Monday, January 02, 2006
New Year festivities

This blog is a year-in-review-free zone because I've grown so bored of year-in-review articles and programs everywhere I look. I suppose they serve a purpose if you've forgotten who had the biggest hit in January, whether Tom Cruise did anything interesting this year, how that wacky German election turned out once all was said and done, or if the official first baby born in 2005 has suffered as a result of all the publicity. All quite useful if you spend your New Year's Eve making a highly-detailed timeline of the year just finished.

As usual, the Dunces had fairly limited plans for New Year's Eve (not including highly-detailed timelines, so we are not eligible for any timeline prizes [should any such prizes be on offer]). Previous New Year celebrations in the Dunce household have included a small gathering with another couple (who were unfortunately going through some relationship stresses; tears preceded the arrival of the new year by at least an hour. Perhaps the tears signified western Europe's new year), and two years ago it was just the two of us hanging around the lounge (plus a load of home-made Cajun food). Last year we joined a gathering of Folks in the early evening for some food, drink and socializing, before heading off to a (rather dire) north London pub featuring music by the Redlands Palomino Co (sadly they were not the headlining act). But we left fairly early, thanks to my nasty cough which, as it turns out has chased me on and off all year (that's NOT a year-in-review comment, just a whinge).

This year we decided to join the Folks again in the early evening hours. Most of the Folks had obtained tickets to the sold-out Tapestry club (hosts of the acclaimed Tapestry Goes West festival) at the St. Aloyisius Social Club in north London, but not us. Perhaps it was lack of planning (tickets were not sold at the most convenient locations, although we could have asked any of a number of people to get them for us), perhaps it was a total lack of enthusiasm for the musical act (early-70s style hard rock, all of their songs sounded like Black Sabbath songs that weren't quite good enough to make it onto their albums). Instead we were somewhat planning to visit a work colleague's New Year gathering, or perhaps wander into our Local, or the most likely but unspoken plan: when the rest of the Folks headed down to Tapestry in the 9-10pm hour, we would sneak back home and see in the new year there with the cat and the couch. But instead, we were drawn along into the Tapestry excitement as the evening progressed. Nearly everyone there was planning to go, and a spare ticket miraculously appeared at a crucial moment. So we joined the gang on the bus, headed south by southwest (ok, more like west by southwest but I couldn't resist), destination: St. Aloyisius Social Club. As the two of us only had one ticket between us, I considered various possibilities for getting in (sneaking in through the chimney, hiding under Mrs. Dunce's coat like a pantomime horse, barging in by overpowering the door staff, bribery, fast talking, etc.), or whether I would be sent home with my tail between my legs (in which case, most likely celebrating the turn of the new year from the top deck of the 253 bus, probably in the shadow of Holloway Prison).

But as we gathered at the door, another ticket materialized (I believe belonging to one of the advance party who had entered by other means [whether fair or foul I do not know]) and entry was assured. The advance party had colonized one of the tables near the bar, which is where we spent most of the next few hours. Crucially, the band (and DJ) were in the adjacent room, so we were able to socialize without shouting our throats raw. The party raged on, but eventually the Dunces (and the Autocrat) began to flag, and made our way to a nearby bus stop (not the nearest, mind you, as I decided to hurry up the street instead of down it, mistaking a "children crossing" sign in the distance for a bus stop [time to get my eyes checked, perhaps]). A couple of hours after midnight on New Year is not the most pleasant time to be riding a bus. Throngs of revelers trying to crowd onto it, including plenty of drunk, aggressive groups trying to stir up trouble with other similarly drunk and aggressive groups; confused travelers trying to get to distant parts of London on whatever buses were available; and those simply trying to keep their eyes open until their stop. As usual we were traveling by the upper deck, so we were blissfully unaware of the massive crush downstairs (no one is supposed to stand on the upper deck, so it's usually the least-crowded part of a double-decker bus). I was a bit worried about fighting my way out (one of my greatest dislikes is working my way through a crowd of people) but figured we had a little longer to wait. As it turned out, a lot longer. Just across Holloway Road (i.e., just a few minutes out of the shadow of Holloway Prison), as we passed a crowded bus stop without stopping (this sometimes happens when a bus is full, much to the dismay of anyone waiting) the driver honked the horn and slammed on the brakes, and a number of passengers on the lower deck did a bit of screaming. What a delight, our bus had apparently hit someone. We were seated on the wrong side of the bus to see anything, so we just waited as the bus mostly emptied and people milled around. Others crowded around the windows of the upper deck to see what was going on. It was apparently difficult to figure out what was going on, thanks to all the additional staggeringly drunk people around the scene (sample exchange: "Oh no!! He just got up and then fell down again". "No, that's someone else. The person who got hit is over there."). Surprisingly, after a few minutes the bus resumed its journey (apparently before any police or ambulances arrived [I guess they were all dealing with stabbings and drunken violence]). By the time it reached our stop, indeed it was so full that we had to fight our way to the exit (I pity the drivers who had to deal with this sort of fun all night). Fortunately Mrs. Dunce led the way, and I followed in her wake (she is quite good at this, and seems somehow to inspire a minimum of aggressive responses when she fights through a crowd of people). It was just a short walk around the corner and home (where the cat had had her own New Year's celebration, pulling lights and baubles off the Christmas tree and batting them around the house). And then it was off to bed, for the first fitful sleep of the new year.
music
Monday, January 02, 2006 1:38:44 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [0]  | 
 Friday, December 30, 2005
How I avoid unnecessary travel

