Apologies for the lack of personal posts, but my life has been fairly content-free of late. It's been a pretty steady rotation of work, home, and hockey. The only thing that's broken that up of late is the return of the sinus infection I had about this time last year. I like variety, but perhaps not the type that leaves me clutching my forehead whenever I stand.

We did have something interesting happen on the work front, as my original boss at WIT has left and is apparently moving, which was a surprise to me when I heard it this afternoon. She then left about an hour early, which I suppose is somewhat understandable - the good-bye thing can be pretty draining - but no one knew she was going until after she left. I'd have liked to have said goodbye, seeing as she's a good part of why I have this job. Such is life, I suppose.

And while we're dealing with regular features...

Lentorama 2006 Saints of the Day: Martyrs of Valeria

Two monks hanged by the Lombards. Pope St. Gregory I the Great noted that they could be heard singing psalms after their deaths.

Not much I wanted to add here, other than Pope St. Gregory I the Great is quite a moniker.

Book Log 2006 #10: Devices and Desires by P. D. James

One of the middle-late books in the Adam Dalgliesh series, it follows the inspector/poet as he gets drawn into a killing on the English coast, where he is closing up the house of a recently deceased aunt.

I've only read two of the Dalgliesh books, and both in the later part of the series, which makes it a little hard to get a feel for him. This is especially true here, where the focus of the book is much more on the local characters and setting.

The book will certainly meet the needs of anyone who enjoys well-written mysteries, but I can't help but feel I'm missing something by not knowing more about the (ostensibly) main character. Maybe it's just that I don't know that I'm not missing anything.

Lentorama 2006 Saint of the Day: St. Roderic

A priest in Spain during the rule of the Moors, he was beaten unconscious by his brothers while trying to stop a fight between them. One brother paraded Roderic through the streets of town saying that Roderic wanted to turn to Islam. Roderic denied this, but the same brother later turned him in, saying Roderic was an apostate from Islam. Roderic was thrown in jail, and after a lengthy stay was beheaded.

The next time you have a fight with a sibling, be happy that they can't get you arrested for apostasy. Yet.

We spent a goodly chunk of this afternoon back on the house hunting trail, spending more time than we'd like in the ranch houses of the recently deceased. Make that the over-priced ranch houses of the recently deceased, given how many of them still had original features (and, in some cases, applicances) from their construction in the 1950s.

There was one house that we really liked, but I have a feeling it's going to go quickly. Quicker than we can get our financing in order, but here's to trying.

Unrelated to all of this...

Lentorama 2006 Saint of the day: St. Peter of Nicomedia

Tradition says he was a chamberlain in Diocletian's court, and was arrested for being a Christian when Diocletian began the last major Roman persectuion. Think about that the next time you complain about your boss.

Peter was then stripped of his skin, rubbed down with salt and vinegar, and roasted over a fire. He was delicious. "Now... now that's just superfluous, you know?"

Seeing Craig's discovery that Kirby Puckett was the first MLB player he ever saw at bat in person, it made me wonder who mine is. This is complicated by the fact that I'm pretty hazy on the details of my first MLB game. There are two contenders:

1. A game I saw with a group of altar boys against the still-new Mariners, or
2. A game I saw with a group taken by the police department against... someone. I want to say the Kansas City Royals. I could be very wrong.

I tend to think it was the first one, and my best guess is that it would have been 1978 or 1979. Possibly even 1977, but I don't think it was that early.

It pretty much had to be a Saturday afternoon game, as we were out of school and it's not like our priest could have taken us to a Sunday afternoon game, what with work and all.

Thanks to Retrosheet, the most likely candidate for my first batter seen in person is Julio Cruz. If the game was in 1979, there's an outside chance that it was Larry Milbourne. But I don't think so, as I'm pretty sure the Sox won the game, and the candidate game that Milbourne led off in was a Mariners win.

I suppose this is pretty good, given that I can't even remember the last Sox game I went to. I don't think we went in 2005 at all. And if we did, it was clearly memorable.

All season, the Qdoba near Agannis Arena has had an offer going: a Terrier scores a hat trick, you get free chips and salsa. While the season provided many two-goal performances, no one could quite break through.

Until last night.

David van der Gulik put in an empty net goal, thus securing the 2900+ in attendance (it's the tail end of BU's break) a complimentary side if they make it up to Qdoba this week. Considering it's owned by Ray Bourque, this may make up for his son bolting at the end of last season.

I have no deft segue into this, feel free to make your own:

Lentorama 2006 Saint of the Day: St. Constantine

The first Scottish martyr, Constantine, was a king of Cornwall who, after the death of his wife, gave his throne to his son and entered a monastery. Later ordained, he was a missionary in Scotland when, as an old man, he was set upon by pirates, had an arm cut off, and bled to death.

