Ig Nobel winner Elena Bodnar is scheduled to be on the Canadian Discovery Channel show, Daily Planet, and I'd like very much to end up with one, two, or even three recordings of it. A digital recording would of course rock, but even a VCR tape would be great.

Daily Planet airs at 7pm EST, and is shown again at 11pm. I'm trying to figure out how to watch the whole thing online, and how to know which segment to purchase from the Canadian iTunes store. I don't know what the delay is on them going up on iTunes.

Any help, info, or advice quite welcome!

The 19th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony is Thursday evening, October 1st, at Harvard's Sanders Theatre.

If you're in the Boston area, oh, do come. It's going to be amazing. Ten (count 'em 10) Nobel Laureates on stage to give this year's Ig Nobel winners their awards. Keynote address by Benoit Mandelbrot (who likes debgeisler's cookies). Paper airplanes and other amusements.

Although tickets for the Ig Nobel ceremony are almost sold out, there are a few “imperfect view” seats left. They’re not available through the Harvard Box Office web site, though — only in person or by phone 617-496-2222.

If you're not in the Boston area and won't be flying here Thursday, watch the live webcast starting at 7:15 pm Tuesday. Or maybe even 7:14 pm.

I've been eyes-deep in rehearsals since last Saturday. I'm not in the Risk Cabaret Concert or The Big Bank Opera, but I will be running the slides showing the lyrics as they are being sung. Knowing the material and how it's being performed comes in really handy. Hence, the rehearsals.

There's quite a bit of other Ig-related excitement in my life right now. All will be revealed about it after tomorrow night's show.

Edited to reflect a better coherence with the days of the week on this planet...and again.

The duck in a truck story has drawn over 500 comments on the website of the LA NBC station that ran it in late January. And it's currently the lead post in the Improbable Research blog, thanks to Kees Moeliker, the original Duck Guy. Kees won an Ig Nobel Prize in 2003 for documenting the first scientifically recorded case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard duck. But we won't tell Joe Mansheim that part of the story. Unless he goes ego-scanning via Google and stumbles across it here or there, that is.

Kees even has a book, The Duck Guy, coming out later this month. I'd have to read Dutch to fully enjoy it, but I'm not going to let my limited language skills stop me. It doesn't look like the book will be out in time for me to ask Vince to pick up a copy to bring to Boskone next week, but I'm going to take along some of my foreign currency in the hope that he'll be able to find a copy later and bring it over on a future trip.

(Speaking of Duck Guys, I have no idea what Minneapolis fan Mike Wood might have thought of Kees' research. He would have totally grokked the Joe & Frank story, though. I'm pleasantly surprised to realize I can clearly imagine seeing and hearing his reaction to it, even though it's 25+ years since Mike died and I never knew him all that well in the first place. Interesting.)

Update: Oops. Improbable link now fixed. In the nature of blogs, there's now a new post on top. You can go straight to the duck, or have fun scrolling through everything. Be sure to catch the Improbable TV episode about the Toe-tapping Cane Toads.

My car played a trick on me, and earned a new treat in return. ( Or maybe I was the one playing the trick... )

As I wrote in minnehaha K's and debgeisler's LJs yesterday, my mailbox and other bits of frontage were included in the massive TP'ing that stretches over 3/4 mile along Monson Road. I like watching the TP draped over my power lines blowing in the breeze. It makes me feel like a member of the community, even if it would be more accurate to say the kids were simply more energetic than they've been in the past. I don't remember them ever making it past the pond before. So that counts as both a trick and a treat.

My Ravelry invitation arrived today! That's pure treat, I hope, though it could prove to be a time-consuming one. Ravelry is, in their words, "a place for knitters, crocheters, designers, spinners, and dyers to keep track of their yarn, tools and pattern information, and look to others for ideas and inspiration." Edie Stern is having a blast with it, and I hope I will, too. In my Copious Free Time, of course. snippy, I've just friended you there, and joined the Ravelry LJ group, too. But when will I have time for knitting?!?

Speaking of treats, I have a new client. Thanks to elaine_brennan referring me to rosefox, and Rose then referring me on, I'm going to be helping with layout on the bi-monthly Annals of Improbable Research! Whoohoo! And speaking of work, I'm going to toddle along and do some more of it now.

Happy Halloween, everyone! Best wishes for a treat-filled night!