a weblog of whereabouts & interests, since 2010
I didn’t watch the Oscars tonight.
I didn’t know anything about any of the movies that had been nominated.
(It has been years since I have been in a movie theater. I believe it was in 2023 for Barbie— which turned out to be somewhat of a disappointment, after all the ballyhoo that preceded its release.)
These days there is an AI bot to query about what you had missed, though, or to provide you with a quick update!
See?
NFL staff writer Saad Yousuf from The Athletic ranked every Super Bowl halftime show since 1991. (In the 70’s and 80’s the halftime show featured marching bands and non-profits that staged song and dance performances).
His assessment is that last night’s performance by Puerto Rican artist Bad Bunny (real name: Benito Ocasio) came in 6th. His review is below.
(Points out of 10 were awarded in each of four categories: Music and Dance, Staging, Performance Relative to Circumstance and Performance Relative to Stature).
6. Bad Bunny (2026): 36.5 points
The NFL managed to bring in one of the top artists in the world, at the height of his powers, and he delivered. The set was incredible. When the performance began, you wouldn’t know if you were watching something in Santa Clara, Calif., or in Puerto Rico. Even if you didn’t understand a word that he was singing, Bad Bunny’s performance and the production was more than enough to elevate the show. He leaned into the heritage and had unifying messages throughout the show, whether it be on the video screen in the stadium or written on the football he flashed to the cameras.
The bit where he gave the Grammy to the little child watching Bad Bunny receiving it on TV was touching, no matter how the viewer interpreted that moment. Given all of the scrutiny he was under coming into the performance, Bad Bunny showed that the stage — the Super Bowl or the current political climate — was not too big for him.
5. Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, 50 Cent, Mary J. Blige, Kendrick Lamar and Eminem (2022): 37 points
4. Coldplay, Bruno Mars, Mark Ronson and Beyoncé (2016): 38 points
3. Michael Jackson (1993): 38.5 points
2. U2 (2002): 39 points
1. Prince (2007): 40 points (Prince performed “Purple Rain” as it rained during halftime of Super Bowl 41 in Miami Gardens, Fla.)
The Diamond Princess arrived at Phuket at 9 am this morning, as scheduled.
Phuket is Thailand’s largest island, and the cruise ship was anchored by the bustling Patong Beach*. The tender boat trip to the Patong Jetty was only 15 minutes: not bad at all.
*Patong Beach was hit particularly hard by the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami. The waves reached heights of 3–6 m (9.8–19.7 ft) along the west coast of Phuket island.
Thaweewong Road runs at the back of Patong Beach. It is lined with anything a tourist might want, and might need: ATMs, markets, beach clubs with swimming pools, bars, pharmacies, restaurants, food stands, pot shops (legal but no smoking in public allowed), massage parlors, taxi stands and scooters.
Sarasin Bridge to the north connects the island to Phang Nga province, but we were a little deflated after a few hours in the hot sun and headed back to Patong Jetty to catch a tender boat to the Princess.
[Photo by Jiajing Grygriel]
[Photo by Jiajing Grygriel]
The mail carrier slows his van down to a crawl and gapes. “Is that you folks’ statue?” he hollers out the window. “This is amazing. I love it so much!”
A jaw drop is the typical response for people passing by this storybook home in Ballard. The 1936 house looks straight out of the pages of a fairy tale, with its steeply pitched roof, rustic stone chimney and turreted entryway.
During the holiday season, it’s decked out in Nutcracker figures designed by Maurice Sendak, of “Where the Wild Things Are” fame.
Pacific Northwest Ballet commissioned Sendak to design original art for “The Nutcracker,” which ran from 1983 to 2014.
It was Seattle’s own wild rumpus, a one-of-a-kind “Nutcracker” production.
A 15-foot-tall figurine stands at the end of the driveway. In the front yard and on the deck are three small nutcrackers and two rats – and by small, we mean 8 feet tall.
Three original Sendak ornaments hang in a nearby tree.
It’s the 11th year John Carrington and Scott McElhose have displayed the Sendak Nutcracker at their home, on the corner of Golden Garden Drive and Loyal Avenue Northwest in Ballard.
