flight to Florida on Friday, however, and this resulted in my being excused from service. thus I got to head home--through a light snowstorm--at 11 a.m., a far cry from the last time I got as far as the voir dire, when I was at the courthouse past 5 p.m. before being excused.

I am conflicted about the prospect of jury duty. Philosophically, I believe strongly in the principle and I would be curious to take part in the process, but logistically it would pose huge complications to my life, especially in getting my teaching and coaching duties covered. So I was relieved to have been excused this time around.

Mr. Trudeau's take on the Jobs announcement yesterday [click to enlarge]:

Seven of my colleagues and I were invited down to the Metropolitan Opera House tonight to see the Carmen production that opened to rave reviews a few weeks back. We were driven into Manhattan and had drinks and a light dinner in the penthouse apartment of a couple of Choate parents--with spectacular views of the city and artistic antiquities on display. Then we were treated to a center box on the parterre level at The Met--courtesy of another CRH family--which was a wonderful vantage point from which to take in the performance.

The opera itself was a satisfying production, in which the setting was updated by about a century, to Seville of the 1930s during the Spanish Civil War. (This is the first opera I have seen more than one production of, so I could make some meaningful comparisons.) We saw an understudy in the title role, and while her acting was terrific, she was a bit shaky vocally, particularly in the early going. But no quibbles: this was a great night out.

So the Apple Tablet is real and about to hit the market: the iPad didn't have all the bells and whistles some were hoping for (built-in videoconferencing capability, for instance) but neither did the iPhone when it was first released. I believe the over the next eighteen months we'll see the emergence of apps--both from Apple and from third-party developers--that will indeed make the iPad a huge hit as well as a game changer.

Late last night and early this morning, I watched another iTunes movie rental that is about to expire: King Corn, a documentary by two recent college graduates who spend a year in Iowa growing an acre of corn and attempt to follow it through the food supply chain. As in Super Size Me, the focal point of the film is as political as it is about nutrition: how American agricultural policy since the 1970s has influenced the prominence of high fructose corn syrup and other corn by-products in the American diet.

The President is delivering the annual State of the Union address tomorrow, but most folks I know are far more tuned into the scuttlebutt regarding Apple's scheduled announcements tomorrow, which most assume will be centered around the unveiling of a new tablet device. Though the Internet has been abuzz with leaks and speculation, we know very little for sure. I am eagerly anticipating the goodies Steve Jobs will be showcasing tomorrow.

Defending champion Rafael Nadal retired with a knee injury in the third set of his Australian Open quarterfinal against Andy Murray. In fairness to the Scot, Nadal was being consistently outplayed in this match before he called it quits. Andy Roddick also went down in five sets to Martin Cilic, who is clearly one of the hottest players on tour in recent weeks.

It's the national holiday for the land Down Under. Sort of like Fourth of July for the Aussies. Good on ya!

Since I arrived at Choate, there has been a winter term tradition called "President's Day" in which the head of school makes a surprise announcement in the evening canceling the following day's classes. Word just came via e-mail that tomorrow is the day, so spirits are running pretty high around here right now.

Before my trip to Portugal at the end of last month, I downloaded a handful of movie rentals from the iTunes Store so I'd have some entertainment readily available while abroad. I watched a couple of them, but still have three on the laptop whose thirty-day rental period is about to expire. So I watched The Devil Wears Prada tonight. It's very light fare, I suppose, but reasonably entertaining. Anne Hathaway and Meryl Streep are mostly convincing, but I though the real stars of the flick were New York City and Paris.

Entertainment Weekly published a list of "must-see" movies to be viewed before the Oscar nominations are announced, and today I saw a matinee of A Single Man. I could see why Colin Firth's performance has been so widely praised. He's far better than the overall film, which fashion czar Tom Ford directed as if it were some sort of fashion spread: in general it was pretty to look at, but the story slowed to a glacial pace in places. I liked Julianne Moore in this movie, too.

Long day for the girls' varsity squash team today. After SAT testing finished (some twenty minutes late, unfortunately) we made the three-hour trek to Concord, NH, for a showdown with our St. Paul's School counterparts. We had some good competition, particularly at the top of the ladder, and prevailed 5-2 (and got matches for the five extra competitors who made the trip, all of whom won). The down side of the excursion was getting home just before 10:00 at night. Unlike our trip to Andover two weeks before, which was in a comfortable double-decker motor coach, i was behind the wheel of a mid-bus for all of the driving. So I am ready to crash now!

For the cross country team's end-of-season gathering tonight, I am using iPhoto to show 300 slides set to music. iPhoto makes it tremendously easy to set this up without a lot of effort (other than sifting through several thousand shots from the fall season to select the best pictures and ensure each of some 70 team members is represented in the show). But since I did the work on my MacBook Air, I had to make an emergency run to the Apple Store in the Westfarms Mall in Farmington this afternoon to get a Mini DisplayPort-to-VGA connector so that my laptop could drive the projector. I am constantly amazed how efficiently the Apple Store works. Once I found the accessory in question, an employee scanned its barcode on his specially decked-out iPhone (or maybe it was an iPod Touch), ran my credit card through, thanked me by name, and asked if I wanted the receipt e-mailed to my account--clearly the system recognized my credit card details as associated with my Apple account. The speed of this transaction enabled me to make this trip a surgical strike!

The U.S. Supreme Court decision announced today, Citizens United v. FEC, probably represents a greater shift in our nation's political life than the Massachusetts special election earlier this week. In a 5-4 vote, the Court's conservative block threw precedent out the window by invalidating a 63-year-old congressional ban on virtually all corporate (and union) spending in support of, or opposition to, candidates in federal elections. Such an outcome suggests the majority on the bench has, in fact, embraced a philosophy of judicial activism--ironically just the the label American conservatives incessantly have used to blast supposedly liberal judges in recent decades. Basically, this approach entails judges stretching Constitutional interpretation in order to impose their personal policy preferences on the citizenry, in a manner that contradicts established legislation fashioned by the people's elected representatives.

Though the George W. Bush appointees, Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito, posed as judicial moderates during their confirmation hearings, it turns out they are intent on shifting American jurisprudence sharply to the ideological right.

The particular ruling in this case, while wrapped in the language of the First Amendment, was properly lambasted by the most senior justice, John Paul Stevens in a withering dissent read from the bench. Basically, the majority opinion held that the campaign finance laws in question violated the free-speech rights of "citizens." The central flaw in this analysis is treating corporations as citizens, of course.

