I took the day off to await furniture delivery at the new place.  Sonia and I spent all of last Sunday at IKEA (probably the longest time that we spent together as just the two of us since Isaac was born), and we had most of it delivered today: fifty-nine boxes, mostly quite heavy.  Once they were delivered, I spent the rest of the day moving boxes from the living room to their final destinations and starting to assemble things (beds are top priority; bookcases, fond though I might be of them, can wait) until it was time to pick up Isaac from daycare.  It will take quite a while to get everything assembled, but once enough of it is in place (well, the beds will probably be sufficient), we'll have enough furniture to be able to relocate with just what we can fit in a couple car loads.  We have a bit more car space since the home purchase; we bought another car so Raia will be able to go shopping while we're both at work.  It will take a while to pack and move everything that's still at the old place, but we have plenty of time.

Borrowed from aaron_pike.  Bold means read, italicized means started but not finished, struck through means I have no intention of ever reading it.  Numbers are being ignored by both of us.  I'm not responsible for the irregular use of title case.

I feel like I have a lot of catching up to do.

One year, when I was growing up, my mother woke me enthusiastically with the news that a massive blizzard had hit overnight, that the dog was playing in the snow, that it really looked remarkable, a winter wonderland (OK, an early spring wonderland).  Given that I grew up in Minnesota, an April 1 blizzard was entirely plausible, though I didn't remember the exact date until I'd dragged my sorry ass out of bed, looked out the window, and gazed in bitter disappointment at the brown lawn.

Happy Birthday to eithni! Happy Birthday to aaron_pike!

(Also, thanks to frausensei for the additional reminder.)

Note to eithni: we're looking forward to your next visit.

My home town always makes it into the national news for the worst of reasons.  In this morning's New York Times, it's because of a recent deadly plague of binge drinking.  Less recently, the national press briefly picked up a news story in which a Mankato jail guard beat a prisoner with the nearest available object, which happened to be a Bible.  Other noteworthy national events in Mankato: a notoriously corrupt former Vice[sic]  President of the United States died in Mankato, with the Newspaper of Record suggesting that the cold weather was a factor.  And let's not forget Mankato's most important role in history, as the site of the largest mass execution in U.S. history.  The least embarrassing major event in Mankato was that some guy wrote a book in an apartment downtown.  The book itself is sufficiently embarrassing that nobody ever talks about it.

At some point, I need to blog at length about my thoughts on local events, especially those that have made the national news.  I'll give the quick summary here of two such events.   Boston has had two incidents in the last year or so involving supposed bomb hoaxes. 

In the first, two local artists were hired by a NYC guerilla marketing firm to affix battery-powered LED signs advertising an upcoming movie in various public locations.  The boxes, some of which were attached to bridge supports and the like, and each of which showed a cartoon character flipping the bird, were deemed suspicious by the local authorities who called out the bomb squad.  When the police then noticed that there were many such devices around town, there was panic.  The two artists were arrested and charged with a felony based on a supposed "bomb hoax."  I think this was overblown; while it was arguably reasonable to regard the devices on bridges as possible bombs and dispose of them accordingly, I don't think these two intended to make anyone believe the devices were bombs, and intent is necessary if you're going describe something as a hoax device.  Frankly, I suspect the marketing firm had considered the possibility that the police might overreact and saw it as being in their client's interest; the film in question was chiefly marketed to the stoner crowd who might be more inclined to pay to see a movie that "stuck it to the man."  The campaign was designed in New York, though, and it wasn't really practical to arrest those who might arguably have had intent.  The two artists eventually copped a plea to disorderly conduct and did community service.  Specifically, they painted a mural.  I don't have a real problem with the disorderly conduct charge; it seems an appropriate charge for attaching odd things to bridges.  Apparently the publicity was good for the career of at least one of the artists.  Various government agencies billed the sponsors of the ad campaign for the expenses they incurred and probably padded the bill pretty thoroughly.  The only real loser was the network exec who ended up taking the fall.

In the second incident, an MIT EE student who had made a sweatshirt with an attached breadboard/LED name badge went to Logan airport to pick up her boyfriend.  The staff mistook the name badge for a bomb and called the state police, who swarmed around the student with automatic weapons.  She, too, was charged with the "hoax device" felony as well as disorderly conduct.  I don't think either charge is justified in this case.  There's no reason at all to suppose intent.  Walking around an airport with visible wiring doesn't in and of itself qualify as disorderly conduct.  Every traveler with an iPod does something similar; the only difference is that the insulation around the wires is white.  This is no more an airport bomb hoax than a forgotten carry-on bag, even if the latter fairly earns a visit from the bomb squad.

