Mindless Philosopher

D-DNC, or Dean for DNC Chair, held an event for former Dean staffers at “Local 16,” which is a bar north of Dupont. The Governor himself was in attendance and gave a little shpiel. He’s thinner, but still the same kooky Dean. The man has some great ideas for the Democratic Party, and I can only hope that other delegations follow FL’s lead and endorse Dean for chair. The biggest reform I think the DNC needs (and that Dean is calling for) is the need to serve the state party structures instead of just promulgating “unfunded mandates.”
After mingling and reconnecting with DFA-NH staffers, six of us had dinner at a nearby Subway and taxied over to Union Station for a birthday party for Jarel’s friend Eileen. Mookie devised a plan to hit on the guy who was wearing the “W ’04” hat, but I’m not sure if he ever followed up on the idea. After a few drinks (ginger ales for me), we walked to Union Station (which gave me another excuse to don my Dean hat) and called it a night.

Visited the National Gallery on Sunday, where we focused on their limited-time Gerard ter Borch exhibit. There were some amazing paintings on display; ter Borch is especially known for capturing the shimmer of satin. Certainly he mastered light’s reflection on surfaces better than anyone in his era.
Kim and I debated how much of ter Borch’s paintings could be validly interpreted. Ter Borch didn’t title all of his works and left only a few notes, which led to confusion over some of the renderings. The scene of one of his renderings was first thought to depict two parents admonishing their daughter, but then the powers that be decided that ter Borch was actually painting a brothel. These same “experts” then state with certainty that the dog looking at the ground in the picture represents the shame of humanity’s immorality. Personally, I’d make sure you know who the people are before worrying about the dog. (But I guess that’s just me.)

A v. hard riddle passed on to me from Jon:
Our not-so-friendly Trogdor the Burninator doesn’t like peasants. In fact, he has just captured n peasants (where n>=2) and wants to eat them. But, Trogdor is feeling nice today and will give them a chance to live if they can solve this one puzzle. Trogdor decides to put hats of differing colors on all the peasants’ heads. The hats are colored in as many colors as peasants and Trogdor has a large supply of any color; thus, all the peasants could be wearing the same color hat, or all the peasants could be wearing a different color hat. The peasants will sit in a circle and write down on a piece of paper the color hat they think is on their head. Trogdor then collects the pieces of paper and if none of the peasants gets his/her hat color right, all the peasants die; BUT, if at least one peasant is right, they all live (yay!).
The peasants discuss strategy before hat-placement, but once the hats are on, no communication whatsoever. (As a point of clarification, the peasants do know the set of colors from which Trogdor chooses. Another point of clarification: once the hats are on, there is absolutely no communication between peasants–eg, they don’t know what the other peasants guessed).
So what strategy should the peasants use? Good luck, and email me for confirmation or clarifications.

“Ask Osama bin Laden, er, Osama Obama, er Sen. Obama …” — Sen. Ted Kennedy’s (D-MA) start to an answer about what Dems could learn from Obama’s success in IL (National Journal’s Last Call! sources).

Friday evening I went to the Hair Cuttery, usually a reliable place for a trim, but this time the stylist decided* that she didn’t really like my hair and chopped it all off. I had taken my glasses off so I couldn’t see what was happening until it was all over. No negative comments thus far about the new ‘do…in fact a surprising number haven’t noticed/mentioned that I have a new hairstyle for the first time in about a decade.
Friday night I went (slightly overdressed) with Leslie and Justin to the Black Cat for the Me First and the Gimme Gimmes concert. (Walking to the car to the venue–and back–with a lot less hair on my head led to the small cold I have right now.) The opening act (Jericho?) was a group of talentless hacks, and unfortunately they made us wait 45 minutes between those charlatans and the Gimme Gimmes. The main event was rather entertaining, and made the entire evening worthwhile.
Saturday I went to my first hockey class at the Mount Vernon Ice Arena. We worked on backwards crossovers, with which I have particular trouble. Then I joined Jen, Erich, and Kim for custard, where we swapped vacation stories.
Kim and I moved on to the “new” Museum of Science. The center is very small but extraordinarily interactive. We got to make DNA bracelets, something that I remember several of my friends doing at TJ. Unfortunately, the docents couldn’t answer many of my queries–and I wouldn’t have had so many questions if the exhibits didn’t bring you tantalizingly close to new knowledge but left out key bits of information. Overall, a fun experience, and I recommend it to others.
Saturday night I went (slighly underdressed) with roommate Riki to a party at a DC club. Randomly met a former Gore campaign colleague that I hadn’t seen in four years. I attempted to assimilate into the bump and grind environment, but given that I totally missed that part of my enducation at MIT and subsequent campaigns, I think I failed more than succeeded. Chicklet seems to think I missed a few steps, and the ones I did hit were out of order. Perhaps next time (though not likely).
Sunday I watched a lot of TV while nursing my incipient cold.
*And yes, it was a unilateral decision. I mentioned how I usually part my hair, thus (I thought) indicating that my hair should be long enough to part.

Unabashedly stolen from Daily Kos.
Rep Tom Cole (R-OK) links Social Security to the War on Terr’r:

“He cannot afford to fail. It would have repercussions for the rest of his program, including foreign policy. We can’t hand the president a defeat on his major domestic initiative at a time of war.” (Wall Street Journal, 1/6/04, non-free reg. req.)

Next he’ll be labeling Tora Bora as a Blue State.

Just got pics from Dawn of Christmas 2003. Don’t I make a cute Santa?

Welcome to 2005, may it bring more Democratic victories!
New York was a blast. Highlights included:

Rockefeller Center
Bluestockings (feminist bookstore)
the Museum of Sex
extremely close Madden2004 games on Jon’s GameCube
Central Park and learning about schist
finishing all my PhD Grad School apps (Princeton, Michigan, Yale, MIT, Columbia, Duke)
beating Andy, Mara, and Anna in Scrabble
beating Seth in Scrabble (for only the second time in my life!)
the Newtonian exhibit at the New York Public library
interpreting the line to get into the MoMA as a piece of modern art itself
touring the entire Times Sq Toys R’ Us store with Naomi
losing $35 in an all-night, no limit, Texas hold ’em poker game with Popper and her (poker-experienced) friends
The coolest part of the trip was Seth’s New Year’s Eve party. About 50 of us went up to his roof top from which you could see Times Sq and the reflection of The Ball. (The Reuters building obstructed our view of The Ball itself.) At 10pm the city, from our rooftop perspective, was eerily quiet given that we knew 200,000 people we standing just past our field of vision. At around 11:30 we could start to hear the throngs yelling. Some lackluster fireworks exploded to mark the passing of the year, and we continued to party until 3:30am–at which point I walked home through Times Sq (the cleanup crew was in full force while the confetti was still falling).

Google’s main page offers information and lists ways to help the victims of the Indian Ocean earthquake.

Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity In Words of Four Letters or Less