What is H & R Block?

Well, for the first time since last June, Ken Jennings is NOT the reigning Jeopardy champion.

While most people will say that he lost it on the final question answer: "Most of this firm's 70,000 seasonal white-collar employees work only four months a year," I say he really lost it on the two double jeopardies he missed in the second round. Had he bet zero on those two questions, he would have had over $20000 going into final Jeopardy, which would have been more than twice his competitor. But hindsight is 20/20.

I would feel bad for him, but he won $2,522,700 over 74 games (not including the loss). So I don't.

Sinikithemba Choir

Yesterday at work I got the following e-mail:

The MGH will host the Sinikithemba Choir from KwaZulu-Natal South Africa from 1-2 PM, Monday November 29, in the Wang Lobby, in recognition of World AIDS Day. This group of HIV infected persons from an AIDS support group in Durban, has been supported by health care providers from MGH, and bring a message of hope for those living with HIV/AIDS. They will perform traditional Zulu Music and sell their own Zulu beadwork, which comes from an income generating program they have developed to assist others living in poverty and dealing with the challenges of this infection. Dr. Slavin recently visited the Choir in South Africa, and has invited them to share their message of hope with the MGH community.

So, after lunch, I headed around the corner from the cafeteria into a crowded lobby where I could barely see the group dressed in yellow robes, already singing. But it didn't matter that I couldn't see them -- their sound was big enough, causing casual passers-by to stop and make the room more crowded. Not knowing Zulu, I didn't understand the words -- some of them included the clicking syllables that don't even exist in my language. But the director, a short energetic bald man, explained their message of hope to us in English between songs. Sinikithemba means "Place of Hope," and while they may all be infected with a disease that has no cure, they sing in order to inspire others and raise awareness of the AIDS epidemic in South Africa.

I was extremely moved by this group of HIV positive singers, who live in a world so different from mine. And so when the concert was over, I forked over some money and bought their CD, the proceeds of which go to their hospital in South Africa. You can buy a handful of their songs here.

Family Tree

There's been quite a bit of family tree talk lately, and I thought I'd take a moment to write down what I know of mine, skipping aunts and uncles for now. But unlike some people, my family tree recognizes women. One day (soon?) I'll attempt to give this a whole-hearted attempt, but this is a good starting point and perhaps Dad can add things that I don't know.

	Adam Roden (d. 1904) -- Mary Robeck (d. 1894)		? Knopp -- Emma Zitzloff
Andrew Rhode (d. 1952) -- Agatha Roden (d. 1970)		Fred Epple (d. 1988) -- Lydia Knopp (d. 1991)		Wenzel Freisleben (d. 1961) -- Mary Harguth (d. 1961)		Henry Stager (d. 1983) -- Lena Eckhoff (d. 1995)
Stanley Rhode (d. 1957) -- Marian Epple (-- George Becker)				Fred Freisleben (d. 1980) -- Velma Stager (-- Stanley Thein)
Russell Rhode -- Kathryn Freisleben
Erin & Anne Rhode

I think there's a Harguth somewhere in either the Stager or Eckhoff family as well, but I'm not sure whether it Henry or Lena's mother. (ed. Mom says it's Mary Freisleben who was the Harguth. Also found out more information about Agatha Roden's parents here.)

Back to baseball

What with grad school applications and organizing this website, I almost missed the fact that they announced all of the MVPs, Cy Youngs, and Gold Gloves. The big one that I was waiting to hear about was the AL Cy Young. I thought it would be a close call between Santana, the hero of my for-now-and-always favorite team, and Schilling, the hero of my adopted second favorite team. (It's kind of like junior high -- you're my best friend and she's my second best friend and the Cubs are my fourth best friend once removed.)

Santana was absolutely dominant in the second half of the season, going 13-0, but had a mediocre start and thus Schilling wound up with more wins. I was rooting for Santana, but because the win count usually factors heavily into the Cy Young award, I assumed it would be at least a little close. But no. For only the 18th time in Major League history, Santana was the unanimous choice with all 28 first place votes. Schilling didn't even garner all of the second place votes -- Mariano Rivera slipped one in there. Must have been a New York writer.

Someone queue up "Black Magic Woman."

