Monthly Archives: August 2005

Columbus Was Last (Patrick Huyghe)

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[Columbus Was Last (Patrick Huyghe)]I found this in the sale section of Barnes and Noble after reading 1421, which describes the Chinese world expedition that commenced in that year. Columbus Was Last summarizes 15 pre-Columbian “discoveries” of America. The stories come from every part of the world and vary in believability. The best section of the book is the last chapter which attempts to explain why Columbus’s voyage became legendary while others were forgotten, in spite of apparent discrepancies in the Great Navigator’s accounts. Although only one (Vikings landing in Newfoundland) is generally accepted scientifically and historically, I’m convinced that at least one other party made their way to America between the native Americans and Columbus. Unfortunately, we’ll probably never know for sure who actually made the journey.

What does “poupon” mean in Grey Poupon?

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Odie posed this question in a mocking fashion in the pompon/pompom comments, but I realized that regardless of the tone in which it was asked, it’s still something that we could learn. Wikipedia turns up no hits for “poupon,” so I consulted google, which led me to the history of honey Dijon mustard. It turns out that Grey Poupon Dijon mustard is derived from the founders of the mustard empire. Grey provided the recipe, and Poupon financed the venture. Nabisco now manufactures the mustard according to the original recipe for sale in the U.S. The pair have also been honored as the namesakes of an award winning dog.

I also found that “poupon” is French for “little baby.” Wikipedia does have an entry for mustard in general and a helpful graphic of how to use it.

Pompon/Pompom

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It’s time for me to talk a bit about one of the most ridiculous words on record. There has been quite a bit of confusion about whether it’s “pompom” or “pompon.” If you’re anything like me, you assumed this word was “pom-pom” or maybe “pompom,” but not “pom-pon” and definitely not “pompon.” Recently, I was told that the correct term is “pompon.” While I thought that was ridiculous, I accepted it as truth. However, recent research has shown otherwise. According to my sources, it seems that a “pompom” is a type of “pompon.” This is suggested by their dictionary.com entries, but not clearly explained.

What’s the relevance of this research? Well, it seems that there’s significant misusage of the term for pompom squads. Google searches of “pompom squad” and “pompon squad” give 366 and 548 hits, respectively, which means that approximately 60% of people are mistaken. Let’s get it straight people:

pompon, noun: A tuft or ball of material such as wool or ribbon, used as a decoration, especially on shoes, caps, or curtains.

pompom, noun: A ball of fluffy material, such as feathers or strips of colored paper, that is waved by cheerleaders and sports fans.

White Stripes at the Greek Theater

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Last week, Melissa and I saw the Detroit duo of Jack and Meg White at the Greek Theater. This was the second time I’ve seen the Stripes in Berkeley, after seeing their show in fall 2003. Jack came out in some sort of 18th century military officer’s regalia, wearing a black coat with medals and black hat with white plume. Interestingly, the roadies wore uniform black suits with black shirts and red ties. The show started with a bang with ‘Blue Orchid,’ ‘I Think I Smell a Rat,’ and ‘Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground.’ The live favorite ‘Hello Operator’ was broken up by the Meg’s ‘Passive Manipulation.’ While I’m not a huge fan of the album version, the song I was most excited about seeing performed was ‘The Nurse,’ featuring Jack on the marimbas. At 31 songs, the set list was spanned all five Stripes albums and a few non-album tracks (‘Cause It’s My Birthday,’ ‘Boll Weevil’).

For better or worse, the concert will be memorable for the audience interruptions. First, a Live 105 balloon was batted around the crowd. As soon as I saw it enter the amphitheater floor, I knew this was going to be trouble. Of course, it ended up on stage next to Jack as he played piano on ‘My Doorbell.’ This prompted an unplanned 5 minute break from the band. In my opinion, it ruined ‘My Doorbell,’ but the next few songs seemed to have extra juice played by an infuriated Jack.

