Book Log 2006 #8: The Lobster Coast by Colin Woodward

When I first picked this book up, I expected it to be a fairly contemporary account of life in coastal Maine and the challenges common to the lives of lobstermen and others trying to make a living there. What I found was often more interesting, as much of the book is turned over to a history of the region that helps explain why current residents are disinclined towards change and distrustful of outsiders. The parts about fishing, and the dependence of the regional economy on lobsters, often seemed secondary. But they were still fascinating and instructive as to the mindset and outlook for the region.

All that being said, I really did enjoy the book, perhaps not surprising given my in-laws and familial history (my paternal grandmother's family is descended from Maine fishermen). I will say that I am not crazy about the page I've linked to, as the use of the term "hunter-gatherer" is a bit much in this context.

For a state that's within driving range, you'd think I'd have overnighted in Vermont before last weekend. Well, I hadn't.

Now I have.

The wife and I headed up to Burlington to take in the sights, but mostly for the second game of what turned out to be a reasonably unsatisfying two game set between the Icedogs and UVM (both ties). Drove up Friday after work missing BU's steal of a point (tying goal scored with less than a minute to go) as well as any scenery offered by the drive (of which there is some, if my memories of a 1995 trip to a BU-UVM game are anything to go by).

Not surprising for February, it was cold and snowy during our visit. Our plans for Saturday were pretty well truncated by seasonal closures, but we did spend a little time at ECHO. It's really more set up for kids, but it was an OK way to kill some time, even if I did turn my ankle on some ice in the parking lot.

We went up to Church Street (a shopping area restricted to foot traffic, kind of like a smaller version of Boston's Downtown Crossing) to have lunch at the NECI Commons and look around. Turns out that the folks who run the New England Culinary Institute have decided to consolidate, as the Commons is now closed. You want NECI-made food, you have to trundle over to The Inn at Essex. So by the time we found a new place for lunch (OK, we went to a place that was across the street, but we waited a bit for a table), we were well behind out schedule to tour the Magic Hat brewery (located about a quarter mile from where we stayed).

That might have been for the best, as Magic Hat was sponsoring a Mardi Gras parade in downtown Burlington. I'm not a huge parade person, and when you factor in snow and temperatures in the teens, I'm even less interested. The wife concurred, so we instead bought some locally-made foodstuffs for dinner and went back to the hotel to rest and watch CBC coverage of the Olympics.

We left for the game at about 6:30. We should have left at 6. Traffic to Gutterson is awful, the product of some sort of crack-addled transportation engineer. The snow didn't help, as Vermonters don't seem to want to plow until the snow stops (as it was, I think we saw all of one plow before leaving on Sunday morning, when we saw 3 or 4). So we missed the first five minutes or so of the game, which included the first BU goal. The rest of the game was OK, I suppose a tie is better than a loss. Gutterson is a pretty good place to see a game, much more like the older rinks in Hockey East that are now largely gone (save for Alfond Arena, where Maine plays).

We went back to the hotel and crashed after the game. Sunday was the drive home, which I had to pass off to the wife pretty early on given that the ankle I'd turned the day before wasn't interested in continuing to depress pedals. We made one stop to have lunch (eating at the same place we had dinner on Friday, unintentionally), and were home by mid-afternoon.

A decent trip, but I think we'd like to go up when there's no snow and things are actually open.

I know this is probably wrong, but every time they talk about Irina Slutskaya having vasculitis, I can't help but think that, in a hospital in the suburbs of St. Petersburg, Dr. Grigoriy Dom is working with his interns to prove that she, in fact, has a prehistoric virus picked up from a thawing mastodon specimen through some series of coincidences as yet unknown.

Before the show last night the wife parked the car in the garage under the Boston Common, which was very convenient and a reasonably good deal given the difficulties in parking downtown. After the show, as we were taking the elevator down to the level where she parked, we noticed that the elevator was operating on a temporary permit good for 90 days.

It was issued in the fall of 2004.

I was going to write something about the US men's ice hockey team, drawing some comparisons to the US men's basketball team and their performance in Athens and pushing for both to come up with a more permanent national team akin to soccer.

