Terminus Est

The Ithaca Journal article doesn't have much more to say about the fire yesterday; the cause is still undetermined. I am somewhat bemused that my neighborhood is called "historical".

My upstairs neighbor, who had a very good view of the initial stages of the fire, said that he saw a window blow out. This was apparently the explosion I heard. The house itself is gutted and uninhabitable. Damage to neighboring houses appears to be limited to the vinyl siding to one house.

It appears that the white house on the other side was undamaged. I'm sure they'll have problems with smoke, though, since a little smoke reached into my apartment.

I should mention the rather belligerent young gentleman, girlfriend in tow, who came scurrying up the street. He seemed rather upset that a crowd had gathered to watch his house burn down. At least, he claimed it was his house although he didn't look like his name would be "Vu A. Do"; I guess he might have been renting. He kept trying to approach the burning building, despite the efforts of Ithaca's Finest to keep him back. A witness claims that he was eventually led away in handcuffs, although I did not see that myself.

Sunday afternoon. I'm settling down to watch the Yankees-Indians game. I hear sirens, which is normal since the main firehouse is just a few blocks away. Then there's a explosion from the back. I look out the back window to see this:









More on my Flickr page.

ETA: The Yankees won, 1-0.

I watched A Mighty Wind again the other day. This song got stuck in my head, so I thought I'd inflict it on my faithful readers as well. I really like this song. I think it's better than "A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow", which was nominated for an Oscar.



(If you don't remember this from the movie, that's because it got cut out. The full concert is available as a special feature on the DVD, though, and that's where this is from.)

see more crazy cat pics

Brian May, who only recently completed his Ph.D., has been installed as chancellor of Liverpool John Moores University.

Here's a pint to the new chancellor!

Wegman's has been rearranging their layout over the past few months. It used to be that I could get in and out within 30 minutes; now it seems that I spend at least that amount of time wandering the aisles, trying to find what I'm looking for. Every shopping trip seems to be an exercise in hunting and gathering.

While aimlessly browsing the shelves the other week, I stumbled upon these "Emerilware" cast iron skillets. Sure, they had Emeril Lagasse's ugly mug plastered upon them, but that could be easily removed, and the price of $25 was irresistible. So I am now the proud owner of a 12-inch cast iron skillet. BAM!

The skillet is extremely heavy. It even comes with a loop handle on the opposite side of the long handle so one can use both hands to lift it. Even using two hands, I'm sure mareklamo would still have a tough time handling it.

The pan came pre-seasoned, but I still seasoned it in the oven as recommended. My first test with a thin top round steak showed that the surface was still a bit sticky so it was back in the oven for some more heat treatment. I think I've got it properly seasoned now. Some sunny-side eggs I fried up slid right off the pan, smoother than Teflon.

Hey, cool, new HD channels: History, Discovery, TLC, Animal Planet, and Science Channel; also CNN, for some reason. Now I can watch Dirty Jobs in high definition.

The past week found me first at a scientific conference in San Diego, where I hosted my usual nightly room parties, then in Washington, DC, at the Coloradan's housewarming, wherein she hosted an honest-to-god cocktail party. Here's how my week went:

Sunday: drunk
Monday: drunk
Tuesday: drunk
Wednesday: dancing drunk
Thursday: on a plane
Friday: kinda drunk
Saturday: drunken drunk

Strangely, I woke up yesterday with no hint of hangover.

What does one do for their fortieth birthday?

Drink beer in a blue alley.

Bellingham, WA is a largish town near the Canadian border. I went there to visit mareklamo. I had been pronouncing the name of this town as we probably would on the East Coast, quickly, eliding the least significant syllables - Bellingh'm, Belling'm. I was quickly disabused of that notion when I landed in the West Coast. They pronounce every syllable clearly and carefully - BellingHAM, Belling-HAAAM. I also spent some time in Seattle with Psilotum. I took plenty of pictures:

• Bellingham - some scenes from town.


• Coffeeshops of Bellingham - I was bemused by the sheer number of places one could get coffee here.


• Peace Arch - Park that spans the border of the US and Canada. Be sure to check out the geotags.


• Boeing factory - Big planes in big buildings.


• Bumbershoot - Big end-of-summer music festival in Seattle.


• Sushi Whore - Chef's choice at Mashiko restaurant in western Seattle. See also mareklamo's blog entry.


