We had a rare snow day in Seattle. Cross-country skis, sleds, and tire chains appeared. Snow angels abounded. The UPS truck made it, but our mail didn’t arrive. The USPS doesn’t consider the famous inscription on the Post Office Building in New York to be an official motto. But I think in areas of the country more accustomed to the harsh elements, it’s an aspiration that often holds true. “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” UPDATE: Sometime between evening and morning, our mail did arrive. They made it through snow, rain, and gloom of night!

Don’t let the bedbugs bite. MicroAngela has a collection of views from an electron microscopes at the University of Hawaii. Bugs, bacteria, parasites, and a, uh, termite playing the guitar. OK, that last one may have involved PhotoShop. (via Sennoma)

The life of reclusive, but well-known professors, is partially revealed in this article on privacy-conscious Princeton faculty members such as Joyce Carol Oates, John Nash Jr., Andrew Wiles, and John McPhee (one of the few who permitted an interview for the article). Although they protect themselves from unwanted publicity, these teachers receive high marks from students for a devotion to their other craft of guiding the next generation.

A couple weeks ago we took our first trip to the Seattle Cinerama. It is the movie theater around these parts, so we were told. The screen did not disappoint. The seats are comfortable for old style seats, and are supposedly upholstered in mohair, but my posterior missed the new fangled wide seats, especially towards the end of the lengthy but very enjoyable Return of the King. The sound was excellent; they’re THX Certified, something most theaters in our previous community neglected to pursue. The 90-foot-long, 30-foot-high, curved Cinerama screen actually sits behind their regular 68-foot-long movie screen and its soundwall, so it takes some work to convert the theater to Cinerama screenings. There’s also a special second sound system to match the true Cinerama audio experience. But I’m perfectly satisfied to continue to view mere modern films on the smaller screen in THX.

“You Gotta Believe.”
Many will remember Tug McGraw as a superlative reliever for the Philadelphia Phillies, but New Yorkers remember him as the New York Met who coined their rallying cry “You Gotta Believe.” He helped hugely in their 1969 Word Series season and their 1973 National League championship season. Both winning seasons were unexpected, shocking even. McGraw died on Monday at the age of 59 from brain cancer. You always knew when he had had a good inning; he’d bound off the mound with his glove bouncing merrily on his thigh. He did that a lot. (NY Times obituary)

In a role reversal of sorts, we enjoyed balmy 50 degree weather during our holiday trip to Connecticut and were greeted with a couple inches of snow and freezing temperatures upon our return to Seattle.

Catching up on pre-Christmas news… it is becoming impossible to acquire dragees, those little silver balls used to decorate baked goods, in California, thanks (or perhaps no thanks) to a lawyer who filed a lawsuit about the matter. He doesn’t know anyone who has actually been hurt by the silver sprinkles, but wants them off the market because of silver’s toxicity. Time to go for the gold. (thanks Zail!)

From Ain’t It Cool News, an amusing bit from Q&A; with Joss Whedon at the L. A. Comic Book and Science Fiction Convention:

When someone mentioned that both Whedon and Edlund had worked on the “Titan A.E.” script, Whedon groaned and remembered that, on the way home from the “Titan” screening, his wife told him to “say something funny so I’ll remember that you are.”

Whedon had to be the one who put in the line about naming the planet “Bob.”

I’m taking a break for a week or so. Enjoy the remainder of 2003 and may you have a fabulous 2004. Thanks for reading!

Boston’s Big Dig, which started around the time I left the area and is still dragging on over ten years afterwards, hit a much publicized major milestone Saturday with the full opening of the I-93 tunnel. There is still much work to be done, however. It turns out the fanfare opening was actually an “interim opening” and the tunnel, technically, is not complete. Another lane needs to be finished. Commuters can expect lane closures and accompanying traffic headaches for a while longer. The dismantling of the elevated Central Artery will also take some time as the work is loud and nearby residents would like to sleep. It’s going to be at least another year before the final major projects are completed.