Today's headlines shout "Coldest day in 19 years" as temperatures as low as -10C were reported in parts of the UK, and travelers are again suggested to avoid all unnecessary travel as the winter storms are due to continue today. So of course I decided to put on my layers and ride my bike to the lab to get some work done. After all, it was above freezing (1 C), and the rain was only heavy at times (and I couldn't tell that there was a 25-30mph wind until I was out in it). And the rain only got harder as I rode. Not being entirely equipped with rain gear (only my jacket and shoulder bag are waterproof), I got drenched pretty much instantly (even though I have installed fenders on my bike as a good cycle-commuting citizen). Fortunately I had enough layers that I stayed warm (thanks mainly to the Remington ninja costume I was wearing under my layers), and a small bit of foresight meant that I had some dry clothing waiting for me in the office. To conserve energy over the holiday period (the university is technically shut until January 2) all heating has been turned off; fortunately I was able to scavenge a space heater from a colleague's office, which (the heater, not the office) is now surrounded by damp clothing, giving a lovely steam-bath air to the office. By the time I head for home, my clothes will be dry enough that I can put them on, until I soak them again within minutes of going out the door.

Other than me, there are no signs of life in the building (most university staff seem to be taking full advantage of the official closure), so it's been a good opportunity to get a lot of work done without interruption or disruption. The nasty weather also meant that I was able to sneak into a very public space1 (Be warned, the footnote may contain geocaching spoilers) to find another geocache. I've known about this one for quite some time (and have even seen it!), but there always seem to be lots of people in its immediate vicinity so I have been unable to complete my visit by signing the logbook. Today was different: the driving rain and cold temperatures meant that even the most hardened bench-sitters had gone somewhere else, so I was able to finish finding the cache and mark the logbook. Now I'm back in the lab with a hot cup of coffee and just a few more things to finish (and just a few more items of clothing to dry) before the journey home. At least the wind will be (mostly) at my back (if the local weather station is to be trusted).

<1>The location deserves its own entry, not just a footnote to my new interest in geocaching. But for now, this will have to do. It's Tavistock Square, site of the bus explosion this past July (here are a couple of entries I wrote at the time: the day; the next day). Here's a very nice panoramic photo of the square, taken on a much nicer day than today. The main feature of the square is a statue of Mahatma Ghandi (photo, another photo); it also contains a memorial to conscientious objectors, an Hiroshima tree and Holocaust memorial (for these reasons, and its proximity to Friends House, it's the first stop on the "London Peace Trail"). All that right under my nose, across the street from my office.
bike | travel
Friday, December 30, 2005 2:19:59 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [3]  | 
 Wednesday, December 28, 2005
Holiday ramble

The Bank Holiday Tuesday news was full of the terrible winter storm. We were not spared as nearly an inch fell in the morning hours. With my midwestern background I felt the total snowfall was downright feeble, and the media frenzy perhaps a bit excessive. On the other hand, in general this area is not equipped for snowfall in any amount -- there is nowhere near enough equipment to clear the roads, and most drivers are (presumably) not instantly prepared to turn in the direction of the skid (it is an automatic act for me thanks to a certain Bill Cosby routine which was played repeatedly in our house during my formative [pre-driving] years). So perhaps the warnings to stay indoors and eat your Christmas leftovers were reasonable.

We, instead, decided to take advantage of the holiday to take a ramble in the freezing cold (hovering right around 0 C, 32 F). Perhaps at my insistence, thanks to Opal Dunce's generous Christmas gift (GPS, European version). We loaded a few nearby geocaching waypoints and headed toward the Lea Valley, one of my frequent cycling haunts. There were a few people out and about, but nowhere near as many as there are in the summertime. That meant we were able to search for (and find) the caches with little fear of discovery. We were able to find three of the four caches: two micro-caches (small magnetic containers, each holding some paper on which finders could log their visits), and one "traditional" cache (a tupperware container with a log book and some assorted small items [finders are meant to take an item and leave another]). But the fourth (another micro) was a little too difficult (too many possible locations [a magnetic micro-cache, and zillions of metal surfaces], and a few too many passersby) -- even though we made a second visit to that particular location on our way home, we still couldn't find the cache. Even using the hint. But for a first geocaching outing, I think 3/4 is a good find rate (I should note that I've seen one traditional cache near my workplace, but it's in a very heavily trafficked area and I haven't gotten up the courage to sneak up to it). Oddly enough, all four sites appear in my cycling photographs from the end of September. When I took the pictures I had no idea there were geocaches in those particular areas; it's an excellent example of "right under my nose". All in all, our ramble took us just a smidgen over five miles (thanks to a slight diversion on the way home: we were magically led to Sharon's Bakery where we collected some freshly-prepared falafel for a much-needed lunch).

The weather storms are supposed to continue today; in fact last night's weather (and this morning's) warned that any sensible person should not make any non-essential travel. So I decided it was time for a bike ride to work. Somehow I made it here successfully through the lashing light breeze and treacherous bright sunlight, where I will labor diligently for another couple of hours before loading up the huskies for the dangerous journey home.
travel
Wednesday, December 28, 2005 1:34:40 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [2]  | 
 Monday, December 26, 2005
Christmas Eats

The Dunces had a nice Christmas at home this year, featuring lots of cooking considering there were just two of us (not counting the cat who did not partake of any of our holiday cookery).

