Day: January 21, 2004

You have to be a lawyer to figure out how to actually cash in on American Airlines’ buy 2 get 1 free offer. The deal is: fly twice to California or Florida from New York or Boston before April 15, and get one ticket anywhere AA flies. There are plenty of catches, though: you have to be an AA member, register before making the flights on their website, make sure the flight is a non-stop flight, fly on a published fare, and that the flight returns to the same airport that the flight originated (well, it says “same co-terminal”; I don’t know what that means). The award ticket has blackout dates, is in class “T”, which is bottom basement Economy, is non-upgradable, has a $100 penalty for changes, and must be used by April 15, 2005. That being said, it’s not a bad deal. I’m going to try to do it with P–.

The Lunar New Year begins very early this year — January 22. Chinese, Vietnamese and Koreans celebrate with even more gusto than in Times Square; definately with more food. There is a certain arbitrary way in which the end of an old year and the beginning of a new one is celebrated: the date of Western Civilization’s new year has ranged from January 1 to March 15. Some of the reason that new year celebrations go on for a week I think has to do with the possibility of not exactly knowing whether which day is truly the new moon. I can tell you outside is really dark!

Let’s have more Monkey business this year! Gung Hei Fat Choy!

The other day, the NY Post had this letter to the editor from a NY upstater resident; she apparently resented the downstaters’ whining about the cold. See, upstate, the cold is normal and the downstaters ought to quit complaining and deal with it. Now, I’d be the first to admit that one should stop complaining while one is ahead, but this winter isn’t “normal” – “normal” for NYC is temperatures in the 30’s, not lows in the single digits. And, last week, so I understood from various news venues, even deepest Maine wasn’t enjoying the negative 30 degrees (the governor over there declared an emergency). So, this might actually have been justifiable complaining. Besides, NYC is supposedly in the temperate zone – extreme climates are never fun, whether it’s one of those 100 degree heat waves or Arctic blasts. To complain is human… Just thought I’d air out that vent on my part and perhaps it’s a reminder as to why I should be careful about reading those letters to the NY Post editors (and about reading the NY Post generally).

NY Times’ Quote of the day, 1/20/04:

“‘Where are you going to get the jury pool from, Mars?’ asked Judy Leon, senior vice president of Bowne DecisionQuest, a litigation advisory firm, who added that Ms. Stewart’s campaign had set a new standard for prominent defendants.”

(N.B. – I’ve put the quote in its contextual paragraph, just to give a better sense as to who Judy Leon was).

Random thought – Iowa’s outcomes were interesting. Now it’s time to see how New Hampshire and beyond will work out; the wild ride continues, as the NY Times’ editorial indicated. I’m just glad I didn’t make a real endorsement of anyone in particular – but Howard Dean’s journey is turning into strange viewing; that’s all I’ll say!

I don’t/didn’t always agree with David Brooks, but he made an interesting analysis on the moderate Democrat’s stance. (I question his statement that 9/11/01 hasn’t yet made an impact on the campaign 2004; after all, Iowa isn’t NYS, which has to bear (and already is bearing) a big brunt on the war on terrorism, as far as domestic protection issues are concerned; curious to see who NY’ers will vote for when primary day comes here).

Missed most of the State of the Union address; caught the end and the most of the post-speech analysis; hmm… still trying to figure it out. Probably should read the newspapers/on-line stuff. Shouldn’t complain too much about it – yet.

Enough said. Try again later…