FunnyStrange.com

After years of working mostly at home in my pajamas, it's a bit of an adjustment to sit at a desk in a cube. (For one thing, until three days ago I didn't know they're called "cubes" now, not "cubicles." Those extra syllables are so 20th century.)

The good news is the office isn't laid out in a vast expanse of cubes. There are small groups of cubes here and there, like little neighborhoods. I'm in a row of three cubes and the people on either side of me are fairly quiet.

The best part is that I sit in front of a huge window. Right behind us are some apartment buildings, though we're up high enough that I can see the woods behind the apartments. I have to keep the blinds down until mid-morning to keep the sun off my computer screen. After that the sunlight is indirect and I can open the blinds all the way. This afternoon I watched a hawk circling over the woods.

I need to measure the window sill for a planter box. The previous occupant had plants -- I can see faint water rings on the sill. I also got permission to cover the beige cube walls with my own fabric, which will make the space much more cheerful. This was my first effort to brighten up the cube:
I made two Flying Spaghetti Monsters as gifts last winter, and clearly it was time to make one for myself. Right now he's sitting on my desk between the computer and the phone. There's a bookshelf in the front of my cube, and this afternoon I noticed that it's just the right height that I could put the FSM up there and have his eye stalks peering out at people as they walked by. I think I might have to make something else for my desk and move the FSM to sentry duty.

I started my new job today! It was exciting and a little overwhelming. Spent the whole day on orientation and meeting people. I asked what the policy was on blogging about work and they said it's okay as long as I don't give away trade secrets or anything. So I will stop being coy and say that I work for Ipas. According to the web site Ipas "is a nonprofit organization that works around the world to increase women's ability to exercise their sexual and reproductive rights, and to reduce abortion-related deaths and injuries."

My team leader took us out to lunch, woo! Nice way to get started on my first day. We had lunch at the famous BLT place whose name escapes me at the moment, then went to Sugarland on Franklin Street, which I had been wanting to try since seeing them on Food Network. Really fun selection of cupcakes. They also have gelato in interesting flavors like blood orange. While we were there, a group of three came in to get gelato martinis. Unfortunately they take a bit of time to make and we left before I could see what the finished martinis actually look like.

I didn't want a cupcake right then, so I got two to bring home for Georg and me: pumpkin chocolate, and boston cream pie. We shared them after dinner and they were both wonderful. The pumpkin chocolate was my favorite, because while the cake part of both was extremely good, the icing on the pumpkin chocolate was better. It was a really light cream cheese icing, I think they must have whipped it to get such a light texture. The icing on the boston cream cupcake was a thick ganache which was kind of too rich for me. My new team leader says she loves icing; to her cake is an icing delivery mechanism. I feel the opposite: I often scrape the icing off and just eat the cake. I think we'll get along well at office parties.

After my first day at Ipas I drove back out to Hillsborough to the furniture company. The owner is out of town all week so I'm going over there to check the email, write quotes etc while he's gone. (My replacement doesn't start until next week.) I rather stupidly took the most direct route, which sent me right through the middle of downtown Chapel Hill. Fun traffic! Tomorrow I'm going to detour through Carrboro. It will make the drive longer in terms of distance but probably faster.

We just got back from seeing Shen Wei Dance Arts at ADF. Wow. They did a performance called "Folding" which blew me away.

This video fails to capture how special "Folding" was:

That first segment, where they're wearing red and running across the stage. They had this odd, fluid way of running so that the upper part of their bodies didn't move at all, as if they were being pulled on a moving platform (like that famous hallway scene in Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast). And the lighting was dim at first, and with those large white headpieces and white body makeup, at first I honestly couldn't tell whether they were moving forward or backward. At times it seemed like the headpieces were masks and they were moving backwards. But then I would think that they had to be going forwards, to move that quickly and smoothly. The effect was eerie and almost a little disturbing.

Besides "Folding" they also did a beautiful piece set to Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring." There's a video for this which for some reason has no sound, so I'm not bothering to link to it. And a short solo work by Shen Wei called "A Solo Work By Shen Wei." Which was odd and kind of .. funny? I wasn't sure what was going on.