Here is the current bomb hoax.  A guy with a shoe box goes into a post office, puts the box on the counter, declares that the box has a bomb, and demands cash.  This guy is a felon.  This is why that law is on the books.  Are the police really that unclear on the distinction between this case and the other two?

The big news is that Romney seems to be in real trouble.  If he can't win in a conservative New England state, then his appeal seems limited to Utah and Michigan.  And wasn't Giuliani considered the GOP front-runner not so long ago?  The difference in Republican results between Iowa and New Hampshire suggests that it's a comparatively wide-open race.

For Democrats, the big news is that Hillary survived, and it's also worth noting that neither Iowa nor New Hampshire brought anyone out of obscurity to glory.

We'll probably see more candidates drop out in the next few days.  As a spectator (I've blogged on this before), one of the great open questions heading into the conventions will be the VP slots.  Will they go to less successful candidates whose delegates can swing the convention to a particular candidate, or will they be chosen to balance the perceived weaknesses of the presidential nominees?

Finally, I wonder whether the rumors concerning a possible Bloomberg independent candidacy are meaningful.  While it's not discussed so often as the partisan machinations in Ohio and Florida in the last two elections, it's worth remembering that if Nader had declined to run in either election, the results would have been unambiguously different.  Third party nominees mostly serve to undermine the candidates who are ideologically closest to them.  Recall 1912, when Roosevelt drew so many votes from Taft as to cause Taft to come in third.

Edit:
One final note is the effect that a relatively long primary season can have on the general election.  First, the candidates still in the running will need to keep the money machine functioning.  Nominees are going to be short of cash after the conventions, and they'll end up owing more people more favors. Second, since they'll be slinging more mud at each other, expect things to become more negative more quickly.  Historically, the first party to have a nominee sew up the nomination is perceived as having an advantage going into the general election: more cash, less mud.  It's not clear that either party will enjoy such an advantage this time around.

It's currently 16C/60F.  I'm amazed.  I decided that I'd be uncomfortably warm in a jacket when I went out for lunch.  As it was, I ended up getting uncomfortably warm wearing a flannel shirt, but that's because I decided to take the opportunity to swing into Boston for a little shopping.  There are a few open patches of water beneath the Harvard bridge.

After a few more days of such weather (not necessarily consecutive, but without an intervening major snowfall) we might even be able to push a stroller over the ice-choked sidewalks to Waban.  I hadn't expected to be able to do that until April.  We've been making do with pushing Isaac around the parking lot of Cold Spring Park, and it hasn't always been trivial to get even that far.

Given the subject of this post, I feel a bit like I'm imitating Robert, but this ultimately has less to do with economics than it has to do with film, though it has a little to do with Google.

In today's New York Times, Paul Krugman writes:

"Last, but most important, is the issue of climate change, which will eventually be recognized as the most crucial problem facing America and the world — maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of our lives."

That last bit struck me as a remarkable bit of cliché, and I wondered where I'd heard it before.  Instead of thinking, I did a search on that string, verbatim, and came up with, among a handful of hits, the following article from 2003:

"Trust me: we're going to miss Rubinomics. Maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of our lives."

The author? Why, Paul Krugman!  OK, so this is apparently one of Paul Krugman's favorite clichés, and now we know one phrase the Krugman doll should recite when we pull its string, but it sounds way too familiar to be something I read once five years ago.  Where have I heard it before?

Google cannot help me here.  I turn it off and use the Force.  When I hear these words in my head, who is saying them, and where? You must remember this.  After a moment it comes to me.  I look it up only to get the verbatim original and to confirm my recollection.

"Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life."  It seems Krugman is a Casablanca fan.

Presidential campaigns have become a spectator sport for me.  Entirely too many years it seems that the races are decided in Iowa and New Hampshire, and by the time I get a chance to voice my opinion, my preferred candidate isn't in the running any more.

Living in Massachusetts makes it worse.  Since it's hardly a swing state, the electoral votes are a foregone conclusion.  That being the case, campaigning in Massachusetts is limited to fundraising, which is typically done privately.  Nobody stumps in Massachusetts; it's a waste of time and money.  I could be living in Australia for all the effect my opinions have on the race.  Congressional races are typically uncontested.  It feels depressingly like a single-party system.  There isn't even much of a point in going out to vote for the people you like if they're running unopposed.

There's a cold snap in Boston today.  It's currently 15F/-9C (feels like 0F/-18C).  Note that it's mid-afternoon; that's today's high.  Days like this I wish I still had my beard.

Today's xkcd has a reference to SIGGRAPH, though it's buried in the title attribute.

Isaac has gotten into the habit of going up to bookcases and removing the books he finds interesting.  If he's not satisfied looking at the pictures, he'll drag the book to one of us so that we can read it to him.

