Enlightening little game where you try to place MidEast country names on a map. Find out how deficient your education is! I definitely did better in the Middle East than in northern Africa (because we have deployed less troops there?). And it goes without saying that you shouldn’t cheat. The game is part of a site on teaching about the war.

To further refine one’s sense of MidEast geography, I enjoyed this New Yorker article on finding Osama by Jane Mayer. Helpful in understanding where Osama is thought to be and the complicated relationship the U.S. has with Pakistan.

The Boston Globe reports that a “flash mob” will be performing some stunt on Thursday in Harvard Square around 6pm.

I’m curious what it will be. It seems like they would need to be on par with an MIT prank to get noticed.

In New York City, hundreds of people burst into applause on the mezzanine of the Grand Hyatt hotel at 7:12 p.m., then quickly disappeared.

Now, the new phenomenon called a ”flash mob” is coming to Harvard Square.

Update: It happened last Thursday.

News cameras weaved among a densely packed crowd and photographic flashes flickered over a sea of DaVincian smiles on the second floor of the Harvard Coop yesterday evening as local media turned out to watch hundreds of Boston-area residents pick out greeting cards for their friend Bill.

I’ve been listening to two albums by my favorite comedian from when I was younger, Bill Hicks. The pair, Rant in E-Minor and Relentless, are both filled with dark jokes from the early 90s. His rants against President Bush Sr. and Gulf War 1 seem oddly relevant given the sequels to both. Hicks’ style was different than comedians who either play it safe (airline jokes, “didya ever notice?…”, etc.) or aim to shock without having anything biting to say. Hicks was both funnier and more intelligent in his joking on religion, artistic integrity, war, politics and drugs than so many of the Jay Leno clones out there.

On a recent visit to Brigham and Women’s Hospital I noticed that their elavator doesn’t have a 13th floor button (they had a floor labeled M2 somewhere below I believe). I know this is a common practice, but I’d have thought that for an institution based on science they might have forgone this superstition. And does simply not labeling a floor avoid the bad luck? There still is a 13th floor after all.

On the other hand, while I was there, I was reading Complications by Atul Gawande (himself a surgeon at BWH and contributer to The New Yorker). The book nicely details the imperfection and fallibility of medicine and those who practice it, so maybe keeping any extra bad luck away can’t hurt. (He appeared on the WBUR show On Point last year.)

And on the subject of luck, I recently saw Intacto. A cool film where luck is an important and transferable quality.

Apparently my never-used weblog at Harvard has temporarily vaulted me into the lead in all important google race among Mike Champions. I definitely thought the XML expert would be in the lead. Or maybe the actor. Perhaps the retired baseball player. Or waterskier. Maybe even, my favorite, the wrestler.