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I'm a bit late to the party, but oh hell yeah! Yay Tom! And yay Donna for raising such sweet and smart kids!

Yeah, I'm hoping someone with a little more pull than me has done these same calculations, and prepared for this. I still don't even know what checkpoint I'm heading for. Luckily, I'm within walking distance, but I imagine it's still going to be a crush to just walk that mile to whatever checkpoint it may be.

The gypsies were one of the groups targeted by Hitler, too. I've read that the Nazis killed half a million ethnic gypsies.

I want to say the travellers in the US are mostly in the south, I think it's Tennessee that has a big community. If you google "travellers scams" you'll find a ton of stuff about people getting scammed by traveller con-artists in the U.S. (this was the premise of The Riches; it's worth seeing for the scenes in the traveller camp, but the plot got kind of out of control by the end). They turn up semi-regularly on shows like 20/20, too. I'm always fascinated by those reports. The whole lifestyle is just incredible, they seem to be very insular people, with some unique traditions. You'll see

http://www.dailystab.com/new-kids-on-the-b...ce-tour-cruise/ Hey, if the New Kids can do it... Remember in Hedwig & The Angry Inch, when that one character was auditioning for a part on the Rent cruise to Guam? That was awesome.

The travellers in the UK and Ireland aren't all ethnic Romany, I don't think. Most of the Irish ones aren't, anyway. Alison, did you ever see the show The Riches (I think it's cancelled now) on FX a couple of seasons ago? There are lots of Irish traveller camps in the US, and some of them still speak a form of Gaelic. A cousin of mine in Ireland worked for a while at a school that served the travelling community. Classes were actually held on a bus, they'd follow the camp wherever it went. There's a huge bias against the travellers in Ireland, so their lifestyle is a big political issu

I'll bet they won't be there. I love Wilco (and I love the youngsters on this board), but I really don't see them as being the choice of Youth Ball attendees, 18-35.

Amazing story. Looks like the crew did everything they possibly could to minimize the danger, and stayed on until it was clear that all the passengers were safely out. Next time I see some jackass harassing a flight attendant for an extra blanket, I'm going to remind him that this is why they're really on board with us.

When my nephew (one of those "knows all about the states" types of geeky kids) started the on-line test, the first question, in the category State Capitals, was "It's a French first name, and the capital of South Dakota". And I thought, great, he's got this one nailed, off to an easy start... But he froze! So all that kept going through my head then was "Baton Rouge, Cindy! Baton Rouge!" Luckily, he came back strong with the next couple of questions. He's still tearing his hair out over that one, though.

My niece and nephew took the kids' test on Tuesday. They each probably got about half the questions right. I told them that they probably did better than I did last time I took this.

There are 240,000 standing-room tickets being given out for the swearing-in, and 5 checkpoints. The gates open at 8:00am, and the musical portion of the program starts at 10:00. If my math is right, that means that each checkpoint would have to process 400 people per minute to get everyone in before the musical program starts; or, 200 per minute just to get everyone in before the actual oath-taking at noon. How many patters-down can they possibly have at each checkpoint, that they think they're going to be able to accomplish this?

I've read absolutely nothing about it. What have you heard?

This rumor's still looking good. DCist and the Washington Post are now saying it's 2:00pm (although, still nothing official).

That one's in my to-read stack. Ooh, that looks good!

For Brianne, and any other fans of children's literature: Jacqueline Woodson Are you familiar with her? Interesting story about the Newbery Medals.

Good info, thanks! My understanding is that HBO is making this available to cable/satellite customers whose providers carry HBO, whether or not the customer subscribes (like they would with a free-weekend thing). It would make sense if the feed was also provided to other stations (PBS, maybe?), but I'm not sure how that actually works.

It does say that "additional performers will be announced", so I'd guess they're still a possibility. I don't think Wilco is even going to be in the vicinity, though. So if I'm reading this right, it's a two-hour event, with at least 22 performers. That gives everybody 5 minutes, not counting transition time between acts. Also, they keep saying "afternoon" event, in the schedule. Does that mean this happens earlier, but is being shown on HBO at 7:00pm? Which would allow for some (quick) editing on their part, to get it in at two hours... I would just like to know when to show up!

http://www.pic2009.org/blog/entry/initial_...memorial_event/

Oh right. Yeah, some of those are on there, but not necessarily all of them. There are a few on-line discographies (http://www.discogs.com/artist/Wilco for example), but I don't know that any of them are complete. You might need to cross-reference. There used to be a page, kept by someone who would post here when he updated it, which had a great, complete list of all Wilco releases, and the same for lots of other bands. I don't think he maintains the site anymore, though. Anyone remember that one?

There's a great thread called "Wilco's Non-Album Tracks" pinned at the top of this section. I think he's got everything you listed here, but if you've got any additions, please add to the list!

This struck me as odd (e-mail received today, from Jill Biden, through the barackobama.com e-mail list):

Kickin' it old school.

We've tried them before, usually for short trips between stops in Europe (fly SF-London and return, then hop around on cheapie airlines in-between). But when we're traveling like that, we have to lug all of our luggage around with us, so the overweight-bags charges on Ryan usually kill us.

I am very tempted by the Big Shoulders Ball. My friend Barb has stage-managed this whole trip for me, from booking rooms a year ago (she had faith from the get-go!), to scoring a standing ticket to the Big Event for me. So if she wants to go to the BSB, we're going. But if she wants me to stay in and watch The Notebook on pay-per-view with her, I'll do that. I'm pretty sure she won't make me do that, though.