But then the Canadians went and crashed out of Turin. It seems wrong to probe the not wholly unexpected US result when it's a national day of mourning for our friends to the north.

In checking the newspapers for doomsday headlines, it was interesting to see how most of them found the silver lining in the variety of medals won by Canadian women speed skaters (short and long tracks). Though one (the Toronto Sun, naturally) asked if one of the women could play hockey, given that the national team can't.

Anyway, I got to miss all the coverage yesterday by heading to the theater. I didn't think that the tickets for Les Miserables that I got the wife for Christmas would entail missing Olympic fun, but better last night than tonight (at least for the wife, whose interest in figure skating well exceeds my own).

Not much to say about Les Miz other than it was a competently executed (if long) musical about love, mercy, and justice in revolutionary France. It is now the first musical I've ever seen more than once, but with the original viewing now 14 years in the rear view that's not really anything to boast about. I have higher hopes for Spamalot, which we're seeing in a couple of weeks. I definitely hope that the rows at the Colonial Theater have more leg room than those at the Opera House, whose seating is an upholstered version of Fenway's grandstand.

Random Olympic thoughts:

* I'd hate to be the person who has to run against the Congressperson who sponsored the bill expiditing Tanith Belbin's US citizenship. Incumbency is enough of an advantage, never mind having a silver medal to go with it.

* For all the talk about the lack of goaltending chops on the US men's hockey team, it's the offense that's clearly the problem. In four games they've scored 9 goals. Seven were put up against Latvia and Kazahkstan. They're going to need more than one goal to put away the Russians, never mind upsetting the Finns in the quarters.

* At what point does our quadrennial love affair with curling develop into something more regular? Can we get Worlds to interrupt some of the wall to wall poker showing on the ESPN family of networks?

* The wife and I came to the conclusion that women's curling may have the cutest set of competitors across the field. Granted, we didn't see all the teams, and spending a couple of hours yesterday contemplating Rona Martin's mug would lead anyone to question this conclusion, but it still seems likely.

Not sure if this is female-only or Olympics-wide. Nominations are welcome, of course.

* With the coming of four man bobsled, I hope NBC doesn't cut things too fine and deprive us of some of the less traditional teams. I'd hate to miss Jamaica or Brazil so they could squeeze in five more minutes of analysis on figure skating. Because, you know, there's not enough time on that show they created specifically to discuss figure skating.

* It's much easier waking up to biathlon than other sports. The skiing is peaceful, and the shooting adheres to one simple rule: don't miss.

* Is Shani Davis the athletic equivalent of Kanye West? Both are African-American men from Chicago whose most public outspoken moment was carried nationally by NBC. If someone tells me that Davis survived a car accident to become a skater, I'm heading to the bunker.

Pointless BU connection to yesterday's tie between Latvia and the US in men's ice hockey: two of the Latvian players are brothers of BU blueliner Jekabs Redlihs.

And while the tie is getting a lot of talk, I have to think that the US losing to Italy in men's curling is bigger. I didn't even know Italians curled, though I suppose there's some up in that part of Italy that's pretending not to be either Switzerland or Germany.

Book Log 2006 #7: Magic Time by W. P. Kinsella

More writing about the mystical power of baseball, though in a less literal way than Shoeless Joe or The Iowa Baseball Confederacy. A minor leaguer signs with a semi-pro team in a small Iowa town that apparently lives for baseball - and trying to match up players with their host family's unmarried daughters. Something smells fishy, and the main character spends the rest of the book trying to sort things out.

It's not bad, not quite up to the level of the books I mentioned above but a decent read. I think part of it ran in Sports Illustrated, so if the beginning seems familiar that may explain it.

No trivia last night, as the wife and I had dinner at Rialto, a restaurant located in the Charles Hotel. Not a bad spot, elegantly casual with nicely attentive service. Can't knock the food, either, though the ginger chile ice cream that came with my dessert could have used a little more chile. That hardly detracted from the meal, though.

