Day: August 25, 2006

SSW mentioned this fall’s 4-way apartheid Survivor: Cook Islands today. City officials are appropriately outraged, but the question ithat occurs to me is whether there were this many Asians applying for the previous 12 seasons? Amazing Race has 2 Asian teams this year, apparently also to address the reality of the situation. The only Asian American to win a reality show was Dorothy Hui in Anderson Cooper’s The Mole 2 – the Next Betrayal.

The subway nerds ride the entire system in 24 hours 2 minutes. One of them is a U.Mich law student. More people would consider doing it if there were more restrooms than the measly 70 rooms out of 469 stations currently available. Maybe the people fighting over the above-ground street furniture could also do the subways and save everyone a lot of aggrevation.

Umm, yeah, sorry, the official announcement’s out: Pluto is the (Dwarf) Planet.  Not a planet (or at least of the major ones of our solar system).  Lots of corresponding videos on the story too – loved how CNN has as its space correspondent Miles O’Brien on the story (CNN.com has video where O’Brien talks to Hayden Planetarium’s own Neil DeGrasse Tyson on the topic of Pluto’s demotion – which Tyson had got on the bandwagon long ago).  As crazy as it sounds, the Trekkie in me would say – “Ohmigod, Miles O’Brien?” – which I’m sure this non-fictitious O’Brien has to put up with from Star Trek fans.  But, come on, Star Trek’s Chief Miles O’Brien was a great guy!  And, I’m sure he liked Pluto… or would like Pluto, anyway.
The gimmick of this upcoming season’s “Survivor” – wherein team’s are initially set by race/ethnicity (that is, before the presumed merger, where one tribe is made to determine the ultimate winner) – well, it just gives me pause.  A long pause.