We started with a sweet breakfast of sticky rolls. These were cinnamon rolls, made from a slightly sweet dough, then loaded with a maple syrup and pecan sauce, and baked until a lot of the sugary sauce escaped from the springform pan (whoops!) and filled the house with the smell of burning sugar (and loads of smoke for a short time). Fortunately the rolls didn't suffer, and the self-cleaning oven did its job on the charred mess.

We coasted through the day on additional sticky rolls and assorted snacks before the main Christmas dinner, which contained exactly zero items I would have even considered tasting at a younger age (but which turned out to be fantastic):

Strudel thingys: For this dish we boiled and mashed a couple of sweet potatoes (choosing carefully to get orange sweet potatoes instead of various incredibly-starchy white-fleshed root vegetables that are also called "sweet potatoes" around here). To this we added some sliced leeks (cooked in butter), roasted red peppers (from a jar; we did not roast them. This time) and chopped feta cheese and pecans (one of two ingredients in the whole meal a younger Dunce would have considered eating). After mixing these, we rolled them up in sheets of filo dough (they looked a lot like burritos at this stage), topped them with poppy seeds, then popped them in the freezer to solidify. After a couple hours of freezing we baked them. Mmmmmmmmm.

We also had some roasted vegetables: parsnips and butternut squash, cut into longish strips. A little bit of oil, some sea salt, and a bunch of thyme, and a long while in the oven made them roastily delicious.

And then it was the brussels sprouts. I'd eaten these guys only once or twice before, and I think I had a perfect record of retching to date (each instance of brussels sprout eating also included at least one instance of retching). So I may have been a little bit hesitant, but Opal Dunce was somewhat insistent upon this British Christmas standard. Imagine my surprise when they were really wonderful (pan-browned in butter with slices of garlic and pine nuts).

And for dessert, we had a HOME-MADE cheesecake (topped with raspberries, the other ingredient a younger me would have eaten). This was Opal's first home-made cheesecake (although I helped with the mixing, Opal should be given full credit for this one), and perhaps brought us some stress as the process was not entirely smooth. It was meant to be baked at 180 (C), and we are sure that the oven was set to 180 at least at the beginning of the first baking phase. But somehow (perhaps by an accidental brushing against the temperature dial, perhaps by a ghost, perhaps kitty-sabotage) the cooking commenced at 130 instead. So it really didn't solidify until we rectified the error (after two baking cycles had been completed). As it turns out, cooking a cheesecake at 130 for the designated time, followed by 180 for (nearly) the designated time, was a reasonable success. So after a shortened cooling period (supposed to be 8 hours, but we didn't want to stay up until 4am waiting for dessert), we tucked in. Yum, yum.

Today, Boxing Day, will safely be a day of leftovers. But tasty, tasty leftovers. And of course the servants can have their holiday as well now.

consume
Monday, December 26, 2005 12:25:08 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [1]  | 
 Tuesday, December 20, 2005
Ungrammaticality in the wild

In reading today's news I came across a sentence that seemed so horribly ungrammatical that I decided I had to rant about it. I found it in an article in the Guardian with the headline Defiant Bush defends wiretapping powers. The headline itself is an interesting example of a "garden path" sentence. "Defiant Bush defends wiretapping" would be a perfectly good sentence, and it seems to me that "wiretapping" occurs much more often as a noun than as an adjective (I don't have any firm data; "wiretap" is not such a common word). In the above headline, however, it's used as an adjective, modifying the noun "powers". When I first read it, I was briefly "garden pathed": the word "powers" seemed anomalous and I had to think a moment in order to correctly comprehend the sentence. That's not ungrammatical, though, just potentially difficult.

The ungrammaticality comes in the first subheading (or whatever it's called in the online news biz): "Democrats scent blood after reining in privileges". I thought that surely it should be "smell blood"; isn't "scent" a noun? But before charging in with a rant on the theme of "SCENT IS A NOUN AND ONLY A NOUN, AND ANYONE WHO USES IT AS A VERB SHOULD BE DRAWN AND QUARTERED", I thought I'd sniff around the various uses of "scent". Of course "scent" can be used as a verb in a transitive sense, meaning to infuse something with a different smell (for example, Google search for "scented the * with" finds assorted sentences of the form "X scented the Y with Z") but in this instance the Democrats do not seem to be infusing blood with any particular aroma. As it turns out, however, "scent" has centuries of history as a verb, particularly in the context of hunting ("scent blood" as essentially synonymous to my preferred "smell blood"); the Oxford English Dictionary gives an example (c.1400): "Whan hares be ygete with the kynde of a conynge..the houndes lust nor sentith hem nought so wele." So I definitely shouldn't rant about what seems like an entirely correct use of the verb "scent". I am somewhat vindicated by the observation that "scent blood" is far less common than "smell blood" (1040 Google hits for the former, 89,900 for the latter), and that "scent" is far more commonly used as a noun than a verb (even in British English; the British National Corpus of 100 million words includes 851 instances of scent used as a noun, vs. only 27 as a verb). So it's not ungrammatical, just unusual. Some might say, however, that a sufficiently unusual form of expression may as well be considered ungrammatical. It depends on how you define "ungrammatical", which is perhaps a question for another day (if you are the keeper of the "rules of grammar" [part of the OED definition of "ungrammatical"] please step forward as I have a few questions for you).
language
Tuesday, December 20, 2005 12:56:29 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [0]  | 
 Monday, December 19, 2005
More on pizzas

