a weblog of whereabouts & interests, since 2010
Rumor has it that a LEGO Titanic set is forthcoming, as early as November 1st (the LEGO company is mute).
The LEGO Creator Expert set #10294 is said to have 9,090 pieces, so it will be bigger than the Colosseum ($550, 9036 pieces)*.
*The 2021 LEGO World Map has 11,695 pieces, but it is a flat model with a large number of mosaic pieces.
Here is a set of slides from Deutsche Welle’s website that shows the outcome of Sunday’s federal elections in Germany.
Angela Merkel’s party (the Christian Democrats) lost ground everywhere.
For the first time since the 1950s, at least three parties will be needed to form a coalition in Germany’s government. (The two largest parties are unlikely to form a coalition on their own).
The Social Democrats and the Green Party made the biggest gains.
I made another run to the Amazon Fresh store tonight.
Every time I go there, they give me a voucher for another $10.
So will I have to go back again :^).
I realized on Sunday, driving around in the pouring rain, that’s it’s a new experience for me in my car (it’s been dry ever since I had gotten the car at the end of June).
The windshield wipers switch on automatically, but at times they seem to be a little too frantic (enthusiastic?) with the wiping. I intervene then, and adjust the wiper frequency down a notch.
I like the stalk on the right of the steering wheel to push on*, to get to the wiper controls (and not to have to go through the console screen selections).
*Tesla’s new steering wheel on the Model S and X has none of that, as the steering column is not equipped with any stalk.
The kraken (/ˈkrɑːkən/)
1. a legendary sea monster of gigantic size and cephalopod-like appearance in Scandinavian folklore
2. Seattle’s new National Hockey League team, commencing its inaugural season in the league
For the first time in almost a century, Seattle has an ice hockey team again that competes for the Stanley Cup. (The Seattle Metropolitans beat the Montreal Canadiens in 1917 to become the first American team to capture the Stanley Cup. After the Metropolitans had disbanded in 1924, there were other teams, such as the Seattle Totems, that competed in the Pacific Coast Hockey League, but not in the National Hockey League).
So tonight, in a preseason game for the upcoming 2021-22 NHL season, the Seattle Kraken took on the Vancouver Canucks. More than 10,000 fans packed into the Spokane Arena, all the way across the state near its border with Idaho.
Forward Riley Sheahan (#15) scored the first-ever goal in Kraken history tonight.
The Kraken ended up winning 5-3.
‘One or more items in your order will be ready for pickup at Apple, University Village’
– Text message from Apple, complete with map and QR code
I took this message to believe my new phone and its leather case were ready for pickup.
The phone was indicated as ‘available’ on Friday when I placed the order. And did Tim Cook not say (at the Apple event, Sept. 14) that there would be enough phones out of the gate, this year?
Long story short: I left the store without my phone. (It’s not a big deal. It’s just an illustration of how the best-laid plans can go off the rails).
Inside the store after a long, long wait for the phone to show up: No— they did not have it— and would not have it for another four weeks.
I suppose I could have double-checked online if both my items were ready, before going out to the store.
In hindsight, the other red flag was that my credit card was charged only for the case as I placed the order on Friday, but not for the phone .. but I thought that was because they would check the condition of my trade-in phone, and then finalize the charge amount today.
So the message & QR code they had sent out, the time slot of 11.45- 12 noon for the pickup, the careful choreography in the Apple store, was all for just picking up a phone case.
Back at home came the e-mail from Apple with my receipt, and the standard invitation to provide feedback of ‘my experience at the Apple store’.
I basically wrote back:
‘I took your text message & QR code as confirmation that both phone and case were ready for pickup.
Why on earth would your ordering program assume I would want to come in to your store, fight the traffic piling up for the University of Washington football game nearby, to come in and pick up only the case for the phone?
Somewhere along the line there should have been a clear message saying that the phone would be unavailable/ not ready for pickup’.
P.S./ Two days later There was in fact in e-mail sent out by Apple on Friday, that stated that the phone was not available. So yes, I should have checked the status of my order inside the e-mail before I went out to the store.
It was lovely outside today (76°F /24°C), and I walked down to the Twice Sold Tales bookstore on Harvard Avenue.
I browsed around in the store but did not buy anything this time. (It’s just fun to look at all the books, so mission still accomplished).
I listened to a podcast of Andy Slavitt (former Biden White House Sr Advisor for COVID Response) today, and it’s clear to me what to do now.
I need to march into a CVS store (or any other, or a clinic) by November, and get a booster shot.
It appears that the protection afforded by full vaccinations, wanes by about 6% per month.
There is no apparent downside for adults getting a booster shot.
So if it’s OK for 65+ people, and for workers (of any age) at high risk, it is surely also OK for me to get.
As Dr Agus put it: striving for perfection is our enemy here. Why try to get it perfectly right (re: timing and shot combinations), and come down with Covid in the meantime?
That snake-eye brick comes from the LEGO Ninjago 9450 Epic Dragon Battle (2012) set. It was in a bag of used bricks that I had bought. Let’s just say that it represents COVID-19 this fall, still lurking in the shadows.
