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Donald Trump isn’t good for much, but he has undoubtedly improved Second City. It’s been a few years since I last saw a show there (and yes, that’s a strange thing to write) but I went back earlier this month and the whole thing is much tighter, angrier and more coherent than it used to be. I found it funnier as a result, too, though I’m sure it’s more polarising than the grab bag assortment of sketches which it used to be. Randi and I went with Villy (last seen in London) and her mother, both of whom belong to the comforting class of people who understand visa rules and immigration law in casual conversation.

Randi and Villy and books

In the past few weeks I also made two important introductions which have been a long time in the making. Firstly, at long last, Todd has sat down and watched an episode of Doctor Who. In an attempt to appeal to him as a television connoisseur I opted for the very first one, in all of its magnificent black and white glory from 1963. It’s just so good! While at Todd and Carolyn’s I also fulfilled my completionist desire to finish off the Indiana Jones films with Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, even though everyone warned me beforehand that it wasn’t worth it. Everyone was right.

The second introduction needs only this photo:

We finally got Robert to play Carcassonne!

Otherwise I’ve just been catching up on Sherlock with Catherine, booking exciting trips so that future posts can benefit from more interesting photos and celebrating Valentine’s Day at La Scarola, which needs no improvement whatsoever. In a romantic gesture, I muted the ‘glamily’ for the duration of the meal. This is a giant family WhatsApp chat which has also sprung up in recent weeks: 35 somehow-connected cousins around the world draining each others’ battery lives at all hours. It’s great. It’s absurd. This is how cults start. Clearly we need another wedding.

Cross-checking Article V

Did you know that there are two things which cannot be amended in the US Constitution via the usual amendment process? I did, because it came up in The Federalist Papers, and now Todd does too, because I quizzed him on it after he presented me with a pocket copy sometime after Shake Shack on a classy Friday night. One is that the importation of slaves cannot be banned until 1808, which should give pause to anyone trusting in its timeless wisdom. The other is that states cannot be deprived of equal representation in the Senate without their consent.

As far as I can see, there’s nothing to stop you just amending the amendment process itself to remove these restrictions, although at that point it might be quicker and cheaper to just invoke the ‘self-evident’ right of ‘the People’ to ‘alter or abolish’ any government which becomes destructive to their life, liberty or ‘pursuit of happiness’.

If you think this reads a bit silly, and leaves out important practical questions like “well does the government have a lot of tanks at its disposal to crush me with?” and “wait, which people exactly count as the People and who decides that?” then congratulations, you have successfully problematised the Declaration of Independence. You also might be the kind of person who enjoys playing Secret Hitler, an excellent bluffing game which Jason funded way back when on Kickstarter and has finally arrived in our lives in a fancy wooden box. Most players are liberals but some are secretly fascists, and their aim is to manipulate the others into enacting fascist policies and electing Hitler as Chancellor. As I say, it’s great, and their website also has an appropriate level of snark:

Hah.

Commuting life: the Caltrain to Palo Alto

Anyway…. apart from playing board games (7 Wonders! Dominion! Carcassonne, obviously!) and setting up a special mailbox in Germany to forward limited-edition Carcassonne tiles from eBay.de to myself (the less said about this the better) I also spent a week this month working out of the Palo Alto office. Rather than staying in Palo Alto itself, which does have a certain logic behind it, I decided to commute on the Caltrain from San Francisco each day. This came at the cost of early mornings but was otherwise a great move, both because it made an excellent reading time and because I could hang out in San Francisco with both Nolan and Jamie on various evenings after work. (And to see Nolan convene a deputation to the office’s ever-changing frozen yoghurt selection is to watch real leadership in action.)

Jamie kindly shared the last jelly doughnut

Finally, in Chicago I had a good night out with new colleagues Arpan, Pedro, Ibs and Joey and also saw Psychonaut Librarians with Randi at our favourite theatre. It’s about… a group of librarians who must venture into the magical Anyverse, defeat the Sandman and bring a girl and a sort-of-boy-but-not-really-a-person together? Yes, this one was a little too absurdist to be one of my favourites (years and years ago I read a review of a particularly surreal episode of The Prisoner on this topic which stuck with me), but the characters were engaging and it was enjoyable to whizz through.

Last word to the jelly doughnut.

