Month: October 2004

I never quite thought that I’d see it in my life time, but apparently it has actually happened – the Boston Red Sox has won the World Series. The world may not have ended, but the world as we knew it indeed has ended. Maybe pigs will start flying now or something like that. God forbid, maybe even the Chicago Cubs will win the World Series someday now. I will spare non-Bosox fans any links to some heart-wrenching articles (at least, assuming I don’t find anything worthy of reading).

Well, enough of the melodrama on my part.

100 yrs of the subway. Cool. And, it’s also been 100 yrs of the plane (the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk, NC, was 100 yrs ago). So, if we think about it – it’s been 100 yrs of planes, (underground) trains, and automobiles…

Lunar eclipse. Cool.

Umm – is this for real? Anthropologists have discovered an early human or human-like species – that resemble hobbits. Methinks that someone out there have been reading/watching way too much Lord of the Rings.

Other stories:

I can’t get over this story – how a British police officer, Sgt. Colin Webber (whose wife, Claire, is a constable – both of whom are of the Leicestershire constabulary) managed to stop a fleeing knife-stabber assaulter when Sgt. Webber and the missus were in the jewelry district browsing (they were on vacation – as off-duty as two cops could have been). Check out the more expansive version of this story on NY Times. NY1.com has some footage too.

And, the prize for least-surprising story of the day – “Study: Sleepy Doctors Make More Errors.” – apparently, it takes a funded study to prove what years of “ER” and other medical dramas (and “Scrubs”) and common sense have long known about those people in the hospitals who are overworked – they don’t quite function up to snuff if they’re that tired. D’uh. The real problem is how do you reform it, when the reality is that training medical doctors takes so much time and effort – not too mention risk (they do learn from their mistakes – you just hope nothing fatal occurs or at least a causal link to death type of occurence).

Ok, let’s just get through this Thursday without incident – especially to those in Boston…

Dropped by the New York City Transit Museum during lunch – it was free today for the centennial. Most of it were the same since the last time I visited. The new exhibit was about the opening celebrations 100 years ago , including the solid silver control handle used on the first ride, and several hefty silver Tiffany mermentos. I picked up some centennial first day covers from the postal workers there. I also like looking at the maps – my childhood house was near the juncture of two overhead lines, so I like trying to find it on old maps.

To top off the ominous potents, tonight there was a total eclipse of the moon. I was looking at it, the ‘hunters moon’, and it had turned dark red. Some of the best viewing was had along Ocean Parkway. Once the moon was dark, the stars came out in a way you don’t get to see any other time. Historically, eclipses and comets mark tramatic events on earth — will it occur again? Like those typhoons, something you have to experience for yourself.

A real assortment today:

The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow : It’s a play about a wired agoraphobic adopted asian american trying to find herself and her Chinese birth mother by creating a robot version of herself. OK, that’s pretty wierd, but it won two best new play awards, so there must be something to it. It’s playing at Yale; maybe it’s an excuse to check out New Haven.

Grecian Formula: New York Times reports on Physics World’s poll of the greatest equations of science. Some of the bogus entries included 1+1 = 2 . The real winner was Euler’s Equation:

e ^πi + 1 = 0

I remember my high school calculus teacher used it as a proof of God’s existence: how could so many physical constants be so perfectly interrelated without some sort of plan? I don’t know, but it’s really cool regardless.

Ms. Subways: subway guerrilla theater artist Caroline Sanchez-Bernat wins the Ms. Subways contest, which was revived by the MTA for tomorrow’s centennial of the subway. She beat out Asian college student Elaine Chan and two other contestants. The owner of Ellen’s Stardust Diner was a former Miss Subways; she has posters of all of the other winners, which included Helen Lee from November 1949: “At Columbia she majored in Chinese. Now she’s studying voice — training her mezzo-soprano — hopes for a musical comedy career. Favorite pastime: Interior decorating (modern) — and football games (escorted by Yale beau).” Fascinating.

Taiwan in the news: Colin Powell touches off a firestorm on CNN regarding Taiwanese independence; Taiwanese legislators throw eggs and lunch boxes at each other in food fight; NYU Taiwanese students host “Enchanting Taiwan” exhibit at the student center.

Could Kerry be hoping the Red Sox lose? If the American League Red Sox break the curse, it may seal Kerry’s fate. However, supposedly the Washington Redskins predictor is more accurate — it has been right since 1936. The deciding game is this Sunday vs. the Green Bay Packers – Redskins for Bush, Packers for Kerry. For more deciders, check this column out.