My LEGO Looney Tunes character collection of twelve little figures is almost complete.
(Daffy Duck got left behind when the package was shipped from Denmark, maybe the Bricklink seller there can send me one in an envelope).
Weeks ago, the administration decided that the public needs cake and deserves cake, and so shall have cake.
Now, the public expects cake and would be very annoyed if its cake was taken away at this point.
– John P. Moore, a virologist at Weill Cornell Medicine
[Photo of Blackout Cake by Alex Lau, food styling by Judy Mancini]
Last Friday, a panel of experts recommended against booster shots for the broad public. Only people over 65, and those ‘at high risk’ qualify (compromised immune systems, workers such as hospital staff, teachers).
Did they have all the latest information, though? Here’s Sharon LaFraniere and Noah Weiland writing for the New York Times (about the discussion on Friday Sept. 17 by the panel of experts that advise the FDA):
One study apparently came too late for the discussion, underscoring the rapid flurry of changing data on vaccine potency. Released by the C.D.C. hours before the committee’s vote, it found that the Pfizer vaccine’s level of protection against coronavirus hospitalizations dropped significantly four months after the second shot.
The study found that two weeks to four months after recipients got their second dose, the Pfizer vaccine was 91 percent effective in preventing hospitalization. After 120 days, though, its effectiveness fell to 77 percent. Moderna’s vaccine showed no comparable decrease in protection over the same time frame. The vaccinated patients in the study tended to be older; the Pfizer cohort had a median age of 68.
There was a break in the rain today, and I walked around the Denny Triangle (in downtown Seattle) to check on the construction projects there.
We have had about 1 in. of rain here in the city, and there will likely be more by the way of showers tomorrow.
The snowcap on Mount Rainier’s peak is back, after most of it had melted away in the heat of the summer.
in·sou·ci·ant
/inˈso͞osēənt,inˈso͞oSHənt/
adjective
showing a casual lack of concern; indifferent.
“an insouciant shrug”
My package from Kopenhagen, Denmark finally landed on the porch today.
Inside are the LEGO Looney Tunes figures that were still missing from my collection, plus a bunch of bricks for building trees and foliage. I will build one figure every day. Here is the first one: the famous rabbit.
Health officials here in King County are clearly worried that the pandemic will get even worse, now that summer is over.
Beginning Oct. 25, customers will have to show proof of vaccination— or a negative COVID test— at most establishments and events here in King County.
It’s not clear at this point, if any smartphone apps* will be available to help with the process, or if businesses will get any help or compensation for enforcing the rules.
*I registered months ago for the MyIR (My Immunization Record) Mobile app, but it still says the link to the State Health Department is not in place.
The Puget Sound area had less than 0.1 in of rain the last 90 days.
Rain is finally on the way.
‘I want to focus on what we said yes to as a State.
We said yes to science; we said yes to vaccines;
we said yes to ending this pandemic;
we said yes to peoples’ right to vote without fear of fake fraud or voter suppression;
we said yes to a woman’s fundamental constitutional right to decide what she does with her body, her faith and her future;
we said yes to diversity;
yes to inclusion;
we said yes to pluralism;
we said yes to all those things we hold dear as Californians – and I would argue as Americans: economic justice, social justice, racial justice, environmental justice, our values, where as Californians had made so much progress.
All those were on the ballot this evening.
And so I’m humbled and grateful to the millions and millions of Californians that exercised their right to vote, and expressed themselves so overwhelmingly to rejecting the division, by rejecting the cynicism, by rejecting so much of the negativity that’s defined our politics in this country over the course of so many years’.
– California Governor Gavin Newsom at a press conference tonight
Good news from California: the recall of Governor Gavin Newsom has failed.
This was a sour-grapes, politicizing-of-COVID effort from the Republican Party of Suffering and Death to unseat Newsom; a waste of $276 million. Per California law they had needed only 50% of the vote to recall Newsom, and install the challenger with the most votes. In this recall it would have been Larry Elder, a conservative radio talk show host and Trumpist. That would have been downright awful.
rusk noun \ ˈrəsk \
a sweet or plain bread baked, sliced, and baked again until dry and crisp
biscotto noun bis·cot·to \ bi-ˈskät-ō \ plural biscotti \ bi-ˈskät-ē \
a crisp cookie or biscuit of Italian origin that is flavored usually with anise and filberts or almonds —usually used in plural
[Definitions from merriam-webster.com]
I sometimes buy biscotti at Whole Foods, but they don’t always have it.
The best bet for me, when I want a special treat to dunk into my morning coffee, is to go to British Pantry in Redmond. They usually have some of Ouma’s rusks, an import from South Africa.
There was a little rain on the ground this morning, and still enough to hear it patter down the gutter from the roof, as I opened my back door.
On Saturday, both President Bush and President Biden acknowledged that what has happened in the years since, has only challenged the notion that Americans prized coming together over choosing to grow hostile to one another’s differences.
– Katie Rogers reporting for the New York Times
