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28.4.04Food AgainI don't know where to begin to comment on New Wave cooking, which may be the most extraordinary thing ever. (And would be even more extraordinary if done wearing an energy dome.) Science in the service of succulence! Deconstructed meals made by the diner! Dishes (e.g. sea urchin napoleons) that annihilate course distinctions! Forays into forbidden flavor combinatorics!
All this is a lot like when I used to mix and eat every liquid (and some solids) in the lunchroom. I, for one, am glad there is a name for this. I would certainly go to wd~50, say. I hope gelatinous martinis die the death they deserve, though. Oh, and another salvo fired in the war to prove that grad school is a horrible fuckup. 27.4.04Prandialities & TechnicalitiesPrinceton has the worst pizza of any place I've ever lived.
Re my travel arrangements: if I sit in a wheelchair, I can go through the Chunnel on the Eurostar in first class for 58 USD, as can a 'companion.' 26.4.04Fill Me UpI have a new favorite book. I finally bought the Zagat Survey of New York City restaurants, & promptly used it to find a restaurant that is something of a 'best-kept secret,' though 'so small you sit at more than one table' simultaneously. Amy & I are not wide people & we were mostly fine; but I did 'misplace an elbow in a waiter's junk,' & we were close enough to 'steal our neighbors' biscotti' for dessert. It's all about learning, isn't it? I am reading the book morning, noon, and night.
A final word on GMail, on having our 'consciousness[es] colonized': I'd rather have ads for things I want than ads for things I don't. ('I'm not a wanker, but my consciousness is colonized by wankers.') The legal issues (my correspondence can be grabbed by the law without a warrant, possibly without my knowing about it) are more serious (though not different in kind than in other webmail services). Electronic speech isn't treated as private speech & that's hairy, no matter what service I'm using. 23.4.04E-mail & BrowsingI am testing GMail (erikkennedy@gmail.com), and I have to say it is (as reported) worlds better than any other major webmail service, and comfortably better than my Princeton account. On the privacy issues. 1) Spam-filters already 'read' our e-mail; the objections come because GMail is corporately-motivated ('must sell Viagra ads'), not individually-motivated ('must repulse Viagra ads'). But privacy is compromised in the same way, either way. Why worry how? 2) It is yet possible that the ECPA may be interpreted as protecting this vulnerable sort of e-mail under 'reasonable expectation of privacy,' which would be good.
I will delete my Hotmail account as soon as I discover how. Refer all future SPAM to erikkennedy@gmail.com. Also, I've switched to Firefox. *That* is a browser. [I see Peter has already blogged on GMail.] 22.4.04Another ThingI may be living in Alexia Smokler's old room next year.
Take That, NAQT, ACFMeditating on victory, just as Oscar said, Team JOSE won a tooth-and-nail pub-quiz victory last night at the bar, amounting now to two quizzes of three (by our reckoning), one of two (common era). The team enjoyed a bag of wasabi peas along the way. Public tremendous thanks must go to Aaron for running the quiz, wearing a sportcoat & tie in a casual age, and pronounced funk.
20.4.04And on the Second DaySurrexit a mortuis.
Propterea Morior in Exsilio9.18 pm. Suddenly, my computer shuts itself off. The fan duct at the back is blistering hot. It has not come back on since.
Something like this happened to my dad's computer (HP) last year. Repeatingly, when it was in its death throes ('pain is always unique to the sufferer, but boring to everyone else'). It happened to my computer in December, and it was resurrected within a few hours. Now I worry that the strange heat may also be coming for me. I write this from a refugee camp (computer lab) for dispossessed bloggers. I can only hope for the best. 19.4.04WeekendFriday: New Brunswick, n.b. blogging contretemps. I'm of the opinion that it was wonderfully eggy.
Saturday-Sunday: East Village. New York was a party on this by-far nicest-yet night of the year. My walk to Ace Bar was a music video featuring stops to: buy a slice of 'Famous' pizza; use a Spanish-language ATM; pet a dog; be shouted at from a balcony; give a dollar to a bum; drink a beer. I walked six miles in new shoes. Played darts (darts!). I ran into old housemates Rich & McCord on 9 St, told them I'd miss my train if I stopped to talk, stopped to talk, and then missed the train. I ended the night in Hoboken watching the sun rise over the city and being told (thanks!) not to smoke next to a fuel tank. 16.4.04CollegelandsI think Muldoon has it. If Snodgrass were good, it would be like Snodgrass studying with Lowell.
WorkshopWell, it's Paul Muldoon or Yusef Komunyakaa. I'm not sure how to make this decision.
15.4.04Poor Mr John. The thing taxed was his head.But at least I don't have to pick a grad school today.
14.4.04CheeseSpent the night at Chuck E. Cheese's for Casey's birthday. The scene of happy childhood birthday parties, for me & others. Highlights from the place where a kid can be a kid: 1) Skeeball; 2) Casey having a 24th birthday & the kid next to us having an approx. 6th; 3) losing my cellphone in a mazy pipe array I crawled through, & having to drive back to get it; 4) finding the cellphone in the pipe slide; 5) Arctic Thunder; 6) the fellow cutting the cake saying he never wears gloves unless he has to dipping his hands into said cake; 7) pizza (apologies to good pizza).
13.4.04I Need to Calm DownMy local vending machine would violate all the laws of robotics if I didn't give it a good beating every now & again.
12.4.0422 Germinal CCXIIResponding to the reign of terror and virtue, I deleted every song on my computer released by an RIAA-member label. A discovery: I didn't lose much that I really wanted.
A professor in my department has been suspended for a year for improper use of research funds. His current grad class: ENG 574: Reading Ethically. 11.4.04CriminalOn Friday, I was issued a complaint (but not a suit) from the RIAA for copyright infringement. [Ed. I am so apoplectic even as I think about this incident, months later, that I've decided no coherent response will do. So I'm editing this whole thing out of history.]
Read the complaint here. Check the RIAA Radar here. 9.4.04St Andrew's Cross? I'll Bet He's Bloody Furious!I missed Tartan Day again. Evidently, the Empire State Building was lit like St Andrew's Cross & city-going Scotsmen were basking over sidewalk ventilation grates with their skirts blowing up around their waists.
Looking at the General Register Office for Scotland, here is the number of records for the years 1553 to 1953 for: Kennedy: 99188 MacAllen: 4 8.4.04CalculationsFrom the Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix press kit: 'the energy required to slow an F1 car from 315 to 185 km/h is the same energy needed to make an elephant jump 10 metres in the air.'
7.4.04ObserveIt's no good. Women in Inwood wax their backs. Or should.
1.4.04Re-readingLooking back at a recent post of mine. It quotes a writer saying something like, '[I gave up blogging for a bit] to see how I would cope without it. During those weeks I became a whirlwind of productivity and progress.' I realize that 'blogging' means 'drinking.'
When Men Were Men, and Women Weren'tI don't usually go much for Princetoniana, but these pictures of the Graduate College in its early days astound me. Note esp. the first picture: those trees (which I look out on) are about 75 feet tall now. Also, any picture of a familiar building with a horseless buggy in front of it is a keeper.
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