Moving time

A few days ago, we signed the lease for our new apartment. We took the kitties into the living room to get them used to it. They weren’t happy. Jasper refused to detach himself from his humans (he gave Karin some awful scratches). Ziva refused to leave her cat carrier.

When we took them into a bedroom, they were a little less fearful. They walked in circles, sniffing the carpet.

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At our old place, nearly everything is packed up. We’ve recruited some eight or ten volunteers to help us to move tomorrow. Rain is expected during the move. The weather app on my phone is telling me to watch out for flash flooding.

Though our new apartment is across the street from the river, I’m not worried.

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Meanwhile, there’s been awful flooding in Ecuador – even in Quito, which usually isn’t terribly affected.

(Some streets in this video are quite near to where I used to live.)

The floods have been much more damaging in the countryside, of course; and Peru also has been flooded.

Real Madrid vs. Barcelona

The clásico played today in Spain was the best match I’d seen all year – maybe in the last two or three years – in any sport.

A detailed summary is here. It includes videos. They’re all good.

The best video, of course, is the one with Messi’s last-minute goal. The goal is good. The madridistas’ reactions are good. Messi’s celebration is superb.

Take that, Real Madrid.

UPDATE (Monday): Here is a video of the full game.

UPDATE (Tuesday): The video is gone.

Barcelona vs. Botafogo

Our own Barcelona (SC) is the joint leader of its Copa Libertadores group. Last night, without several key players, Barcelona faced the other leader, the Brazilian club Botafogo, notable this year for wearing gray socks. Like these:

Against us, though, Botafogo wore black socks.

Botafogo pressed quite hard and in the second minute earned a bogus penalty kick, which Máximo Banguera blocked. Botafogo continued pressing but Banguera kept the ball out of the goal. Gradually we began building our own attacks.

Then we scored a golazo, using a wall pass and some nifty dribbling.

“Golazo hjpta,” I wrote to Stephen.

In the second half, we tried to finish off Botafogo. One time, when we were about to score, the visitors’ goalie brought an extra ball onto the field. The referee allowed play to continue. A defender stopped our attack by committing a hard foul. The ref expelled neither the goalie nor the defender.

Some minutes later, though, he unjustly expelled one of our defenders.

To cover the defender’s position, we were forced to bring in a youngster who promptly handled the ball for another penalty kick. In his run-up, the kicker appeared to make a full stop, stranding Banguera. But the ref allowed the goal to count.

“Amarilla y tiro libre indirecto,” fumed Stephen.

The announcers consulted technical experts who assured them the kick was legal. But I have my doubts.

A video of the proceedings:

Quarterfinals

In the quarterfinals of the Champions League, a rather poor FC Barcelona team was ousted by Juventus, and Cristiano Ronaldo scored two offside goals to nudge Real Madrid past Bayern Munich. Real’s patsy, Atlético, also made it through, defending fiercely against Leicester.

Of the victors, only the Monacans don’t seem stale. They’ve scored, what, three goals in each of their last four knockout games? (They dispatched Dortmund in their quarterfinal.) They played in the final as recently as 2004, but in 2011–2013 they languished in Ligue 2. An influx of Russian cash restored their loftier standing.

I didn’t watch any of these games.

Writing, packing, babysitting

This Easter has been the Easter of church nursery duty. I didn’t get to hear any sermons. I didn’t get to tour the Stations of the Cross (not even the ones erected in my church’s sanctuary). I did get to hold some tiny babies.

It’s also been the Easter of packing books – into egg boxes, which is fitting. In two weeks, we’ll’ve moved into our new home.

What to do with the furniture? The couches, we’ll keep for now. The kitties have shredded them. They would shred any new couch.

Karin owns a heavy cedar chest. She just tried, with all her might, to raise its lid. Jasper took this as an invitation to jump onto the lid. Jasper involves himself in all our packing.

Ziva, though, is frightened by the packing. She hides under our bedcovers.

Now to abruptly change the subject: Recently, it’s become possible to use these Roman, Italic, and Bold fonts in Google Docs:

Bookman Old Style
Century Schoolbook
*Palatino Linotype
*Times (not Times New Roman)
Twentieth Century

(* denotes the availability of standard ligatures)

This makes Google Docs a better choice for writing papers. If I were to do grad school all over again, I’d use Google Docs, not LaTeX. LaTeX is a powerful free typesetting system, but the process of writing in code and compiling PDFs over a slow Web connection has swallowed up who knows how many of my most vigorous years.

That awful Pepsi ad with Kendall Jenner

… which was torn apart on Saturday Night Live …

… was anticipated over fifteen years ago in a music video by the Chemical Brothers.

Harry Potter

Our apartment is now overpopulated with cardboard boxes, for which Ziva and Jasper are extremely grateful. Karin brings home boxes; Karin’s mom brings boxes; Karin’s dad brings boxes. Collapsed, the boxes take up most of our space. Filled, they would cause the apartment to be unlivable.