Today I said goodbye to two jobs I really loved. The first one gave me a little party with a cake. The second gave me the gift of treating it like an ordinary day thus preventing me from having a complete meltdown. Which would have embarrassed everyone.

At one of the jobs, the boss's daughter works there too. She has Down syndrome and this afternoon she presented me with a card she made for me:

I asked her to read the front for me and she told me it says "Getting Ready to Have a Party for Sarah." With that translation as a guide I was able to read the inside.

She wrote out goodbye messages for me from everyone who works there. I've seen her make these cards before so I know that she wrote the whole thing herself, imagining what people would say. These are the messages:

from Allison (the author): You left and have a new job. I miss you.
from Katie: Sarah, you have a great time.
from Arin: Sarah, you have nice [?] work days.
from Brooks Ann: I am so happy for you.
from Louise: Like you, we miss you.
from Edward: You have a nice time.
from Donna: I miss you and I like you, Sarah.

The best going-away card ever. I have to say, I was a little surprised by her reaction to my departure. She just never seemed that interested in me. She knew my name and would always say hi, but there were other people there that she was much more excited to see. The day she found out I was leaving, she cried. And today, when she gave me the card she said "Don't cry! No crying today!" I promised her I wouldn't cry, and I didn't. Well, maybe a little misty. While I was driving home, when no one could see me.

So I have a new job, full-time, which starts on Monday. It's with a non-profit that promotes women's health and reproductive rights. Not only will I be doing interesting work, but in support of a cause that means a lot to me. I'm pretty excited about it.

The past week has been taken up with preparing for, well I guess it's going to be a pretty big change in my daily life, after being freelance for so long. Taking care of errands, enjoying "one last time" of things I used to do on weekdays, etc. I bought the lunch box last weekend, and today I bought work clothes. I had forgotten how much I hate clothes shopping. Especially when it's a million degrees out. Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster I won't have to wear hose.

Speaking of the lunch box, I heart Ms. Bento. When I first saw it, the containers looked awfully small. I was worried that maybe I should have gotten Mr. Bento, which has four containers. But Ms. Bento turns out to be perfect. I fill one container with a protein (like barbecue chicken), one with vegetables (like spinach salad, or cherry tomatoes and mozzarella) and one with fruit. I should take photos but my lunches often taste better than they look. It would be a good motivator though. And I have a lunch box buddy!

RuPaul's new show, RuPaul's Drag U, premiered last night. Georg and I were both big fans of her hit show, RuPaul's Drag Race, of which this is sort of a spinoff.

RuPaul's Drag Race is basically America's Next Top Model with professional drag queens instead of teenage would-be models, and RuPaul instead of Tyra. If that description doesn't appeal to you, you probably skipped this entire entry and aren't reading now. Trust me, it's fantastic.

The concept of RuPaul's Drag U is less interesting to me: in each episode three former Drag Race contestants give a drag-style makeover to three biological women. The women have to wear big costumes, big wigs and big makeup, walk the runway, and do a lip sync performance. They are judged and the winner gets $10,000.

I don't generally watch makeover shows. I'm kind of put off by the tearful confessionals & the conceit that a TV show can improve someone's life by giving them a new outfit and some makeup tips. That said, if I had the opportunity to get a new outfit and makeup tips from a drag queen, hell yeah I'd do it. I'm, shall we say, a fan of elaborate costumes, and no one does costumes better than a drag queen. And most of the Drag Race contestants I really liked are on this show (everyone I had hoped for except Jessica Wild). So of course I watched Drag U.

It's almost by definition not as good as Drag Race, simply because more time spent on the makeovers means less time spent on the drag queens. It seemed like the drag queens weren't exactly sure whether the show was about them or the makover-ees. For instance Jujubee seemed to focus on the woman she was helping, while Raven clearly wanted all of her face time to be all about herself.