I guess the BLT pizza. while not showing many signs of actually being the "#1 pizza in USA", is still reasonably well-known at least in certain parts of the USA. For some reason my attention has repeatedly returned to various different and unusual pizzas and pizza toppings. For example, it struck me as very unusual that sweetcorn (just "corn" to US readers) is such a popular pizza topping here in the UK. I was also very confused by one vendor's "Indiana" pizza (primary ingredient: tandoori chicken); as a Hoosier born and raised in Indiana, I couldn't figure out what tandoori chicken has to do with Indiana. As it turns out, my Indiana bias led me to ignore the general properties of pizza name formation in the Italian tradition: "Indian + a" (I leave it to the reader to speculate on a pizza topping that accurately reflects Indiana [sweetcorn, perhaps?]). And some of our recent family holiday conversation turned around my brother's German experience of Pizza mit Polyp. Sounds disgusting indeed until you realize that "Polyp" is simply Tintenfisch aka octopus (Well, I suppose some people may find an octopus pizza just as disgusting as a polyp pizza).

With my perhaps excessive interest in pizzas, my attention naturally turns to northeast England, in particular Stockton-on-Tees, town where the friction match was invented, and home of the least prototypical pizzas that I have personally experienced (i.e., "been in the same room with"; not necessarily "eaten"). I will start with the Tropicana which starts with an ordinary pizza (mozzarella, tomato sauce, mushrooms, ham, and perhaps slices of onion if I recall correctly), and then takes the Hawaiian experience that much further by including not only pineapple but also tender slices of banana. It's sort of like dinner and dessert all in one, and why not -- it's all heading to the same place. I didn't try any, although I guess I could have picked off the ham (and maybe the bananas too).

Next on the menu is the Doner Pizza, of which I also claim personal experience despite not consuming any of it,1 as several pieces were threateningly brandished in my direction. The doner pizza is essentially an attempt to project the three-dimensional doner kebab onto a two-dimensional surface. The typical ingredients of a doner kebab are not all represented in doner pizza. Included are lamb sliced from a massive meat cylinder which one hopes has been kept at a suitably high temperature; spicy chili (or "chilli") sauce, and some variant of tzatziki sauce both of which are poured generously onto the giant heap of meat (by the way, the "heap" ruins the mathematical purity of the doner pizza as a 2-d projection). Which in turn rests on an ordinary pizza crust (taking the place of the traditional pita). Not included on the doner pizza are any members of the vegetable family. The doner pizza is a great improvement upon the ordinary doner kebab as, erm, well, hmmmmm. Let me get back to you on that one.

But next up is the true wonder of the pizza world. The London Pizza is an amazing step toward making the ordinary pizza into a complete meal on its own. How often have you ordered a pizza and a portion of chips (a.k.a. "french fries" or "deep fried potatoes") and wished you could eat them at the same time? Well, the London Pizza allows you to do just that. It starts with an ordinary cheese pizza (mozzarella, tomato sauce) upon which is heaped a giant portion of chips fresh out of the fryer. On top of the chips, if you're lucky, some sauce (either chili/chilli sauce [as above] or creamy garlic sauce). If you're unlucky, just try and choke them down "dry" (not really dry, as they will have retained some portion of the frying oil that has not soaked into the crust, and then into the box, and then into whatever the box is sitting on). I've experienced the London Pizza twice (the first time, doubly-sauced [the pizza, not me]; the second, dry as a bone), and I can say that if you ever face the decision of "sauce or no sauce" on your own London Pizza, please choose whatever sauce is at hand. Oddly, I have not yet been able to find a "London Pizza" in London proper, but I guess they'd just call it "pizza" here.


1Feel free to attempt a less awkward and more grammatically correct syntactic rendering of this ugly modifying clause with its nasty dual co-referential "of"s and their unpleasant pronominal partners "which" and "it".
consume
Monday, December 19, 2005 2:24:01 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [4]  | 
 Friday, December 16, 2005
No. 1 pizza in USA

We get a lot of flyers for fast food delivery through our mail slot. Sadly, most of them are incredibly underwhelming and, if anything, make me dream of the nutrient capsules we will be eating instead of food in the future. But once in a while there will be a gem. Maybe not a gem of the "good food" sort, but a gem nonetheless.

Today's gem is a piece of information concerning American pizza preferences, brought to you by "Top Pizza" of Stamford Hill ("Top Pizza Special": beef, pepperoni, onion, mushroom, green peppers, ham & sweetcorn). What do you think is the "No. 1 in USA" pizza? Before seeing the definitive information provided by the authorities at Top Pizza, my guesses would have been something like this:

1. Pepperoni
2. Sausage
3. Cheese

And misinformation provided by pizzaware.com seems to confirm my guesses to some extent: "Pepperoni is by far America's favorite topping, (36% of all pizza orders). Approximately 251,770,000 pounds of pepperoni are consumed on pizzas annually. Other popular pizza toppings are mushrooms, extra cheese, sausage, green pepper and onions.". Fortunately this kind of misguided thinking has been debunked by Top Pizza who clearly describe one particular pizza as "No. 1 in USA"). That pizza is (drum roll please.....)