This is scary!

Last night's big news was the Massachusetts election of Republican Scott Brown to the U.S. Senate seat long held by Ted Kennedy. Seems to me the right-wing crowing and media hype are all misplaced. 41% hardly constitutes a majority in the Senate, after all. Yes, the White House and Congressional Democrats need to do a better job conveying their message. But let's remember the GOP in Washington is embracing a fairly nihilistic approach to governance right now: opposing nearly every Administration initiative (at least in domestic policy) and offering scant little in the way of alternatives (other than the usual tax-slashing mantra). This could be just the wake-up call the President needs to kick in those political instincts and oratory skills that were deployed so effectively throughout the 2008 campaign.

The Bridge Project mounted a terrific As You Like It, which I caught at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Harvey Theater tonight. The play depends heavily on strong acting in two particular roles, I think: Rosalind and Jaques. Juliet Rylance and Stephen Dillane were wonderfully up to the task. Production values were outstanding, as well: sets and lighting created a bleak, snow-covered Arden Forest in winter, as well as a lush version in full bloom for the later acts. And a small band of musicians added to the atmosphere effectively.

Following this afternoon's squash practice, I drove down to Brooklyn via the Triborough Bridge and the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and caught spectacular views of Manhattan along the elevated sections of the highway. I am here to catch a Shakespeare production, which is just about to start.

Yesterday, invitations to Apple's January 27 scheduled press event were distributed. Expectations are that Steve Jobs will unveil the much-anticipated tablet device at this gathering. It's been leaked that the next generation of iPhone software, OS 4.0, will be announced and that iLife will be refreshed in a 2010 version. I'll be paying attention.

An article in this morning's New York Times addresses the perception that those of us working in academia skew toward a liberal political orientation. The current thinking:

Now new research suggests that critics may have been asking the wrong question. Instead of looking at why most professors are liberal, they should ask why so many liberals -- and so few conservatives -- want to be professors.

[snip]

Nearly half of the political lopsidedness in academia can be traced to four characteristics that liberals in general, and professors in particular, share: advanced degrees; a nonconservative religious theology (which includes liberal Protestants and Jews, and the nonreligious); an expressed tolerance for controversial ideas; and a disparity between education and income.

[snip]

The tendency of people in any institution or organization to try to fit in also reinforces the political one-sidedness . . . when it comes to hiring, "the majority will tend to support candidates like them in the matter of fundamental beliefs, values and commitments."

Provocative analysis, and one that seems to make sense to me.

Now appearing on the Google home page:

Watched the pilot of Showtime's Dexter series last night and the next episode of Season One this afternoon. The show is sort of grisly but pretty engaging, too. I think I'll enjoy getting caught up on this series in the weeks ahead.

Went down to Yale this morning to see some Choate alums competing in squash matches in the Payne Whitney Gym. Upon returning to campus this afternoon, I met with a couple of guys from the tennis team for a hit on the indoor courts--my first tennis in a few months. It still feels pretty nice to connect in the racquet's sweet spot!

Interesting piece in today's New York Times on people like me trying to complete the Shakespeare canon by seeing each of The Bard's plays in performance. (Though I'm not sure about the reference to "trainspotters"!) The English couple described in the article took twenty years to complete the quest. Looks like I am going to finish the cycle in about 25 months!

It's the height of the Australian summer right now and the world's best tennis players are converging on Melbourne for the first Grand Slam tournament of 2010, the Australian Open, which gets underway Monday (Sunday night in Eastern Standard Time). Looking forward to see what unfolds in this event!

The chair arrived today. When one is awarded a named faculty chair at Choate, the school gives you a very nice actual chair. It has the school seal engraved on the front and my name on the back. Pretty classy, I think.

The heart-wrenching news and images from earthquake-ravaged Haiti offer some pretty brutal perspective for those of us whose lives are quite comfortable. Hard to get to exorcised over NBC's handling of its late night talent, for example, in light of the devastation in the Caribbean. The Internet makes it easy to make a contribution. I just made a modest donation to the Red Cross, for instance--which I report not to score any points with those few souls who might come across this blog, but to encourage as many people as something to make some sort of effort to help those in dire need.

Just over a week after being awarded the faculty chair, I am still receiving some wonderfully thoughtful sentiments from colleagues, students, parents, and alumni. Folks have been just so nice about this honor. I am humbled and grateful for all the good wishes.

I have started using the Ripit application to make my DVDs even more portable by ripping the content to my hard drive. Ripit creates a file that opens up DVD Player just like loading a disc would, and I can access the DVD menus, special features, and anything else on the disc as if it were in the drive. Ripping the DVDs this way has three advantages: (1) When traveling, I won't have to carry the physical media to access on my laptop the movies that I already own; (2) watching a "virtual" DVD drains a laptop battery far less than accessing the DVD drive (and in any case my primary travel computer, the MacBook Air, doesn't even have a drive!); and (3) I can rip non-Region 1 discs just as easily, so the region coding on the DVD drive firmware will pose no obstacle to my watching, say, British DVDs.

This morning, the Choate faculty had a three-hour professional development session. (No classes were scheduled for the day, as this week has an academic Saturday.) This may be a nice break in routine for my colleague, but it totally throws off my morning. That's because I never teach on Wednesday morning. I am scheduled to teach--one or two classes per term--in rotating blocks that do not meet on Wednesdays or Saturdays so I can be available in the Department of Athletics office on game days. So a three-hour block like this on a Wednesday cuts into my productivity in a big way.

The school hosted Dr. Robert Ballard, the world's best-known oceanographer (and a Choate parent), to deliver a slide presentation to the entire community tonight in the Arts Center auditorium and it was a fascinating overview of the scientific exploration of our planet's oceans. This is the sort of science I find riveting. And having grown up by the water, I am always interested in seafaring adventures!

Today I was invited to present at a conference in Wilmington, Delaware this June: "Managing Institutional Risk at Boarding Schools Leadership Summit." Sounds fancy, so I better think of something to say!

I downloaded Google Chrome this morning for a tryout. Supposedly it loads pages pretty fast. I already like how easily it imported all my Safari bookmarks and settings.

I've long had a fantasy of relocating the school somewhere warm just for the winter term. This notion kicks in pretty hard on a day like today, when the high temperature is supposed to hit 33°F. It was bitterly cold walking to breakfast this morning!