What I liked: Most of all, RuPaul's sense of humor. The funniest thing in the entire episode was when RuPaul advised one of the women to "Take a page from my book. No, really. [takes autobiography off a shelf] It's right here. Take it." I only wish she'd made the woman actually tear out a page. RuPaul also used that creaky old "walk this way" gag to great effect. And Jujubee had a funny exchange with her makeover-ee, who put on a tight dress after wearing nothing but pants for years:

"Do you feel powerful?"
"I feel like a sausage."
"Do you feel like a powerful sausage?"

What I didn't like: the idea, implied throughout the episode and stated outright once or twice, that the makeover subjects, all "tomboys" who never wore makeup, were not fully women until the drag queens taught them how. I'm all for playing around with the expectations of gender roles. A man who wears dresses, acts out an exaggerated version of femininity, and calls himself a queen is no less of a man. Likewise a woman who rides a Harley, hates dresses and makeup, and calls herself a biker chick or a tomboy is no less of a woman.

When Raven said "They were boys when they walked in here, and now they're women," she couldn't have been more wrong. Whether they were in jeans or gowns, they were always women. No one can give womanhood to them because no one can take it away.

I was also deeply uncomfortable when one of the makeover-ees said that she never wore dresses because she had a history of sexual assault and she felt unsafe in feminine clothing. That was where I felt the show crossed the line into exploitation. (A line that Drag Race never crossed in my opinion, because the contestants were all professional drag performers using the show to promote their careers.) That woman needs counseling, not a reality tv show.

I'll continue watching Drag U, just to see more of favorites like Nina Flowers and Pandora Boxx. But I'll be glad when this show is over and the next season of Drag Race starts up.

Ms. Bento arrived today! As I was told by a Ms. Bento owner, the containers look a bit small. I put a spice jar in the photo for scale. Apparently the Japanese don't eat very big lunches. I think it will be a good amount of food when it's filled. Which will be tomorrow!

I ran the smoker today. Smoked a chicken, ribs and pork butt. (Plus a sausage I had for lunch today. I love those cheddar brats from Whole Foods.) We'll have the ribs tonight and I'll pack some chicken in Ms. Bento. It comes with a bag that looks big enough to also hold my sport cup that I use for iced tea. And the spork has a little carrying case too. I'm so excited about having a lunch box. It was expensive, but will pay for itself in a few weeks if I use it every day.

I bought a lunch box today! Well, I ordered one. It will arrive on Monday.

Years ago I had a Tupperware lunch box which was wonderful. It was a big box with several small bowls that fit inside, and a sandwich box that stacked on top, and a handle that held the two together. I rarely eat sandwiches for lunch, but the sandwich box was the perfect size for a portion of leftovers. Then the bowls could hold a small salad, snack, whatever! The big box also doubled as a regular large Tupperware container for storage at home. I loved that lunch box so much. I had it for a long time -- 15 years? 20? and gradually lost almost all the pieces. I looked in the cupboard last night and could only find one of the bowls, sans lid.

Anyway, soon I'm going to have to start packing a lunch every day, so I need a lunch box. I did a little poking around and I was amazed at how much lunch box technology has improved! They have insulated lunch boxes which will keep your food warm (or cold) until lunchtime, no need for refrigeration! Why didn't I find this out years ago? I've been spending my lunch hour a couple days a week in a place with minimal fridge space, and so have been buying lunch. All this time I could have packed lunch in one of these newfangled lunch boxes!

I decided to get a Ms. Bento lunch box. It's a metal jar like a thermos, with three containers that stack inside. According to the Amazon customer reviews, it will keep your lunch either hot or cold for hours if you preheat (or prechill) the containers. And the plastic containers are BPA free, which makes me feel much better about eating hot food from it every day.

I had a hard time deciding whether to get Ms. Bento or the larger Mr. Bento, with four containers. It's kind of expensive, and I didn't want to get the wrong size. Lucky me, there's a flickr group devoted to photos of lunches packed in Mr. or Ms. Bento. (There's a flickr group for everything apparently!) Looking at a bunch of photos let me get a better idea of how much food each one will carry, and Ms. Bento was the clear winner. I think filling a Mr. Bento would be way too much food. It would work if I made a big production out of lunch, with lots of different foods every day, and didn't try to fill up the containers. But that's not what I want to do.

