Roomba was a major disappointment, as it turned out. The Christmas Day nor'easter kept Maria and me holed up in Jersey for a day longer than we had planned, so we had time to power up and give my mother's tiny new robotic vaccuum cleaner a trial run. iRobot, the manufacturers of Roomba, say that their product works on up to medium-pile rugs, but it was clear that even your garden-variety carpeting was too much for the self-guided automaton. Now I have never considered my parents' carpets to be shag, but as far as Roomba was concerned they might as well have been three feet deep. Although Roomba did exactly what it was supposed to on our linoleum kitchen floor, it noticeably struggled with the berber rug in my brother's room, and was mired as if in quicksand when placed upon the slightly thicker carpets in the rest of the house. Roomba also seemed to have a problem navigating irregularly-sized rooms, especially if they had features like closets with folding doors. Instead of bumping into such doors and registering them as "walls", the A.I. seemed to be baffled by anything in the room that wasn't 100% solid, causing it to spiral helplessly until someone took mercy on it, picked it up, and restarted the cleaning sequence. Bummer. Frankly, I was expecting a lot more from iRobot, who have successfully deployed their robots at the Great Pyramids at Giza and the caves of Tora Bora - you think they could have made Roomba a little more rugged so that it could handle a house with wall-to-wall carpeting. Granted, this is a first-generation product, and perhaps in a year or two Roomba's successors will not only be deep-cleaning our carpets but scrubbing our bathrubs and toilets as well, but if you were thinking about bringing this little robotic helper into your household as a labor-saving device, don't bother unless your floors are mostly hardwood, linoleum, or extremely thin berber-style rugs. The funny thing is that Roomba would probably have worked perfectly in our Lynn apartment. Maybe I'll get Maria one for her upcoming maternity leave. It's fun to watch bump and pirouette around the room, if nothing else.

Saw The Two Towers last night, and again I have to say that Peter Jackson has pulled off what I assumed to be the impossible until I saw Fellowship of the Ring last December - somehow he has managed to do Tolkein's epic justice, at times even more so than Tolkein himself. The beauty of this trilogy of films is that they were filmed back-to-back-to-back, which means that next year's Return of the King will almost certainly kick ass. Mr. Jackson masterfully blends CGI with live-action in a way that makes the new Star Wars trilogy like a Sega Genesis video game, especially with the character of Gollum, whose hauntingly real computer-generated appearance was draped like a costume over Andy Serkis' actual movements and expressions. Contrast this with Episode II's CGI Yoda, who ended up looking more fake than the Muppet that portrayed the 800-year-old Jedi master in the four other films. Another great example of George Lucas' CGI overkill is the digital rendering of the Clone Trooper army, whether in the panoramic long shots or the close-ups. Again, The Two Towers steers clear of doing things digitally simply for the sake of doing things digitally, so that when we see orcs and Uruk-hai up close, they're actual people, with all the millions of tics and twitches and slight imperfections that make something that is real palpably real. By now we all know that Mr. Lucas is a self-proclaimed visionary, for whom the soapbox he's chosen to stand on is more important than the stories he's telling, or even the stories he's already told (as far as I'm concerned, every mediocre Star Wars sequel or prequel he makes from now on is only going to retroactively lower my estimation of his original trilogy, and especially so if he further alters Episodes IV, V, and VI for their eventual DVD release, as has been rumored). Filmmakers such as Peter Jackson, however, or the Wachowski brothers - creators of The Matrix- are more sensitive to the strengths and weaknesses of the digital revolution, and as a result they use the new technologies much more competently and artistically; whereas all the CGI wizardry in the world will not redeem Star Wars Episode III.

Peace on earth.