Shiver me timbers!

Lentorama 2006 Saint of the Day: Macarius of Jersusalem

A fourth century bishop of Jerusalem, all Macarius did was be the driving force behind the Nicaean Creed, and with St. Helena find the True Cross and construct the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. With that resume, you think we'd hear more about this guy.

(I know, the True Cross thing smacks of the obsession with relics, but he's at least in on the finding, not someone who wandered along centuries later with a piece of wood in a shiny metal box making fanciful claims about its origin.)

Helena, for what it's worth, was the mother of the Roman emperor Constantine. Good company to keep if you want to be a saint, I'd think.

I've not been able to watch much of the World Baseball Classic, given that we don't get ESPN Deportes and that I've not been smart enough to DVR games that do find their way to ESPN2 (not to mention I don't think we've got room for whole baseball games, what with the Olympics-related backlog that we're working through). But when I get to see first round games in the Horizon League's men's basketball tournament in prime time, why should I complain about missing theoretically top-level baseball?

Adding a layer of interest to this is Barry Bonds saying he may want in if the US goes through to the next round (which, thanks to Mexico slapping around Canada, looks likely unless we can't find a way to beat South Africa). Your guess if this is something done at the behest of MLB to raise interest in the tournament, by Bonds and his management as a way to improve his persona in the wake of Game of Shadows, or both. I'll take odds on the likelihood of Bonds "injuring" himself representing his country so he can retire as a "patriot" and avoid another season or two of "did he or didn't he?" speculation.

Except that Bonds, whose connection to reality seems occasionaly tenuous (at least to me, a continent away), may just shrug it off in his Recliner of Solitude and keep chasing the Babe.

Lentorama 2006 Saint of the Day: Catherine of Bologna

The daughter of a diplomatic agent of the Marquis of Ferarra, Catherine was raised with the Marquis's daughter but at the age of 14 opted for the relgious life rather than life at court, with all the comforts that 15th century nobility suggests.

Her life was the usual (for a saint) example of piety and austerity, up to her death on this day in 1463.

Now her story gets interesting. A couple of weeks after she was buried (without a coffin, for some reason), Catherine was dug up based on cures attributed to her and a sweet odor coming from her grave. Upon exhumation, it was found that Catherine's body was incorrupt, and is apparently so to this day.

For those of you interested in what a 500+ year old incorrupt body looks like, there's a picture here. Remember, incorrupt doesn't mean she's not changed at all.

On a related note, I think today is the first time since I started this that I would not have been able to choose a Welsh saint. I never realized how thick on the ground saints were there, as I've always associated Wales with Britain and its church. So much for reading all those Brother Cadfael mysteries.

No trivia on Tuesday, as we changed our schedule up a bit to accomodate last night's excursion to the Colonial Theater to see Spamalot, the musical based (sort of) on Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

I put the parenthetical in there as the show, while using much from the movie, differs pretty significantly, especially in the second act. This wasn't a problem, just a difference. I think it's a pretty good difference, too, in that the show provides enough familiar stuff from the movie (and from other movies, as "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" is used in a couple of places) to satisfy fans, while providing enough new material to make the trip to the theater worthwhile.

Thinking about it, though, there were a couple of scenes from the movie that I'd like to have seen in the show. The early scene with the witch isn't included, which is too bad, as it's one of my favorites. They also didn't have the scene at the bridge (so no "answer me these questions three"), and the entire thing with the historian and the police is gone.

There were a couple of places where they were able to add some local content (most notably a line about Johnny Damon playing for the Yankees), which was interesting. I associate that sort of thing with local shows (for example, Shear Madness in Boston will adapt to current local events and give shout-outs to groups in attendance). Again, I don't think it hurt the show, I just wasn't expecting it.

While I'd recommend the show (as would the wife, I think, and she's not even a Python fan), I would not recommend the Colonial as a venue (at leat not the mezzanine) if you are over 5' 8" tall. I was much more cramped than I was at the Opera House. The orchestra seats looked to have more room, while the upper balcony appears steep enough that most of your legs is above the back of the seat in front of you. So by springing for an upgrade from the balcony, we unwittingly put ourselves in less comfortable seats (or put me in one, the wife seemed OK other than being in between me and a guy who was on the large side of average and still had trouble with room).

Updating something from the Vermont trip, voters in both Burlington and Montpelier voted down measures that would have removed fluoride from drinking water, a result hailed as a victory for public health or the dental industry, depending on who's doing the talking.

In a completely unrelated note, last weekend's college hockey action brought about something unexpected: an interesting result in the final game of the opening round playoff series between Yale and Union. While the Yale win was an upset, the interesting part is that the game was decided in the fifth overtime, making it the longest game in NCAA men's hockey history. It was 4:01 short of establishing a new overall NCAA hockey record, a mark held by the 1996 ECAC division I women's final between UNH and Providence.

