Incoming Nerdgasm!

An up-and-down weekend, but a lovely finish:

It started off with a class reunion needing to get into a hall they rented from the Lions on Saturday night. Their key didn't work after trying it for an hour, so out I went. Simple picking open a cheap deadbolt... except whoever had installed the thing put it in upside down, and the reason they couldn't get it open was that one of the springs inside had given out. I had to wait to get permission to drill the lock out, which the president of the club was reluctant to give for the first hour, even as the reunionists were getting drunker and surlier. This stuff always goes better with an audience, you know?

I finally got permission, popped out the lock (and replaced it) and got people inside before getting home two hours later from a 15 minute job. And now their treasurer is telling me they don't want to pay because I "never got authorization" to drill out the lock, and there seems to be some kind of power struggle going on in the club and I may have to take these idiots to small claims court over a $70 bill.

Gah.

But then on Sunday, we had a lovely little gathering in our back yard with pakoras and beer and some fantastic weather, and all was right in the world. I've never had a mojito before; that is a very nice drink. Doesn't look like much more than ditchwater and grass clippings, but boy it does its job!

And then... (drum roll please!)... I got tickets to the twentieth "First Annual IgNobel Awards" in Boston! W00T! It goes on in Harvard, and features Nobel Prize winners handing out prizes to researchers for studies and discoveries and inventions that "cannot, or should not, be repeated". Last year, for instance, on of the winners (for "Public Health") designed a bra that could, in the event of emergency, be converted into a pair of protective face masks. In 2001, the IgNobel Peace Prize winner was the designer of the Soviet playground "Stalin World".

Boredom is not an option, as there is a very strict time limit on winners' speeches, enforced by Miss Sweetie Poo since 1999. This year also has the world premiere of The Bacteria Opera, with arias interspersed throughout the ceremony.

Being in Boston itself is just an added bonus, really. Packed with history, universities, and bookstores, I'm only disappointed that our stay will only be for a week!