From: nebusj-@-rpi-.edu   
      
   Alan Alda:   
   	+ Alan Alda gets second place?   
   	   
   	- Two books in two years; Alda thinks this falls short of prolific.  Last   
   time he'd mentioned, he almost died in Chile, but a wonderful doctor pulled   
   him through.  He got more interested in life from it, much like Governor   
   Corzine.  He wanted to pay    
   attention to everything, leading to a weird life.  He likes oatmeal.   
   	   
   	- He likes good Irish steel-cut Irish oatmeal, which takes 40 minutes and   
   requires an old lady to stir with a wood spoon.  He thought to make a vat the   
   beginning of the week and microwave it.  In the microwave it dinged, he took   
   it out, and he realized,    
   he didn't know where the three minutes of microwaving went.  What happened to   
   those 180 seconds?  Could he overthink putting on shoes and socks and try   
   making that more efficient?  He tried alternate methods and saved ten   
   seconds.  Sleep in his shoes    
   with oatmeal on his chest?  He took it too far.  So how can he make every   
   second count usefully?   
   	   
   	- Public speaking: he feels alive if scared.  A commencement exercise where   
   doctors talk, speaking at Monticello to historians about Jefferson -- to   
   people who'd written any book he might read, the grand rounds lecture at a   
   psychiatric hospital.  What    
   to talk about there?  Celebrity and its discontents.  It's interesting   
   suddenly becoming famous and he had a hard time with it; surely Conan knows   
   that.  People grabbed his clothing.  Waking up to see people in his room   
   glaring at him.  Or choking him.     
   Conan doesn't get that except from James Lipton.  But the choking stalker was   
   Alda's anxiety fantasy.   
   	   
   	- Fame can be dangerous.  He was doing Scientific American Frontiers in Pisa   
   (Conan was there in summer; asks if Alda has seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa,   
   as there are so many other reasons to go to Pisa).  Warning: the tower if it   
   falls over will    
   explode.  They go past the point people are allowed, for safety's sake --   
   Alda's an exception.   
   	   
   	+ That's potentially true, by the way: campanilles similar to the Leaning   
   Tower of Pisa essentially exploded -- with cracks running their entire height   
   leading to sudden collapse -- in 1902 and 1989.  With the Leaning Tower of   
   Pisa now propped back up a    
   half degree closer to vertical it's believed unlikely to fall over, so that if   
   it does collapse, it'll be by a fracture making the building collapse.  Most   
   likely starting on the second floor where the spiral staircase meets the   
   doorway.   
   	   
   	- When M*A*S*H was on the FBI warned a Florida woman escaped from a   
   psychiatric institution with a gun to revenger herself on Alda and Clint   
   Eastwood.  It wasn't Alda that did horrible things to her; it was Eastwood.   
      
      
   Dinosaur Jr:   
   	- From 'Beyond': My guess is the song is 'It's Me', based on the lyrics that   
   seem to be often asking `is it all me?'   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)