I was not 100% sure if I understood all the subtle humor in this cartoon, and enlisted the Chat GPT chatbot’s help to explain it to me.
The cartoonist is Edward Steed (born 1987), a British cartoonist and illustrator, best known for his work for in The New Yorker magazine.
It’s time for another safari cartoon.
Happy Friday and happy Halloween.
We have 50°F (10°C) and a steady rain here— early evening in Seattle’s Capitol Hill.
In spite of that, the trick-or-treaters (and their parents for the young ones) were out in full force at 5.30 pm, with umbrellas and rain coats.
Whoah! was my reaction as I rounded the corner and came up against this giant Halloween skeleton with blinking eyes. It made me think of the Terminator*— even though the terminator had red eyes, and a metal skeleton.
*From the 1984 American science fiction action film directed by James Cameron. It starred Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Terminator, a cybernetic assassin sent back in time from 2029 to 1984 to assassinate Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), whose unborn son will one day save mankind from extinction by Skynet, a hostile artificial intelligence, in a post-apocalyptic future.
[From Wikipedia]
Just a small town girl
Livin’ in a lonely world
She took the midnight train going anywhere
Just a city boy
Born and raised in South Detroit
He took the midnight train going anywhere
A singer in a smokey room
A smell of wine and cheap perfume
For a smile they can share the night
It goes on and on and on and on
Strangers waitin’
Up and down the boulevard
Their shadows searchin’ in the night
Streetlights, people
Livin’ just to find emotion
Hidin’ somewhere in the night
Workin’ hard to get my fill
Everybody wants a thrill
Payin’ anything to roll the dice
Just one more time
Some’ll win, some will lose
Some are born to sing the blues
Whoa, the movie never ends
It goes on and on and on and on
Strangers waiting
Up and down the boulevard
Their shadows searching in the night
Streetlights, people
Livin’ just to find emotion
Hidin’, somewhere in the night
Don’t stop believin’
Hold on to that feeling
Streetlights, people
Don’t stop believin’
Hold on
Streetlights, people
Don’t stop believin’
Hold on to that feeling
Streetlights, people
– Lyrics from Don’t Stop Believin’, a song by Journey from their album Escape (1981)
Go Mariners!
The Mariners* are in Detroit for the third and fourth games (Tuesday night & Wednesday night) in the playoff series against the Detroit Tigers.
The Mariners and Tigers are drawn 1-1 in the series.
*Baseball team from Seattle that competes in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member of the American League (AL) West Division.
“The M’s,” named for Seattle’s nautical heritage, have never won a World Series. They have won the AL West Division four times and appeared in the playoffs in 2000, 2022, and now this year, 2025.
Cat and mouse? The employee badge is a nice touch.
I made it to Expo 2025 Osaka!
It’s hot and it’s crowded with very, very long lines at most pavilions— the ones that allow you in without a reservation, that is.
Entrance to the top-rated pavilions are pre-allocated by a lottery system. I struck out despite diligently applying, as far out as three months before my visit today.
No matter, once you have made it into the entrance gate (with 180,000 others), you are in a world onto its own, inside the Grand Ring. The Ring is the world’s largest wooden structure, constructed on Yumeshima (夢洲), the artificial island located in Osaka Bay.
The USA pavilion is a structure designed by Trahan Architects with two triangular wings and a raised translucent cube flanking a central plaza. It features video imagery that features the Plains, the mountains and the cities in the US— and hey! Seattle’s Pike Place market made an appearance as well.
I was mesmerized by the installation of shiny cubes called null². The sun bounced off the surfaces, and a low sound was emitted from the structure.
Developed by Yoichi Ochiai, the pavilion’s structure is based on a cubic grid of voxels measuring 2 to 8 m (6 ft to 26 ft) wide. The facade is covered with a membrane that resembles a mirror. [Source: Wikipedia]
Look for a few images (towards the end) beamed out from the enormous high-resolution screen outside the Korea pavilion. The three-story pavilion has a high-resolution screen on its facade that is 27 m (89 ft) wide. The screen displays on a spectacular series of animated images and videos.