It's no accident that the two times I've taken a sabbatical, I took them in the winter term and went to Australia and other antipodal destinations. When I was there in 1998, the temperature in Melbourne climbed to 108°F at one point; you could almost fry an egg on the sidewalk!

Just saw a production of The Two Noble Kinsmen, which scholarly consensus now attributes to William Shakespeare and John Fletcher--both resident playwrights for The King's Men acting company. The show featured nine actors from the Guerrilla Shakespeare Company [I am not sure why "guerrilla" is spelled with two r's.] This play was likely first staged at the Blackfriars indoor theater. Clearly this is not among the best of The Bard's works, of course, but it moves me just a bit closer to my quest to complete the canon, which it looks like I will be able to do before the end of this school year.

I am taking the train into New York City and for a change I am down at the New Haven train station in plenty of time, without the rush to park, scramble for tickets, and run to the platform. Arriving early results in a much better pace on a Sunday morning!

Started watching In Bruges on the bus ride home from Andover on the MacBook Air and finished it at home on the big screen. It's sort of comedic, but pretty black in its sensibility. Strong performances from Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, and Ralph Fiennes. And lots of pretty Belgian scenery. Worth watching.

Good day for Choate Squash up at Andover: the girls' varsity and JV and the boys' JV lost just one match total in their three contests. If the boys' varsity squad wins as expected, it will constitute a nice sweep for the program. This day is always one of the best of the athletic year, when most Choate teams face off against their Phillips Academy counterparts. It's dependably good competition and in even years, I get to visit my old stomping grounds for a little while.

I've figured out the best way to schedule my weekend duty nights in the dorm: I do as many of them early in the term as possible so that as the inevitable cabin fever/fatigue of the term sets in, I can look forward to having free nights on the weekend.

This means these first couple of weekends in January I am doing a lot of duty, but the payoff will come in February!

Today I went downtown to the barber shop. Since our on-campus barber retired a few years back, I seem to get a haircut about twice a year now. My hair goes from being a bit too long to being way too short. But I guess I am getting my money's worth this way!

In a wonderful surprise, the school awarded yours truly a faculty chair at this morning's school meeting. It's a very nice honor, if a bit embarrassing to be in the spotlight in front of the entire community for ten minutes. I now hold the Hubert S. Packard Chair, named after the longtime French teacher and wrestling coach at Choate, who was (fittingly) also a Williams College alumnus. I am told I will actually be getting an actual physical chair to commemorate this award. I also will get a nice little bump in pay for the ten-year term of the chair.

Word on the street tonight is that Connecticut's senior U.S. Senator, Christopher Dodd, will announce he will not run for re-election this year. The senator has hit a rocky patch in his political career, starting with an unsuccessful presidential campaign in 2007 and 2008, followed by revelations of a sweetheart deal on a mortgage. His approval ratings have plummeted as a result. Facing this political math, Dodd has apparently decided not to fight his way to re-election (though I believe he could have turned this around). Stepping down now probably means the Democrats will be able to hold this seat comfortably; with Dodd still in the race, it was a very vulnerable seat.

Having seen Senator Dodd at close range numerous times with student groups in Washington, I will miss him. He is clearly smart, hard-working, and articulate with a wonderful way with people and a firm command of the issues.

I am back in the daily exercise routine: 45 minutes a day, every day. Not that hard to do, and I feel a lot better getting this done regularly. I don't coach any on-court coaching time against this total, either.

Continental Airlines happens to have a pretty good in-flight entertainment system at each seat. I watched the second half of The Informant (which I had started on the trip over to Portugal). This is a pretty witty movie--not laugh out loud funny, but wryly clever. Matt Damon is perfect as an eager beaver informant working for ADM and Scott Bakula is great as a straight man in his role as an FBI agent. Steven Soderbergh directed, and I like most of his work.

I also saw the remake of Fame, which was pretty pointless (and nowhere close to an improvement on the original). Not only was the story pretty flimsy, but the music wasn't all that good. The best song was only one swiped from the 1980s version.

And finally I saw an episode of The Big Bang Theory, a CBS comedy that I have never seen before. It's a mildly amusing show, but I found the canned laughter annoying--especially while listening to the program over headphones. I've taken it for granted, I guess, that most comedies I watch (The Office, 30 Rock, Curb Your Enthusiasm) never use a laugh track.

Fascinating piece on Obama's real base posted on The Daily Beast website. Worth a read!

Okay, so it may not be a major title--heck, it's actually only an exhibition!--but it has to warm the hearts of Rafael Nadal fans to see him win the Abu Dhabi event this weekend, especially by beating nemesis Robin Soderling 7-6 (3), 7-5 in today's final. It was Soderling who ended Nadal's perfect streak at Roland Garros in May, which really changed the storyline in men's tennis for 2009. To add insult to injury, Soderling spanked Rafa again in the ATP Finals in London in November. (And allegedly there is no love lost between these two players.) The Swede beat Roger Federer to advance to the Abu Dhabi final but Rafa seems to be in the sort of health and playing form that saw him take three of the four major crowns plus Olympic gold in 2008 and early 2009. I'll be interested to see how his bid to defend his Australian Open crown goes later this month.

From security analyst Bruce Schneier:

Despite fearful rhetoric to the contrary, terrorism is not a transcendent threat. A terrorist attack cannot possibly destroy a country's way of life; it's only our reaction to that attack that can do that kind of damage. The more we undermine our own laws, the more we convert our buildings into fortresses, the more we reduce the freedoms and liberties at the foundation of our societies, the more we're doing the terrorists' job for them.

Of course!

(Read the whole piece on CNN's site.)

When I first started this blog in April 2004, I posted this map indicating the countries I had visited up until then:

Here is my updated map of countries I have been to as of the start of 2010:

Lots of speculation about Apple's reserving January 26th for a "special presentation." Most observers believe the company will unveil its tablet plans with a trademark Steve Jobs rollout. It might well look something like the rendering above--an oversized iPod Touch crossed with a Mac OS X dock--but who outside Cupertino really knows at this point? There is some good analysis on the topic here.

Spent time today reading David Mazzucchelli's Asterios Polyp, a graphic novel released in 2009 that was lauded by the critics. I can see why: this work is brilliant. It "combines a modernist style, a formalist structure, and a story about a bristly academic" as one observer described it. Highly recommended.

The resort had its own pretty elaborate fireworks display at the stroke of midnight to mark the arrival of 2010. Happy New Year, everyone!

