"Cryptonomicon"

I've wanted to write up a little review of Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson, for some time now. I'll just get it out of the way right now, and say that this book is probably the best piece of fiction that I've read all year--and it's up there in the Top Ten of my all-time favorites as well.

You should check out this book, if you have even a passing interest in any of the following: gold; intellectual history; submarines; WWII; computers; mathematics; cryptography; the Pacific Ocean/culture/islands, etc...; history; conspiracy theories; music; or science.

Ostensibly, Cryptonomicon is a book about two generations of an American family named Waterhouse. We meet Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse, mathematical genius and captain in the Navy, in the first half of the 20th century, and then we fast forward to the present day to find his grandson, Randy, a crypto-hacker.

For Lawrence, the tenure of the war comprises codebreaking for a secret organization dedicated to covering up the fact that the Allies have broken the Axis' Enigma code. Leading the physical branch of this organization is Bobby Shaftoe: a gung-ho Marine who happens to compose haiku during his pre-mission time off.

For Randy, much of the book finds him traveling back and forth from an island in Southeast Asia that he and his company are trying to make into a leading 'data haven,' but he gets sidetracked into the salvage attempt of a WWII submarine that may unlock secrets that he's unable or unwilling to realize.

In addition to these two storylines, a number of other major players enter the stage including Bobby's granddaughter, Amy, and a Japanese soldier named Goto Dengo. Neal Stephenson is able to entwine two different time periods, and multiple different storylines into one very compelling, and readable, conclusion that will keep your heart pounding...

Please don't let the enormous size of this book intimidate you (it's over 1000 pages), it's well worth the wait. Stay tuned for my review of his next work: The Baroque Cycle, a trilogy that consists of three books equal in size to Cryptonomicon, set in the end of the 17th century and featuring characters like Isaac Newton, Gottfried Leibniz, Louis the XIVth, and earlier generations of both the Waterhouse and Shaftoe families.

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Yesterday's lack of posting once again equaled no work on the dissertation; but, a very successful run of days has left me in good position to meet my internal deadline of turning in a draft, albeit a very short one, by the end of this week.

Unconventional X-mas Favorites

Here in Boston, we received our very first snowfall. And although it didn't amount to much at all, it was quite beautiful to see looking out from my little booth in Faneuil Hall today. All told, it's the perfect capstone to our X-mas week...

I'm a little ashamed to admit it, but I've been listening to X-mas carols lately. TW broke the seal, so to speak, on our drive down to Long Island for Thanksgiving, and now I've got 2 separate radio stations programmed in my car that only play X-mas music. In that spirit, I'd like to proffer some of my favorite unconventional X-mas favorites:

In the number three slot, we've got quite a surprise decision. I'll admit it: every time I hear this song, I don't immediately think of X-mas--I think of Kiera Knightly. But TW likes the song, so in my tediously slow bid to get her involved in this blog, I'm including Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas is You."*



Like I said, unconventional is the name of this particular list, so in the number-two slot we have The Beach Boys and their X-mas classic "Little Saint Nick." I'm not sure why, but I just dig this piece--it always gets me in the spirit.



And finally, my all-time favorite (conventional or not) X-mas song is The Drifters "White Christmas." I first heard this song in the movie Home Alone, and I think it imprinted on my brain in a big way. The MoTown backups, and the very funky bridge solo (see when the backup reindeer is spotlit) make it particulary easy to love. Enjoy!



Other runner ups include: "Baby It's Cold Outside," "Santa Baby" and "Happy X-mas (War is Over)" by John Lennon, which only missed this list because of Yoko's vocal presence...ugh.

* Sorry for the youtube vids, but I haven't quite figured out how to post mp3s...

Cats...

If you know me at all, then you know that I'm a dog person...but, when you couple hilarious clips of cats with a hip-hop/pseudo-gansta rap styling--I'm sold. You're gonna need to watch this at least twice to get all the references, and probably more than that if you're my mom (Hi mom!). So enjoy this fluff on Saturday morning...