Of course it is .... the BLT. Bacon, lettuce & fresh tomatoes. Nothing we Americans like better than the BLT pizza. A Google search reveals only 737 hits for "BLT Pizza", but I assume most of the vendors have given it a zingier name for advertising purposes (or to integrate it more completely into their line of less popular pizza products). I am not sure whether the crust is made of lettuce (you know, to catch all those Atkins stragglers who haven't heard yet), or whether it contains mayonnaise (an additional requirement of the BLT despite its uncredited appearance). And I'm not sure how well the BLT translates into Britain where bacon is of a decidedly different nature (thick and soft rather than thin and crispy). Nonetheless, BLT enthusiasts rejoice; your pizza is No. 1 in USA!!!
consume
Friday, December 16, 2005 12:38:36 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [3]  | 
 Tuesday, December 13, 2005
A long quiet period punctuated only by the occasional hacking cough

Dear Friends,

Please forgive my excruciatingly long lapse in posting. Contrary to what some of you are surely thinking, my recent trip to the US did not include any road-to-Damascus moments which resulted in an overt decision to post much, much less. Instead, I brought back with me not only pleasant memories and bulging luggage (and belly) but some sort of debilitating chest cold / flu / wasting fever which developed into a lovely case of bronchitis, causing me to take to my bed for a period of some days. Rather than walking you through the specific symptoms (therefore you will have no need for your phlegm color chart on this particular occasion) I will only report that I am back in business (if my efforts can be said to be businesslike in any way; I am sure many counterpoints can be made to such a claim). Normal posting will resume in due course (at least, I hope so).

Cheers,
The Dunce
meta
Tuesday, December 13, 2005 3:13:23 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [0]  | 
 Monday, December 05, 2005
American tour

I spent the past two weeks in the USA, visiting various relatives on both sides of the family in a whirlwind tour of some of America's lesser-known tourist attractions:

Our first stop was Milton, Florida. Part of the Pensacola metro area, county seat of Santa Rosa County, formerly known as Scratch Ankle, and home to Opal Dunce's mother (and nominal home to both of the Dunces, now that we both have Florida driver's licenses).

From there we drove 550 miles (11 hours, on one of the busiest travel days of the year [the day before Thanksgiving]) to Rock Hill, South Carolina. Part of the Charlotte, NC metro area, home to Winthrop University, and also to Opal Dunce's sister, her husband [Opal's sister's husband, that is], and their small daughter (who does not have a blog).

Our next stop (by air) was Noblesville, Indiana. Practically part of the Indianapolis metro area, county seat of Hamilton County, and also home to Dunce's sister, her husband and their small boy (who does not have a blog). During our stay there we also took a detour to...

New Knoxville, Ohio, home to Dunce's brother, his wife [Dunce's brother's wife, that is] and their small boy (who does not have a blog). 65% of New Knoxville's residents are of German ancestry (a sizable proportion coming from Ladbergen) and many people still speak Low German at home.
Here are some comparative details about the various locations we visited.

Population (2000 census)

Milton (7,045)
New Knoxville (891)
Noblesville (28,590)
Rock Hill (49,765)

Racial makeup (% white)

Milton (78%)
New Knoxville (99%)
Noblesville (96%)
Rock Hill (59%)

Median income (household)

Milton $30,060
New Knoxville $42,375
Noblesville $61,455
Rock Hill $37,336

Most famous resident (that I could find in a few minutes' search)

Milton: Mary Chapelle, teacher, writer and journalist.
New Knoxville: Evan Eschmeyer, NBA basketball player.
Noblesville: Norman Norell, acclaimed fashion designer. Or possibly Steve Wariner, a country music artist I hadn't heard of before this very moment.
Rock Hill: Vernon Grant, artist and creator of the Snap!® Crackle!® Pop!® characters.

Maybe this will help you decide which of the four locations you'd like to visit. If you are a resident of one of these fine communities, please feel free to add additional information in the comments.
travel
Monday, December 05, 2005 3:00:19 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [1]  | 
 Tuesday, November 22, 2005
License bureau delights

Today was the day that the Dunces got to visit the local license bureau to deal with our American driving privileges. As a US citizen resident overseas, I occasionally have to jump through some hoops in order to keep my license up to date, and this visit was one of those times. As the expiration date on my last license approached, I found myself in northwest Kentucky (home of my parents), and thus I found myself with a Kentucky driver's license (motto "It's <i>that</i> friendly"). But this time around I was not stopping in Kentucky, and will probably not visit the US before the expiration date (10-04-2006, especially since this expiration date would be interpreted in the UK as April 10th). Plus, Mrs. Dunce needed to get a replacement license with her married name on it, as it is recommended that this be done within ten days of the name change. OK this was a little late, but on our last visit (last year) her documents were not quite in order.