In another news, Christian "Mr. Triple" Guzman was traded to the Washington club formerly-known-as the Montreal Expos. (Does anyone know if they're getting a new name? Ann Myrtle?) Alas, there goes the greatest Twins shortstop since... Greg Gagne, maybe?

The Devil's Lunch Order

Today I got a salad and soup and some chocolate milk from the MGH cafeteria. When the cashier rang me up, the total came to $6.66. She gasped and said "Oh no, I can't believe I did that!" Then she made the sign of the cross and charged me an extra penny so that I didn't owe 666. "You can't have that karma following you around all day."

Snow!!!!

First snow of the year
Falling gently from the sky
Big fluffy white flakes

And now I will proceed with my madness and start the Bing Crosby and pull out the (fake) tree...

Origami

If you're here from the Glee Club Scavenger Hunt, you really want to follow this link

Tonight I went to hang out with Breath, the birthday boy, and we celebrated by going to a lecture in building 32 (aka the Stata Center). Now, before you berate us for being nerds, this was a lecture on origami given by Robert Lang and I thought it was a fine way to celebrate a birthday. I mean, we got to make party favors and everything.

The first thing he talked about was the one-cut theorem, proved by Erik Demaine, who lectured 6.046 when Breath and I took it, even though he is barely older than us. The theorem states that you can cut any shape or collection of shapes that you want out of a piece of paper with only one cut, provided that you fold it correctly. To demonstrate, we first made a five pointed star, which is rather trivial. But the complicated finale piece (which took us about an hour to fold) was the MIT Logo. (The new ugly one, not the old seal -- it wasn't that complicated.) Breath took some pictures and movies, which I'll link to as soon as he posts them.

And then came the really cool math and artsy stuff -- this guy is amazing. He explained his disk packing algorithm and TreeMaker program that allows him to create pretty much any origami shape you can imagine. The artistry of it blows my mind. There's the fish which is all one piece of paper, no cuts. If that's not cool enough for you, there's also the organ player -- if you pull her head, her arms move across the piano as if she was playing it. She's also just one piece of paper. In fact, most of his stuff is one piece of paper -- his website has bunch of pictures.

He said he has spent up to three days folding one piece. I was tired after spending an hour. But the best part is that this stuff is actually applicable to the real world. They've apparently made origami stents for heart patients that expand after you insert them. It's also been applied to airbags and telescopes. This is by far the coolest application of math theory I have seen in a long time.

Okay, fine... we're nerds. Berate away.

Happy Birthday, Wanda June

Today, not one, but two of my favorite people in the world turn 23. (Incidently, another of my favorite people turned 23 last week.)

Also of note, my favorite author turns 82 today.

And while we're at it... Leonardo DiCaprio, Calista Flockhart, Demi Moore, Marc Summers (of Double Dare fame), Jonathon Winters, Alger Hiss, and George Patton were all born on Armistice Day as well.

They're Coming...

http://vagina.mit.edu

And as soon as Usman throws the link up, you'll be able to sign-up for auditions here. (Okay, technically, you can go straight to that link yourself and sign-up now.)

Political Punting

If you still want to pretend that the election isn't over, the Comedy Central website has a fun Electoral Showdown puzzle. It's surprisingly difficult -- I beat the easy mode quickly enough, but have yet to crack difficult mode.

Election results...

It's official. Kerry conceded. So much for the Washington Redskins. It's probably better this way. Bush won flat out. There's no recount, no popular vote dispute, no sitting around for months thinking that maybe the results will change. Ultimately, there is nothing to blame it on but the American people, of which I am a part.

This country has survived it's share of idiotic presidents. We can survive four more years of this one... at least that's what I'm telling myself.

Vote!

Today is election day. But according to my uncle the cheesehead, the race has already been decided. Since 1936, the outcome of the Washington Redskins most recent home game has accurately predicted the next president -- if the Redskins win, the incumbent wins. Snopes.com confirms this. On Sunday, the Green Bay Packers beat the Redskins by a score of 28-14 at Washington. If you buy into the correlation, this means that George W. Bush will lose today.

I'm just glad I didn't hear about this before the game, or I would have had to consider cheering for the Packers. Blech.

Of course, this is the year in which the Red Sox beat the Yankees and won the World Series. And I wasn't even sitting in the lucky chair when they did, so clearly this is a year in which curses don't mean anything. Thus, I'm not going rest easy until the votes are tallied. (You did vote, didn't you?)