Part of the upcoming James Bond movie “Quantum of Solace” was filmed at Paranal Observatory in Chile, home of the Very Large Telescope (VLT). The European Southern Observatory, which operates the VLT and some other major telescopes, is making good use of the publicity this brings to astronomy. They set up a dedicated website, BondAtParanal.org, and made a very slick Bond-style video clip about the VLT. The Bond producers kindly gave permission for the 007 Theme to be used.

My thesis supervisor was at Paranal when the movie scenes were shot in late March. Her husband is ESO’s Director General, so he was there as well. They met director Marc Forster, some of the producers, and the lead actors: Daniel Craig (Bond), Olga Kurylenko (Bond girl Camille) and Mathieu Amalric (villain Dominic Greene). After the first day of shooting, they took most of the crew on a tour of the VLT. A few hours later, they took 007 himself (and his girlfriend, and three body guards) on a private tour. According to my supervisor’s enthusiastic stories, everyone was very excited to be at Paranal and very interested in the work going on there.

As a way of saying thanks, the producers invited my supervisor’s husband over to the Pinewood Studios in London in June. My supervisor of course freed up some of her schedule to go along. The Paranal Residencia had been rebuilt at full scale, except for some modifications to benefit the story. It will feature as the villain’s hideout and will be blown up at the end of the movie, which ESO didn’t want them to do with the real thing.

I’m very much looking forward to seeing QoS. It’ll be difficult for it to be better than “Casino Royale”, but the scenes at Paranal alone are going to make for an awesome movie.

It’s taken a while (a long while), but the moment finally arrived this morning that I could submit my second paper. It deals with the chemical history of the material that surrounds young stars. We constructed a model to simulate the formation of a star and its surrounding disk. (At a later stage, that disk is where planets are formed, but we didn’t include that part.) It proved to be quite a challenge to make something that is simple to work with and produces realistic results, but I think we did very well in the end. We used the density and temperature profiles from this model to calculate the gas and ice concentrations of carbon monoxide and water, two molecules of great importance in space.

The paper will now be sent to a referee, who will hopefully send us some constructive and favourable comments. If things move quickly, the paper will appear in Astronomy & Astrophysics towards the end of the year.

How’s that for an amateur in a game of bowling?

I was at a bowling alley with two friends for two hours last Friday, playing a total of six rounds. We were having a lot of fun and I was posting some decent scores throughout the first five games, but nothing too remarkable. The best I got was 153, just below my all-time high of 155.

To make things more interesting, the bowling alley was handing out Flügels for every strike thrown in the last fifteen minutes of each hour. (A Flügel is a mix of Red Bull and vodka. They come exclusively in 20-ml bottles.) We got five of them the first time and of course we wanted to get some more the second time.

Two or three minutes before the second Flügel-for-a-strike round, I was up for the last frame in our fifth game. I needed a couple of good shots for a chance to win. With three strikes, I couldn’t have done better. My one friend followed up with two more strikes, but couldn’t get all pins down with his last throw. Unfortunately, none of those five strikes got us any Flügels.

The start of our sixth game coincided with the start of the second Flügel round. I was up first and started off perfectly with a strike for the fourth one in a row. It’s not often that I get three or even two strikes in a row, so that was kind of nice. And of course it got us a Flügel.

In the next frame, I missed my chance for five strikes in a row, settling instead for six and three pins. I got another strike in frame three for another trip to the bar to get a Flügel. From there on, I pretty much split time between throwing strikes and walking between our lane and the bar. I missed in the seventh frame, much to the disappointment of the bar people, who by now were watching our lane closely. Fortunately, I got two more strikes in frames eight and nine. I had a chance to finish the game in style, but one pin sadly wouldn’t cooperate on my last shot.

Still, I suppose seven strikes in ten frames isn’t bad. Even better, I threw ten strikes in twelve attempts from the last frame of game five through the ninth frame of game six. Usually, I need four or five games to get ten strikes.

At the end of it all, the three of us had fifteen Flügels from those two times fifteen minutes. My final score in game six was 212. Just to boast a little bit more: that’s 16 points above the average score in the 2006 World Men’s Championship.

The French have come up with a new way to save themselves the trouble of having to speak English. Operating through the Organisation internationale de la francophonie (International Organization of La Francophonie), they have reinforced French’s traditional status as one of the two official languages of the Olympics.

Why?

Or should I say, pourquoi?

