29 Wednesday Feb 2012
Posted in Go Sox
Here they are — the six 2012 MillersTime Contests.
It may be a bit early for some of you to focus on the best seven months of the year, but remember, in case of a tie on any contest, the individual who submitted his/her prediction first will be the winner. Also, be sure you include your Tie-Breaker predictions as some of the contests last year were decided by the Tie-Breakers.
23 Thursday Feb 2012
Posted in Escapes and Pleasures
In preparation for an upcoming discussion on Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs, a friend sent a link to the transcript of the one man play I’ve posted below.
If you are a consumer of Apple products, I urge you to spend the 20+ minutes it will take to read Daisey’s The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs.
If you are interested in Steve Jobs and what he created, even if you do not use any of his/Apple products, I think you also will find the time spent reading it worthwhile.
And if you do not belong to either of the above two groups but are a consumer of electronic products, one who hates them, or perhaps just want to understand how something so successful can come at a significant human cost, you too might be interested in the link below.
22 Wednesday Feb 2012
Posted in Escapes and Pleasures
Last evening we went to see and hear Katherine Boo, author of Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity (mini reviewed at MillersTime here.)
I didn’t find out what I wanted to know, but what I gained was better than what I had come to learn.
21 Tuesday Feb 2012
Posted in Go Sox
So with Spring Training underway, I declare the end of the 2011/12 MillersTime Stove League contest.
We have six predictions that came true (five if you count the one that two of you predicted): #2, 7, 10, 31, 32, 33.
We need seven of you to vote for which prediction you think is best. Which one should be declared the winner?
20 Monday Feb 2012
Posted in Escapes and Pleasures
‘ Tis strange – but true; for truth is always strange;
Stranger than fiction; if it could be told,
How much would novels gain by the exchange!
How differently the world would men behold!
How oft would vice and virtue places change!
The new world would be nothing to the old,
If some Columbus of the moral seas
Would show mankind their souls’ antipodes.
-Lord Byron his satirical poem Don Juan, 1823
A book and a film for your consideration.
The book is non-fiction, tho I wished it were fiction.
The movie was fiction, based on a novel, and I kind of wished it were true.
17 Friday Feb 2012
Posted in Escapes and Pleasures
The good news:
Hollywood East Cafe, now in Wheaton, MD, a few blocks away from their former location on University Blvd., has doubled their dim sum offerings from when they first opened their new restaurant, and the quality of what they offer seems better too. They now have some dumplings that I haven’t seen nor tasted anywhere else in the entire DC/Md/VA area. They’re simply terrific.
If you live in DC/MD area and have stood in line for Oriental East because you think they have the best dim sum this side of Virginia, check out Hollywood East. I suspect you will be pleased.
The bad news:
Ping Pong Dim Sum has opened their second restaurant, this one in Dupont Circle. It is as bad, perhaps even worse, if possible, than the one in Chinatown.
These two ‘faux’ dim sum factories largely serve dumplings made elsewhere, and when they are steamed, these frozen whatever they are, are not even bad versions of true dim sum.
Save your appetite and money for the real things.
16 Thursday Feb 2012
Posted in The Outer Loop
Those of you who have followed MillersTime/The Outer Loop know that I’ve reserved this part of MillersTime for my thoughts and for articles by others on issues that face our country (and sometimes the world beyond the US). When I do post here, it is my hope that these articles truly inform and are not meant to compete with the news cycle or the current ‘Inside the Beltway’ political view of the moment or what is ‘politically correct or incorrect.’
That said, I’ve also stated clearly from the beginning of MillersTime that I was (and continue to be) hopeful that Barack Obama would be ‘the real deal,’ would be a terrific president.
This morning I read the article by James Fallows of The Atlantic Monthly which I have embedded below. It is, I believe, the best thing I’ve read to date on Obama and his presidency.
It is long and will take you minimally 30 minutes to read. Know that I don’t encourage you to spend that amount of time very often.
15 Wednesday Feb 2012
Posted in Go Sox
If you don’t live in NYC or the Northeast and/or if you don’t follow pro basketball (and I couldn’t blame you if you didn’t), you might not know the name Jeremy Lin.
Whether he’ll be a flash in the pan or whether he’ll prove to be the phenom he has been for the last six Knick’s games, here’s a terrific article by someone who is well known (primarily?) for his work in the tech world.
Sports and good writing often go together:
14 Tuesday Feb 2012
Posted in Family and Friends
Somehow, Valentine’s Day this year crept up and arrived without my succumbing to the ‘pressure’ of making it Hallmark day, etc.
But I did read an article in this morning’s NYTimes that struck me as worthy of the day (and much more) and worth attaching.
See what you think:
13 Monday Feb 2012
Posted in Escapes and Pleasures
At some point, either shortly before or shortly after I retired from The Frost School, I made a list of some things I would like to do with my freed up time.
I was only one degree of separation away from one of Washington’s best French chefs, and I thought how much fun it would be to spend an entire day in the kitchen with him from the time he walked in in the morning until he left at night.
12 Sunday Feb 2012
Posted in Escapes and Pleasures
Over this weekend we saw two performances that we highly recommend if you live in the DC area and like live theatre.
But you’ll have to ‘act’ quickly as one of the performances ends Feb. 18 and the other ends Mar. 11.
11 Saturday Feb 2012
Posted in Go Sox
Feb. 11.
Truck Day.
That not so inconsequential time when all the Red Sox Spring Training gear is loaded up at Fenway and leaves for Fort Myers.
Ah, I can feel the juices begin to flow again.
For those of you for whom these major events matter, here’s a list of significant baseball dates for 2012:
06 Monday Feb 2012
Posted in Escapes and Pleasures
First the films.
Le Havre ****1/2
You’ll have to look around to find this film, but if it’s playing in your area, it’s worth the effort to see it.
In a time when many films are filled with violence and bad guys (just watch the previews of coming movies), Le Havre offers something quite different: a film made up almost entirely of good people, a view of humanity that doesn’t make it to the screen too often.