I drove through the northeast and across the center of Spain on my last trip here. I am pleased to discover here in the southwest of the country the same phenomenon of the roadside black bull silhouettes popping up along the way.

After driving through Andalucia through the early part of the day, I arrived at the Mediterranean coast just after noon and was struck by the massive presence of the Rock of Gibraltar ahead of me. As I approached the sea, I noticed a few signs in Spanish and Arabic indicating ferries to Tangiers. I made my way to La Línea, the town next to Gibraltar, where I parked my car and walked across the frontier. (I didn't want the hassle of taking my rental car through immigration and customs checkpoints.) Once I cleared the actual border, the first thing I saw was a red British phone booth and a sign indicating I was on Winston Churchill Avenue. I then had to walk across an airplane runway (after being held a few minutes as a newly-arrived EasyJet plane taxied to the terminal). No joke: the only way into Gibraltar via land involves driving or walking across a working airfield! Though signs are in English and the local currency is pounds sterling, this place hardly feels British. The climate is too balmy, the local voices are mostly Spanish, and the layout of the streets has more of a Continental feel to it. Still, this is a fascinating hybrid sort of place.

I stumbled across a Carrefour on the way into Seville, Spain this morning and was lucky enough to find an assortment of adaptor plugs within. I bought one of those that had plugs to flip out for Europe, the U.K., and the U.S., and it also has a USB port for easy iPod or iPhone charging. So I am back in business on the digital front!

I am digesting the Season 3 DVDs of Friday Night Lights while on holiday here in Portugal and had forgotten just how excellent this show is. I had sort of lost touch with the series midway through the second season, but am enjoying every minute of each episode in this collection.

I stupidly failed to pack any of my adapter plugs for the various devices (MacBook Air, iPhone, two iPods, Kindle, digital camera, a portable DVD player, and portable speakers for the iPod) I brought with me. (Okay, okay, I admit I have a hard time cutting the technological cord when I travel!) I have a couple of cheap European adapter plugs as well as the Apple World Travel Adapter kit back home, but that does me little good now! So I am rationing the use of each electronic gadget for the time being, as there apparently is not an appropriate adapter for U.S. plugs to be found in the south of Portugal--and I have looked in the resort newsagent, two local supermarkets, an electronics store, and a Staples office supply store. I did find an adapter for U.K. plugs in one store, which didn't surprise me as the majority of guests in this resort seem to be Brits (apparently this is a favorite holiday and retirement destination for the English).

I did, however, discover online an entertaining article on why plugs and voltage are different around the globe. It's an educational and witty read.

I am settled in at the Vale Do Lobo resort, and was upgraded to a higher level of accommodation, which was nice. So I have a two-bedroom apartment with a private pool at my disposal for the next few days. The weather is warm but rainy and this is clearly the off-season for this place, as there don't seem to be many people in my immediate neighborhood in spite of the holidays.

Had an easy drive on the motorway down to the Algarve region, but was struck by the toll charged for the trip from Lisbon: €18.60, which equates to nearly $27!

I had a smooth flight over, with an open seat next to me giving me plenty of room to spread out. I slept a lot of the way, though I watched the first half of The Informer before I got too drowsy (I'll have to catch the rest on the way home). No problem clearing immigration, but now I have been waiting for over 30 minutes for my checked bag to appear. Seems like some of the luggage on our flight is stuck somewhere between the plane and the carousel. But I just connected with a Choate alum from about fifteen years ago who was on the same flight.

Once I pick up my rented car, I will drive a few hours south to the Algarve region.

I left for Newark Airport plenty early, remembering my missed flight to London at the end of July. Moreover, there were supposed to be much longer lines through security due to the recent terrorism scare on a flight from Amsterdam on Christmas Day. Well I arrived in Newark early and had no delays getting checked in and through the security screening.

Off to Lisbon on an 8:15 flight!

Just firmed up plans for a five-day jaunt to Rio de Janiero in June. I have a ten-year visa for Brazil from my New Years trip to Buenos Aires and Rio a few years back, but will have to have it transferred to my new passport.

Got some goodies from adidas in the mail today, a couple of new pairs of kicks and two T-shirts with interesting adidas/Star Wars mash-up designs, including the above graphic.

Spent most of today with my extended family: a couple dozen of my cousins from both sides of the family, as well as other relatives and family friends. The occasion was a milestone birthday for my dad, a surprise brunch event that carried over to an "after party" of sorts at my parents' house through the afternoon. A good chance to catch up with folks whom I rarely see nowadays.

Watched a documentary from the iTunes Store, Welcome To Macintosh--a look at the cult following of Apple's computers. Decent overview, but not really anything new here.

Over in England, today is celebrated as Boxing Day and the BBC is airing a filmed version of the RSC's 2008 Hamlet production featuring David Tennant as the title character and Patrick Stewart as Polonius. It's being released on DVD the first week of next month and I pre-ordered a copy on the U.K. Amazon.com site. (Nice to have a region-free DVD player handy to fire up this Region 2 disc.)

Saw the Guy Ritchie-directed Sherlock Holmes tonight. This film repurposes the famous detective as a brawling action hero (though one whose powers of observation and deduction are clearly on display as well). Good chemistry between Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law as the Holmes/Watson team. Not a memorable film, but worth seeing.

Interesting online ad for Google here.

You have to figure Santa's Workshop can't be all that far from the Fortress of Solitude, which makes these two gents neighbors!

Here's my annually-reposted snippet of holiday wisdom from everyone's favorite survivor of Krypton:

The family tradition of a Christmas Day movie was moved up twenty-four hours this year. Our entire routine was different, in fact: we went out for Chinese food for the very first time in my whole life! Then we watched Brothers, which was a pretty intense and extremely well acted film. Loved the new U2 song, "Winter," over the closing credits, too.

In the last 24 hours, the Internet has been abuzz with speculation that Apple may be close to announcing the release of a much-anticipated tablet device late next month. The Cupertino company has apparently scheduled a media event for January 26 and word has leaked out that leader Steve Jobs is "happy" with the new product. Industry watchers are expecting an announcement/demonstration of a device that is akin to a large iPod Touch. Some app developers reportedly have been asked to prepare full-screen demos of their software. The Apple tablet would be available by the spring. An exciting prospect!

In what should be seen as the ultimate tribute to the late Ted Kennedy, the U.S. Senate passed the health care reform bill this morning after months of deliberation and political wrangling. While there is the tricky business ahead of reconciling this version with the House bill, it looks like America will get at least a first wave of legislation addressing the health care needs of the nation. Hopefully there will be substantive reforms to follow on this front, as well. Though the process was controversial and messy, this legislation has to be considered a triumph for President Obama, Congressional leaders Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, and the Democrats.