I’m all for using two languages at the Olympics, but that should be English and the native language of the host country. French has no place as an official language at worldwide events, even if you accept it as the world’s second most influential language. It only has that ranking because the French-speaking community is so actively promoting its use around the world, which I’m tempted to say is solely to save the French the effort of having to learn English. The paper by George Weber, linked above, has a more balanced discussion of the status of French (the text between Figs. 10 and 11 is of particular interest), but it comes down to the same conclusion: French is artificially held to be more influential than it really is.

Abdou Diouf, the Secretary-General of La Francophonie, said the promotion of French as an integral part of the Olympics was to ensure linguistic and cultural diversity that will benefit all languages and cultures.

Ehm, Mr. Diouf, please explain how forcing everything Olympic to be done in English and French is going to benefit the Dutch language and culture.

The way I see it, it only ensures that the French don’t have to speak English. The driving force behind this agreement was French president Nicolas Sarkozy, who has been praised for improving relations between France and the USA. So, just when it looked like Sarkozy’s France was reaching out a little bit, they pull a 180 and go back to their old chauvinistic ways. If they don’t want to speak English, that’s fine, but they should not then force the rest of the world to speak French. Ils ne peuvent pas avoir leur gâteau et le manger aussi.

GAME FACTS OF THE DAY: Team Cuba at Team Netherlands, Game 14 of the Haarlemse Honkbalweek. Team Cuba won 4-1 in 9 innings.

MY ROLE OF THE DAY: Spectator, front-row seats, some 20 meters beyond third base.

SHOW STOPPER OF THE DAY: The rain again. We were at the ball park at 1pm to see the 2pm game between the US and Chinese Taipei. The start of that game was pushed back, then pushed back some more, and then got postponed to the next day altogether. At least it stayed dry throughout the 7pm Netherlands-Cuba game.

POOR FORECASTING OF THE DAY: At a few minutes to two, the announcer said they’d checked the weather forecasts and it would stop raining by 2.15. It was still raining at 2.15. The announcer said they’d checked again, and now it would really stop within half an hour. It was still raining at 2.45, and at 3 o’clock, and at 3.15. By that time, the game had already been cancelled.

UNLUCKY SHOTS OF THE DAY: Dutch right fielder Dirk van ‘t Klooster, usually very able to produce hits, must have been in ill favour with the baseball gods. He caused five outs in three at-bats: a 4-3 double play, a 4-6-3 double play, and a low line-out to third. The last one might have been a double play if the third baseman had let the ball bounce before gloving it.

DESIGNATED NON-HITTER OF THE DAY: Dutch DH Wesley Connor went 0-for-3 with three strikeouts, despite a sixth-best .348 batting average in the Dutch regular season so far. He batted seventh against Cuba, which is a bit of a weird spot to put your DH. The Seattle Mariners were the only team on Opening Day this year with a DH batting that far down in the line-up, and look where it got them: the worst win-loss record in the American League. No wonder we lost against Cuba. Connor would have gone 3-for-3 if he’d batted in a proper DH spot.

FAN CATCH OF THE DAY: A guy above us and to our left attempted to catch a high foul ball, but seemed to forget he was holding a bag of popcorn. The ball came down right smack in the middle of the bag, sending a shower of popcorn across three rows of seats. Too bad none of the cameras caught it, for it was worth seeing a couple more times.

I’m trying out a new format for my baseball posts, inspired by the Cynics Corner Star Trek reviews. It’ll probably take a few posts before I’m comfortable with it, or I may decide to go back to the old way. We’ll see, time will tell, and such.

GAME FACTS OF THE DAY: Keytown Hitters 2 at Orioles 3, regular-season sixth-division game. Orioles won 14-9 in 5.5 innings.

MY ROLE OF THE DAY: Starting pitcher and hitting second in the line-up.

UNEXPECTED PERFORMANCE OF THE DAY: Our regular starting pitcher had to attend his parents’ wedding anniversary, so it was my turn today to lead our defense. Considering that I hadn’t pitched more than three innings in a game so far this year and had struggled quite badly pitching in relief in the last two games, and considering that we were playing a very experienced team today, success was hardly guaranteed. Nevertheless, we were still in the lead after four innings. In fact, the fourth inning was my best: three up, three down. However, …

A BRIDGE TOO FAR OF THE DAY: … things broke down in the fifth. The home team got a better handle on whatever I threw and managed to build quite a two-out rally. Without that frame, or with a bit more luck on our part, we would have had a good chance at victory.