And you get no new questions, either, seeing as two from last week are still unanswered. So there!

Yeah, so that hockey game actually turned out be a lot of fun. The game itself was entertaining - too close for my taste given the way the teams were playing - but not a classic. I'm not going to argue given the result, though.

More fun was the company, as I had the chance to see an old college friend (Paul, a non-blogger but semi-regular commentor) who I hadn't seen in at least two kids and one wife (his and mine, respectively). He was also smart enought to not mention his personal BU losing streak until after the game was over; had he told me beforehand, I think I would have been duty-bound to keep him out of the arena.

The most apropos detail of the night: the on-ice logo for Northeastern, perennial Beanpot doormat, started to bleed during the second intermission of the title game. And, of course, in trying to fix the problem it was only made worse. So for the third period it looked like their logo was surrounded by that black cloud thing from Lost.

No word on if you could see Nigerian villagers in it, though.

The least classy yet apropos moment also came in the second intermission, as the BU and BC mascots played some variant of beer pong. This is at least the second time they've done that, and really, it's not any better than the first time. It was fun explaining beer pong to Paul, as the game wasn't popular in our heyday and, as a parent, he'll probably run into it with his brood sometime in the late 2010s.

Though they'll probably have EA Extreeme Beer Pong for the gaming system of your choice before too long.

Least entertaining moment overall came after the game, when I discovered that the 11:30 train I was planning to take home actually left from Beverly as a connecting train for the 10:40 - which I missed by about 10 minutes. Instead, I got to wait for the 12:10, meaning I got home at about 12:50 am. There was a time when that wasn't late. Sadly, that time isn't now.

Very dull weekend, describable in two words: Olympics and snow. For the former, we watched a lot of the coverage this weekend, which was at its usual NBC level, though I did get to see more biathlon than I ever thought I would (even if the coverage was mostly shooting and skiing in and out of the stadium).

The snow, well, there's a lot of it. Not as much as this time last year (or, even worse, two years ago), but still a good dumping. Not enough (or at the right time) to get a snow day, sad to say. Rather I got to fight through a commute that saw the "express" train I usually take posted as running 25-30 minutes late (I wound up taking the local that comes in about 10 minutes later) and the Orange Line decide to have cars sit in the tunnels for a couple of minutes, apparently for the hell of it (though I learned from co-workers that there was a medical emergency on the line earlier, so it could have been residual effects). But I'm here now and can't complain.

Besides, there's some sort of hockey game at the Garden tonight. That might be fun.

It's meme-tastic!

Four Places You've Lived:

1. Manchester, MA
2. Boston, MA
3. Wellesley, MA
4. Beverly, MA

Four Jobs You've Had:

1. Dog walker
2. Substitute teacher
3. Library security
4. Petroleum transfer engineer

Four Movies You Could Watch Over & Over:

1. The Shawshank Redemption
2. Goodfellas
3. The Blues Brothers
4. Office Space

Four TV Shows You Love to Watch:

1. Jeopardy!
2. M*A*S*H*
3. House
4. Iron Chef

Four places you've been on vacation:

1. Quebec City (spring break)
2. Youghal, Ireland (honeymoon)
3. Myrtle Beach (regular old vacation)
4. Stevenage, England (holiday/wedding trip)

Four websites you visit daily:

1. Gmail
2. Wired
3. TV Barn
4. Wikipedia

Four of your favorite foods:

1. Cap'n Crunch
2. Harpoon IPA
3. Salmon
4. The BBQ Belt at Redbone's (AKA "Death by Meat")

Four places you'd rather be:

1. Australia
2. At the Olympics
3. In an office rather than a cubicle
4. Home with the wife

OK, it's getting close to the start of things in Turin, so where the hell are all you people for the ESPN game?

I'll make it easier for you: go here, create your entry, and then join:

Torch Time in Turin

Password: skeleton

Sign up. NOW! I command you! **CLAP CLAP**

Book Log 2006 #6: The Bernini Bust by Iain Pears

This is one in a series of art-related mysteries featuring a British art dealer and a member of an Italian police squad that specializes in art theft. Not much to say about them, they're pretty solid entries into the mystery genre. Having some basic art knowledge might help, but is far from required.

