Politblogo

Funnel and sieve

I made a brief visit to Ellis Island, yesterday. This is the island that truly defines the concept of the USA as an immigrant nation. Unfortunately, I didn't arrive early enough to see everything, and will have to go back some time. Anyway, below are a couple of photos of the museum that once was one of the greatest people funnels of the world. Still thousands were rejected there after having come all that way. And they spent a little while like cattle, though most of them were apparently processed quickly.

Doomsman of the Valar pays call on absurdly huge lady

Self-explanatory

Daily Show photos

Forgot to post my two meagre photos of the building exterior. (They strictly forbid interior pictures.)

The show of dailiness

So some of you may have noticed from my comments elsewhere that I am in NYC for a few weeks, doing some approximation of working. Anyway, earlier this week, I decided to play truant, because there is one experience that I wanted to have that unfortunately cannot be had on the weekend or in the evening: sitting in the Daily Show's studio audience.

I work outside the city, so the trip is long. Took two hours, actually, because the public transit in some of the suburbs is very sparse, even compared to less extensively transit-enabled cities than NYC. But I got to the studio at the recommended time of 3:15. That's more than two hours before the official admission time!

I had a (free) online admission ticket. The show is always free. That means that I was very lucky to get a ticket, as they are usually booked solid months in advance. They do usually have some no-shows, so there is a standby line, but it is not worth taking time off work for such a fat chance; the line when I got there was already pretty long.

The studio itself was not quite what you might expect. NBC here, for instance, has the fancy-shmancy Rockefeller center. Famous shows are taped high up. Other famous shows have Times Square outposts on Broadway. The Daily Show is taped in what appears to have been some kind of converted grocery store or something, fifteen minutes to the west and north of Times Square, quite a walk from the subway for a Midtown Manhattan location. No trimmings, surrounded by car dealerships and convenience stores.

We waited around, some of us sitting down. I tried to work, actually, but had computer trouble, so I just surfed the web. I got to know a little about the other people on line. Behind me was a couple from upstate NY here on a day trip apparently just to see the show. The two women in front of me were playing hooky from work themselves; they were faculty from a nearby university. A good chunk of the crowd, actually, were people taking time off work...

Finally, the "bouncers" came out to check our tickets and read us the rules. A jeans-and-T-shirt brigade, they could have been working at a bar or some community theatre rather than one of the most watched shows in the world. The rules: go to the bathroom first, first cell phone ring means expulsion, and so on. Then we went through metal detectors and bag inspection, which the bouncers/ushers performed in good humour.

The studio itself was just what you expect from what you see on TV, except one is behind all the cameras rather than just some of them. And we could see the teleprompters and producers.

We waited for quite a long time while the speakers blared rock-and-roll at us. Eventually, out came the warm-up comedian, some stand-up unknown who was allowed to plug his own performances. The show has no laugh track, and it was his job to teach us to laugh loud enough for the microphones and reduce our inhibitions. He was funny, but an over-reliance on the s3ks j0kz made it clear why he was the warm-up act and not the show.

Then the star himself came out. It's his habit to meet the audience and take a few questions. He's funny and a pretty classy guy even when the cameras aren't rolling, and the bouncers apparently have some amount of affection for him as an employer (sort of), so it hopefully wasn't just the audience. Sorry if I sound cynical that way, but I assume famous people are guilty until proven innocent on personality matters in general.

Then the show started. It wasn't a heck of a lot different from what you see on TV, actually. Yes, he does use the teleprompter, bur he does also improvise quite a bit as well. His guest was pretty educational as they often are. Between breaks, he consulted in close huddle with the producer types. Then he taped the extra overseas segment that they apparently attach for foreign networks.

So I'm not a fanboy type, and I don't agree with all of his politics. But it was a fun experience. At five to one ratio in terms of travel/waiting to watching time, I probably wouldn't do it again, as it's not that different from seeing it on TV. But it was a worthwhile and funny experience to have once.

Now via email

Not being able to use HTML and paragraph breaks in blog posts via TypePad Mobile is really cramping my style. So let's try this blog by email feature.

This is a paragraph.

And this is a *tag*.

Roast chicken

So, for my first act of photoblogging after my last post, I give you the roast chicken I made Friday night, in its finished state. It was marinated in a yogurt marinade with cayenne powder, garlic/ginger paste, cumin powder, chopped garlic cloves, chopped cilantro, lemon juice, oil, and salt. Slices of garlic (I, er, like garlic) were placed under the skin, along with some marinade. Stuffing is broken up pumpernickel soaked in the marinade. There is a lot of marinade, by the way, which, with some water at the bottom of the pan, forms an awesome rich spicy gravy in large quantities while the bird cooks. Halfway through, I added some halved onions, and put the stuffing in the cavity. It is delicious if I may say so myself.

What was that all about?

So the couple of people who have me in their RSS feeds may be wondering what the previous couple of posts were about. Well, as you may have noticed, I haven't been posting much. Alas, it seems rather hard to sustain the "polit" in "Politblogo" for extended periods of time without a supporting community, so I still find it easier to comment on other people's blogs and board who somehow had the patience to sustain the effort to build their own communities. I seem primarily to be reactive and analytic. But, I now have the tools to do a little light mob logging, so this may turn into a bit of a photoblog for a while. I'll try to post mostly amusing or political (in a broad sense) thing. Or, if not commented photos, random thoughts that strike me. Unfortunately, the TypePad mob logging interface is very limiting. It does even allow carriage returns, let alone HTML. Not great for composing more complicated thoughts. Perhaps the standard web interface might work acceptably on my handheld.

2008-07-16T13:09:16Z

Pas actullement dead

But I am testing out some new technology. Watch <i>out</i> for some pointless <a href="http://www.google.com/">posting</a>.