PITCHERS DON’T HIT OF THE DAY: I had my second-worst game at the plate, going 0-for-3 with a walk. My average is now down to .333, and my on-base percentage is down to .600.

POOR SPORTSMANSHIP OF THE DAY: All throughout the first four innings, while they were behind in the score, the Orioles were being a bit of a nuisance. They kept picking on the umpire, on us and on each other. It wasn’t really adversarial, but not all that classy either. At the other end, we were still enjoying ourselves when we lost our lead in the fifth.

GAME FACTS OF THE DAY: Dutch Carribean Team at Team Netherlands, Game 4 of the Haarlemse Honkbalweek. Team Netherlands won 5-1 in 8.5 innings.

MY ROLE OF THE DAY: Spectator, front-row seats, not too far beyond first base.

BACKGROUND OF THE DAY: The Haarlemse Honkbalweek (Haarlem Baseball Week; HHW) is a biannual baseball tournament in Haarlem, one of the two major baseball cities in the Netherlands. This year, it features the national teams of the Netherlands and Cuba, college all-star teams from the US, Taiwan (Chinese Taipei) and Japan, and a combined team from the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba (the “Dutch Carribean”).

SHOW STOPPER OF THE DAY: The rain. A steady drizzle turned into a serious downpour in the top of the fifth, killing the Dutch Carribean Team’s would-be rally. The players from the Antilles, Aruba and St. Maarten had just scored their first run and had runners on first and second with one out when the umpires halted play. When play resumed 25 minutes later, a double play ended the visitors’ only real threat of the day.

ENOUGH’S ENOUGH OF THE DAY: The third rain delay. Already wet and cold from the fifth-inning showers, we held out through an 11-minute rain break in the top of the seventh before calling it a day after the bottom of that frame. With the Netherlands comfortably leading 5-1 and the skies not showing any sign of drying up soon, we didn’t want to risk pneumonia just to see the final two innings. Besides, my supposedly water-proof Eastpak was proving not to be. Play resumed at 10:47pm after a 58-minute break and the score didn’t change anymore.

FAN FAVOURITE OF THE DAY: The stands behind us were filled with kids and their parents from the Flags ball club in the nearby town of Lisse. They were loudly cheering for first-base umpire Jan Kuipers, who must be a well-known figure in that club. Every out at first was met with enthusiastic screaming from the Flags folks–directed not at the defense, but at the umpire making the call.

FAN FAVOURITE OF THE DAY RUNNER-UP: Ryoji Nakata, the Japanese DH from the afternoon game, looks like a wider and shorter version of Prince Fielder. If he was a bit bigger, he’d make a fine sumo wrestler. The man can hit the ball hard, and that seems to be about all that he’s good at. Running just doesn’t work for him, having to carry that weight on those short legs. The crowd went wild every time he came up to the plate.

UNEXPLAINED WARDROBE CHANGE OF THE DAY: The base umpires were wearing jackets when the game started. When they came back from the first rain delay, they had left them in the dressing room. Would they rather get with in their normal shirt?

OVERDRESSING OF THE DAY: One of the Carribean bench players wore a balaclava with only his eyes exposed–even before it actually turned cold.

YOU’RE ONLY AS OLD AS YOU FEEL OF THE DAY: Our part of the stands was separated from the field by a walkway. The bottom of the stands stood about a meter from the ground, with a double railing making sure no one would accidentally fall off. Before the game, an elderly man, walking with a rollator, approached on the walkway and asked whether the seat next to me was still available. I said yes and expected the man to go around the back of the stands to find the stairway up. Instead, the man put aside his rollator and tried to do what many of the younger spectators did: climb over the railing. He hoisted himself up onto the ledge extending underneath the railing. He couldn’t swing his leg over the top bar, so he tried to fold through the gap between the two bars. People all around us were scared he would fall and break something. Well, he didn’t fall, but he also didn’t get through the railing. He climbed back down to the walkway, went around the back of the stands, and found the stairway up.

STUPIDITY OF THE DAY: I understand the benefits of an umbrella when it’s raining, but when someone in front of you holds one up, it pretty much blocks your view of the field. Those umbrellas are also dangerous. I was waiting for someone to get poked in the eye…

The third-division game I was umpiring had some weird managing antics and a very dramatic ninth inning. The visiting team manager surprised everyone–including his own players–with his substitutions. In the second inning, their first batter drew a walk and was replaced at first by a pinch runner. They sent up another pinch runner in the sixth inning, replacing a guy who had only come into the game the inning before. That guy was not amused.