It may help to read them in sequence, given the evolving relationship between the main characters. Again, though, it's not required.

You know, I would feel more in agreement with the Rolling Stones' denouncement of their being censored during the Super Bowl halftime show if they weren't knowing participants. They should have threatened to walk - during the show if need be - rather than play along and complain about it later.

No trivia last night, but I'll throw out a few questions from weeks past for fun:

William King was the only Vice President sworn into office outside of the United States. In what country did he take his oath of office?

What musical group was indirectly responsible for the development of MRI technology?

What US President played a pivotal role in forming the current rules and structure for college football? Teddy Roosevelt (Mike) - TR was enough of a rugged individualist that he saw the promise of college football, but not enough of one to accept its occasionally lethal results. He pretty much strong-armed interested parties into various changes in the game, so in a way he's to blame for the BCS.

Born Michael Gubitosi, what actor is one of the few surviving members of the Little Rascals? Robert Blake (Mike) - apologies for the weasel wording, but I'm pretty sure the host claimed that Blake was the last surviving member of the Little Rascals. I think there are a couple of aged Californians who would be surprised at that remark, based on my (admittedly brief) research.

It's been a period of technology change over the last day or so, both in the office and at home. The office change wound up being pretty minor - my computer crapped out, our IT folks replaced the power supply and motherboard, and we're back in business - but the home one is more significant.

When I acquiesced on the issue of having a cell phone, I joined in under the wife's plan, and got a simple Motorola phone that did exactly what I needed it to do - send and receive calls while providing some resources for spot entertainment (most notably video poker and blackjack), all in a low-res package.

We were AT&T customers, but became Cingulair customers when they bought out AT&T. This led to a period where we were expected to pay a migration fee and buy new phones, an expectation that we gladly ignored. When the wife's phone died I got a used one off eBay, in the hopes of getting her through until June, when our contract expired.

Sadly, the second phone was looking to expire first (one column of keys lost all function), and Cingulair decided that they'd rather keep us as customers than have us bolt due to that expectation of paying for a merger we didn't necessarily want.

Long story short, that's how I wound up with this Nokia phone that has things like polyphonic ringtones, backgrounds, screen savers, and a variety of other functions that I can use. For an added fee, of course.

You can guess how many of these functions I'll be using.

That being said, I do need to go out and see what sort of free stuff there is, as none of what the phone came with really does anything for me. Suggestions are welcome, of course.

First, an apology to BU fans. I left last night's Beanpot game early, so as to catch the train and get home before midnight. While it all worked out for the best, I feel somewhat responsible for Harvard's comeback. I know, I wasn't on the ice or coaching, but we all know that you don't leave games early for a reason.

I shant repeat my early departure next week.

For those of you looking for a more straightforward Olympics challenge game than Fields of Bronze, you can join my group for ESPN.com's Torino Challenge. It's just like their summer game; you pick five countries and get points for their medals, multiplied by a bonus factor. So if you really think New Zealand is going to score a medal, you've got a shot at some major points.

Group name: Torch Time in Turin
Password: skeleton

I managed to avoid most of the tedium of last night's Super Bowl by missing the first 27 minutes. I much more enjoyed celebrating my younger niece's birthday, and got score updates (OK, update) from her brothers. I had no real interest in the outcome, though I am mildly pleased with the Steelers win. AFC bias, I suppose.

By not seeing the start of the game I also seemed to miss all of the top-rated ads, though running down the list on USA Today I don't think I missed too much. I was surprised to see that the Sprint ad about the phone's "anti-theft" qualities wasn't on their list at all. Of the ads I did see, I think that was probably my favorite.

In any event, yesterday was just a pre-cursor to the real meat of the February sports calendar - at least in these parts, when the Pats aren't in the Super Bowl - the Beanpot.

BC plays Northeastern in the early game, which on paper is no contest - BC is ranked #5 nationally, while NU has one win. BC has struggled of late - they lost to us, had to go to OT to beat Lowell, and then lost at UMass on Friday - but they aren't struggling that much, sad to say.

