*thud*

Or, as cmshaw says, But why is the curling gone?

The world championship is, obviously, the gold medal having been awarded, over.  My suitcase is mostly packed.  And now I find that:

• My thesis did not miraculously write itself while I was sitting on the ice watching the view game
  
• There's a $30 transfer fee for the volunteer shuttle from the next hotel over to the airport, which I find so offensive that I'm finding another way to get there, which will wind up costing me a little more than half that but take far more time
  
• The floors are being replaced in my corridor at college this week, which involves lifting the existing floors today and doing something tomorrow which will involve barring access to the corridor but leaving the bedroom doors standing open from 10am tomorrow for (they tell us) four to six hours.  I? am landing at Heathrow at 7:10 tomorrow morning, which, if you do the math, gets me back to my building at ... about 9:30, at the earliest, but if I get hung up at baggage claim or don't get that bus for whatever reason, yeah, I'll be arriving home with baggage after an overnight flight to a building that won't let me up to my room.

Can't I just go to curling championships all the time and not bother with the rest of this crap?

the wikipedia meme

1.  Type in your birthday (minus the year) in the search bar at wikipedia.org.

2.  List three interesting events, two birthdays, and one death that happened on your birthday.

Yeah, I'm almost going to limit it to those numbers.

• 1252 - Pope Innocent IV issues the papal bull ad exstirpanda, which authorizes the torture of heretics in the Medieval Inquisition. Torture quickly gains widespread usage across Catholic Europe.
  
• 1776 - American Revolution: Virginia convention instructs its delegates to propose a declaration of independence from Great Britain.
  
• 1918 - Civil War in Finland ends.  (did any of you know there was a civil war in Finland?)
  
• 2004 - The largest known prime number at the time of its discovery, 2^24036583 − 1, is found by Josh Findley and the GIMPS collaborative effort.
  
  
• 1909 - James Mason, English actor (d. 1984) (i.e. Eddie Izzard's Voice of God)
  
• 1937 - Madeleine Albright, U.S. Secretary of State
  
  
• 1886 - Emily Dickinson, American poet (b. 1830)
  
• 1971 - Sir Tyrone Guthrie, English director, producer, and writer (b. 1900) (founder of my beloved Stratford Festival)
  
• 1986 - Theodore H. White, American writer (b. 1915)

waiting for my ride

Checkout time was noon, so now I'm in the hotel lobby waiting for the cab that will take me to the train that will take me to the T that will take me to the house that Jack built airport.  Actually I'm in the breakfast room, where there are tables I can work at -- but there's also a TV, and the receptionist just put Days of Our Lives on, and oh my god.  Not only is the cast the same as it was fifteen years ago, but they look the same.  One guy has a sort of grizzled beard where it used to be dark.  Otherwise, nothing has changed.  ack.