I was not at CTY first session last summer, but this story from NPR seems oddly familiar.

In looking at philly.com yesterday, I happened to glance at the headline 'Nova star Howard Porter dies. Except in my brief look, I misread it as "Novel star Harry Potter dies." A rather rude spoiler, when the book doesn't come out for another two months ( Read more... )

Various online media outlets have been reporting on yesterday's "Jeopardy!" game, which ended with all three contestants winning $16,000. This is the first time this has happened in the show's 23 seasons, and according to a game theorist at Washington University in St. Louis who was contacted by the show, the odds of a three-way tie are one in 25 ( Read more... )

The New York Times has a review of a play called "Victoria Martin: Math Team Queen" in which a high-school age girl joins a math team of some sort and (judging from the title) does rather well. The reviewer clearly didn't think much of the play. I also like it how the reviewer managed to unwittingly use the word "Putnam" when reviewing math-team- ( Read more... )

Second-funniest headline on MSN right now: Fitting fried chicken into a healthy diet.

Funniest headline on MSN right now: Antiques dealer sues four homeless people for $1M.

Dick Cheney recently had this to say about Scooter Libby, who goes on trial tomorrow for lying to a grand jury:

"I believe he's one of the more honest men I know."

The sad thing is that that's actually believable.

Every year, for some unknown reason, I watch the whole ball drop thingy on television, because there's no better way to start the new year than watching some CNN correspondent interview a random little girl in New York City about what kind of shoes she's wearing and how late she gets to stay up tonight ( Read more... )

What's not so well-known about the song "Sandstorm," which is often played at Lancaster and is canon at some other sites, is that its original title was "Gerald Ford Is Dead." At the last minute, Darude decided that the song worked better as an instrumental piece, removed all of the lyrics and changed the song's name ( Read more... )

James Brown is dead.

Semi-recently, I discovered a fact that amused me: Don McLean has performed concerts this year in at least two cities that host CTY--Carlisle and Lancaster (but, sadly, not at the colleges there). But Saratoga Springs seems to be the winner in this regard--it is apparently the site where "American Pie" was composed (unless there is [gasp!] ( Read more... )