It's kind of ridiculous how excited I am about getting my new lunch box. It even comes with a spork!

Had a funny conversation today with the Scottish guy from the other end of the building.

me: Are you following the World Cup?
him: Of course I am!
me: Who are you rooting for?
him: I've thought all along that Spain could win it all. But then again, Holland will be difficult to beat.
me: They're the best team that never wins.
him: That's true. .. No! Scotland is the best team that never wins!

I've never seen Scotland's national team play so I can't comment on that. Georg says that the Netherlands and Spain are both described as "best team that never wins." One of them will have to give up that title on Sunday.

I got to use science yesterday!

I was baking a pie, and didn't have enough butter in sticks to measure the crust. All I had was a giant tub of clarified butter, about 5 pounds, that Georg had gotten from work. The problem was measuring the butter: sticks come with measurements marked on them, and I needed exactly 1 cup. How to get a cup of butter out of the giant tub eluded me.

Baking requires precision, so I couldn't just scoop out some butter and moosh it into a measuring cup. The air pockets would throw off the measurement. The most accurate way would be to melt some butter, pour it into a measuring cup and wait for it to resolidify. Which would take forever and I wanted to make the pie that day.

I thought maybe I could weigh the butter and convert weight to volume. Unfortunately, a quick google told me that different butters have different densities based on fat content. So a weight conversion wouldn't work unless I had an accurate volume measurement to start out with. And if I had that, I wouldn't need the conversion! (This method would have worked, however, if I had a big restaurant-sized block of butter that hadn't been cut into. Because the total volume would be marked on the label; it just wouldn't have tablespoons marked like the sticks do.)

However, googling the weight of butter provided another suggestion: water displacement. I got out a 2-cup measuring cup, filled it with 1 cup of water, and added butter until it measured 2 cups. Poured off the water and voila! Exactly one cup of butter.

Water displacement is very accurate, as good as if I had melted the butter and poured it into a measuring cup. And much faster! I just had to put it back in the fridge for a few minutes to rechill. In honor of Archimedes I said "Eureka!" out loud when I got the measurement. Unlike Archimedes, I did not run naked down the street.

I've installed a GPS app in my phone called MotionX. As an alternative to the built-in map feature, it has its upsides and its downsides.

Pros:

• It talks, which makes it much easier to use while driving. I've had way too many solo trips where I was driving with one hand, holding up the phone with the other and trying to read the directions and watch the road at the same time. Not safe! MotionX reads the directions to me with a female voice which is almost soothing. I think I will call it "Madam X."
• If I miss a turn or change the route, it recalculates my directions. This is huge. For me this feature alone makes the app worth it. My biggest gripe with directions from Google Maps is that, on the phone at least, you can't edit the route at all. If you miss a turn, you have to find your own way back to the directions. And if Google wants to send you a different way from the route you want to use, you're out of luck.

Cons:

• It's slow to load. Ree-ee-ally slow. You can't sit down in the car, pull out the phone and say "ok, which way do I go?" If you don't want to be sitting in your car waiting for it to find the location and calculate the route (which would be hazardous to your health in this weather), you have to start loading it up while you're walking to the car, and pretty early in the walk.
• The UI is confusing compared to Google Maps and the place where you type in addresses is much less forgiving of typoes.
• It chews up the battery in no time. I've watched it drain my phone's battery, then I plugged in the phone and the battery continued to drop while it was plugged in. You really have to stay on top of keeping the battery fully charged to use it.

So, MotionX isn't a slam dunk but it's well worth the cost. Especially for someone who gets lost as easily as I do. I haven't had the opportunity to try walking directions yet. I somehow doubt MotionX will be able to beat Google Map's public transportation directions. Google has subway and bus schedules built in so you can see not only where you have to go to get the bus, but when the next bus is going to be there, and the one after that in case you miss it.

