Semi-random thoughts

● I added the Wall Street Journal's Pictures of the Day to my daily internet read. Some of the pictures are just stunning. It reminds me of Life Magazine back when it was my primary source of news photography.

● I blocked someone on Facebook who said "voting is for suckers." There's a limit to how much stupidity I will tolerate.

● Utah has granted 80,000 NON-residents permits to carry concealed weapons? Idiocy.

● My box of Shredded Wheat tells me that the cereal has been around for 117 years. This is very impressive. Then I remember that I have been around for over half that period.

● I notice the radio ads for a couple of Broadway plays mention the length of the shows: 80 or 90 minutes. Both of the plays are serious dramas. I guess they figure people might not come if they thought they had to sit through a more normal length performance.

● And speaking of radio ads, this evening WQXR, NYC's classical music station, changes frequencies and becomes a public radio station, owned by WNYC. No more commercials! Yay! But I have to wonder what other changes are in store. Apparently some of its announcers will not be moving over--including Clayelle Dalferes, who is a continuing source of traffic to this blog. They are being replaced by a couple from WNYC (and one other starting next month).

● One evening last week I stopped for a quick bite at The Modern, the excellent Danny Meyer restaurant in the Museum of Modern Art. There is a row of small, round tables parallel to the bar, with a banquet on one side and a chair for each table on the other. There was a vacant one, right next to a pillar. The chair was missing, so I sat on the banquet, at a 45 degree angle to get away a bit from the adjacent table, which was crowded with four people. I placed my order, and a bit later a bus-person? a bus-man? a busser? (I don't think bus-boy is politically correct these days) brought my place setting. But it seemed to offend his sensibilities that I wasn't sitting on the banquet at a 90 degree angle--which is where he put the setting, instead of directly in front of me. I moved it over. Listen, bus-whatever, the place setting is for the diner, not for the furniture.