• Seattle - Went up the Space Needle and went to the Science Fiction Museum.

ETA: What a poor disjointed journal entry! The interesting stuff is really in the photos (a thousand words, and all that). For best results, view them by photoset.

I got a new camera yesterday from Best Buy. Not only was it on sale, but they also threw in a case, battery charger, and 1GB memory stick, all for less than $150. The hitch - only a 14 day return policy. Since I'll be visiting mareklamo in a couple days, I decided to test out the camera at a couple of Ithaca's more scenic locations. Click the pic below to view more at my Flickr page.

After a 36-year hiatus, Queen guitarist Brian May has finally been granted his doctorate in astronomy. Not an honorary doctorate, this is a true-blue Ph.D., research, dissertation, oral exam, and all.

Congratulations, Dr May. You give hope to ABD's everywhere that they, too, can achieve their dreams.

Emo is bad.

- Your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man

I was in St. Charles, Illinois over the weekend to attend the maize genetics conference. It was my first maize meeting and there were quite a few interesting talks and posters. Of course, anyone who has been to one of these meetings will tell you that a lot of the real work gets done after the talks. These maize researchers have taken drunken schmoozing to a whole new level. Every night there's beer provided in the poster room, free until the kegs run out. Then the hardcore repair to another room, where it's BYOB. Or rather, someone takes up a collection and makes a beer run. And there's plenty of beer to be had.

The hotel let us use one of the meeting rooms until about 2 am. Then due to some funny Illinois blue laws about alcohol being served in a public venue, they kicked us out and we repaired up to the 16th floor penthouse specifically rented for that purpose. Unfortunately, there were other suites on that floor and 75 drunken scientists confined to a small space can get quite rowdy. So they kicked us out again to the 2nd floor, where there was nothing but meeting rooms and we would disturb no one. They should have just let us stay there in the first place.

I finally caved a few days ago and picked up a digital HDTV cable decoder/DVR from Time Warner. I've suddenly got a hell of a lot more channels, including a few more in HD. The DVR part lets me record in HD, something I couldn't do with just an ordinary VCR. I've programmed in my current TV schedule, although to really take advantage I should program in shows that I haven't been watching because they're shown at the same time as my usual shows. There's also a one-hour playback buffer that lets me pause and rewind live TV. I'm still getting used to the idea that I can attend to something cooking and not miss anything on the telly.

The channel selection is quite formidable, but just like regular TV, most of it seems to be crap; not quite the 1000 channels in my title, but pretty close. My universal remote has room to store 50 favorites. I've programmed in all the HD channels, the SD channels from analog cable that I'd gotten used to like Food Network and History Channel, some new channels like National Geographic that are only available on digital, some news channels like CNN, all the available movie channels (TCM, IFC, Sundance, AMC, and Fox Movies) and I still have a few more slots open. Any suggestions?

Shortly after I got my HDTV, as I was just getting used to enjoying videos in 16:9 aspect ratio, my DVD player started to act up. At first it would just skip for a couple of microseconds, which I put down to playing dirty or scratch Netflix dics. But it would start to skip even when playing my own pristine discs. The problem just got worse and worse. For example, I tried to watch Star Wars (original trilogy) over the course of a few days - Star Wars was fine, but Return of the Jedi was almost unwatchable at the end. The image would degenerate into a pixelated mess.

There nothing for it but to get a new DVD system. Rather than get an integrated player and sound system, I decided to get separate components. This would give me the option to swap out the DVD player when the HD DVD/Blu-ray war is over, without having changing my sound system. I opted for a Panasonic DVD-S52, which can up-convert the image to 720p or 1080i, the better to display on HDTV. For 5.1 surround sound, I decided to get the Panasonic SC-HT40. The latter is the same as Manifolds's system on which I watched the Lord of the Rings marathon so I knew it could do the job. I also ordered some cables and speaker stands. Almost everything came from Newegg except for the stands, which came from Amazon.

The various components started arriving piecemeal, starting with the cables. Most of them made it through the snowstorm except for one set of speaker stands. UPS somehow managed to break a cast iron base completely into two pieces. The Amazon replacement process was quite painless however, and they managed to get a replacement set to me even before I had sent back the broken set.

Everything (except for the speaker stands) came last week. I spent most of the past week getting everything connected and setting things up. I'm still trying to figure out the best combination of settings for my player and HDTV.