We play Harvard in the nightcap. It'd be a nice time to avenge losing the annual pre-Thanksgiving game, and we are on a tear, with a nation's best 8 game winning streak. I'm still feeling anxious about this game, as the Beanpot is always ripe for an upset, and we seem like the most obvious target.

Laura has a nice reminiscence about the Beanpot and the last time she missed it. I have nothing quite so heart-warming, as I think the last Beanpot I missed was my sophomore year, when we lost to Northeastern in the title game. So not much missed their, either.

Tom Reilly, the state AG and front-runner for the Democratic nomination for governor, made news this week when he named Marie St. Fleur, a state rep, to be his running mate (lieutenant governor candidates run separately from governor candidates in the primary, but there's often this sort of linkage going into the primary). She then made news the next day by dropping out of the lieutenant governor's race due to financial questions. Let's just say that her approach to paying off loans and taxes is a little more relaxed than banks or the IRS would appreciate.

In talking about this yesterday, Reilly noted that running for governor " ...is a whole different level of politics, and it's never been my strong suit, and I have to improve on that."

I have to admit that I find a state-level politician admitting his lack of political skillz kind of endearing. But I fear for where this is going to lead come November.

Book Log 2006 #5: The Men Who Stared at Goats by Jon Ronson

This is a stange little book. I read Them: Adventures with Extremists a couple of years ago, and enjoyed it quite a bit. In that book, Ronson hangs out with a variety of "extreme" types, such as radical Islamic clerics in London and ultra-right wingers here in the US. It blended a serious topic - what goes into the mindset of someone who operates on the fringe - with humor, moreso than I expected.

The new book sticks with fringe types, but now within the area of psychological warfare. The goat-starers share pages with remote viewers, a general who thinks that he should be able to walk through walls if he concentrates enough, and connections to the Heaven's Gate cult and the CIA's LSD experiments.

Humor seems less prevalent in this book - still there, but muted a bit. In some ways it's hard not to find humor in some of this, but there's also some concern about how these operations influence the wider fight against terror and how the public doesn't seem to care about their relationship to torture or other mistreatment.

I liked it, but it's not exactly a general interest read.

While it's probably bad form to say a second place finish in bar trivia is disappointing, we did lose on the final question. That always sucks. Anyway, questions:

What celebrity was born in 1939 with the name Ralph Lipschitz? Ralph Lauren (Greg) - I managed to talk my team into answering Woody Allen, which was stupid. Had I thought about it for a second, I'd have known it was wrong. It didn't help that they played that short skirt, long jacket song which made us think it was a clue about Woody's, uh, wife. That shows you were our minds go.

What 2001 film, a cult favorite, opens with the line, "I'm voting for Dukakis."? Donnie Darko (Greg) - we had no idea. I don't think any of us saw it.

Who is the only coach to take three different schools to the NCAA division 1 men's basketball tournament Final Four? Rick Pitino (Greg) - Providence, Kentucky, and Louisville. Not BU. Oh well.

What Steven King novel opens, "Once upon a time, not so long ago, a monster came to the small town of Castle Rock, Maine.."? Cujo (Greg) - we had this, along with about a half-dozen other King books, as possible answers. We would up going with It. Not a bad guess, I mean, really, it's about a demonic clown.

Ragnar Frisch of Norway and Jan Tinbergen of the Netherlands were the first winners of what Nobel Prize, first awarded in 1969? Economics (Anon) - I was fairly certain about this, but the team wasn't so sure. We dickered a little bit about Physiology or Medicine, and in the end put the right answer, but for a medium-sized bet. Had we gotten full points... we probably still would have come in second.

Four of the 11 horses that have won the Triple Crown did so in what decade? The 1940s (Paul) - We went with the 1970s, as we could remember three of the horses and figured we were forgetting the fourth. In actuality we got all of the 1970s Triple Crown winners. Whoops. It didn't help that I mentally assigned at least one of the winners from the '40s to the '50s. Damn nags.