I think the show went really well! Here's the playlist. It was so much fun to put together.

I had found a web page with "fascinating facts about the 50 states" and had compiled a couple of facts about each state for the talksets. But then I discovered a couple of incorrect "facts" on the website, which made me afraid to use the rest. So I only mentioned facts that I knew for sure. Georg had said that I should just make stuff up -- "the first yak colony in the US was in New Hampshire!" -- which would have been funny but I didn't have time to invent 50 fake facts.

I did have a time problem. I plan the timing of these shows with a Google spreadsheet -- the left column has the time of each song and then at the top is a formula that adds up all the times. Thing is, I always copy the spreadsheet from the previous theme show. And this one was twice as long as normal and had 87 songs in it. The set being added up by the formula wasn't big enough, it didn't include the last couple of songs. You could say I was using a faulty algorithm.

I noticed that the times in my spreadsheet and in iTunes didn't quite match. iTunes is always off by a few minutes because the tracks always have a few seconds of silence at the end. So the songs are always a bit shorter than the tracks. But this was more, it was off by a few minutes too much. If the times had been off by an hour, I would have known what the problem was. With just a few minutes discrepancy, I couldn't get it. I thought maybe I had an extra song in there somewhere and spent a long time last night comparing the flowsheet with iTunes, trying to find the discrepancy. I never figured out that the problem was the formula until the last 10 minutes of the show, when I looked at the flowsheet and realized that I had about 14 minutes of music to go. Eek!

It wasn't actually that hard to fix. I had two songs planned for Hawaii, and I simply dropped one, and stopped the last instrumental before it was over. Ended up running about 30 seconds long. That would be a serious problem on a pro station, but no big deal for college radio and Ross (the next dj) was really really nice about it. And now I know to adjust the formula for next time.

Almost done preparing for the Fourth of July show tomorrow and I'm really happy with how it's coming together. Four hours celebrating the United States, with at least one song for every state, plus DC. I'm going to play them in order of statehood, starting with Delaware and ending with Hawaii.

At this point my flowsheet is a couple of minutes short but that's easily fixed. I just need to choose longer versions of a couple of songs. Or I could choose a shorter version of one song and then add another. Either way, I'll work it out.

Some states were super easy -- New York, Texas, California -- and some were really hard. The most difficult states were Minnesota and, to my surprise, Maryland. Indiana was surprisingly easy. Partly because Hoagy Carmichael was from Indiana and wrote several songs about it.

I was a bit lenient with what I considered a state song. Had to be, in order to find songs for all 50 states that were more or less in format. I tried to find songs that named the state in the title and were specifically about the state. But if all I could find was a song about a place in the state, that was fine. "Meet Me in St. Louis" for example. Or a song that mentioned the state just for the rhyme scheme, and kinda could have been set anywhere. That wasn't as good as a song genuinely about the state, but I wouldn't reject it if that was all I had.

The format is a bit loose too. Lots of Western Swing when we get around to the western states, some straight up country, and a few songs that are newer (also a couple that are older!) than I would normally play. Whatever, I think it comes together well and people won't mind hearing a newer song in the mix.

I think it's going to be fun! The show will start at noon tomorrow (eastern time) and end at 4 pm.

A few people have asked me what song I picked for their home state, and I got a couple of requests too. If anyone reading this has a request, let me know today (Saturday) and I can probably still work it in. Tomorrow I'll have the whole thing prepped and it will be too late to make changes.

Elena Kagan's confirmation hearings are going on now, and I followed it all day yesterday. Watched a bit on C-SPAN, listened on C-SPAN Radio, and when I couldn't watch or listen I followed along with the SCOTUSblog.com live blog. Which is terrific: they're non-partisan and they provide context for everything people say, for instance whenever someone mentions a precedent the live blog will link to the decision and their analysis of it.