Found over at Unfogged
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I'm hoping that I can continue my streak of solid work this weeks straight on into the weekend. Thurs and Fri were good, but today and tomorrow will be even better. I'm working at Fanny tomorrow, but I'm all alone from 1-4PM so that should be prime dissertation time, if it snows!

"I Want to Go to There"

TV Roundup for the week:

30 Rock
Last night's 30 Rock was probably the funniest one this season. The main story arc involved Liz Lemon going to her 10-year high school reunion; ironically, the cool kids were just as tortured by Liz, as a nerd, as she was from the cool kids. Isn't your memory a wonderful thing? For me, some of the highlights were Janel Maloney's reappearance on NBC (last seen as Donna on The West Wing); and also, after Liz avoided the bucket-o-blood on stage, she grabbed the mic and said, "Lemon Out." But the best line went to Jack D: "We all have ways of coping: I use sex and awesomeness," but runner-up goes to Liz's confession that when she was younger she saw her grandparents having sex but didn't leave immediately--hilarious!


Survivor
Last night saw a couple of pretty cool challenges (I particularly liked the toss the ball into the bulls eye one), and some mushy moments that I had to fast forward through (see Sugar's breakdown). Bob's the man, obviously...he's made 2 idols now that are more convincing than the real thing and basically convinced people that they're real. Unfortunately, the invincible duo of Kenny and Krystal got a little too greedy last night: instead of just blindsiding Matty, like Kenny wanted to do, they tried to do a two-for-one deal--1 blind side and 1 idol flushing out. Now they're stuck with Matty knowing that they were gunning for him, so much for all of his talk about being the best Survivor ever...


Grey's Anatomy
Has it jumped the shark? Is it possible to reason with this show years after they had Meredith jam her hand into a guy's body to defuse a bomb--I mean, come on...I have stopped watching this show with my full attention, but TW seems to enjoy it still. There were just too many "come on" moments last night: Izzy and Denny; Yang and the vented air; giving the surgery to Karev--come on!


Top Chef
cool idea for a challenge; hurray for Ariene, whom I really with a come-from-behind type of rooting interest.

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Dissertation update: yesterday saw some quality work done, and the addition of a page and half of new material to Chapter 2. I know have a hard deadline steadily approaching in the form of of group dissertation meetings at our advisor's house, so today and tomorrow will hopefully be spent adding some more girth to the chapter. I'm hoping by next week to have a full, yet small chapter completed...so, we'll keeping our fingers crossed!

"Me, I want a hula hoop..."

Today was that day that I look forward to and dread at the same time every year: getting the X-mas tree. TW gets into this anal-retentive zone when it comes to X-mas trees, and you don't really wanna mess with that mojo. We found this monster at the first place we looked today, and we eventually learned to love it. TW, channeling Edward Scissorhands below, had to work it over a little bit.

You can see the result of her 'trimming' here...

And here's the final product; it's nicer in real life, so everyone should just drop by and check it out!


By the way, we received our very first X-mas card today (Congrats go out to Sarah for that one), and TW's working on getting ours out tomorrow. Also, if you're having trouble placing my title, try singing it in a really high voice.

A Day in the Life at B@#tix

10:00AM No customers when I open...nice and quiet for a while, so I get to dissertating.

11:45AM Cranky old lady comes up to the window: "I need tickets for the Grinch next Friday." "Okay," I answer, "we don't sell that particular venue in advance because they're on Telecharge, and we don't have that system in advance." All of this sounds like white noise, apparently, because her next question: "But you sell the Grinch online." Au contraire crazy lady, the answer is in your statement--we do sell the Grinch, but online only!! She then proclaims, "I wish I knew this before I came all the way down here," to which both me and my boss reply, sotto voce, "ME TOO." Heads up Wang Center box office, crazy lady coming your way!

