A Few Quick Notes 454

-We are presently in the midst of another beautiful day in Halifax, though, if the forecast is to be believed, this won't last through the end of the day.

-Our Ultimate play-offs are tomorrow. While we were unlucky enough to have our first game at 9:00 AM, we were also unlucky enough to be in a position that won't allow us to win anything more than a few of our games. Consequently, at least a few of us are going into this with a great outlook.

-I should probably head to the store this afternoon to pick up a chicken for dinner. On the other hand, I guess I could consider cooking the chicken breasts we already have? Though the more I think about it, this latter options seems like a bit of a suckers game - it strikes me as being just a bit too easy. Aren't humans supposed to have to work for their food?

-Apparently today is the ninth anniversary of the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Centre. In many ways it is hard for me to believe that that event took place nine years ago. Some aspects of the post-attack rush seem as vivid as if they had happened yesterday while other aspects, such as the resulting Afghanistan war, seem as though they have always existed in the background and thus don't merit much attention (though I am not saying that they do not merit attention).

On a more personal note, today is the day after the ninth anniversary of me not getting to see the Boston Red Sox play the Yankees at Yankee stadium. Tomorrow will be the ninth anniversary of me having to go into work at the UN early and then help various countries sign on to the anti-terrorism resolution that was to be brought before the UN General Assembly (something that was not as much fun as you might think it would be).

From the bookshelf

A few minutes ago, in relation to a short paper I am working on, I pulled out a copy of Charter of the United Nations that I received when I first started working at the UN in 2000. As I was flipping through the document I came across a few items that I obviously inserted at the time, but have not likely seen since the dying days of 2000.

The first thing that I found was my take on in vitro fertilization.



How ingenious, a old man transitions into a test-tube, or vice-versa. Now that I am reminded of this image I wonder why I didn't opt for a career in art or editorial cartooning.

A few pages later I came across my "Labor for Nader" sticker, which, not surprisingly, was from the 2000 presidential election campaign. Now that I think about it, I have no idea how I ended up with this sticker (I wasn't a Nader supporter at the time), though I imagine it has something to do with my former co-worker Aurora, who was a big Nader supporter during that election. I am now starting to wonder if this was my first piece election swag from the 2000 election, or if I might have had my NRA pro-Bush bumper sticker beforehand (at some point I also snagged a Rick Lazio poster, unfortunately I didn't manage to get any Gore or Hilary swag).



When I have looked for such items more recently (meaning the 2008 presidential election campaign) it seemed that they were available for purchase (but not for free). I remember finding this funny as I thought that most campaigns would have liked to have more supporters wearing pins and buttons that showed support for their candidates (but maybe they realized that they could get people to pay for the privilege).