I am so glad I invested in new pillows and new flannel sheets a couple of weeks ago. My bed always feels warm when I get in it and I've been experiencing great nights of sleep.

I didn't watch any of The Clone Wars--the CGI-animated Star Wars series set between Episodes II and III--when they aired on Cartoon Network, but I am slowly making my way through the first season on Blu-ray discs. This is a pretty well-crafted show: a mix of familiar and new characters in visually striking settings. Each episode is about 22 minutes long, so it's a quick hit to watch one when time allows.

I stopped for a routine oil change--I was a bit overdue, and had the time to knock off this errand this afternoon--and ended up spending just over $400 on the Explorer. There were some "essential" services that needed to be performed, of course. Funny how this always happens. Ugh!

Caught an early matinee today and I liked Up In The Air a LOT. I approached this movie as a pretty experienced traveler--I average at least one round-trip flight a month--and I thought the film captured both the romance and the alienation of travel in the jet age. The film is timely, too: firmly grounded (sorry for the pun!) in the harsh economic realities currently facing the country. George Clooney led a terrific cast. This flick ought to be Oscar bait, for sure.

Time Machine finally finished backing up my primary desktop computer. In retrospect, I should have done the first backup with a wired connection directly to the Time Capsule. And because I set up the home network in a screwy way, it took a lot longer to complete the backup process than it should have. But I can sleep a little better now that I have a master archive in place.

Continuing my immersion in disposable entertainment while on holiday, I rented The Hangover on AppleTV tonight. Well made and well cast, with a few good laughs, this is just the sort of movie I am glad I saw but equally glad I didn't drop $10 to watch it in the cinema. Also, I am glad to know Mike Tyson's delight at the drum intro during "In The Air Tonight" equals my own.

Watched Eddie Izzard's Live From Wembley stand-up gig today, and it was okay, but nothing anyone should rush to see.

A couple months back, the iTunes Store introduced a couple of new formats: iTunes LP for music embedded with extra content (ostensibly to promote buying albums rather than singles) and iTunes Extra for movies embedded with extra features (presumably to woo folks who would otherwise buy DVDs for the special features). I missed Inglourious Basterds when it was out in the theaters this fall, so I bought the iTunes Extra version to see how it works on my computer screens and my AppleTV.

I loved Blue Harvest, the Family Guy take on the original Star Wars movie (which today's youth call Episode IV: A New Hope). So I was pretty pleased to get today's shipment from Amazon.com with the Something, Something, Something, Dark Side DVD: a similar send up of The Empire Strikes Back. Unfortunately, this one does not come with a digital copy included, as the last one did.

adidas is losing Novak Djokovic to Sergio Tacchini and the Bryan Brothers and Sam Querry to K-Swiss, but is pinning its sponsorship hopes on the British hope Andy Murray, who will be decked out in three stripes from head to toe starting in January.

A curious intersection of sneakers and space opera!

AppleTV brought Adventureland as the movie du jour tonight. The central character is a recent college graduate in 1987--pretty close to where I was at that time. The setting is an amusement park in Pittsburgh--pretty far from where I was at that time. Anyway, this is basically a love story with a good 1980s soundtrack and reasonably entertaining.

Tonight is the longest night of the year, with the arrival of the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere. The good news is that tomorrow the days start getting longer!

Looks like the Democrats in the Senate will have a filibuster-free bill on health care reform after all. Like Obama's Copenhagen agreement on addressing climate change this past weekend, the Senate bill is the product of compromise and is surely disappointing in many respects. But I support the passage of this legislation--flawed as it may be--because it expands insurance coverage dramatically to 30 million more Americans, ensures insurance companies can't deny coverage for pre-existing conditions, and offers some deficit belief on top of that. Yes, there's lots more work ahead on this front in the future, but this is a creditable start.

. . . I want to travel to Europe the old-fashioned way: by boat. The notion of a leisurely five days at sea with time to unwind and read is probably romantic and nostalgic. But there would be no jet lag!

I finally configured the 1TB Time Capsule I bought back in the summer (!) to enable the Time Machine software to automatically back up the hard drive (and two connected portable drives) associated with my primary iMac desktop computer. This will ensure I hang on to key documents, photos, videos, and music files in the event of a catastrophic drive failure. The initial backup is being processed while I sleep tonight.

I fired up the Blu-ray edition of this year's Star Trek reboot to listen to the audio commentary by director J.J. Abrams and the writers and producers. Pretty cool to hear the behind-the-scenes analysis from the filmmakers. I usually don't take advantage of these special audio tracks on my DVDs very often, but with a bit of time on my hands, this was an interesting diversion.

Not to be outdone by their female counterparts, the boys' varsity hockey players also won their holiday tournament down in New Jersey at The Lawrenceville School this afternoon. Bravo!

Unlike the cutting edge motion capture and CGI employed in Avatar, The Fantastic Mr. Fox is old-style stop-motion animation produced painstakingly. It works well in this Wes Anderson-helmed flick, featuring a great vocal cast, led by George Clooney, Meryl Streep, and Bill Murray. As one might expect from Anderson, there is a wonderfully subversive feel to the storyline, which is based on a Roald Dahl book.

As the roads were relatively clear after last night's storm--southern Connecticut didn't get dumped on as much as points south and east, apparently--I trekked down to New Haven to catch up on a couple of theatrical releases before things get busy with family time later in the week. First up was Me And Orson Welles, an account of a late 1930s Broadway production of Julius Caesar staged by Welles, told from the point of view of a high school senior (Zac Efron) who stumbles into the director's orbit. Lots of nice touches in this film, and the actor who played Welles was pretty convincing capturing the man physically and vocally.

Continuing my immersion in movies these first few days of break, I watched The Proposal on AppleTV this morning. This was a big box office hit in 2009 and I can see why: the chemistry between Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds clicked nicely. Pretty disposable entertainment I suppose, but just the thing for a leisurely Sunday morning at the start of a vacation.

Watched Spread on AppleTV this evening: a pretty forgettable L.A. story about good-looking but shallow people who feed off each other fairly brazenly. Nothing inspirational in this tale. Skip it.