After the show, Melissa and I were curious to see if the radio station would make mention of it. Oddly, the same thing happened at the previous night’s show with a different station’s balloon. A post on whitestripes.net suggested that the incident at our show was an act of sabotage by another station, but Live 105 started airing apologies for the incident and ran a contest to give away the rest of their balloons to prevent future mishaps. Others wondered if the Stripes were in on the trouble since security did nothing to corral the wayward ball or prevent its journey to the stage. The fact that Jack didn’t mention the previous night’s episode furthers this hypothesis.

A second incident of audience participation came in what we assumed was the concert’s finale ‘Boll Weevil.’ At the end of the song, a guy jumped on stage (not difficult at the Greek), ran over to Jack, put his arm around him, and sang a couple lines from the song. Jack backed away, and a roadie tried to restrain the obviously drunk guy. The guy got away and jumped into the crowd, apparently hoping they would catch him. This was not the case. He instead fell directly onto the concrete floor, then tried to get through the crowd to the exit. Back at the mic, Jack directed to crowd to be quiet and point at the guy as he tried to escape. He taunted the dude for a couple minutes, then offered up an additional song, ‘Fell in Love with a Girl,’ as a tribute to him.

Audience interruptions notwithstanding, this was a fantastic concert as Jack White reaffirmed my opinion that he’s one of the premier showmen of our age. Interestingly, while Jack seems to feed off the crowd, Meg doesn’t seem to like her position of celebrity, very shyly bowing to the crowd, and setting her drum set to face Jack, not the audience. This could be all part of the act though, as she performed ‘Passive Manipulation’ (and ‘In the Cold Night’ last year) with seemingly little trepidation.

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Chocolate Milkshakes: How to/ not to make one

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There’s a right way, and there’s a wrong way to make a chocolate milkshake.

Method A:
Place chocolate ice cream and milk into a blender. Mix until desired consitency. Serve.

Method B:
Place vanilla ice cream into blender. Add chocolate syrup and milk. Mix until desired consistency. Serve.

What’s the difference you ask? Well, ‘A’ is a milkshake. Ice cream of the appropriate flavor blended with milk. On the other hand, ‘B’ is a cold chocolate-milk. What’s the point of the ice cream? If you want chocolate milk, just drink that. For me, the point of the milkshake is to consume ice cream by drinking it.

There seems to be a regional variation at work. On the east coast, I’ve usually received chocolate shakes of method ‘A,’ while other places (the midwest especially) use method ‘B.’ This phenomenon is also observed when ordering Dairy Queen blizzards. At the DQ’s in Wyckoff and Emerson, NJ, if you ask for a chocolate blizzard, you get chocolate ice cream with your desired topping. Elsewhere, they look at you a little funny, then make a vanilla blizzard and add syrup. I don’t understand this. The soft chocolate ice cream is right there, yet they do not use it.

Of course, other forces could be at work. This could be a conspiracy perpetrated on the unsuspecting public by the insidious chocolate syrup industry. It pains me to say anyone associated with chocolate is ‘insidious,’ but it’s possible.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (J. K. Rowling)

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[Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (J.K. Rowling)]I consider the Harry Potter series as sort of a DaVinci Code with a broader target audience. They’re both entertaining and fast; so while they’re not likely to change the reader’s life, they are enjoyable, unlike the books most are forced to read in school.

Another positive to the Harry Potter series is that they seem to get better with each installment. One of my complaints about each book is the time devoted to getting Harry to school. This one (#4) is quite brief in getting Harry away from his ‘muggle’ relatives and into the wizarding world. The mystery is fairly sophisticated, with smaller mysteries along the way, and it does a good job building on the previous episode (The Prisoner of Azkaban).

Does anyone miss Eric Byrnes?

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Looking at the standings today, does anybody miss Eric Byrnes? What about Mark Mulder? Tim Hudson?