We were advised to arrive promptly at 7:30am when the license bureau opened, as it gets incredibly crowded, and stays crowded all day. So we did (give or take a half hour), and found that the license bureau was operating from a mobile trailer parked behind the actual building (one of many Pensacola-area establishments not fully recovered from the hurricane(s)). It was already quite crowded, and the phone was ringing off the hook. In a public services office this small, there are no secrets, and one of the biggest non-secrets was that the woman answering the phone had no patience for stupid questions. Although she expressed her non-patience in a very Southern way, speaking in exceedingly polite tones and peppering her responses with plenty of Sirs and Ma'ams. From her end of the conversation, we learned that:

* Your problems follow you everywhere, sir. If you've got a child-support suspension from anywhere, our records will show that.

* No ma'am I do not have an attitide. There are 20 people waiting in this tiny office and I need to assist them. No ma'am I do not know what they are here for. Probably driver's licenses, ma'am.

* We open at 7:30 and they are lining up then, sir. No ma'am, it is not traditionally an all-day affair.

* No ma'am, we are not open on Thanksgiving. I think you'll have a hard time finding any office open that day.

* No sir, we do not take appointments, just show up early and try your luck.

We also learned that teenagers cannot obtain their learner's permits without an official document certifying that they have completed a four-hour drug and alcohol awareness course. Fortunately we were well-behaved and didn't ask any stupid questions (and were apparently sufficiently aware of drugs and alcohol). It may also be relevant that Opal Dunce stopped and said hello to one of the branch's employees who just happens to be acquainted with her mother. In any event we were dealt with quickly and efficiently without having to pass along any "donations" for swift service. Now we both hold Florida driver's licenses in our correct names. Even if the photos are not so flattering.
travel
Tuesday, November 22, 2005 5:07:47 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [2]  | 
 Sunday, November 20, 2005
Travel Joys and Atlanta Fashion

The Dunces have safely arrived in Pensacola, Florida after a fairly ordinary and uneventful journey, and are now installed at Opal's Mother's Manor. For the longest leg of the the journey (9.5 hour flight from London to Atlanta, GA) we sat in front of two strangers (a twentysomething Philadelphian, and a middle-aged Englishwoman now living in rural Spain) who spent the last five hours of the journey talking absolute rubbish about various societal issues (religion, politics, paedos, etc.). Just a little bit too loud for me to ignore or tune out. I won't rant about anything they said, with the exception of "baby sign" which deserves its own entry later (don't start yet, I am not anti-baby sign). But it was just enough to make me slightly insane and extremely curmudgeonly.

When we changed in the airport in Atlanta, we had some time to occupy ourselves. Some of it was spent walking the length of the airport (none of your fancy-dancy airport light rail for us!), and obtaining then gobbling some messy sandwiches, but we did also have a few moments to observe the passing crowds. To me the most impressive demographic trend concerns the wearing of skirts and dresses by female individuals. Opal Dunce is a skirt-only sort of a person: her wardrobe does include garments with separate legs, but these items are only worn in circumstances of illness, or as pajamas. But at least in the Atlanta airport, she was as anomalous as a priest with a Mohawk. Perhaps I exaggerate as we saw no priests with Mohawks (nor any priests of any sort, come to think of it), but among the hundreds and hundreds of womenfolk heading to and fro, the number of skirts or dresses could be easily counted on one hand, with a couple of fingers left over for nose-maintenance issues (and my hands are normal, at least when it comes to the number of fingers). I hope Opal isn't planning to buy many skirts in these parts. Or perhaps Pensacola is different (I understand there are some Mennonites around, but Opal doesn't exactly favor floor-length denim).

Although we are traveling, our home is occupied. So don't get any ideas about helping yourself to our goodies.

travel
Sunday, November 20, 2005 4:36:44 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [1]  | 
 Friday, November 18, 2005
Returned valuables

Several weeks ago we had a break-in (see my entry here). It was an extremely targeted burglary as the only items taken were a laptop belonging to J--- ("the Lodger"), a US one dollar bill, and an Estonian five kroon note (worth about 20 pence). Well, as it turns out the laptop is no longer stolen but, incredibly, has found its way home (Just like Poco, the little dog with the big heart!). And here's the tale (subject to inaccuracies as I am telling it second-hand).

It all started when J--- received a phone call from Officer Friendly. A shifty gentleman had been spotted with a laptop that officers had some reason to suspect was not his (he may have been stopped for some other reason, I am not sure). His answers to questions about when, where and for how much he had purchased said laptop were not satisfactory, so the police offered to hold it for him (presumably waiting so that he could produce proof of purchase). Although this individual had deleted some of J---'s files, he hadn't deleted everything. Most importantly, a copy of J---'s CV with current contact details. So Officer Friendly contacted J--- and she was able to go to the police department and pick up the laptop!!! Or so you would think.

Upon arrival at the police department at the arranged time, she was informed that Officer Friendly was not in, and he was not expected until several hours later. A few days passed, and apparently more telephone calls were exchanged. Now the laptop was not available for release; it was being dealt with as evidence. Etc., etc. Some of us began to suspect that this was some sort of elaborate wind-up by someone not actually affiliated with the police, but using a real police officer's name. Perhaps ransom would be demanded, or perhaps even more sinister (maybe the laptop's new owner had claimed authorship of J---'s written work and wanted to taunt her with a multimillion pound book deal).