Saw Invictus at the Wallingford movie palace, expecting there to be a blizzard well underway by the time I got out. Turned out the snow was delayed, but the film was very entertaining: a mix of politics and sport that was right up my alley. I found myself getting choked up a bit in some key places. The film is about inspiration, when you cut to the heart of it. I enjoyed seeing the sights of Cape Town, Pretoria, and Jo'burg I came to know a bit during my time there in 2006.

At the urging of a couple of girls on my team, I watched Love Actually on my AppleTV tonight. This was a pretty enjoyable movie, though perhaps a bit overloaded with too many couples in the mix. I loved the London setting, as well as the fact that not every pairing was wrapped up tidily as the final reel unspooled. And the acting is absolutely blue chip all the way: truly an all-star cast.

Congrats to the varsity girls' hockey team for winning all four games to take the title at the Taft School holiday tournament!

Took in a little of the Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skulls DVD--well, the first hour of it anyway. Reviewers were pretty harsh about this flick, and there's a lot to object to toward the end of the story (which felt like it was lifted from Close Encounters) but the warehouse scene and the stuff at Indy's college hold up pretty well.

Just got in from the midnight opening of Avatar in 3D. While it won't go down as one of the finest films ever made, this is a hugely engaging spectacle (which you MUST see in 3D) that is a testament to imagination and technical wizardry. The movie is quite an accomplishment and a very entertaining ride that is well over two-and-a-half hours long. Thumbs up.

The Memorial House common room is festively decorated with a fire roaring in the fireplace and plenty of treats for the boys coming back from their final school commitment before break: a concert presentation in the Arts Center. So spirits are high and we had an enjoyable evening. Most of the older kids are accompanying me to the midnight premiere of Avatar 3D later on at the local cineplex, once the third formers are in bed for the night. First thing in the morning, the campus empties out. Many of the kids are taking off before dawn to catch international flights.

I just gave a test to my U.S. In Vietnam class and am now celebrating being on holiday break (more or less). In spite of how much I love my job, even after all these years there is still a thrill to the sensation of finishing up before the start of a vacation!

While traveling to Greenwich and back this afternoon, the girls insisted on an audio diet of Christmas music for the ride, so I had a couple of iPod playlists prepared for the occasion, which they supplemented with a few tunes of their own choosing. On the heels of that experience, I have finally succumbed and purchased my very own copy of Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas Is You," a song I have resisted for years but I now bow before its schmaltzy charms.

By the way, the two Christmas albums from the a cappella group Straight No Chaser have been in heavy rotation on my iTunes. Definitely recommended.

I am up in South Windsor, where we just finished a celebratory dinner for my mom's birthday at Sakura Garden, a Japanese hibachi restaurant. Love this stuff!

I recently updated my travel map page with projected destinations for 2010. Some of these trips I am not sure about yet, and I probably will be adding at least a brief U.K. jaunt in August at some point as well as additional travel during the last few months of the year.

Since my MacBook Air doesn't have a DVD drive, I tend to rent movies from the iTunes Store while traveling. I watched a pair of mostly forgettable but reasonably entertaining movies featuring the teenage demographic: Assassination Of A High School President and Camp. The former I watched during some down time between convention sessions in my hotel room yesterday and I watched Camp this morning on the flight up from Dallas. Hard to beat the convenience of downloading a flick for a few bucks and watching it whenever I want.

No great surprise that Connecticut's junior senator is causing more trouble on health care reform, yesterday abandoning the Democratic Party's compromise agreement on the public option/Medicare angle.

This afternoon I am missing the Festival Of Lessons And Carols back home at Choate in the Seymour St. John Chapel. This nativity program of readings and sacred music--an academic tradition that started at King's College, Cambridge--always puts me into the spirit of the season.

The sports-themed restaurant here in the hotel complex has about 30 big flat screen monitors spread all over and a 52-foot-wide megascreen on which you can watch nine broadcasts at once. A football lover's paradise on a Sunday afternoon!

This image showed up while surfing the Web about a week ago: Ryan Reynolds suited up as Green Lantern. I suppose the makers of this flick are hoping to capture a little of the mojo that propelled Iron Man to impressive heights, both critically and commercially.

The Amazon.com home page is supposed to be dynamic, since it's based on authentication. If the cookie reveals that it's me who has logged in, I should see different stuff than you do, based on my unique purchasing history. This is how the shopping site makes recommendations customized for each of us. So why am I bombarded with a big ad for the Kindle whenever I browse my way there? Shouldn't Amazon.com know I already own the device?

I would not have expected this: only 60% of the visitors to this blog are from the United States. 4% are from Canada and another 4% are from the U.K., and the rest are from around the globe.

Made it into Dallas last night and took a shuttle to the Gaylord Texan Hotel and Convention Center, a mammoth complex right near the airport. I am attending my fourth National Athletic Directors Conference in the past four years (the others were in Anaheim and Nashville). Since I'm only here until first thing Monday morning, and I'll be engaged in a trio of four-hour mini-courses as well as other sessions in that time, plus I don't have a car, it's unlikely I will get out of this place to see anything else in Dallas. So I could well be anywhere in the country right now; the city itself doesn't register in my plans. Of course, there is a slew of restaurants and other diversions here in the convention/hotel complex, so I'll be living in the convention bubble this weekend, I guess.

I am off to Bradley Airport for a weekend getaway of sorts. Lest that sound too leisurely, this is a work-related trip to the National Athletic Directors Conference, which is in Dallas this year. I scheduled this convention when I realized this would be an open weekend on the girls' varsity squash schedule, though we subsequently moved our Exeter match to tomorrow, so I will have to miss that.

When I got home after 1 in the morning after my trip to Williamstown last night, I dumped by pants into the washing machine, since part of my dinner wound up on my thigh while driving; I figured the pants would get clean while I slept. As I took the pants out this morning to put them in the dryer, I noticed I had not removed my wallet from the back pocket, so now I have a very soggy leather enclosure containing some waterlogged bills. Fortunately my driver's license and credit and ATM cards were unaffected; as I have a flight to Texas this evening, missing those would have been a big problem!

Last weekend, while lining up some 2010 travel arrangements, I stumbled across the fact that the Cap and Bells theatrical troupe at Williams would be staging King John during the last few days of the College's fall term. Tonight was opening night. So once my team's practice wound up at 4:30, I jumped in my car and drove to Williamstown so I could knock off this rarely-performed Shakespeare work in my attempt to complete the canon. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the play is a rather enjoyable work. The Williams production--directed by a senior--was a very creditable endeavor, presented in the vastly scaled down Adams Memorial Theater (the College built a new Mainstage and converted the AMT into a much more intimate space). I thought this might be the hardest play to find on stage, but I suspect the three installments of Henry VI will be the final entries in the Bard's traditional canon that I will see produced.