The hearings are pure theater of course. I don't expect any shocking (or even mildly surprising) revelations to come out. It's just interesting to see the tactics that are used. And the hilarious posturing: everyone who supports the nominee asks questions along the lines of "Isn't it true that you love puppies and are kind to old ladies?" And opponents ask "Don't you agree that the president who nominated you is ruining our country and must be stopped at all costs?"

The only surprise is that Kagan has a good sense of humor. Lindsay Graham asked her where she was on Christmas Day (something to do with the Christmas Day bomber) and she said "Like all Jews, I was probably in a Chinese restaurant." Which is first of all, hilarious, also interesting that she admitted not remembering exactly where she was on Christmas. Of course, why would she -- to a non-Christian it's just a day off.

The funniest line to me requires a bit more setup: someone, I think Grassley, was asking her about some statements she had made about Israeli judge Aharon Barak. Apparently Barak has a judicial philosophy that is at odds with the approach favored in the US, and Grassley was trying to associate her with Barak's philosophy. They went back and forth for awhile, then finally she explained that the remarks he was quoting about Barak were made while she was introducing him before his speech at Harvard. She said that it was her job as dean to introduce people, "and if any of you had spoken at Harvard, I would have given you a great introduction too." It really helped to deflate Grassley's argument.

I've decided that I prefer listening to the hearings on radio to watching them on TV. Because it's easier to take when I can't see the senators' faces. For instance, yesterday morning I heard Sessions sneeringly say "Miss Kagan, put your legal hat on for just a moment" and basically call her a liar, and thought to myself "Christ, what an asshole"* without reacting emotionally. In the evening I saw Coburn challenge her on something she had said in a speech once, and I wanted to punch him in the face.

My main impression of the first day of questioning is that Kagan's opponents have got nothing. Only a couple went on a serious attack -- even Big John Cornyn was fairly mild -- and the substance of the attacks have been pretty lame. Sessions went after her for blocking military recruiters from Harvard Law because Don't Ask Don't Tell violated Harvard's non-discrimination policy. Okay, I'm not a good judge of this one because I admire her for doing that, so an attack based on that doesn't seem very damaging to me. But it did seem to me that she parried well. Coburn's attack was all over the place. By the end he seemed to be making the bizarre claim that the original intent of the framers of the Constitution was to prevent any law that Tom Coburn doesn't like, and therefore the Supreme Court have failed to do their job because they allow Congress to pass laws. He ran out of time and said he'd go back to it in the second round. Can't wait.

The weirdest attack mostly happened on the first day, during the speeches. Apparently the new GOP party line is that Thurgood Marshall was a bad justice, and therefore Elena Kagan will be bad because she clerked for him and .. she's not capable of thinking for herself but will only mimic the man she worked for twenty years ago? Or something? All I can say is, if demonizing a legendary, beloved figure is all they've got, well, good luck with that.

*Have you seen that thing about how all comic strips are funnier if you replace the last word balloon with "Christ, what an asshole"? It works even better with Senate confirmation hearings.

I haven't posted at all this week because we were in Savannah. And I had a momentary attack of good sense and didn't want to post an announcement that my house was unoccupied for days.

More on that later. The excitement today was rescuing a snapping turtle from the road. I stupidly didn't have my camera with me, so I'm posting someone else's photo of the same kind of turtle. The one we saw looked just like this photo, except a little lighter in color, and the shell was more knobby. I think that means the one we saw was a little older.

He was crossing Cole Mill, heading for the pond on the golf course. We were coming back from the farmer's market when we saw him in the median. He was moving fast for a turtle, but Cole Mill is four lanes there and I can't imagine he would have made it across by himself. I ran back while Georg turned the car around, and another woman stopped next to the turtle. I'm so incredibly glad she was there. Because I'd never encountered a snapping turtle before in person.

He was an ornery fellow. The woman got a metal humane trap out of her car, put it down in front of him, and tried to guide him in with the trap lid. His response was to whip around and bite the lid. Yikes! He moved fast. If I'd been alone I wouldn't have recognized him as a snapper and would have tried to pick him up. He probably would have taken a finger off.