Christmas at the family homestead is never dull. After a Christmas Eve dinner of pork roast and baked macaroni and cheese (a Bruno holiday tradition since time out of mind, don't ask me why, though I think the roast pork may be a Slavic thing), my brother Dave, my wife and I settled in for a night of movies on Ye Olde DVD Player. Saw Attack of the Clones for the first time since it came out last May, and I have to say that I'm still mostly unimpressed with this second installment of the Star Wars prequel trilogy. The special effects are interesting, but even then there's an awful lot that George Lucas should have done with models and live human beings, such as the sequences with his Clone Trooper army, so that the end result didn't look like a glorified version of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. The funny thing is that the deleted scenes which come on Disc Two were actually interesting. Episode I's deleted scenes gave you an idea of how deeply Mr. Lucas was scraping the barrel in order to put The Phantom Menace together, whereas Ep II's would have gone a long way to fill out the plot and enliven the cardboard characters reading their way through the film. Oh, well. Then we watched Saving Silverman, which I have to admit is way funnier than it should be. Blame Jack Black and Steve Zahn for that. These guys probably could make C-SPAN watchable.

This morning we exchanged gifts. Maria and I got Dave a pair of Phillies and Georgetown ski caps, and three bargain-basement DVDs - The Cannonball Run, Transformers: The Movie (to go with his G.I. Joe: The Movie DVD we got him last year), and Killer Klowns From Outer Space, one of Dave's favorites from 80's daytime HBO reruns and one of the best "B" movies of all time. Dave got us a cool bust of Bacchus that doubles as a wine chiller that he found online, as well as a poster-sized blowup from a "glamour shot" photograph that I had taken as a high school senior. It's a truly hideous picture. I'm not sure where he found it - I think it may have been kicking around in the attic all these years - but I will have to take my revenge next Christmas. Consider yourself warned, Dave. Dad got a small television and a compact stereo system for the kitchen, but Mom took the grand prize this year, a robotic vaccuum cleaner which goes by the name of Roomba. Roomba, which is about the size of a Boston creme pie, was designed by iRobot, an MIT-spinoff company based in Somerville, Massachusetts, and word is the thing actually does work. However, since the battery takes at least 12 hours to charge, and we're due back in Beantown this evening, we'll have to take the family's word for it.

Oh, and just in case you're not done salivating over what the Ghost of Christmas Future will be bringing you in years to come, take a gander at this BBC News article about futurists' predictions for The Most Wonderful Time of the Year in 2050. From nanobot-cooked synthetic turkeys to "mood" clothing that responds to its wearers' emotions, the main thrust of the article is that Christmas fifty years from now should be more or less the same like the one we celebrate today, only with better toys. I'm not sure if that's supposed to be comforting, or not.

Mmmmm. PlayStation 5. Courtesy of the Onion.

A belated congratulations to the European Union, which extended membership to ten countries (including Poland, ancestral home to half of my family) last week, in a bid to expand its ranks from fifteen to twenty-five nations and effectively double in size, population, and economic power. Among the invitees was Cyprus. Despite the collapse of talks meant to reunite the island after almost thirty years of Turkish occupation, the Greek Cypriots will be allowed to join the EU in 2004 on their own, in effect achieving the political enosis or unification with Greece that Turkey had so melodramatically feared and sought to prevent with its ill-conceived invasion in 1974. The second irony here is that by torpedoing any possible power-sharing plan in Cyprus out of hand, the "Turkish Cypiots" - many of whom are mainland Turks, imported at the behest of Ankara to maintain the fiction of a functioning state on their third of the island - have also ruined for now their best chance to get a Turkish foot into the door of the European Union, in light of the fact that Turkey did not receive an invitation to join the EU this time around, on account of its questionable human rights record. And I say good riddance. Until Turkey gets its act together, owns up to past misdeeds against the Armenians and ongoing atrocities against the Kurds, and starts behaving as though democracy was a fundamental value and not mere window-dressing to woo EU ministers and assuage Americans' concerns that our best ally in the Middle East is a military dictatorship, it has no place in a European state. Cries of anti-Islamist sentiments being behind the Turkish snub are baseless. Europe already has a sizeable Muslim population, which will continue to grow with or without Turkey's membership. Moreover, Turkey is hardly an "Islamic" nation - in fact, its absolute repression of any form of religious expression among its citizenry is part of the reason why Turkey currently fails to live up to the EU's criteria on human rights. Now I'm no partisan, despite the fact that my wife's family hails in part from Asia Minor, which was Greek since before the Jews had even been promised a Promised Land, up until Turkish nationalism drove them out in 1922 (though Greek nationalism was also to blame, it's true). If Turkey can shape up and learn to respect its people - all of its people - I don't see why the Turks shouldn't be one day invited into the European Union. There have been encouraging signs here and there, but a true sea change has yet to come.