The audio receiver produces some amazing sound. The speakers are much larger than my old system, and produce a much fuller sound. It also does signal processing so that a stereo signal sounds like 5.1 surround sound; sort of like up-conversion for audio. Perhaps the most surprising revelation came when I finally hooked up the TV to the receiver. HD broadcasts are usually in 5.1 surround; even NASCAR - you'd hear the cars zip by the speakers. But even old-fashioned stereo broadcasts, when Dolby Pro Logic II is switched on, sound like they're full surround sound.

The first (and hopefully only) big storm of the season is upon us. It's been very light snow, with no wind whatsoever, but falling continuously for almost twenty-four hours; enough to accumulate almost two feet. More snow is on the way, plus the wind is expected to pick up tonight.

I tried to go to work this morning. I had to dig a path from the door to the sidewalk. The sidewalk itself was thankfully mostly clear. But only on my street. When I walked around the corner, I discovered that others were not so conscientious in shoveling snow. Faced with the prospect of wading a half mile to the bus stop in knee-deep snow, I simply turned around and went home. It was just as well, as Cornell declared itself closed at 12:30 pm.

The street itself does not appear to have been plowed, which calls into question the rationale for the entire odd-even parking scheme. In what appears to be a spontaneous act of mass protest, no one has bothered to move their car across the street. This afternoon I observed my neighbor try to drive his car out. After spinning his wheels back and forth for a while, he made it as far as the corner (no more than ten feet away). Then he gave up and tried to park in the same spot he came from, but got stuck as well. He had to dig out the spot to park in it again.

Continued from my previous post that describes my initial woes and ultimate success in getting an HDTV.

Before installing the new TV, I had to manhandle the old TV off the entertainment center and move it out of the way. The new TV was easy enough to remove from the box and install since it was so light - lighter than the old TV. The Vizio has every kind of hookup known to man: HDMI, component, composite, S-video, VGA, coax. For now I've only got it hooked up to the DVD player and to cable via the VCR.

When I first turned on the TV, it offered to scan for available channels. I let it do so and was very pleasantly surprised when it found not only all the expected analogue channels but also several digital channels as well. I don't subscribe to digital cable. I don't even have a cable box. I get the raw feed straight out of the wall. Yet, despite what Time Warner would have you believe, you can get digital HD out of an analogue cable feed. I am getting HD feeds of the four networks carried by Time Warner - NBC, CBS, ABC, and Fox. WCNY (PBS) has four (count 'em!) digital channels, three in standard definition and one in full HD. Rounding out the digital lineup are The Tube, which plays music videos (no, really), a channel advertising NBA League Pass, and a channel advertising AOLmusic.com. I have no idea why I can even receive the latter two channels and I have deleted them from the channel lineup.

To describe my first impressions of HDTV, I'll describe my impressions of some of the first shows I watched in HD:

Grey's Anatomy: I've never, ever seen a single episode of this show before, but when this came on last week I was entranced by the image quality. I wasn't even paying any attention to the plot. I don't even know if there was a plot aside from beautiful doctors doing beautiful things in beautiful high definition.

Football: I don't follow football and hadn't watched any game of this season, but I took in both championship games last Sunday. The wide screen allowed me to see more of the gridiron and the increased resolution gave the image an almost 3D quality. Fox, broadcasting in 720p, seems to have a better feed than CBS, which broadcasts in 1080i. In the latter broadcast, I could easily see deinterlacing artifacts during fast action. Still, both HD broadcasts were leagues beyond their standard definition counterparts. I guess I'll be rooting for the Chicago Bears next week.

Random crap on PBS: WCNY-HD is the only station that appears to show all-HD all the time, in contrast to the commercial networks which only broadcast in HD during primetime. Unfortunately there really isn't a lot of HD content so I've been viewing things like weird cooking shows or Peter Frampton in concert. Nature documentaries are quite incredible.

Heroes: Finally, a real show I actually wanted to watch. The HD broadcast makes use of all the screen real estate - no black bars at the top and bottom or at the sides of the image. The colors are richer and of course the details are incredible. You can see all the freckles on Hayden Panettiere's face. There's that amazing 3D quality again - the image just seems to pop out of the screen.

Star Wars: No, this isn't in HD, but I popped in the DVD to test the HDTV's connection to the DVD player. The shot of the star destroyer passing overhead looks absolutely incredible in widescreen. George Lucas may be getting a little more of my money once the Blu-ray/HD-DVD format wars are over.

