Cannon Returned

It seems that some folks from Fleming House at Caltech, the original home of the cannon recently appropriated by MIT, have gone to Cambridge to retrieve their lost firearm. (MIT kept the brass rat.) Rumor has it that they left a few telltale signs on the Green Building, with the message "Stay Tuned."

So... I guess we'll stay tuned.

Good news for vaginas

Earlier in the year, Notre Dame was threatening to shut down all future performances of The Vagina Monologues. This is part of a bigger movement involving the catholic church's desire to stop the show at ALL catholic colleges. As I suspected, the Notre Dame president hadn't previously seen the show. Now that he has, he still doesn't agree with a lot of what's said in the play, but has apparently decided not to censor it. I was particularly pleased to read this quote from him:

"If I didn't learn anything from all this, I'd be very disappointed and surprised. What I learned was we do really need to find ways to advance discussion about issues that have to do with women."

It gives me hope that maybe we're not heading towards the theocracy Sheeva predicted a few months ago.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/06/education/06notredame.html

MIT vs CalTech, part 2

It seems that MIT has finally gotten back at Caltech for last year's CPW antics, by stealing the Caltech Cannon and placing it in front of the Green Building, along with a giant brass rat -- and just in time for CPW 2006, which I believe starts today. I have no idea how you move a cannon from Pasadena, CA to Cambridge, MA but everyone seems pretty certain that this is the real deal.

More photos are here, here, and here.

(Thanks to Usman for the heads up.)

Edit: Slightly more absurd pictures

Edit 2: College Cannon Coeds... and to think I used to live with most of these people.

Athletics 5, Giants 3

Yes, I know what you're thinking... the season started yesterday and I'm blogging about Sunday's exhibition game between the two Bay Area teams. What?

Well, thanks to the generosity of Google and Microsoft, I was in San Francisco for the weekend at the CRA-W Grad Cohort for Women. And being who I am, I stuck around an extra day to drag some people to a baseball game. As it turns out, the weather wasn't the greatest and as such, I spent much of the game hunched over my scorebook, trying not to get it wet. (We tried to use reverse psychology on the weather -- "Gee, we really love the rain" -- to no avail.) But overall, the company was pleasant and the game itself was pretty good.

The game was held at AT&T Park in San Francisco (known last season as SBC Park, but then SBC got bought out -- just another reason I hate stadiums named after corporations). I was there last year, but didn't get a chance to see most of the stadium. This year we went a little early and checked out the Coca Cola slide (which was sadly under construction) and the "Little Giants Field" behind left field, as well as the outfield deck overlooking the bay. I ranked this stadium third last season -- having now seen what it actually has to offer, I think it might actually be ahead of Comerica. I've got pictures, but unfortunately the batteries in my camera are dead, so they're stuck there for a little while.

Being in a national league park, I was a little confused to see Barry Bonds (and Frank Thomas) playing DH -- and I still don't know why. Bonds, as was probably to be expected, got a mixed reaction from the fans. Those wearing orange (Giants fans) cheered wildly, while those wearing green (and Breath) booed and heckled him. ("You're killing your father, Barry!" For those who haven't seen him in a while, Breath is still a dork.) Still, he managed to get a single and an RBI sac fly during his two at bats -- and apparently he got his juice from Anand's parents' neighbor. It's a small world, after all.

As for the rest of the game, the A's scored first in the 3rd and then broke away with a four run 4th to go up 5-0. After that, they only managed one hit for the rest of the game. (But it was an exhibition game, so most of the starters were gone after the sixth -- scorecards get complicated with that many substitutions!) The Giants managed to "leak in" a few "points" by performing well in the "hitting box,"* but it wasn't enough to overcome the A's initial lead. The game ended on a 3U-6 double play, and we all went back to Breath's place, just in time for the rain to really start coming down.

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* Look, at least I managed to get these goons to the game. Can I really expect them to know the correct terminology? At least they seemed to be enjoying annoying me.