Down a couple of runs in the seventh inning, the manager pulled a new rabbit out of his hat. He put himself into the line-up, batting for his catcher. He took two pitches before asking a time-out to give signs to his runners at first and second. They attempted a double steal on the next pitch–not quite surprising, but they made it nonetheless. The player-manager then hit an RBI single and allowed the other runner to score by getting himself in a rundown.

The eight inning finished with the home team up 6-4. They kept their starting pitcher on the mound to close out the game. They got two outs, but also allowed runners on second and third. The next batter got two strikes. Down to the visitors’ final strike, the batter swung at the next pitch–one down and away–and slapped it into right field for a game-tying triple. The visitors rallied for six (!) more runs before the home team finally retired them.

Of course, the home team wasn’t just going to give up, despite the unexpected six-run gap. A couple of hits and errors brought the score up to 12-10. That was the cue for the visiting manager to pull off his final stunt. Apparently having lost all confidence in his players, he put himself on the mound and let loose with a series of curve balls to try and close out the game. He might have succeeded if he’d hit the strike zone some more. A lot of his pitches sailed wide; indeed, another run scored on a wild pitch. That set the stage for the home team to cap their dramatic come-back with a two-out, game-tying single. The pitcher-manager then finally struck out the next batter to send the game into extra innings…

… except that it was 10:53pm at that time, and no new inning may be started anymore after 10:50pm. Dutch rules allow for a tie game in such cases, so that’s exactly what we got: a 12-12 tie. Who would have thought that 34 minutes earlier, when we started the ninth inning at 6-4?

That’s what my left side looks like right now, courtesy of today’s starting pitcher for the Maassluis Gophers. His 1-2 pitch in my first at-bat went way inside and hit me square above the hip. It’s one of the more painful hit-by-pitches I’ve had in my baseball life.

The same pitcher proceeded to hit our right fielder in his thigh in the second inning. In the third, he hit our left fielder (a new guy, in his first ever at-bat) on his wrist, deflecting against his cheek. The pitcher got pulled after that frame, only to have the reliever hit our catcher in his foot in the fourth.

It got us a couple of base runners, but we couldn’t really come through at the plate otherwise. (In fact, we might have had more hit batsmen than base hits.) We had a lousy day on defense as well, resulting in a 21-2 loss. The good news: we had fun. We’ve had a couple of big losses this year, but we’re having fun each time. We’re not playing to win this year, but to have a good time.

In between the having fun, I’m also swinging the bat quite well. I have a five-game hitting streak going, getting my average up to .412. Thanks to eight walks and three HBPs in 28 plate appearances, my on-base percentage is .643.

I was back to the second spot in the line-up today, after hitting lead-off for the previous two games. I was 3-for-3 in those games (a double to start each game and a single in the first game) with three walks, so I kind of wonder why our coach put me back in my old spot. I still got a hit today: a roller that only got halfway to third base. Not a chance for either the third baseman or the pitcher to throw me out on that one. My third at-bat almost resulted in a sacrifice fly. I hit a one-out fly ball to right field deep enough for the runner from third to score, but the runner from first went too far from his base and he was put out before the other guy crossed the plate. Instead of a sac fly, it was an inning-ending double play.

After starting as short stop, I got to pitch the final 1.2 innings. We were already far behind when I took the mount, so I treated it pretty much as a practice session. My best pitch was the one that ended the last inning. I was throwing fastballs all the time, because I didn’t really have control on my change-up. With the bases empty and two out, I got the batter on one ball and two strikes. I thought I’d try another change-up and this one worked beautifully. It went through the middle of the zone, but the batter swung way too early. Strike three.

Meanwhile, my old team continues to play well. After winning the championship in the 5th Division last year, they’ve led the standing in the 4th Division all year so far. (The lower the number of a Division, the higher the level of play.) I don’t have any numbers on this, but I’m sure it doesn’t happen often that a team wins one Division one year and a higher Division the next year. With nine out of sixteen games played, my old team has an 8-1 win-loss record. The number two team is 5-3, followed by two 5-4 teams and two 4-4 teams. My old team won’t play the number two team until late August. If they win that game, the championship is pretty much theirs.