I am back on the Williams College campus for the first time in a few years. This place is so familiar to me, and yet there are a handful of major architectural developments that have changed the place substantially since my last visit. I am exploring the replacement for Baxter Hall--the student center and dining hall I knew--the beautiful new Paresky Center. Spring Street has been largely transformed since my undergraduate days and there is a new academic building south of Sawyer Library. The theater has been thoroughly renovated and expanded as well, and that's where I am heading tonight. Happily, most of the campus remains just as I remember it.

Tonight, the second season of Elvis Costello's Spectacle interview show aired on Sundance Channel. The singer tends to interview other musicians--though Bill Clinton popped up in one of the first season's episodes--and the guests in this edition were Bono and The Edge. As is typical of the series, a handful of musical numbers are interspersed with the banter and among the performances in this show, the U2 pair gave us a gripping rendition of "Stay (Faraway, So Close)."

I took the varsity girls' squash team to Taft today for our first match of the winter and we got pretty soundly beat. We did not have one of our top players, but even at full strength we probably could not have won this one. Happily, we returned to the Choate campus in time to see our varsity boys' basketball squad craft an exciting overtime win over Taft!

Having spent a few hours tonight finishing The Paris Vendetta, I am convinced this is the ideal type of thing to read on the Kindle. A hardback copy of the thriller would have set me back at least four or five more bucks, and it's hard to imagine I'd ever crack the pages of the volume ever again. In other words, this is a pretty disposable work. Moreover, a thriller is well suited for traveling, which is the time I am most likely to use the Kindle.

The online price dropped dramatically, so I am now the proud owner of an Anakin Skywalker blue lightsaber replica!

Having enjoyed both productions by The Bridge Project that I saw this year--The Cherry Orchard in Brooklyn in January and The Winter's Tale in London in August--today I booked tickets for both of 2010's offerings: As You Like It and The Tempest. I'll catch both at the Brooklyn Academy of Music: one in January and one in February.

Very nice!

Some months back the iTunes Store was offering a pretty great deal on a collection of 20 remastered episodes of the original Star Trek series for something like $15. So I took the plunge. With some free time on my hands, this afternoon, I fired up the AppleTV and watched the two episodes from that three-year run that introduced the Romulans as a major nemesis of the Federation: "Balance Of Terror" and "The Enterprise Incident." I had forgotten how good Star Trek could be at its best, and these clearly were two superior episodes.

I spent some time checking out the clips and mini-documentaries online about the forthcoming James Cameron flick Avatar, and this could shape up to be a pretty impressive cinematic experience. My plan is to find the biggest screen I can and strap on a pair of 3-D glasses to see it in all of its glory.

After finishing Season 1 on Blu-ray and using iTunes downloads to get caught up on all the Season 2 episodes that already have aired, my iTunes Season Pass for Fringe is now delivering new installments of the series each week that it airs. So Friday, my AppleTV downloads the new show that was broadcast on Fox the previous evening. This way, I'll have a fresh episode waiting for me at home tonight.

I am prepping for tomorrow's class and reading Frances FitzGerald's Fire In The Lake for the first time in a long while. Though it's controversial in some (i.e., right-wing) circles, I always liked this book because it's so well grounded in Vietnamese culture and history and helps unwind the Indochina conflict(s) by dealing with the culture clash(es) involved. This work holds up pretty well as I return to it nearly fifteen years later.

Today is the first day of the winter trimester here at Choate. I am teaching History 423, The United States In Vietnam, an elective course I taught with some regularity before I was appointed Director of Athletics in 1996. In fact, it has been thirteen years since I did this course. So this term will be like getting reacquainted with an old friend. And I'll be able to approach the material from a relatively fresh perspective too. Moreover, I have visited Vietnam since the last time I handled this subject, so my time in Saigon should inform my teaching. Should be fun!

I had forgotten the new Cotton Malone thriller came out today until I saw it downloaded on my Kindle this morning. The Paris Vendetta arrived via Whispersync and I saved about four bucks off Amazon's already discounted purchase price.

This is the newly-released poster for Iron Man 2, coming in May:

I remember when this book, 2010, was published. It was the sequel to 2001: A Space Odyssey and since it was set in the far-distant year of 2010, it seemed to us even more exotically futuristic. Well now 2010 is a month away and it sure doesn't seem as different as it was supposed to be.

Of course totalitarianism didn't arrive on schedule as detailed in 1984, there were no Eugenics Wars in the mid-1990s to produce a Khan Noonien Singh to challenge Captain Kirk centuries later, and Earth's moon didn't leave orbit a decade ago as Space: 1999 led us to believe it would.

I concede there have been technological advances that have changed how we live and I don't have to look very far to find them (my iPhone, the Internet, etc.). But where's my flying car?

This may not be exciting to anyone but me, but new pillows and flannel sheets have arrived in today's mail from Lands' End. I expect to be cozy and warm (and stylish) as the nights get colder this winter.

Nikolay Davydenko ended up hoisting the singles trophy at this year's ATP Finals. Facing a semifinal matchup against Roger Federer--against whom he was 0-12 before this week--it is unlikely he could have foreseen this outcome. Nadal, Murray, and Djokovic didn't even make it out of the round-robin stage. And U.S. Open champ Del Potro was just outplayed by Davydenko in today's final.

So the 2009 season ends with a few big questions looming as the 2010 Aussie Open awaits on the other side of the New Year:

• Have we seen Roger Federer at his peak, and will he succumb to a gradual slide from the top perch in the men's game or will his greatness continue?


• Can Rafael Nadal bounce back from a rough 2009 (or at least the last nine months of it) to rule the roost as he did in 2008?


• Will the next generation--Djokovic, Murray, Del Potro--become consistent enough to challenge for the crown?


• Were Andy Roddick's best chances for a second Slam title dashed on the lawns of WImbledon last July?

Congrats to Bob and Mike Bryan, who cemented the year-end #1 ranking in men's doubles by winning their last match of the season today. This was an improbable result, as the twins entered the ATP Finals event with a huge deficit in ranking points and then promptly lost the first of their round-robin matches. The pair won four in a row, though, and threaded the needle by assembling just what they needed to win the tournament and recapture the top ranking.