Chrismukkah

It’s that time of year again: snowy and cold outside, pretty and festive (but hard to photograph) inside. Carrying the Christmas tree home was a much less stressful exercise than last year’s gargantuan effort, but it still spruces up well. Together with the Hanukkah decorations we had a suitably seasonal living room to host many guests bearing board games, although on many occasions we tricked them into watching Planet Earth II with us instead. Because it was just so good.

Outside of the Chrismukkah base we also went to Randi’s work holiday party (and bounced on a trampoline with her CEO) as well as Robert and Julie’s mirror-image apartment housewarming, Alex’s holiday party at which gluhwein was served (very exciting) and Ellen’s ‘Master of Peppers’ chilli-making competition. Importantly, one is not required to actually cook a chilli in order to attend. I was very sad about missing this last year so it was great to finally return and meet baby Edy for good measure. (Chilli #10 was the best by some measure, in case you were wondering.) We also attended an inaugural D&D game at our neighbours’ flat across the hallway: nothing has felt more back-to-university than being able to return home for the night by just walking between apartments.

Finally, I also had great Motel Bar sessions with Alejandro and Teresa, and also saw Rogue One and Arrival. I put Rogue One in the bucket of ‘perfectly enjoyable but nothing special’ – not as good as last year’s Star Wars outing, although it does finally explain why the Death Star is so easy to destroy. But I really, really enjoyed Arrival. It’s a thoughtful science fiction film which takes seriously the problem of language between humans and aliens, and I thank Todd for wanting to see it with me after a cheeky Nando’s.

You can never go wrong with more lights

Happy Thanksgiving!

Fruit Ninja

We all have this feeling sometimes

Today was my fourth Thanksgiving but the first time I co-hosted. Thank you to our flatmate Amanda for being so great, and for her mum for coming to see us. Thank you to Jason for being my stalwart Would I Lie To You teammate and to Cat for standing behind me several years ago in Drayton Park and making it very clear the right and the wrong way to make a cheese sauce for cauliflower cheese. I’m sorry I couldn’t remember exactly which was which, but it worked out in the end!

Also had a lovely evening with Catherine and AJ earlier this week, decorating ugly Christmas sweaters/jumpers (in cookie form) and drinking lots of wine. I can’t remember exactly what made me pull this face, but it may have been the lack of American instinct for innuendo.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The Power of the Daleks ©BBC

Good distractions from the unfolding political nightmare:

• Watching the animated reconstruction of Patrick Troughton’s first story, The Power of the Daleks, in the cinema. Actually, I also enjoyed just focusing on the audio and trying to hear it in the living room where it was first broadcast and saved 50 years ago. The story itself was silly but menacing nonetheless, with sneaky Daleks ready to lure credulous humans into with extravagant promises of 100% reliable weather forecasts. And then killing almost all of them.

• Introducing James to Four Lions. I do love that film.

• Playing Pandemic with Randi, Chloe, Aaron and Jason. I was sceptical of cooperative games but this really won me over, even though we were unsuccessful in saving the world from destruction. (Damn you, South America!)

• Finally seeing Catherine and AJ again now that the campaign is over, and trying to uplift ourselves with multiple episodes of The Secret Life of 4 Year Olds. (Conclusion: 4 year olds are frighteningly advanced.)

• Laughing a surprising amount at three improv comedy teams with Randi’s colleague Katie at Friday Night Riot at the Bughouse Theatre. (Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised, but for $10 tickets at a tiny theatre on a Friday night I wouldn’t necessarily expect to be laughing out loud rather than smiling indulgently. Legitimately funny.)

• Lunching with Luis while keeping an eye on two football matches (real football!) and pooling our limited knowledge about the political situation in France. It would really be a good idea to keep an eye on France.

• Joining the adorable adventures of Newt Scamander and his TARDIS briefcase by seeing Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them with Todd and Carolyn this afternoon. (Although I do share Todd’s concerns about the continued absence of any proper judicial process in the wizarding world.)

If you’re looking for more productive things to do, I am reliably informed that phoning your representatives (not writing or emailing) is the most effective way to lobby them into investigating Trump’s evident conflict of interests, challenging his frightening and unqualified appointments, and generally causing a fuss. (I haven’t done so yet, partly because none of them are really ‘my’ representatives. But I should.)