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I went to see a screening of the documentary Puskás Hungary at the unofficial Hungarian Consulate here in Boston tonight. The movie was pretty good, serving to highlight my total and utter ignorance of all things soccer. It was really quite bizarre to sit in this room of people watching a football match from 1952 where everyone else there clearly knew what sort of life altering goal was about to happen while I was all like, huh, so they have a European Cup? Anyway, for the similarly uninformed the Golden Team was some serious hot shit back in the day, going nearly undefeated for 6 years. Their controversial loss in the 1954 World Cup final to West Germany may or may not have sowed some seeds for the Hungarian Revolution two years later.
But the best part of the event was the view from the 26th floor of 111 Huntington. Oh man what I’d give to work up in that building every day.
My sister graduated with her PhD yesterday. Suffice to say, we are all tremendously proud of her and this accomplishment. Even if she made fun of my totally awesome sky husky + dreamcatcher graduation card. I PICKED THAT OUT SPECIAL.
The danger of graduating, or hitting any major milestone, is that now that you finish you kind of sit around and are all like “now what”? This major organizational structure that has guided your life for a long time is suddenly gone and it’s easy to slip into a little postpartumy fugue. This is how I feel a bit after moving and after I bought my house. All that looking planning and scheming and now what, just sitting here, living? What’s next, and next next, what’s the next next next?
So, as a humble public service, a suggestion. The quest for seven summits should take at least as long as getting a PhD did. And none of us are going to find ourselves in Antarctica by accident – bold steps must be taken! Anyway, you have my number if the quest calls for a brother-type companion &/or a sled dog.
I don’t have a lot to add to the most excellent and less excellent… :O liveblogs my people have put up about Ragnar. The race itself was a challenge unlike any I’ve done, fairly difficult physically but also requiring a different sort of social navigation than a typical day for me does. Being stuck in a van with some semi-strangers for 36 hours requires not getting angry, or making anyone else angry, despite lack of sleep and free will. I woke to leave Boston at 3:30am on Friday and didn’t have any real sleep until I found myself napping on the grass outside some suburban Chili’s late afternoon post-race (this guy eventually woke me up).
One thing I was particularly happy for was getting to run with a different set of friends, people I hadn’t necessarily run with before but who I hope will stick with it and race with me again. Next year – and I’m pretty sure there will be one – I’d like to run another relay out west, say Ragnar in Las Vegas or the original in Utah. Or Hood to Coast. Hopefully a bit faster than almost DFL, but either way. In the meantime, my sights are shifting back to the BAA.
If you haven’t seen and would like to, here are some other photos from our race. A short video is forthcoming.
| MILEAGE UPDATE: May 17 – May 23 |
| Miles to date |
Past week |
Three week average |
Annual pace |
Miles to go |
| 191.7 |
23.5 |
15.7 |
489.3 |
808.3 |
This is my last weekend prior to Ragnar; the next week will entirely be subsumed with details and preparation. I’m more than a little nervous, as we’ve probably forgotten something critical for the team’s (or my own personal) success (OMG WHUT NO SOCKS?!?!). Fortunately, this past week YJP flew into town so my small training pod (& dog) could have our first non-virtual run together, a leisurely 6 miles around Brighton Saturday.
To revisit the concept – Ragnar is a massive relay race, 12 runners, 191 miles, ~30 hours, New Haven to Boston. We start at 9am on Friday morning and run straight through until Saturday afternoon/evening. My friends and I been talking and planning and scheming about this race for most of the year now. Each runner gets three legs (mine will total around 16 miles) and off we go. I was reading through the race bible and came across this bit which I rather hope comes into play at some point.
15.L) Wildlife/Open Range Rules
If a runner encounters any wildlife that are aggressive on the course, get your runner off the road and into your
support vehicle. The vehicle should drive ahead and let the runner out at a safe and reasonable distance ahead of
the wildlife to continue his or her leg. Keep track of how far your van drives ahead by .10 of miles and report the
mileage and speed traveled at the finish line (reporting forms will be available). We will take your team’s overall
average pace, the mileage and speed driven and adjust your team’s time accordingly.