It’s some relief that our landlord is allowing us to store the filled boxes elsewhere on his property.

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Evenings, when not filling the boxes, Karin has been playing a lot of Harry Potter for the PS One. I hear the TV exclaim:

“Concentrate, Potter!” (Madam Hooch teaching Harry to fly on his broomstick).

“Flippendo!”

“Wingardium Leviosa!”

And now, whenever I do chores in the apartment, I catch myself muttering: “It’s LeviOsa, not LeviosA.”

Not because it’s in the game, but because it’s the only line I can remember from the movie.

I’m thinking of buying this shirt:

Mary plays a lot of Zelda. I think she would like this Harry Potter game, too.

I suppose that one day I should read the series. How soon? As soon as I finish reading the complete works of Lois Duncan. I’m about to finish Stranger with My Face (downright terrifying).

An election and two fairy tales

Yesterday, Ecuador held the second round of its presidential election. Different exit polls showed different winners. At 9:00 p.m. (U.S. Eastern Time) came the official percentages: slightly more than 51% for the ruling party’s candidate, Lenín Moreno; slightly less than 49% for his opponent, Guillermo Lasso.

I looked at social media. Fraude, fraude, some people were fuming at 9:02 (in my opinion, prematurely).

Lasso is asking for a recount. He’s citing how long it took to tally the votes after the first round. Of course, in that round, with more candidates, the ballots must have been harder for the vote-counters to read; and there was a narrower gap between one realistic outcome (Moreno’s outright victory) and the other (the need for a runoff vote). So it isn’t surprising that the first round’s tally was issued more slowly.

But let Lasso have his recount. I’d like the result to be clear.

One antagonist of Lasso’s is Julian Assange, of WikiLeaks, who for some years has been sheltered from criminal prosecution in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Lasso had pledged that if he were to become president, he’d evict Assange after thirty days. Encouraged by the election results, Assange tweeted: “I cordially invite Lasso to leave Ecuador within 30 days (with or without his tax haven millions).” All in good fun. Assange later clarified: “It was a joke to which Mr. Lasso lent himself. All is forgotten and I wish him the best in bringing Ecuador forward” (my translation). He also highlighted this strongly positive U.S. diplomatic cable about Moreno.

In the global press, the dominant story is that this election is ideological: socialism (Moreno) vs. capitalism (Lasso). Moreno’s victory means that the recession of Latin America’s “pink tide” has been interrupted. But a different trend is apparent from the Ecuadorian map: Moreno won all of the coastal provinces; Lasso won all of the “jungle” provinces and nearly all of the mountainous ones (as well as Galápagos). Ecuador’s starkest division is still regional, not ideological. Years ago, the ruling party was much stronger in the “Lasso” provinces; since then, it has alienated them. Whether Moreno will reach out to them remains to be seen. But I doubt whether Lasso, the guayaquileño banker, would have made them happy.

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On Saturday, Karin & I watched two movies. By coincidence, both were about the breaking of an ugliness curse (à la “Frog Prince”).

The first movie was Penelope. It featured Christina Ricci, cursed with a pig’s snout for a nose.

A houseguest brought this movie to us. I’d already seen it. No matter: I’d forgotten how many of its “bit” roles are played by actors I’m fond of. Nigel Havers of Chariots of Fire and Downton Abbey! Richard E. Grant of L.A. Story … and Downton Abbey! From 2005’s Pride and Prejudice: Mr. Bingley! (Our houseguest and Karin were swooning over Mr. Bingley.) Toward the end: Reese Witherspoon! She’s also the movie’s producer! (We watched with one eye on the TV screen and the other on Wikipedia.)

The second movie was the new CGI/live-action Beauty and the Beast. We watched it with Karin’s sister, Lily, at the cinema in Niles, which is distinguished for its cheap tickets and cheap food. I garnished my cheap hot dog with some free and rather painful jalapeñoes.

Again, it was amusing to learn who the actors were. After the spell upon the Beast’s castle had been broken, we realized we’d been watching … Emma Thompson! Sir Ian McKellen! Ewan McGregor!

As for the Beast –

– he was none other than Cousin Matthew! Of Downton Abbey!

This new Beauty and the Beast has one huge flaw. Unlike its predecessor, it doesn’t visually convey the humanity of the Beast’s servants: the Teapot, the Clock, the Candlestick, etc.

Consider Lumière, the Candlestick. Though he’s rendered in exquisite (sculptural) detail, the viewer must strain to catch glimpses of personality in his eyes. (Let me stress: I’m not complaining about how Lumière moves or speaks.)

To compare: When we watch 2001: A Space Odyssey, it’s much easier to read the “eye” of the HAL computer.

And in the cartoon Beauty and the Beast, Lumière is no sculptural masterpiece; yet his personality is written all over his face.