January 2008 Archives

According to the LEGO web site January 2008 is the 50th anniversary of the patent filed for LEGO blocks.

Ray got his first "real" (i.e. not Duplo) Lego set for Christmas, and we've since added on a couple sets and some open-stock blocks from the LEGO store in Bellevue Mall and eBay. Our latest acquisition was the impressive "LEGO City Harbor" with container ship and functioning crane (just like we have down by the docks.)

My sister and I had copious amounts of Legos when we were kids, and I'm nostalgically enjoying building again with Ray. The crunching/rattling sound the blocks make while one roots through them searching for a tiny piece evokes memories of our Saturday morning Lego play just before hearing our parents scream downstairs at us for making so much noise.

What I find utterly fascinating, however, is his rapid adoption of terminology for the various blocks, and how similar the terms are to the ones my sister and I used. We had "flat red fours," and "white twos," and "thin grey eights" and all sorts of shorthands for referring to specific pieces we needed to complete our projects.

When Ray and I first started to build the sets, he closely followed the instructions, which are visual, so we didn't need to refer to pieces by name. But as he (rather quickly) deviated from the book, he started -- almost organically -- asking for "ones" and "flat twos" to make whatever it was he was making.

We do have some context for this: Ray's Snap Electronics kit refers to the length of the "wires" by the number of snaps they have. So we do have some experience talking in terms of "threes" and "fours" while assembling a project. But still, his adoption of a consistent naming convention for these new toys was almost immediate and extremely detailed.

And, in case you're wondering, it took approximately five seconds after the container ship was done for it to become, in Ray's words, a "garbage boat, just like they have in Venice."

The set even has a little Lego garbage can. He loves his new toy!

A random sampling of interesting web sites I found this week.

I was awakened at 4:30 this morning by a call from the 562 area code -- Los Angeles! I didn't answer the phone, but maybe it was someone from the Academy trying to get me down to the nomination ceremony at the last minute. Or maybe it was a devastated Kiera Knightley, who found out early that she wasn't getting the Best Actress nod I predicted and she needed some comforting. Or maybe it was Cate Blanchett looking to do some early celebrating since the buzz had her pegged for two nominations!

Or maybe it was a wrong number. At four-fucking-thirty in the morning. Grumble.

Anyway, it's time to see how I stacked up against reality.

For the uninitiated: In the late nineties and early part of the oughts, I annually hosted a lavish party for the Academy Awards, the centerpiece of which was a contest to predict the winners (I know; this is not terribly original, but it was fun). I traditionally have been quite accurate at picking winner and routinely scored in the 90% range (I have never had a perfect score) for both nominations and winners.

The arrival of Raymond and our subsequent relocation to the west coast combined to put an end to the festivities (honestly, who can party at 5:00 pm, which is when the show starts out here?), and over the last couple years, the allure of the show has faded at Chez Jim.

Last year, the Oscar nomination announcements sneaked up on me and I missed making predictions. The same thing would have happened this year had I not chanced upon a mention that Jon Stewart will be the host again (yeah!) if the ceremony isn't canceled by the writers' strike (boo!). The nominations will be announced tomorrow at 5:30 am.

Two years ago, I predicted an astonishing 86.7% of the major category nominations (see Oscar2006Nominations) but then tanked miserably on the awards themselves scoring just a hair over 62% (see Oscar2006Predictions).

The first part of 2007 was, for me, the "lost quarter" as I was teaching a class at the UW that seriously kicked my butt time-wise. As I mentioned, I skipped predictions for the nominations, but I managed to issue some half-hearted ones for the awards themselves, and I wasn't too surprised by another lackluster two-for-three showing for my minimal efforts (see Oscar2007Awards).

Once again, despite having a Master's Degree in Movies™, I find myself having seen very few of the likely nominations. Of the movies I saw this year, I predict only Juno and No Country for Old Men will be listed tomorrow. However, predicting an Oscar is only partially about the actual film or performance or costume or whatever. What's critical is the buzz.

So, relying almost solely on the opinions of others, here are my predictions for the major categories of the 2008 Oscar nominations (I'll tackle award winners later).

Of all the things my AT&T 8525 is good at -- email, text messaging, task management, game playing, photo taking (well, it kinda sucks at photo taking) -- it's really not very good at actually being a phone.

It's not just the silly on-screen dialpad, which is less than responsive and consists of tiny ovular buttons that my meaty man-hands always seem to mis-press. And the voice quality is actually pretty good, so it's not that either.