What is it with the ECAC and long games?

And finally...

Lentorama 2006 Saints of the Day: St. Arian and Companions

Arian, a 4th century governor of Thebes, converted to Christianity after witnessing the martyrdom of Sts. Apollonius and Philemon, who were wrapped in chains and thrown into the sea off of Alexandrea. When Arian and his companions confessed to converting, they were also wrapped in chains and thrown into the sea.

How did they not see that coming?

Between Kirby Puckett and Dana Reeve, I think I could use a little more inspiration than snark today.

Lentorama 2006 Saints of the Day: Sts. Perpetua and Felicity

Perpetua and Felicity were 3rd century Carthaginian converts to Christianity, both mothers (Felicity gave birth while in prison), and both willing to be put into the arena (and afterwards to the sword) rather than renounce their faith. Perpetua rebuffed repeated calls to denounce Christianity, noting that it was who she was and could not be changed. Her last words were reportedly, "Stand fast in the faith and love one another."

Which isn't a bad idea, even if your faith is in something outside of organized religion. Thinking about Reeve, her faith in her husband and in a cure for his condition seem to apply here in some fashion. Puckett... well, he did stand fast with his team. He may have taken loving one another a little too literally, though.

Book Log 2006 #9: Eaters of the Dead by Michael Crichton

I'll admit to liking Crichton, and I did enjoy this early work of his, though it took longer than I expected to get into it based on the early manuscript style of the language. It took me way too long to pick up on what story was being re-told (I'll stop there, in case you've not read it), though that's more due to my own thick-headedness than anything lacking in the text.

Don't know if I'd go back and re-read it, but it did fit the bill for commuting quite nicely.

Notes from the weekend:

The hockey - I did not get to witness BU's capture of the regular season Hockey East title, as I was in Maine with the wife for my mother-in-law's birthday. Rather, I got to watch Maine-UMass on TV, which was not the most entertaining affair. Maine took a quick 2-0 lead (actually caught that on the radio going back from dinner), built on it, but let UMass hang around enough to result in a 5-3 win for the Black Bears.

I worry about UMass as a first-round HE playoff opponent, given that they are the sort of team that can beat anyone. I just hope they can't beat anyone twice on the road in the same weekend. I also worry about getting the New Hampshire-Providence winner in the semis (assuming we win and there are no other upsets), as both teams have played well against us this season. But that's another possible worry for another week.

The being away was nice, though I am looking forward to the coming weekend where I don't have to leave the state.

The Oscars were fine, outside of the decision to play music behind the winners from the start - it made things feel rushed from the get-go. Not seeing any of the nominated films I had no stake in anything, but was still surprised by Crash taking the best picture award. I'd have preferred a little more surprise among the acting winners - Felicity Huffman gets discombobulated when she wins, so her speech would have been very entertaining.

Jon Stewart gets my vote for a return engagement. Then again, I also liked Chris Rock and David Letterman.

In other news...

Lentorama 2006 Saint of the Day: St. Marcian

One of seven Sts. Marcian, today's Marcian was the bishop of Tortona for 45 years. Then he was crucified. You think a gold watch would have sufficed.

It also appears that he may be the same guy as St. Marcian of Ravenna. I'd like to think someone would notice if the same guy was the bishop of two different cities, but if holding the job led to crucifixion I suppose I'd lay pretty low, too.

Oscar-winner George Clooney? I wasn't expecting that.

Anyway...

Lentorama 2006 Saint of the Day: St. Caron

Here is the complete entry for St. Caron at www.catholic.org:

"Titular saint of Tregaron, in Dyfed, Wales, England. Nothing is known of his life."

So how did he get to be a saint?

Lentorama 2006 Saint of the Day: Adrian of Nicomedia: This fourth century saint got his start with the Romans, turning to Christianity one day when he impressed with the bravery of the Christians he was helping to torture. He was apparently impressed enough to forget what happened to Christians, as the day following his conversion he had his limbs struck off on an anvil and was beheaded. Of course, when the Romans tried to burn his remains along with those of other martyrs, a thunderstorm whipped up out of nowhere and put out the fire. Lightning from the storm also struck and killed many Romans, showing that even God has ironic moments.

Adrian is the patron saint of several things, including old soldiers, communications phenomena, and, perhaps continuing that ironic streak, butchers. Religious art often depicts Adrian with an anvil in his hands or at his feet, which seems a little cruel.

A forgotten note from the trip northward - turns out the people of Burlington have a ballot question this spring about whether or not to continue fluoridating the water. The group looking to end the practice cites a lack of need and studies indicating health risks in exposure to fluoride, especially in the levels used in their drinking water.

Those looking to continue the practice cite teeth, and the general desire to have them.