Anyway, another meeting was arranged, again at the police station. J--- arrived at the police station, but received a call on her mobile phone from Officer Friendly (calling from a mobile phone). "Are you at the station?" he asked. Indeed she was. "Go outside, across the street, and wait by the flagpole". A bizarre request indeed, but J--- was bold (and accompanied) so she complied. A vehicle pulled up, containing two women in plain clothes, who passed J--- the laptop (perhaps having her sign a form) and then took off. So, to my amazement, she did indeed recover the laptop.

Unfortunately, the power supply was not recovered (and Dell apparently uses a nonstandard power supply that costs a fortune and is not even compatible with power supplies for other Dell laptop models), so a complete examination of the laptop's contents has not yet been possible. Rumor has it, however, that it contains some music files, including what appears to be a set of home-made rap tracks. I'm hoping to get my hands on these. Perhaps we'll pretend to be the Artiste and get ourselves a multimillion pound record deal.

Oh yeah: The laptop isn't being kept in the house, so don't go breaking in trying to get it again. And we don't have any better valuables than we did at the time of the break-in.
Friday, November 18, 2005 12:12:49 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [0]  | 
 Wednesday, November 16, 2005
The English equivalent of pounds

We have recently had a research article accepted for publication in a major journal (a link to the page proofs can be found here: pdf version, although the link may break as lab pages are being adjusted). One of the final editorial queries was a request for currency conversion:

"Wherever you list the monetary amounts that people were paid to participate, you list it only in pounds. We'll need the English equivalent, which we will place in parentheses."

It's true, we did list the amounts only in pounds (people were paid £3 for participating in our experiments reported in the paper). But I had a terrible time trying to find a conversion from British pounds to the English equivalent. For future reference, today's exchange rate seems to be 1.000000, which in a strange coincidence appears to be exactly the same as the rate for Welsh and Scottish currency.
Wednesday, November 16, 2005 11:11:16 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [3]  | 
 Tuesday, November 15, 2005
Eating in the Axis of Evil

Last night Opal Dunce and I had the opportunity to travel to west London to see a gig1 at one of our favorite venues: Bush Hall (venue site)2. One of the added benefits to visiting the area is an excellent restaurant, Abu Zaad. It's a Syrian restaurant, apparently the only one in London. Back in 2002 when the "Axis of Evil" was extended to also include Cuba, Syria and Libya (BBC article), we saw a report on Channel Four News in which a reporter visited "the only Syrian restaurant in London" to get comments from the newly-appointed ambassadors of Evil. We were interested, not only in brazenly benefiting the spread of evil through capitalism, but also in eating the delicious meals that fill the tummies of evil people. When we finally went, we didn't see much evil, just quite a few local people (plus your occasional table of BBC employees) and our own table full of, well I am getting ahead of myself.

Abu Zaad is especially well-reviewed on london-eating.co.uk (9/10 on food, 8/10 on service, 8/10 on atmosphere, 8.8/10 on value). I would also include a link to a Time Out review but they only give a teaser for free: "A local restaurant for local people, and in Shepherd’s Bush that means Sudanese, Levantines, more Sudanese, westerners... and they all seem to be on first-name terms with the staff. Abu Zaad...". To read more you must sign up for a "free trial promotion" ("When you sign up during a free trial promotion you will be asked to supply your credit card details, however your credit card will not be charged until the free trial period has expired." How irritating). Anyway, we've now visited there going on ten times (I'd say) so now I feel quite ready to write about it myself. The mains on the menu are quite meat-heavy; there are a couple of veggie and fish options, but we have never bothered as the starter options are so great. We've found ourselves in a bit of a routine where we order (exactly) six of the starters (each priced at £2-3), which is plenty of food and a lot of variety as well. It's always a bit of a difficult decision which of the choices will make up our six. It always includes cheese sambouseks, batata harra (spicy potatoes with peppers), [ummm, I can't remember the name, but it includes pasta, lentils, fried onions, fried bread, mmmmm]. Sometimes also including spinach fatayer (a sort of squishy filled bready product, ready to be drizzled with lemon juice and mmmmm), hummus, falafel, stuffed vine leaves, baba ghanoush, and an assortment of others. All washed down with a nice glass of mint tea. Did I say mmmmm? And it always comes to less than £20 (we also seem to gobble our food like mad, so we don't spend very long there either. When it comes down to it, the food is quite similar to other eastern Mediterranean locales, and I have to say not evil at all. I can't wait till the next show at Bush Hall or Shepherds Bush Empire brings us back to Abu Zaad (it may be a while. Nothing good on the horizon, I'm not interested in seeing, say, Jethro Tull [and besides, they aren't playing until March]).




1 We saw South San Gabriel (band site), a fantastic band I'd never seen live before (although I have heard some recordings of their live material. I felt compelled to attend and buy merchandise not only because I liked what I heard, but because they are one of those groups who don't seem to mind people recording their shows and sharing them online for free). On this tour they were performing the songs from their new CD "The Carlton Chronicles: Not Until The Operation’s Through". Perhaps a rock opera, definitely a concept album as it is the story of a cat, told from the cat's perspective (I will ruin the ending by telling you all "the cat survives"). Once they finished with the cat business (apparently this was the last show on the "cat tour" of Europe) they did play some other songs not of a feline persuasion. I am rubbish at writing about music but I will say this: the sound was very layered: multiple guitars (acoustic, electric, pedal steel), keyboards and a few effects. What I could catch of the lyrics... very interesting and seemed to be on the intelligent side (I should note that I have a lot of trouble hearing and/or paying attention to lyrics in general). All in all a really good show. A friend of ours who also goes to lots of gigs (her personal site) called it her gig of the year. As far as I am concerned, it didn't quite top Sufjan Stevens, Curtis Eller, Swearing At Motorists, but it was definitely in the top ten (gosh, I haven't even mentioned M Ward, Broken Family Band, Drive By Truckers, Rufus Wainwright, Danny Barnes, or the Rosinators. Fortunately I haven't had to actually decide upon a top ten).