It's the device itself, which is designed like a brick. Actually, it's designed more lick a pack of cigarettes, only heavier. The other day, I spent the better part of an hour on the phone, and at the end of the conversation my fingers were so cramped I could barely pick up a pencil, and my elbow felt like I had played a couple sets of tennis.

I don't like wearing "earbuds" -- they are uncomfortable and activate my cord phobia (see TiedUp). And I refuse to sport a bluetooth earpiece; I have worked too hard to maintain my sanity just so I can wander the streets seeming to talk to myself.

And yet, at work, my trusty "smartphone" is my only telephone; I don't have a landline given that most of time is spent out and about. But today, I was up in my "north office" (an empty cubicle in another building that I have decided to take over until someone kicks me out) and had a chance to use an actual POTS device. While I was on hold (with tech support for my AT&T 8525, appropriately enough) it occurred to me that there are several significant advantages to the traditional telephone handset that we are in danger of losing as we move toward a more mobile-centric society.

First, the handset is easy to grab with your whole hand, whereas even the chunkiest of cell phones requires one to use a more delicate pincer-like grip, which has got to be murder on the metacarpals. Second, it's far easier to balance a traditional phone between one's shoulder and ear. You end up looking like Picasso's "The Old Guitarist" trying to do it with a 1/2"x4" piece of plastic.

So, while I was on hold, it occurred to me that someone somewhere has had to have addressed this and developed a nice, big, old-school telephone handset for mobile devices. And since I had my hands free by nesting the phone comfortably between my ear and shoulder, I was able to do some Googling.

I present to you, my new mobile handset: "The Penelope," by Hulger. It should arrive is a few days.

Designed by Nicholas Roope, whom the New York Times says "was inspired by ... disdain for the trends in cellphones, which seem to have reached a dead end with metallic and miniature becoming moronic and minuscule," the Penelope (and her siblings) "brings humanity back into the equation, with functionality no longer playing the lead role".

Now when I'm on the phone, I won't get hand cramps or look like an idiot walking around!

Well, maybe only the first part.

Huh. I had never heard of this before. [Via Lacrimae Rerum.]

From Treaty of Tripoli - Wikipedia

The Treaty, as it was written, was signed by John Adams and unanimously ratified by the U. S. Senate.

Take that all you "America was founded as a Christian Nation" zealots. Not in any sense.

For the last two years, we've taken Ray to a Winter Solstice festival at Seattle Center (by the Space Needle). The event celebrates the end of long winter nights and the beginning of the gradual re-emergence of the sun. There are a couple dozen performers, including four female dancers who personify the seasons. The procession of performers leads the crowd to the International Fountain, which consists of a large metallic hemisphere set into a deep circular bowl. The performers descend into the bowl while spectators line the rim. The white-clad "winter" dancer is the centerpiece of the ceremony. The main part of the show features performers who dance with flaming chains, hoops, and batons, and play drums with flaming sticks as winter begins her decline. Near the end, an opera singer pulling a flaming train behind her leads the "new" winter (a child, also in white) around the edge of the fountain to meet the old winter. They embrace, the old winter is led away, and the three other seasons carry the new winter around the fountain.

Last year, I sat with Ray during the show and explained the symbolism and the meaning of the performance to him as it unfolded. He watched with rapt attention and asked questions throughout. As the sun set and the more fiery and rhythmic elements of the ceremony began, he got quieter and quieter and was remarkably focused. At the end, when the old winter said goodbye to her successor, Ray asked in a concerned voice: "Does the old winter love the new winter?" I assured him that she did, and he seemed satisfied. A few moments later, however, he burst into tears and sobbed. He was overwhelmed by the visuals, the music, and the emotional impact of the performance.

This year, he was expressed an interest to go again, and we even adjusted our scheduled departure to California by a day to accommodate the Solstice. Once again, he was remarkably attendant and interested in every detail. New this year (I think), six performers walked or skated around the edges of the fountain carrying illuminated globes to represent Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter. As Ray has been getting into astronomy lately, he was particularly interested in these orbiting planets (and wondered about the absence of Uranus and Neptune). There were no tears this year, but it was still pretty clear that this is becoming an important part of the holiday season for him.

I took some video of the performance with our regular camera so the quality isn't too great (plus, it was obviously a "low light" situation) but I hope the snippets I assembled here (or see below) give you a sense of the ceremony. I also put up a few photos on Flickr.