Anyway, if you’re interested in following along with the race you can here on quasify until I run out of juice on my phone, or possibly on my long abandoned twitter account.
| MILEAGE UPDATE: May 10 – May 16 |
| Miles to date |
Past week |
Three week average |
Annual pace |
Miles to go |
| 168.2 |
13.5 |
9.4 |
451.4 |
831.8 |
Prior to going to see the new Robin Hood tonight I solicited a few opinions on what the total Russell Crowe-related body count would be. Nineteen people responded, with guesses ranging from zero to sixteen hundred. Since I was hoping for some sort of objectiveness to my body count I settled on a few rules. Arrow to body was a kill for minor characters, as was a sword or giant hammer that landed anywhere other than on a shield.
So, on to the slaughterhouse, along with some mild spoilers. Robin/Russell killed seven in the opening sequence, a few attacking a castle prior to pissing off King Richard and a few more avenging his death. Then there’s an uncomfortably long period with ZERO deaths before he whacks six more dudes in the process of saving Nottingham. Lastly, a final six fall as he semi-singlehandedly repels a French sea invasion. So in total, 19 dead, not a bad evenings work for a retired Crusader. He would have killed a lot more if he had stuck with archery Legolas-style rather than switching back and forth to calvary ala William Wallace.
Anyway, I crunched the numbers and we ended with a tie. The co-winners are Dan and Lilla, each three off from the total with 16 & 22 respectively – good job D&L!! Full results are below, sorted by absolute value of kill magnitude difference.
Dan: 16 – Winner!! (-3)
Lilla: 22 – Winner!! (+3)
My guess: 25 – Third (+6)
Mom: 12 (-7)
Jenni: 28 (+9)
Alexandra: 30 (+11)
Allison: 32 (+13)
Chris: 3 (-16)
Swood: none (!?) (-19)
Valerie: 42 (+23)
David: 45 (+26)
Erin: 47 (+28)
Ashley:69 (+50)
Christine: 74 (+55)
Steven: 89 (+70)
SarahP: 109 (+90)
Dad: 200 (+181)
Nathan: 256 (+237)
Emily:1600 (+1581)
Note, 15 of 19 overestimated the kill count, meaning they could have crammed some more gore in there without offending the masses. And finally, from an ethnic cleansing angle, 100% of Russell’s kills were Frenchmen. Oh mon Dieu!
Preface: I’ma testing something out here today. I don’t think this post is not going to work if you read this site through RSS, so check back around midnight for the final version.
12:25pm: Our screening for the 48 hours film project is tonight! My enthusiasm is starting to build – if you want a ticket they’re still available here for $11 (we’re at 7pm).
1:11pm: My motivations in encouraging you to come tonight are mostly selfish – as half our production team is from New Jersey the standard ‘have the cast/crew stuff the ballot box’ strategy will fail. And as the backup plan (‘actually produce something good that will appeal to a broader audience’) seems a bit too optimistic I’m hoping Plan C (‘guilt friends into coming and making obligatory votes’) will win the day.
5:03pm: Nominal work day over, now it’s time to start getting nervous. Two of the four principal members of EP are telling me they’re going to be late. This does not help.
5:24pm: My unwillingness to go up for the Q&A combined with the imperfect nature of text message communication has managed to piss of our director. Sorry yo!
5:47pm: Some historical perspective – when I did my first one of these back in 2004 I got so nervous at the Q&A that I up and ran out of the Somerville Theater where our screening was back when. I just ditched, out into the rain, completely leaving my girlfriend at the time hanging out to dry (as she was forced to go up and made some lame/witty remarks). Somerville Theater really was a much better venue than Kendall Square is (though Kendall has better movies in the regular world).
6:46pm: Here and it’s still pretty empty inside, disappointing. Still tickets available, enjoy that $3 screw you surcharge, Landmark. The other 3/4 of my production team are MIA but some of the groupies are here.
6:52pm: It looks like improper use of the iPhone WordPress app means I whacked my last few updates, great.
