Events

Last night, the Chicago White Sox lost their 120th game of the season, tying the record set by the New York Mets in 1962: With their fifth consecutive defeat and 23rd in the last 28 games, the Sox fell to 36-120 to tie the expansion 1962 Mets’ record for most losses in the modern era and break the 2003 Tigers’ AL-record 119 losses. Rookie right-hander Sean Burke pitched six innings of one-run ball with eight strikeouts, and Korey Lee also homered to give Burke a 2-1 lead, but the Padres (90-66) rallied...

I will spend most of today exploring the narrow streets and fromageries of Aix-en-Provence and visiting with an old friend up in the hills above the city. While I endure those horrors and privations, I will also be struggling with the realization that the TV series Lost premiered 20 years ago today. Remember, kids: don't let the smoke monster cast you out of purgatory until you've figured out the meaning of your life.E

I love actually experiencing the 21st Century. Right now I'm hurtling through the suburbs of Lyon at 265 km/h (down from 300 km/h earlier) on my way to Provence. The Eurostar from London started with an insane scrum at St Pancras—they really mean it when they advise you to arrive 75 minutes before departure—but it arrived at Paris Gare du Nord a minute early. The only impediment to getting onto this train came in the form of several consecutive people who couldn't figure out how to get RER tickets from...

Other than the hotel debacle, I'm having a pretty good time in the UK. Yesterday I went out to Berkhamsted to do Walk #1 in The Home Counties from London by Train Outstanding Circular Walks (Pathfinder Guides): I followed that up today by getting lunch in Borough Market, then walking back to King's X: (The maps are in French because I set my phone to French to practice in advance of my arrival in France tomorrow.) The weather yesterday and today has been spectacular, to boot. Another nice bit of news...

I mentioned yesterday that I've paid a £319 poor-research tax because I changed hotels after only one night. The original hotel, the Argyle Square Hotel just south of King's Cross, has mixed reviews. My experience traveling to London for 30 years told me that I could either avoid or ignore the difficulties some people had with the hotel. For example, Americans always complain about European room sizes and British plumbing. Always. This time my experience failed me completely. This is the best photo I...

I haven't posted anything since arriving in London because I made a grievous error choosing my hotel. The room I'd booked was, in fact, the worst hotel room I'd ever stayed in. Worse, even, than the school dormitories and youth hostels I stayed in as a kid. It was so bad that I just decided to write off tonight and tomorrow night and move myself to a much better hotel, for what turned out to be not much more money. I mean, except for the two nights I paid for at the flophouse that I won't use. I'll have...

The last time I took American 90, like this time, I stayed overnight near O'Hare so I could sleep an hour longer on the day of the flight. Unfortunately, last time I had a rehearsal the night before, so I didn't even get to the hotel until 11pm. Last night I was asleep by 9 and woke up (mostly) refreshed just before 5 this morning. I even got a few thousand steps in that walker's paradise*, the Rosemont Entertainment District. From the hotel, to O'Hare, to checking my bag, to getting through security...

This floored me. The Lebanese health minister reported earlier that 8 people died and 2,750 suffered injuries when thousands of pagers exploded this morning in Lebanon and Syria: Lebanon’s health minister, Firass Abia, said the blasts killed eight people, including a girl. “About 2,750 people were injured ... more than 200 of them critically,” with injuries mostly reported to the face, hands and stomach, he told a press conference. Hezbollah said in a statement that two of its fighters and a 10-year-old...

In about 23 hours I should be taking off from O'Hare on my favorite flight, American Airlines 90, the best flight I've found to snap into a European time zone in just one night. People tend to prefer the evening flights that get to Heathrow the next morning so they "don't lose a day," but I've found that even when flying business or first class (and thus getting actual sleep for a couple of hours) I lose the first day in Europe anyway. Sleeping on planes just sucks. American 90, on the other hand, takes...

Other than having absolutely no real value except to scammers and thieves, cryptocurrency has no real value. But a lot of money gets laundered through crypto these days, so people will spend gobs of real currency building data centers to generate more cryptocurrency. These data centers efficiently dump nearly all the externalities of crypto mining onto their neighbors, except for the externalities crypto already dumps on just about everybody else. Oh, don't let me forget that simulated artificial...