Unrelated to this, I was amused to find that one of the meat options from the Thai place our office orders from is "vegetarian ham." I suppose, like nutria, it comes from pigs that live in water and thus get some sort of Vatican ruling that it's not meat.

Speaking of which...

Lentorama 2006 Saint of the Day: St. Cunegundes

Married to St. Henry (aka Holy Roman Emperor Henry II), she took a vow of chastity prior to marriage, which Henry respected during their union (which explains in large part his sainthood). When she was accused of infidelity, she proved her innocence by walking over "pieces of flaming irons" without injury.

(I hope this doesn't open the door to sainthood for all those idiots running empowerment seminars where people walk on hot coals.)

Anyway, she was pretty much broke after Henry died, as they'd given away most of their money for charitable works. A year after his death she entered a monastery (one she actually founded) and lived as the other inhabitants did until her death 15 years later.

St. Cunegundes is also the Patroness of Luxembourg, Lithuania, and Poland. The first makes sense, she was born there. The other two, couldn't tell you.

Another Lenten season is upon us, and as usual I've had my annual bout with not knowing what to give up. Lacking any real inspiration, I've decided to copy one of you and give up salty snacks. So, for the next 38 and a half days, no potato chips, pretzels, popcorn, etc.

I have a feeling this will go much better than my attempt to give up cursing, which long-time readers (all 3 of you) will remember as a splendid failure. A wholly unsurprising result, given that I work with college students.

Anyway, on the T ride in on Tuesday, I was talking with a co-worker who mentioned that rather than give anything up, he liked to do something positive, and in that way give up personal time or what have you rather than arbitrarily pick a foodstuff or habit and go cold turkey. I thought this was a good idea, and so I've decided to do something similar. And what fun would that be if I couldn't drag all of you along with me?

Lentorama 2006 Saint of the Day: St. Chad

The first bishop of Mercia, he's kind of the Kevin Bacon of saints - his brother was St. Cedd, he trained with St. Aidan, and spent time with St. Egbert in Ireland. He was bishop of York for a while - until the guy who was supposed to have the post returned from France and wanted his job back - and he established a see at Lichfield. My favorite bit about him: in liturgical art, he is depicted as a bishop holding a church. Saintly and strong, there's a combination.

Wikipedia noted that some wags suggested that St. Chad be made the patron saint of botched elections after the whole fiasco in 2000. Sadly, the Vatican hasn't acted on this yet.

At the end of 15 questions last night, we were in second place behind a team that was pitching a perfect game. The emcee noted that he'd likely jinxed them by mentioning it, but they handled the jinx during questions 16 through 19, maintaining their perfect streak.

Up to question 20. The final question. Which they missed.

This opened the door for us, as we bet the maximum and answered the final question correctly to eke out a one point win over the team that entered the final question in third. This landed us a spot in the next tournament of champions, sponsored by the good folks at the Harpoon brewery. We even got a free round of Harpoon Ale thanks to a random draw, so it was a winning night all around.

Your questions:

What TV family lives at 633 Stag Trail Road in North Caldwell, New Jersey? The Sopranos (Greg) - First question of the night, got it on a guess. They were the first TV family that we could think of that lives in New Jersey.

Name four African countries that border on the Mediterranian Sea. Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt (Greg) - we swapped Algeria for Morocco before answering, but it was all good.

What singer, born Mary O'Brien in 1939 and who passed away in 1999, experienced a revival of her career after teaming up with the Pet Shop Boys in 1987? Dusty Springfield (Greg) - the Pet Shop Boys clue iced it for Allyson. For some reason, at the mention of the Pet Shop Boys the only musician I could think of was Willie Nelson.

What type of engine was invented in 1930 by Frank Whittle? Jet (Greg) - we got this on a guess, the main problem being that the jet engine seems like something that was developed by several people rather than invented. We bet low, so the bulk of our deficit was here.

Who was the first sports broadcaster to win a Peabody Award? Curt Gowdy (Scott) - We played the current events angle here. Clearly, we need to read our dead pool obits more closely. Sorry, Chris.

What organization, founded in 1961 by Peter Benenson, won the 1977 Nobel Peace Prize? Amnesty International (Chris) - this was the only question we missed all night, as my memory for Nobel prize winners has atrophied over time. We guessed the Peace Corps, which I think we all felt wasn't going to be right. But lacking anything better, off it went.

At 12,316 feet, Mount Cook is the highest peak in what country? New Zealand (Paul) - Based on what we knew about Captain Cook, and knowing that the highest peak in Australia is named for Kosciusco, we bet the full points and went with New Zealand. The team with the perfect game did not, changing from New Zealand to Australia. Apparently, they didn't think New Zealand would have mountain of that size. I guess they don't know where Lord of the Rings was filmed. Which worked out nicely for us, I will say.