The 2005 Athletics have been three different teams (see THT‘s graphical standings). It was tough to predict how the A’s would do this season. Only one game away from the playoffs last year, GM Billy Beane traded away the two best pitchers in Oakland’s history (by winning percentage). I wasn’t too sad to see Mulder go, after watching his decay in the second half last year, but Hudson was my favorite player on the team, and thought he should be the guy to build a pitching staff around (certainly not Zito). However, I went into the season with a cautious optimism and a real interest in watching a team with a pitching staff under 27.

After one month, the A’s managed to hold a .500 record (12-12), but it felt like the team was walking a tightrope. Well, the rope broke in May. Injuries (Crosby, Harden, Dotel, Durazo, Swisher, Calero) mounted and losses followed. I gave up on this team. After the 7-5 loss to Boston on May 17, I took my frustrations out on Zito, “Barry Zito cannot be considered the ace of this staff. When the bullpen is worn out, the ace goes more than 5 innings. The ace doesn’t walk 7 guys and get pulled early. When an offense is struggling and manages to put up some runs, the ace takes over the game. Barry Zito is no ace.” After getting swept at Tampa Bay May 24-26, I said, “Who is this team going to beat? They do nothing right. Starting pitching, relief pitching, hitting, fielding, they’re not good at anything.” At the end of May, Ken Macha started talking about getting back to .500 by the All-Star break. I thought it was more likely that Ken Macha would be fired.

However, since that time, the Athletics have done almost nothing wrong. Injuries healed. The offense, most notably Eric Chavez, turned around. The starting pitching kept their pitch counts down, and under less stress, the bullpen became a strength also.

As usual, Beane has improved the roster mid-season. Injured reliever Chad Bradford was sent to the Red Sox for OF Jay Payton. The glut of outfielders was relieved by shipping fan-favorite Eric Byrnes (and minor leaguers) to Colorado for RPs Jay Witasick and Joe Kennedy. While not as flashy as deals in previous years (e.g. for Dotel, Durham, or Dye), these moves have worked beautifully. Witasick and Kennedy have dramatically deepened the bullpen, while Payton has been both an offensive spark and defensive insurance policy for CF Mark Kotsay, who’s missed time with back problems and the birth of his second child.

Of course in May, when the A’s seemed to always be on a 7-game losing streak, the trades of Hudson and Mulder looked foolish, but what about now? Haren has arguably out-pitched Mulder, especially recently, and Beane was able to also get the key RP Calero and hot prospect Daric Barton. The Hudson trade is not as rosy for sure, with none of the three players acquired on the major league roster. However, Thomas and Cruz have straightened themselves out at AAA Sacramento, and Meyer is now healthy. On the other side, Hudson has not been the dominating pitcher we knew in Oakland, still hampered by the oblique problems he battled here. So while it would be nice to have Hudson in the rotation instead of Saarloos, Beane may have cut bait at the right time and saved a huge chunk of change at the same time.

Looking at how well the A’s have played for the last 2+ months, now with the second best record in the AL, this team is Beane’s greatest accomplishment. For years, praise for Beane was always tempered by the presence of the “Big Three.” This year, Beane has completely reconstructed the pitching staff, coped with season ending injuries to Dotel and Durazo, and put together a team that’s poised to succeed for the next several years.

This week the A’s will be hosting the Angels to decide the leadership in the AL West. And I dont think anyone will be missing Eric Byrnes.

The Gun Seller (Hugh Laurie)

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[The Gun Seller (Hugh Laurie)]I found The Gun Seller via comments posted on bn.com, which was probably not the best way to find a book, since those ratings are generally worthless. It had some problems and was somewhat formulaic, but in the end, I enjoyed Laurie‘s first novel. I saw a quote in the liner notes comparing the sarcastic/irreverent tone to Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and I could never really get that out of my head. Since the overall plot is common to movies, I pondered how well The Gun Seller would translate to film. But while government agencies, terrorists, and conspiracy theories make for good (or exciting at least) movies, I don’t think the sarcasm would translate well since it’s primarily in the internal dialogue of the narator/protagonist. I suppose the Hitchhiker’s Guide movie would give me a good idea, but that’s told in third person, so maybe not.