Catch-Up: The Planner Scribbles Edition

I scribble a lot of things in my planner, some of which I intend to write about here. These are kind of random and I have no idea why I numbered them.

1) The Washington Post reported on a ghost bike put up at Dupont Circle. I think I had vaguely heard of the idea (a white bike with a placard commemorating a bicyclist killed in an accident), but I don't think I'd heard of one in this area before.

2) The news about Spirit Airlines planning to charge for carry-on luggage in the overhead bin got lots of coverage. There was somewhat less coverage of Senator Schumer's objection to it (and plan to introduce legislation). I think he has a good point. Airplane tickets are taxable; fees are not. The unbundling of services is a way of cheating the taxman.

3) Speaking of taxes, I got the "your return has been accepted by the IRS" e-mail pretty quickly. Doing my Virginia taxes on line was quick and simple. The iFile system has always surprised me for its ease and simplicity in a state that is normally not interested in anything Thomas Jefferson hadn't thought of. So, sure enough, the neanderthals in Richmond are taking it away for people over a certain income. This affects about 12% of the state. Those people will have to pay for tax software to file electronically. The claim is that this is in alignment with the federal government, but that isn't true. The feds provide free fillable forms for (almost) everyone. (The exceptions involve the need to file certain less common forms.) The really stupid part of this is that, while it will allegedly save the state six cents a return by outsourcing the electronic filing, it costs a dollar to handle a paper form. There are plenty of people like me who refuse to pay a private firm 30-50 bucks to file our taxes. And, oh, I don't suppose it's possible that the large political donations to certain politicians by Intuit have anything to do with this stupidity, right?

3) Back to travel, United is introducing a fee to stand by for an earlier flight. You only pay the $50 if you actually get on, but what is irritating is that they are not exempting all elite frequent flyers, only 1Ks. I need to find the right email address to send my complaint. They have a legitimate concern about people booking cheaper flights and hoping to stand by for more expensive ones, but most elites are business travelers who are just trying to get home earlier if a meeting finishes before they expect it to. (I have also used that system when connecting from an international flight. It's hard to predict how long immigration and customs will take, so I err on the conservative side and switch to an earlier flight if I get through sooner. I have done this exactly twice in the past three years.)

4) There was another news story about the closing of the last sardine cannery in the United States. I have to admit that I can't remember the last time I ate sardines, though I used to eat the ones that came in mustard sauce fairly regularly and the ones in hot sauce somewhat less often. But didn't they switch to pull-tab opening at some point? Do people much younger than I am know about the old key system for the cans?
And did anybody else get the Stan Rogers song "Tiny Fish for Japan" stuck in their head while thinking about this?

5) I went to a reception for the new director of DARPA, Regina Duggan, on Thursday night. The traffic was bad and I missed the first couple of minutes of her talk. From what I did hear, I thought she spoke well - knowledgeably and entertainingly. It gives me hope for the future of science and technology in the Department of Defense. By the way, does it strike anybody else as odd for an event scheduled from 6:30-8:30 p.m. to be a coffee, wine, and dessert thing?

6) The resulting flight disruptions are making the eruption of Eyjafjallajoekull a real pain in the ash.

7) I bought my plane tickets for the NPL con in Seattle. I also discovered that next year's American Crossword Puzzle Tournament is the same weekend as the Virginia Storytelling Alliance gathering. How can I already have a schedule conflict for March 2011?

8) Holly wanted my comments on the last episode of The Amazing Race. ( Here they are, behind a cut )

Fiddler on the Roof

I saw the touring production of Fiddler on the Roof at the National Theatre last night. I was skeptical of Harvey Fierstein playing Tevye and, alas, my skepticism was justified. I think he's a talented performer, but his raspy voice is very distinctive and did not work at all for me in the role. There are a lot of points where Tevye is yelling at someone and Fierstein sounds less like an angry man than like somebody choking to death.

He's also not much of a dancer. Overall, the dancing was pretty weak. Sammy Dallas Bayes claims to have reproduced the original choreography by Jerome Robbins, but he missed the mark. For example, Frume Sarah came across entirely as comical, not the least bit menacing. And he had worked with Robbins, so I'm not sure how he managed such lifeless staging.

Speaking of lifeless, I was also greatly disappointed in Colby Foytik as Perchik. Some of the other performances were better. Susan Cella was fine as Golde and Mary Stout provided fine comic relief as Yente. But it was the story, not the performances, that had me crying my eyes out over Chava. Overall, this was a remarkably bland production.

I should also mention that the book, while funny, also highlighted for me how theatre has changed in the past 40+ years. The fear of being too ethnic was a real one back then. I don't think that's a problem in an era where the Puerto Ricans in "West Side Story" actually speak Spanish on stage. As a trivial example, a modern musical in Anatevka would have characters saying "Gut Shabbos," not "Good Sabbath."