Nice piece in today's New York Times about the Twelve Nights In Hollywood release documenting 1961 and 1962 performances by Ella Fitzgerald. The iTunes download price was two-thirds what Amazon was asking for this Verve collection, so I am already listening to it as I write these words!

Two of the Choate boys competed in this year's Northeast Regional meet and it was WINDY, with gusts of over 30 miles per hour on the Sunken Meadow course. It was pretty cool to be back at Sunken Meadow. Not only did I run here countless times as a high school runner, but the 2002 Choate team won an invitational meet here in fine fashion.

Cross country in Sunken Meadow State Park this morning: just like old times!

Saw 2012 tonight: a film about--more or less--the end of the world, allegedly predicted by the Mayans centuries ago (which is not quite true, it turns out). This follows the formula of 1970s disaster movies such as The Poseidon Adventure, Airport, or The Towering Inferno: get to know a few key characters--some in positions of authority and some "normal folks"--and see what happens to them when calamity strikes. Modern CGI allows the audience to watch civilization's landmarks--such as the White House--dramatically obliterated, too. (The director, Roland Emmerich, is the same guy who helmed Independence Day, Godzilla, and The Day After Tomorrow, after all!) This was pretty much mindless entertainment, but fun to watch because of all the visuals: sort of a roller coaster ride with plenty of eye candy.

"Starting from fish-shape Paumanok" began one of Walt Whitman's poems, referring to the Native American name for Long Island. I spent the first eighteen years of my life on the Island, returning regularly until my parents moved to Connecticut a few years back. I am heading back there overnight since the Foot Locker Northeast Regional Meet will be staged at Sunken Meadow State Park--my high school course!--since Van Cortlandt is undergoing construction.

I nailed down my airfare this week for the 2010 Choate Tennis spring break training trip to Montego Bay, Jamaica. As I recall from my last trip to the island many years back, I will need to pack some sunscreen!

By winning his second round-robin match this week at the ATP Finals--combined with Rafael Nadal's dropping a round-robin match to nemesis Robin Soderling--Roger Federer has clinched the #1 ranking in men's tennis for the year. Nadal had a chance to eclipse the Swiss player in this final event of the year, but now will finish as #2. Federer earned this honor with an impressive win over Andy Murray today.

I bought some floor tickets for the return of U2's 360° Tour to North America next summer. Specifically, I am heading up to Montreal for the July 17 show. Haven't seen U2 from ground level yet, but now I have to figure out if I really want to wait all day for a great location near the stage, especially if that means giving up a day in a great city.

A day full of meetings (starting at 8 a.m.--ugh!) and other work commitments, as people are trying to convene groups and advance various projects before vacation kicks in mid-week.

I am really getting into Fringe. I am working my way through the first season on Blu-Ray discs and impressed with the acting, writing, and production values. I am a sucker for these shows with a mysterious mythology that's slowly unfolding over the course of many episodes. Now that the term has wound down, it's easy to get sucked into watching three or four installments a day!

I am about to start my 71st consecutive season of prep school coaching, so I am not used to getting many free Saturdays during the school year, especially after I became an athletic director in 1996. I just sent our girls' volleyball team up to the New England tournament and now have an unscheduled day ahead of me. (I might have gone up to New Hampshire to see our top-seeded team compete, but I have been on the road the past two days and am still trying to shake an annoying cough.)

I got dragged to see New Moon tonight, sharing a theater full of tween girls and a random assortment of other folks. I never saw Twilight nor read any of these books, so this was pretty much lost on me. I don't really see the appeal.

Starbucks, in conjunction with (RED), is offering a limited-edition CD, All You Need is Love. For putting $15 on my Starbucks card (you can make a purchase in that amount, too) I got this album, which features recordings U2, Dave Matthews Band, John Legend, and Playing for Change, who give the Beatles' "All You Need is Love" a reggae makeover.

I've been listening to the cuts from the John Mayer album, Battle Studies, a lot in the past 24 hours or so. Pretty solid collection of tunes here, in my humble estimation. I bought the iTunes LP version, so on my AppleTV I can access videos, interviews, a discography, and such.

Spent some time poking through the pretty interesting "behind the scenes" features on the just-released Star Trek on Blu-ray. Using my PS3 as a Blu-ray player has worked out great; I love the picture quality on the 52" flat screen.

Two days ago was the last cross country meet of the regular season. Today, winter sports begin at school. So it's now officially squash season!

Now that the fall season is behind me--and just a few more days left in the fall term--I have started to digest the first season of Fringe. This is a pretty engaging show, not unlike the early days of The X-Files or Alias.

It was a cold, wet day up in Massachusetts. The proximity of the cross country New Englands at Northfield Mt. Hermon School and the rest of the Choate teams at Deerfield meant I could spend time on both campuses. Happily, Choate dominated its rival in the Emerald City, winning all but one of the varsity contests and we had a good day in the season-ending cross country meet as well.

Because I have a Connecticut license to drive "public service" vehicles--i.e., the school's mid-buses and suburbans--I am subject to a regimen of random drug testing to comply with state regulations. Theoretically, once every two years, I am told to report to the campus health center to provide a specimen. But it's a random process, so I had to do this today for the second time in less than six months. Not a big deal, really, but kind of a hassle.

. . . may be one of these CanAm Spyders. Saw this one parked near the football field on my way from breakfast to the office this morning and had to snap a shot.

The yellow matches the color of my Zuma!

Today, the 11th of November, has been variously known as Veterans Day, Armistice Day, and Remembrance Day. It marks the cessation of hostilities at the end of the First World War. Whenever I've traveled to U.K. schools with our squash teams, I am struck by the memorials observing this war on the campuses; Americans have never seemed to appreciate fully the impact this conflict had on the peoples of Europe. I personally like the name Remembrance Day, perhaps because I am an historian. It's one of those holidays--like Memorial Day and Thanksgiving--that asks us to step beyond ourselves, for however brief a time, and be grateful to others.

Amazon delivered two "ultimate edition" Blu-ray packages today: 300 and the expanded Watchmen cut (including the "Tales of the Black Freighter" animation interspersed with the rest of the film). Coincidentally, both are Zach Snyder directorial efforts.

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the momentous day when the citizens of Germany started dismantling the Berlin Wall, the physical embodiment of a forty-year Cold War. I visited the Wall less than a year later and hacked out a souvenir chunk for myself. Amazing to consider how different the world is from what I knew a quarter-century ago!