6:59pm: Ok, it’s time. I have more than my fair share of ballots, some of the scragglers are here. We are #4 of 12. Will report back post-apocalypse.
7:15pm: Our starring actor sneaks in late just in friggin time.
7:28pm: Success!!! Some laughs. Very good technical appearance & sound. Overall am pleased. The sad scene (post ice-cream) got a solid response. A few small video glitches but I’m ok with that. Biggest concern is my cartoon fish didn’t swing in time with the live action backdrop.
8:38pm: “I didn’t really touch dog crap, that was movie magic”
8:54pm: CP makes a pretty decent joke about our complete and utter lack of dialog. Which is feature of this film I rather liked.
9:07pm: Good grief this Q&A is never-ending. Some highly self-important folks talking. Gimme Friendly Toast!!!
11:31pm: Arrive home, realizing I’ve forgotten to file taxes by the extended deadline of today. Ah, you win some, you lose some.
I’ve got a pretty good one. Sorry for the rest of ya’ll. Hondo explains it better, but a belated happy momma-day to her too.
Also, since it’s Sunday, a brief Ragnar update. I’ve switched legs with VK such that I’m now runner #5, 17 & 29. This thankfully cuts about 4 miles off my total distance (much appreciated dude). So if you want to see me, here’s the mongo map (pdf). Given our 9am start time on 5/21, you might expect to find my slots starting around these times:
Leg 5 12:14pm, 5/21 6.0 miles
Leg 17 09:33pm, 5/21 6.4 miles
Leg 29 08:00am, 5/22 5.2 miles
| MILEAGE UPDATE: May 3 – May 9 |
| Miles to date |
Past week |
Three week average |
Annual pace |
Miles to go |
| 154.7 |
10 |
4.9 |
437.7 |
845.3 |
I learned some exciting news about Foss Fest tonight. Namely, the date (July 25th, 2010), and about a new partnership with East Somerville Main Streets. It’s going to be big! More details will be forthcoming.
In the meantime, you can take a look at last year in our Foss Fest flickr pool.
Tonight for LZ’s belated birthday celebration we rolled out to Southborough for a Vegetarian Indian class at Culinary Underground. The classes are held in a private home, albeit one with two kitchens. One of which is MASSIVE, with a gigantic wrap-around countertop. The kind of kitchen you might aspire to but never get around to having. All in all we had a good time, trying a bunch of dishes (all of which were vegan and pretty tasty). I thought I’d share my favorite recipe from the evening (of the two we made), a quick chutney.
1) Heat 1 tablespoon of coconut oil (maybe or maybe not bad for you) over medium-low heat. Add 3/4 tsp cumin seeds, 2 slided green chilies and 2 cloves garlic. Saute this shortly, 1-2 minutes. Put this mix aside.
2) In same pan, toss in 1 cup of cubed eggplant (the smaller the better) with a little more oil. We used those little mini dudes, it took like 1 1/2 of those. The eggplant will suck the oil up pretty quick, but cook 5-10 minutes, waiting for eggplant to brown.
3) Put eggplant & cooked spices into a food processor, along with a bit of salt. Add 3/4 cup green mango, diced. Pulse a bit, but not too much.
4) Make a tadka by heating another tablespoon of coconut oil with a teaspoon of mustard seeds and two dried red chilis. The mustard seeds will ‘pop’ like popcorn, sending tiny bits of oily shrapnel around the kitchen. When that happens, pull it off the heat and pour over the pulsed mix. Arrange red peppers artfully for optimal prétention. And voilà!
I seem to have failed to mention that we wrapped on “The Man Who Had Too Much To Lose” late last Saturday and submitted a semi-reasonable cut later yet Sunday, with six solid minutes to spare. Our short will be screening along with a bunch-ton of other short films on Tuesday, 5/11 at Kendall Square. This was our first time shooting in high definition and it turns out using three different HD cameras with three different file formats leads to all sorts of fun, unexpected problems in post. More of that please!
And yes, to preemptively clarify the post-screening question that I know we’ll be getting from everyone, it is a comedy.
(You can get tickets here. 5/11, 7pm.)
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