But a sea change is exactly what has happened with the EU's historic decision to expand to almost twice its present size. As one would expect, the American reaction to this news has been muted, and that's if there's any reaction at all. Americans typically react to any European development with disdain, as we're trapped in the mindset that the Europe of 2002 is somehow still the Europe we had to save from itself twice, during World War One and World War Two. To us, Europe is socialized medicine, Germans in black turtlenecks named Dieter, bleeding-heart wusses who instinctively criticize everything the United States government does for the benefit of the rest of the world. Europe is irrelevant, EU or no EU, as far as most of America is concerned. Boy, are we in for a surprise. For the first time in history, Europe has united under a banner of peace, not war. Say what you will about faceless Eurocrats shuffling paper in Brussels - this is no small feat, that Germans settle their disputes with French and English and Dutch and Belgians (and vice versa!) in meetings and negotiations, and not on the field of battle, and who truly knows what the consequences will be in the long-term? Here's to finding out!

Crazy Tasty! That's the new slogan for SPAM, the celebrated canned meat invented by Hormel Foods back in 1937. Slate has a great article today about the recent advertising campaign Hormel has launched to revive Spam sales, complete with links to two deliciously demented television commericals. My only beef (or should I say pork?) with the Slate piece is that the author has never even tried Spam, a fact which I feel diminishes his appreciation for the now-kitschy staple of the old American pantry. I have fond memories of eating fried Spam sandwiches by firelight, while camping and canoeing my way through the Jersey pine barrens with a friend. The miracle of food in a can is not lost on you when you've been paddling your arms off all day. The author also neglects to mention that while Spam may have become better known as the junk mail we all receive daily on our e-mail accounts here in America, the gelatinous spiced ham food product still has cachet in certain parts of the world. In Hawaii, where Spam-eating started during the dark days of World War II, it is still thought of as a delicacy, and is prepared in myriad imaginative ways such as Spam sushi, grilled Spam with pineapples, even Spam with poi; the same is true in Korea, where Spam with fried rice is considered a classic home-cooked meal. In Guam you can get Spam on your pizza at Pizza Hut! The scary thing is, the more you search for the presence of Spam in cuisine around the world (try the indispenable Chowhounds website if you don't believe me), the more you find it, from Spam and onions in the Czech kitchen to fried eggs and Spam served up in Cuban restaurants for breakfast. All told, Spam-love is still alive and well among peoples outside of America, who don't need any zany commercials to keep their relationship fresh!

"It belongs in a museum!" Yes, but whose? The BBC News reports that a coalition of 18 of the world's most prominent museums - including the Museum of Fine Arts here in Boston - has issued a declaration of noncompliance with countries demanding the repatriation of antiquities removed from sites within their borders. By redefining themselves as "universal museums" and sidestepping the shady details of how their institutions acquired their collections, these museums are hoping that strength in numbers can somehow stem the tide that is returning archaeological artifacts to their countries of origin in ever-increasing numbers. But their arguments are specious at best, and downright insulting to the rest of the world at worst.

"The objects and monumental works that were installed decades and even centuries ago in museums throughout Europe and America were acquired under conditions that are not comparable with current ones," the statement reads, which even if tue does not vacate the museums' moral obligation now to return what was admittedly ransacked in ages past.