2An excellent venue indeed. According to the venue's website (info here) it was built "in 1904, [when] a publisher called William C. Hurndall presented a gift in the form of a dance hall to each of his three daughters: Lillian, Eugenie and Olive." It's quite an ornate room (and has served previously as a bingo hall and snooker parlor); general consensus around our table was that it would make a great location for a bingo/disco party. Here is what it takes to hire the place for your own special occasion.
consume | music
Tuesday, November 15, 2005 2:34:27 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [0]  | 
Hiatus and downtime

Sorry about the outage... my blog lives on a machine that wasn't cooperating very nicely. But it's been coerced into behaving, at least for the moment. I have a small backlog of entries which I'll be posting in the next day or two.  They will be backdated to reflect when they were actually written, so please scroll down to see them (unless you're using an aggregator).
Tuesday, November 15, 2005 1:31:14 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [0]  | 
 Friday, November 11, 2005
Stirring the brain

It's been a very busy week; I'm in the midst of preparing an extensive application to obtain ethical approval for several years' future experiments in language processing and cognitive neuroscience. I don't write much at all about specific things I'm doing at work, mainly because my work-related writing is channeled toward more practical ends like publications, applications and a minor project known colloquially as a Ph.D. thesis.

But when it comes to messing around with people's brains, how could I not write about it? I'm talking, of course, about Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS). TMS is a way of directly affecting the brain by using directed magnetic devices on the surface of the head, in order to induce electrical currents in fairly precisely-identified areas of the brain (at least on areas near the surface). The main concern is safety: the International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology reports safety considerations (most importantly, avoiding TMS if you have metal in your head, sensitive implanted electronic devices, epilepsy, heart disease, etc.). Anyway, TMS has generally been used for two main purposes. First, as a treatment for depression (see this psycom.net link for more details), essentially as a safer, less invasive and generally nicer version of electroconvulsive therapy. I know little about this research, but there is a lot of interest in this application, although to date the US FDA has not approved TMS devices for use in therapeutic settings (some have been approved by similar bodies in Canada and Israel).

The area I'm involved in, instead, focuses on trying to gain a better understanding of brain function by assessing the effects of TMS upon a specific part of the brain. The logic here is fairly simple: if a particular part of the brain is involved in processing information of a certain kind, TMS to that area will affect tasks that involve that kind of information. For example (a fake example using entirely invented areas and ideas, but which is very much an analog to the real studies we are considering), suppose that we are testing a hypothesis that the Ultramarine area of the brain is responsible for performing mathematical operations of addition and subtraction. A TMS experiment might then test participants' ability to add and subtract under different stimulation conditions: No stimulation at all (to get an idea of each participant's different abilities), stimulation to the Ultramarine area, and stimulation to the Periwinkle area (which is not believed to be involved in adding and subtracting). If the Ultramarine area is indeed involved in adding and subtracting, we would expect to see differences when comparing performance between the Ultramarine and Periwinkle stimulation conditions. Such differences are not enough to allow conclusions that indeed, the Ultramarine area is involved in addition and subtraction (for example, it could be involved in all mathematical operations, or in combinatorial processes of all sorts, or in visual recognition processes, or "cognition", or numerous other things the brain can do). In order to make conclusions like that, it's also necessary to conduct similar experiments using different tasks (for example, multiplication and division, for which differences would not be observed if the Ultramarine area is only doing addition and subtraction). This is especially important (and difficult) since many areas of the brain seem to subserve multiple functions, and it's extremely hard to isolate specific functions. Think of everything that is involved in doing a simple addition problem like 2+2. Seeing the image of "2+2", distinguishing the individual numbers and symbols as distinct entities, identifying the referent of each (i.e. "+" means to add), retrieving or calculating the answer (however that is done!), and all the steps involved in producing the answer (let me assure you, there are many). In short, it's a hard problem that requires many, many steps.

Yesterday for the first time, I participated in a TMS experiment. Unfortunately, it didn't go so well, despite all my knowledge about the relative safety of TMS, and also my knowledge that the particular area being stimulated (visual area V1) is not typically a painful or unpleasant site (other sites can have uncomfortable consequences, such as an icky twitch of the facial muscles each time a magnetic pulse occurs). I blame it on the fact that I am a delicate flower of a man. It was a rather strange sensation, somewhat like someone tapping on the back of my head. But I managed to work myself into a sort of state (quite similar to my reaction to blood tests or other medical situations): by about trial number 10 (of 150+) I was shaking, sweating profusely, light-headed and nauseated, and I had to call a stop to it. I'm afraid I'll have to wear my tinfoil hat into the TMS lab in the future.
science
Friday, November 11, 2005 1:33:13 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [3]  |