I had been getting more and more annoyed with my old television. While my DVD player is attached to a kickass 5.1 surround sound system, I've been watching videos on a decade-old CRT TV. The tube has a very noticeable curve to it, and it has discolored spot due to some sort of misconvergence of the electron guns. The discoloration isn't particularly noticeable when watching letterboxed movies since it's up in one corner, but it's annoying enough nonetheless.

Over winter break, while I was in Harrisburg, I checked out some HDTVs, which I noticed have dropped a great deal in price. I made the rounds of the big box stores, including a Circuit City, which we don't have in Ithaca. At CC, my eye fell on a 32" widescreen LCD from Olevia, which was both the right size and very, very cheap. Picture quality was acceptable, although I noticed that the blacks had a purplish tinge. But, heck, it was cheap enough that I could overlook that. I did a little Internet research and didn't find anyone reporting major problems with it. After much hesitation for a couple of days, I decided to take the plunge. Upon returning to Circuit City, however, I discovered that they were all out of that unit. Denied!

My aunt mentioned that there were some inexpensive widescreens at CostCo. I checked out the store and, indeed, at end of the aisle there were these HDTVs from Vizio. Although a little bit more expensive, they looked better than the Olevia TVs. After another round of Internet research, I decided to go ahead and buy the Vizio. As I am not a member of nor is there a CostCo in Ithaca, my aunt agreed to let me use her membership and I could pay her back by check. We went back the very next day, only to discover that CostCo was closed. Who knew the store closed on New Year's Day?

I was now resigned to not getting a new TV. When I got back to Ithaca, I checked out the local Best Buy, but nothing there really called out to me. I went back and checked the Vizio website and noticed something I hadn't before - you could buy directly from them. I threw caution to the wind, pulled out my credit card, typed in the required information, and clicked on "Submit". Then I waited. And waited. And waited.

After a week, I began to grow concerned. I had received acknowledged of my order from Vizio, but I didn't know whether they had shipped it. Then one fine evening I come home to see a note from UPS stuck to my door, saying they had attempted delivery and would return the next day. Trouble was, I was going to leave for San Diego the next day. I hastily made arrangements with my neighbors to pick up the package from my place and store it at their place for the duration, signed the UPS note, and flew off to California. I wasn't sure whether they would honor my signed note or whether I had to receive the TV in person; this caused some worry while I was in San Diego.

I returned from San Diego early Friday morning - very early Friday morning. I couldn't very well knock on my neighbors' door at 2 AM, so again I had to wait. After some sleep, I noticed that they had come in around noon. I headed over there and sure enough, there it was: the VX32L 32" LCD HDTV. The box was large but surprisingly light and I had no trouble hauling it to my place.

Next: setting up the HDTV and first impressions.

Some controversy has attended the casting of Daniel Craig as James Bond. Mr Craig is not a handsome man. Rugged, chiseled, undeniably charismatic, yes; but handsome, no. However, his lack of good looks works with the new, grittier portrayal of James Bond as he beats up his enemies and gets beaten up in turn. Other, prettier Bonds seemed to care too much about preserving their looks, but for Mr Craig's case, it looks like a pummeling could only improve his face.

All that being said, Mr Craig does have the body of a Greek god. There is what can only be described as a homage to one of the definitive Bond moments - the introduction of Ursula Andress in Dr No - except that it's Bond that climbs out of the surf with water glistening off his pectorals. While the camera lingers a while on Mr Craig's magnificent musculature in quite a few scenes, there are precious few shots of babes in skimpy clothing. Even the opening montage had no girls. None! After the fifth or sixth time we saw Mr Craig's amazingly defined abdominals, I had to wonder to whom the producers were catering - women or gay men?

This new film is a reboot of the 007 film franchise and it's all about Bond. It's a new Bond; not a suave Bond or a silly Bond or a pretty Bond (or even, really, gay Bond) but a more thuggish, sociopathic Bond. We see Bond getting his license to kill and what that double-0 really means. This is less about spectacular stunts (although there are those) or cool explosions (there are those, too). The new Bond is more visceral and it doesn't matter whether he gets his hair mussed up or blood on his tuxedo. He doesn't care whether his martini is shaken or stirred. He just wants to get the job done, through whatever means possible.