There may be some truth as well when the coalition declares: "The universal admiration for ancient civilisations would not be so deeply established today were it not for the influence exercised by the artefacts of these cultures, widely available to an international public in major museums." But that time has past. Whereas until very recently the museum and the idea of cultural preservation was a Western phenomenon, even the remotest corners of the earth have museums now. To argue that antiquities belonged in an environment conducive to their survival and appreciation was one of the greatest rationales of the colonial powers, when they carted off art and artifacts by the boatload to such institutions as the British Museum and the Louvre. The argument had a certain seductive logic to it, though even during the time of Lord Elgin (whose "Elgin Marbles", stolen from the Parthenon in Athens, remain a bone of contention between the United Kingdom and Greece to this day) it was starting to ring hollow to some.

Today such reasoning is intellectually bankrupt, and smacks of more than a little paternalism on the West's part. There is a museum revolution going on in the world today, from small Native American museums in New England to visitor centers at lowland Mexican jungle ruins, and it's silly to say that big museums should keep their booty because only they can do these items justice. Antiquities don't need to be permanent features of Western museums in order to go on fostering a love for all things ancient. Smaller museums have made a cottage industry of lending out their collections to the larger institutions, as the Egyptians did recently with their wildly-successful tour of mummies; and with the advent of digital archives and the world wide web, admiration is only a click away.

112 days until Opening Day of the 2003 season for Major League Baseball. Yes, I did count that out on my calendar. So far the only bold move the Red Sox have made in the off-season was the hiring of 28-year-old Theo Epstein as General Manager, the youngest GM in MLB history. Whether Theo will turn out to be the wunderkind promised by the team's owners or little more than cannon fodder for the sports radio blowhards remains to be seen, but one thing you can depend on is that Red Sox Nation won't be cutting him much slack, especially on the heels of such a disappointing season as last year's. Our new GM claims that baseball is "in his blood" - let's hope he has a rawhide-thick skin as well.

A less ballyhooed but more potentially interesting announcement by the folks at Yawkey Way was that they were now seeking the counsel of Bill James, the eminent baseball statistician, whom they've made their senior operations adviser. Baseball is the game of statistics, and yet very few clubs have employed mathematicians to help them divine winning patterns from the accumulated data of batting averages, E.R.A.'s, slugging percentages, and the like. Which is a shame, because the field of statistical analysis has evolved rapidly in recent years, and baseball has always been a pet field for many a math whiz (inlcuding one of my calculus professors at MIT), so the pairing seems natural to me. At any rate, getting a genius to run the numbers for us couldn't possibly hurt. We've had priests and psychics performing exorcisms at Fenway Park and a team of scuba-divers searching a pond in Sudbury for a grand piano reportedly tossed in by Babe Ruth, and God knows who else trying to ward off the Sox's bad mojo on the Mulder front; it's about time we hired ourselves a Scully, as well.

Lest we forget what this holiday season is really about, the folks at Cthulhu Lives present the Carol of the Old Ones, as sung by the Dagon Tabernacle Choir:

Look to the sky, way up on high
There in the night stars are now right.
Eons have passed: now then at last
Prison walls break, Old Ones awake!
They will return: mankind will learn
New kinds of fear when they are here.
They will reclaim all in their name;
Hopes turn to black when they come back.
Ignorant fools, mankind now rules
Where they ruled then: it's theirs again

Stars brightly burning, boiling and churning
Bode a returning season of doom

Scary scary scary scary solstice
Very very very scary solstice

Up from the sea, from underground
Down from the sky, they're all around
They will return: mankind will learn
New kinds of fear when they are here

Look to the sky, way up on high
There in the night stars are now right.
Eons have passed: now then at last
Prison walls break, Old Ones awake!
Madness will reign, terror and pain
Woes without end where they extend.
Ignorant fools, mankind now rules
Where they ruled then: it's theirs again

Stars brightly burning, boiling and churning
Bode a returning season of doom

Scary scary scary scary solstice
Very very very scary solstice

Up from the sea, from underground
Down from the sky, they're all around.

Fear

(Look to the sky, way up on high
There in the night stars now are right)

They will return.

Now did they mean H.P. Lovecraft's Old Ones, or Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Admiral Poindexter, and - last but not least - Henry Kissinger?

Ah, well. Either way, it works!