South Africa withdrew from Expo 2025 Osaka in late 2024 despite repeated invitations from the Japanese government, citing the country’s ‘financial constraints’.
The warm weather of the last four or five days is behind us here in Seattle.
The high was 78°F (26°C) today.
These stills are from a Japanese anime called
The AC Is Broken EP 392 | Atashin’chi | [ENG sub]
[Anime] Atashin’chi Official Channel on YouTube
Background (from the YouTube page):
The Tachibanas are the quintessential Japanese family, unassuming and infinitely relatable.
There’s Mother, who isn’t the best cook, and is quite lazy, and Father, who always leaves the bathroom door ajar. The high school daughter Mikan seems a bit of a buffoon, and the middle schooler son Yuzuhiko appears to be quite the cold fish at first glance. They’re a bit peculiar— but they are a family everyone could relate to.
In this episode, Father comes home to find Mother exhausted on the sofa.
The AC is broken, and the repairman can only come out tomorrow.
Luckily, the ACs in the kids’ rooms still work, and Father could sleep in son Yuzuhiko’s room, and Mother in daughter Mikan’s room.
Here’s a weird chess game: one in which I ended up with three queens.
I kept thinking Oscar (the Duolingo chess program bot) would throw in the towel and resign, but no.
He let me promote two pawns to become queens, and then let me checkmate him.
(Note: Yes, Oscar is obviously not a grandmaster. I will have to keep playing and be patient. He is supposed to improve his chess prowess if he gets beaten too frequently by me.)
Here’s a cartoon from today’s Seattle Times— the ‘Loose Parts’ cartoon by Dave Blazek that frequently features animals.
I added a few notes. 😉
Whether you are pro or anti
Or could not care less
We are here to tell you
We are here to sell you chess
Not a chance of you escaping
From our wiles
We’ve locked the doors
We’ve blocked the aisles
We’ve a franchise worth exploiting
And we will (yes we will!)
When it comes to merchandising
We could kill
When you get up
When you get up in the morning
‘Til your bedtime book
You will have to live your life
With bishop, knight, and rook
Clean your teeth with checkered toothpaste
Wear our vests
Our kings and queens
On bouncing breasts
You could even buy a set
And learn to play
We don’t mind
We’ll sell you something anyway
We’ve done all our market research
And our findings show
That this game of chess
Will be around a month or so
Maybe it’s a bit confusing
For a game
But Rubik’s cubes
Were much the same
In the end the whole world bought one
All were gone
By which time we merchandisers
Had moved on!
By which time
We had moved on!
– The merchandisers, singing a raucous interlude in the introductory song “Merano” of the 1984 double LP “Chess”.
The music was composed by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, with lyrics by Tim Rice and Björn Ulvaeus (the Swedish translation)
Happy International Chess Day.
International Chess Day is annually celebrated on 20 July, the day the International Chess Federation was founded in 1924.
Funny— that these two stamps were on the envelope from Great Britain containing my Ebay stamps, yesterday.
Paul McCartney (83) announced yesterday that his “Got Back” concert tour later this year in the USA is a go.
(He’s not coming to Seattle).
Happy Friday.
I bought a few 1960s magazines at the Friends store in the Seattle Public Library for a dollar each on Monday.
This cartoon is from The Saturday Evening Post of Sept. 9, 1967.
(That would be the Empire State Building. It opened on May 1, 1931).
I had lunch at the Washington Athletic Club in downtown today, and took these pictures.
Copy cat.
The video is short — just 19 seconds — and not particularly compelling. A viewer would be forgiven for clicking away before it ends.
The grainy footage, uploaded on April 23, 2005, of a man standing in front of the elephant enclosure at the San Diego Zoo — “All right, so here we are in front of the elephants” — does not look like the sort of thing that would touch off a video revolution.
And yet, two decades after that inauspicious start, YouTube is now a cornerstone of the media ecosystem. It’s where people go for music videos and four-hour-long hotel reviews. It is a platform for rising stars and conspiracy theorists. It’s a repository for vintage commercials and 10 hours of ambient noise. It has disrupted traditional television and given rise to a world of video creators who make content catering to every imaginable niche interest.
-Amanda Holpuch writing for the New York Times