We were standing there trying to figure out what to do when a police officer stopped. We had a hilarious exchange:

Cop: "What seems to be the problem?"
Us: "We're trying to get this turtle across of the road."
Cop: "Well pick him up and carry him across!"
Us: "We can't, he's a snapper. See?"
[lady pokes turtle with trap lid, he obligingly rears up and snaps at it.]

We were trying to figure out if anyone had anything in our cars that we could put the turtle in. The cop pointed out an unoccupied house on the other side of the street that had a recycling bin, so Georg and I went and got it. Meanwhile the turtle scooted under the woman's car, and the cop helped guide her to back up without running over him. Snapping turtles, by the way, have big ugly looking claws. They are not cute like box turtles.

I don't know how they got the turtle into the recycling bin, because we didn't think it was big enough and I had gone back to get a big wheeled cart from the house. However they did it, he was inside the bin. The turtle was big enough to snap at the top of the bin, and might have been able to reach over the top if he really tried, so it wasn't safe to pick up the bin. We took turns pushing it across the road with a foot, while the cop stopped traffic for us.

After being shoved across the road, the stupid turtle didn't want to come out of the bin. We tipped it on its side and he just would not come out. Finally we turned it all the way over and dumped him out -- backing away quickly, he was a mean, mad turtle by that point. Standing up high to make himself taller, and I swear to god he looked like he was hissing at us. Georg took the empty bin back and I watched the turtle head straight for the pond and dive right in. He's the golf course's problem now.

I have to say, I'm glad to live in a town where the police will help you get a turtle out of the road. Maybe he thought we were being ridiculous and were likely to get ourselves run over. But if that was why he helped us, he didn't show it. Thank you, police officer!

The political blog Balloon Juice had a post last night on threats of violence against census workers. A couple of census workers popped up in the comments thread, with reports of their experiences. It was mostly not as bad as I would have imagined -- with one exception, which was a "friend of a friend" story that is so extreme I'm frankly not inclined to believe it.

Mostly it sounds like the census workers are encountering a lot of bluster, with the same half-baked ignorance that produced "get your government hands off my medicare." For example:

(after explaining the basis for the census in the constitution): "I don't agree with your constitutional analysis. Please leave."
"in MY government they don't come to our houses to count us"
"I don't agree with this government's massive waste of money on the census"
"You're just a stooge for obama, helping get the employment numbers up"

The thing I can't understand is, not to put too fine a point on it, what the fuck? Are these people all nine years old & have never experienced the census before? How could they possibly think it's a plot? It's one of the first things in the Constitution. Libertarians and constitutional literalists should love the census. It's the closest most of us will ever get to carrying out the direct instructions of the Founders.

obligatory disclaimer: I'm aware that someone commenting on a blog could be anyone, and the "census workers" on that thread could be making the whole thing up. All I can say is that they sound real, except for the one story that doesn't. 

I have XM radio in my car, and you might not be surprised to learn that my favorite station is The 40s On 4. I've always been impressed with their promos and station IDs. They used to call the station The Savoy Express, and the promos would say things like "Get on board the Savoy Express, rolling down track number 4." I really liked a series they did where they would name three artists in their rotation. For instance "This is the Cab Calloway Express. The Larry Clinton Express. The Helen Ward Express. It's the Savoy Express, rolling down track number 4."

I liked those Savoy Express promos so much that when WXDU asked me to create some promos for Divaville Lounge, I stole the concept and did a couple "It's the so-and-so Lounge." I also came up with a motto for my show: "from Tin Pan Alley to the Swing Era." It's not strictly accurate -- the show goes past the swing era, to the early 60s -- but I think it gets the point across.

After keeping the promos the same for over a year, few months ago the 40s On 4 changed them all. They dropped the name "the Savoy Express," and the new promos were all extremely short. A typical promo would go "The 40s, and more!" I was particularly impressed with that motto. It communicates exactly what the station is about, in only four words. I spent a lot of time trying to think of a motto for my show which was that concise, without success. I never thought of anything I liked half as much as "from Tin Pan Alley to the Swing Era."