Yesterday he went up to one Sonia's bookcases and pulled out Евгений Онегин, arguably the greatest and most influential work in Russian literature.  Sonia and Raia were both very pleased; Raia patted him on his little head and praised him.

I told him that it was probably a bit over his head and that we should probably read Руслан и Людмила to him first.

It's important to introduce new foods to young children before they reach the fussy age where they refuse to try new things.  We still need to introduce Isaac to paneer korma for example, lest we be forced to give up our favorite take-out.

Today Isaac will be fed tongue for the first time.

I'm thirty-seven years old, and I've never eaten tongue.  I guess my parents waited too long.

A running gag I feel compelled to share, for the benefit of any Russophone readers (*cough*Jack*cough*):

Two days ago, Raia was holding Isaac on the rocking horse he got for his birthday.  Since Isaac is still quite ignorant of cavalry culture, his grandmother has to provide the role playing.  I heard her say to him, quite excitedly, "Айзэк Гордон, смелый партизан!"  I turned to Sonia, somewhat puzzled, and said, "That doesn't mean what it sounds like, does it?"  "What do you think it means?" she asked.  "Well, a partisan, in English, is... for example, Spanish guerillas fighting Napoleon."  "OK, it means the same in Russian." "So a smelly partisan would be ... an unwashed Spaniard?"  When she was done laughing, she explained that смелый is Russian for "brave".  That makes much more sense in context, but the mental image of a guerilla of the Peninsular War who had spent too much time in the saddle and too little time in the shower was so compelling that we all spent a good bit of time laughing.

Well, that's one new word added to my Russian vocabulary, one that I'm not likely to forget soon.

Since then, we've taken to using the code phrase "смелый партизан" or "smelly partisan" to mean "soiled diaper".

We spent much of yesterday  with good friends, exchanging gifts, hugs, and laughs.  Isaac was popular as always, though it took him a while to get used to the crowd; he spent the first fifteen minutes crying bitterly before he finally started to enjoy himself.  The Pack N Play mysteriously broke during the trip, refusing to snap together in a rigid form, and miraculously repaired itself when we got home.

I participated in a Yankee Swap for the first time and ended up with what a hobbit would describe as a mathom: a "bird feeder" in the form of a shallow bowl held aloft by a frog, more appropriately described as either a bird bath or a squirrel feeder.  Maybe I can convince eithni that she wants to take it home with her on account of its ranine motif.  At least I didn't get stuck with Big Mouth Billy Bass, B"H.  The swap seems to be done more for the sake of tradition and general amusement, and it was certainly amusing.

The targeted gifts were rather more successful.  Isaac got several books, one of which was The Lorax.  I'm curious how many truffula trees were cut down to make that book, but Tu B'Shevat is just around the corner.  We mostly gave books, and I received the precise t-shirt that I'd suspected I might get, given that this was a holiday with the guildies.  Sonia and I also got tickets to the Boston Wine Festival.

I made a point of mentioning to several of those assembled that we had been part of an odd coincidence.  The photo in question preceded the comic by a bit less than a year, for which Sonia gets full credit.  Our gift for Libby (in the top hat, with her tongue out) was an art book with a reproduction of the painting in question.

Isaac is teething again.  His lower lateral incisors arrived recently, and he doesn't seem to be enjoying the experience much.  So much for sleeping through the night.  Last night was particularly difficult; he awoke screaming at regular intervals and didn't readily calm down.

Raia remarked this morning that I didn't look myself and didn't clearly understand why.  At least Isaac wasn't keeping the neighbors awake.

If I look especially zombie-like today, now you know why.  Your braaains are safe.

My condolences to the congregation of Temple Ahavat Achim, the former residents of the adjacent apartment building, and the relatives of the resident who died in Saturday night's fire.

My thanks to the Unitarians of Gloucester for their hospitality and to the Gloucester fire department for a noble effort.

It eventually happened.  I laughed out loud at a banner ad.

John Hodgman in an Apple ad at nytimes.com.  There's a big banner at the top: "Don't Give Up On Vista", with the letters spelling those words containing unlit light bulbs.  Hodgman (the PC) was trying to light them up with a comically large button, but all he could get to light up (despite repeated pounding of the button) was "Give Up" and "Give Up On Vista".  I didn't have the sound on, but it was still easily the funniest banner ad I've ever seen.

Before I realized it was an Apple ad (i.e. before I saw Hodgman, who was in a vertical banner to the right and below), I thought that Microsoft was getting desperate.

Needless to say, none of this represents the opinion of my employer, which competes with both Microsoft and Apple and has indeed parodied these ads.

Update: Apparently I'm not the only one who's amused.