12:36PM Customer wants Neil Diamond tickets in Worcester; he saw good seats online last night, but didn't buy them..."I wanted to get actual tickets," he claims. Unfortunately, those "good" seats are now gone--duh!--and he has to settle for crappy balcony seats. Sorry, dolt, but them's the breaks.

12:55PM Middle-aged couple; Wife: "Will you tell my husband about Blue Man Group?" Um, okay...after my rather tepid answer, the husband asks, "So all you sell is the aaaahts?" I answer in a way that is guaranteed to interest him: "Yes," I reply, "We sell theater tix for 1/2 price." His face lights up like a X-mas tree; saving money, that's how we roll!

3:23PM Random question: "What show was Tom Wopat in, you know with the car?" First of all, Tom Wopat is a funny name...second of all, I don't have any freakin' idea. The only car/TV show that I know of is Knight Rider, starring Hasselhoff. Tom Wopat, by the way, is coming in Chicago next week for a one-week stint here in Boston. Let me know if you're interested...

4:21PM Am I making the customers stupid? I feel like they keep talking, but never stop to listen to the answer...listen to me, I am trying to answer your QUESTION!

5:01PM Signing off here for the day...I did include a picture, above, that a colleague found on someone's Flickr page. It's hard to tell, but that is the Faneuil Hall B@#tix booth. Two things to notice in the pic:
1) There are 3 legs visible: two by the picture-taker (presumably), and a third by a passerby--see the blur behind? I love that action shot, baby...
2) if you look closely above the mirror, you can see celexo himself (that's me!) through the window...that's right, I've been here so long that they've memorialized me online!

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I did get a lot of work done this morning/early afternoon...I was unable to work on the commuter rail because I just can't type comfortably on those particular trains, and besides the train was packed this morning so that I could hardly open my New Yorker. I did get almost an entire page done, which is pretty good because it's a solid page and not just a brain dump.

"Fear leads to Hate, and Hate leads to..."

"...nervously baking pies!"

Aha, I got you there--you thought I'd say that hate leads to suffering, which everyone knows, but my title refers to the most recent episode of Pushing Daisies: "Robbing Hood", in which Ned--the piemaker--compulsively bakes when he's nervous. I love this show, and I'm really bummed about it's upcoming demise. I only hope that ABC gives PD a proper burial; who knows, perhaps Showtime or HBO will come along and give PD a second chance, much like Ned the piemaker himself.

Unfortunately, I'm still too zonked to offer anything substantial tonight. Therefore I'm including RBOC: Monday edition.

* Holy Seasickness Batman! TW and I took what was the sensible route home last night was Long Island by taking the Ferry from Orient Point. When we booked the tickets, however, we didn't anticipate the "moderate to rough" seas. This book was big--at least 6 car widths by about 25 deep x 2 stories; needless to say, once that boat started rocking side to side, every bone in my body started screaming abandon ship. Fortunately we made it off safe...although I was still feeling the waves last night before I fell asleep.

* This is the first year that I've finished the bulk of my X-mas shopping before heading home to the STL. I've got one more for TW, and a few others for my friends; but all family (both sides) are accounted for.

* As of now, I'm settling in for a nice night alone on the couch: I've got a list of DVR'ed shows to catch up on: MAN U vs Vil UEFA game; Chuck; PTI; a couple of West Wings and a few other odds and ends...

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I did get back in the swing of things, dissertation wise, this afternoon. Tomorrow at the booth I imagine I'll be able to get a couple of pages done. Currently, I'm working on integrating an analysis of Haydn's Op. 20, No. 2, into my pivot chapter. I originally thought I'd lay out the general principles of the three-part exposition here, without recourse to any hard-core analysis, but I've been re-thinking that. Adding discussion of a concrete example should help me, and the reader, get a better idea of what I'm talking about...

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Off to make my specialty: three-cheese popcorn!