As Far As You Know

Tonight I took in two diverse entertainments: I watched an all-female student cast perform Antigone on campus and then took the Mem Garden crew to see Borat (or to use the full title, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan). Pretty wide range of high culture and low culture!

Tonight I will see Madama Butterfly at the Metropolitan Opera House. The performances of this production have been sold out, as it's been greatly hyped. Anthony Minghella, the auteur behind such films as The English Patient and The Talented Mr. Ripley, directed.

Happy Guy Fawkes Day!

It was a treat to travel to New York City for the opera. The Madama Butterfly production was an interesting mix of culture: a Chilean diva starring in an Italian opera set in Japan dealing with attitudes of American imperialism. I cannot claim expertise enough to assess the quality of performance as a true aficionado might, but it was an impressive visual and musical spectacle.

I voted this morning. I supported the Republican incumbent governor Jodi Rell over John DeStefano, who, IMHO, represents all that is slimy about politicians. I voted for Ned Lamont for U. S. Senate with some reservations; I'm not convinced he's the best fit for the Senate, but it's clearly time for that sanctimonious phony Joe Lieberman to be sent home, as he long ago lost touch with his Connecticut constituents. Third District Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro will cruise to re-election without breaking a sweat, and I am happy to support her.

. . . and probably the Senate too! Yesterday's election returns were good news for the Democrats, who swept into control of the U.S. House of Representatives and--pending a recount in Virginia--the Senate as well. Most of the candidates I backed won. It was especially encouraging to see the G.O.P. lose ground in places like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Missouri, and Montana, thus exposing the myth of the supposedly insurmountable electoral advantage the Republicans have gerrymandered in recent years.

The Associated Press and other major news outlets are now projecting Webb as the winner of the U.S. Senate race in Virginia, which would give the Democrats control of the upper house of Congress as well. A whole new ball game in Washington, it seems!

Brilliant. The photo is real, of course: Rummy and Saddam in happier days! Credit to this site.

This is cute.

I dropped just over $5000 this morning on a round-the-world fare for airline tickets for my upcoming sabbatical trip. I'll be traveling via United and its Star Alliance partners. Here are the segments:

Hartford to Chicago
Chicago to Tokyo
Tokyo to Hong Kong
Hong Kong to Seoul
Seoul to Sydney
Sydney to Melbourne
Melbourne to Perth
Perth to Singapore
Singapore to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)
Ho Chi Minh City to Bangkok
Bangkok to Kolkata (Calcutta)
Mumbai (Bombay) to Cairo
Cairo to Frankfurt
Frankfurt to Barcelona
Madrid to Munich
Munich to London
London to Toronto
Toronto to Hartford

The upgraded Google Earth software for the Mac now shows the Choate campus in much clearer resolution than before. I've indicated--from the bird's eye view--where my home and where my office are.

Just got home from seeing Casino Royale, a leaner, meaner installment of the James Bond franchise starring Daniel Craig as the new 007. It holds together pretty well as an action film, with more emphasis on great stunt work and drama than the old reliance on gadgets and humor.

Roger Federer won five matches this week in Shanghai to win the Tennis Masters Cup, the year-end tour championship. Along the way he bested Andy Roddick (coming back from match points down!), nemesis Rafael Nadal, and--in today's final--James Blake.

The semifinal victory over Nadal was a critical result. The young Spaniard had a tremendous start to 2006, beating Federer in four finals and pushing him even on grass in the title match at Wimbledon. It looked like Rafa might play the role of spoiler as the Swiss star aimed to finish at #1 for the third straight year. But Nadal had a disappointing summer and fall and Federer has been nearly flawless, losing just once since Roland Garros in June.

Whenever the town of Wallingford first puts up the wreaths and other holiday decorations downtown, I recoil at the assault on my sensibilities. Can't we get Thanksgiving behind us, at least, before ushering in the commercial hard sell?

Today I listened to Love, the new Beatles release--well, to be more accurate, a mash-up of classic Beatles tracks--created for the Cirque de Soleil show in Las Vegas by Fab Four producer George Martin. I got the deluxe edition with the DVD Audio disc, which sounds spectacular. These familar songs sound fresh, having been remixed with tracks from other songs. The entire disc is sonically very interesting.

Been sick as a dog most of the past couple of days, spending most of it in bed (though not sleeping all that well, which is unusual for me). The symptoms: a deep cough, slight nausea, mild headache, and general achiness. This is putting me behind on my report-writing and generally ruining what otherwise could have been a productive week with rare unscheduled time at hand.

It's Thanksgiving Day, one of my two favorite holidays (the other being Memorial Day). I drove up to my parents' house in South Windsor to celebrate. Unfortunately, I'm still fighting this bug, which makes the day a lot less enjoyable than it might have been.

For the second morning in a row, I woke up to a dark world. That is, the power went down in my building (and across the Choate campus) overnight, disabling off alarm clocks, lights, computers, etc. I was lucky yesterday in that I awoke briefly a few hours before my scheduled 6:30 a.m. departure for Van Cortlandt Park with some cross country runners; once I realized my alarm clock was down, I programmed the alarm in my Treo to wake me at 6:00. At least this morning, getting up was not a worry. But when power is gone, one quickly is reminded just how much of our daily lives are dependent on electricity. I couldn't work (no computers), read (no lights), watch television, or much else all that easily. Here's hoping the problem has been solved!

So you've got yourself the nifty Nike+ Sport Kit for the iPod Nano, but what if you want to run in non-Nike shoes? Well this vendor has a nifty solution: a little case for the shoe chip that fits into the lacing of any running shoe. Of course, I already splurged for a pair of 180s; had I known about this before, I could have saved myself $100.

I am using a cool little application called Indy Jr. to chart my travels online in anticipation of creating a mini-site for my upcoming round-the-world trip. I've mapped my whereabouts in 2005 and 2006 here.

I made my second trip to the Metropolitan Opera this month last night, seeing Il Barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville). As a neophyte to the world of opera, I still was blown away by the talented singers who gave impressive rapid-fire deliveries of Rossini's music. The production was funny and engaging. Perhaps because I listened to a recording of the opera the past few weeks in preparation, I got more out of this performance than I did Madama Butterfly a few weeks back.