Well apparently there is such a thing as too much brevity. After only a few months the 40s On 4 dropped the super-short promos and introduced a new batch. Now they have a variety of promos, with different music for each one, a motto specific to that music, and then they tack "The 40s On 4" onto the end of each. For instance, "Put on your spectators, and dance!" while a fast swing instrumental plays. Or "Music for hep cats," over a 50s cha cha cha. There's also one with Cab Calloway, though I can't remember what voiceover goes with that one. The only one that doesn't really work for me is one where the announcer says "Singers..." [a snippet of a crooner singing "Laura"] "...and swingers!" [a clip of some swing tune]. I'm not crazy about that one because the transition between the two songs is too abrupt, it sounds a little weird to me.

Anyway, this is the only radio station I listen to regularly enough to get to know their promos. (Except WXDU of course, and we don't have regular promos.) It's been really instructive to hear the 40s On 4 promos evolve.

Georg pointed out the only fitting response to today's game:

This afternoon Georg and I went to Galaxy Cinema for the Mexico-France game. Galaxy is showing "selected" games for free. I think maybe that means all the afternoon games, plus all US games? Not sure. Anyway I'm rooting for Mexico so I was glad they showed this one.

It's a great place to see a game. Huge screen, duh, and good snacks. There were only 2-3 dozen people there, including a contingent of French guys who were decked out in their team jerseys and face paint. We saw them putting on the paint before the game. They had a little plastic thing with three sticks of grease paint so they could draw on their blue, white and red in one swipe. During the first half the Frenchmen were happy, noisy and sitting right behind us. It was fun to hear them yelling "Allez, allez ALLEZ!" and "Voici voici!" every time France got close to making a shot.

I haven't studied French since high school ahem years ago, so I only understood a tiny bit of what they were saying. I think the guy right behind me made fun of me once -- at one point Mexico missed a great shot, and I said "oh no!" or something like that. The guy behind me said "Ah, c'est dommage!" and the other Frenchmen laughed. They sounded goodnatured so I didn't take it personally. Especially since Mexico kicked their asses in the second half. The final score was 2-0.

I would definitely watch future games at Galaxy. The guy at the front desk said attendance has varied greatly depending on who's playing, for instance the US-England game last Saturday was completely full. My only complaint about the experience was the dreaded "summer matinee effect." By which I mean, every time I go to the movies during the day in the summertime, I get a headache afterwards. Every single damn time. I think it's spending two hours in the cool and dark, and then going suddenly out into the heat and humidity. Long ago I learned not to watch matinee movies in the summer. In fact it's been so long I just forgot today.

Honestly, regardless of the headache I'd still go to another game at Galaxy. It was that much fun. Especially when my team wins!

A couple of good things I forgot to mention:

1. Georg found apple wood chips at Kroger! Previously all we could find are mesquite and hickory. Which are a bit harsh for meats that spend a really long time in the smoker. This time I used about 2/3 hickory, 1/3 apple. The hickory comes in big chunks, which I drop into the charcoal compartment. The apple is small chips, which would burn up immediately if they were in with the coals. So instead I put them in a tin foil packet and set it right over the coals. It worked great. The apple wood lasted all day, with a thin plume of smoke coming from it. I think light smoke is better when the meat spends 10-11 hours inside the smoker. It still had the nice pink smoke ring, but was a gentler smoke flavor than last time we did pork butt.

2. Instead of setting the meat right on the grill, I put it on an oven roasting pan (the kind with a tray that sits over a drip pan). This had a couple of advantages: first, though we clean the grill every time, it's still kind of nasty. Second, the meat drippings fall into the roasting pan, not into the bottom of the grill. Usually when I run the smoker that liquid ends up dripping out the lower vents into the cooker's drip pan. Eventually the dog notices it, and then we find her with ashy meat juice all over her face. Yuck. I'm always worried she's going to make herself sick. This time it was just dry ash and she wasn't even tempted.