Tanza and I watched Little Miss Sunshine tonight. That movie is a huge squirm-fest at the end, where it doesn't pull any punches against the child beauty contest industry. The character of Dwayne was amazing, and Paul Dano did a great job of playing him. I respect any actor who can play the first half a movie without saying a word and still be one of the most sympathetic characters in the whole thing. Playing with Steve Carell as your voice probably didn't hurt.

On Connie's advice, I used cream of tartar to try to remove the burned-on soup residue from my favorite soup pot. I added a fair amount to about half an inch of boiling water and boiled the water off until the cream of tartar powder was left crystalized onto the bottom. I believe that it both bound to the residue and acted as an abrasive for the rest when I scrubbed it off the pot. Only a few tiny patches of residue are left.

The research I did last night on the moon was a confusing batch of figures, only a few of which were relevant. Here are the important parts:

• The moon is not on an even plane with the Sun, but slightly off so that the normal rotation of the moon doesn't cause a lunar eclipse every time the moon and Sun are on opposite sides of the Earth and a solar eclipse when they are on the same side.
• The moon orbits and the Earth spins in a counter-clockwise rotation.
• A full moon happens (roughly) when you can draw a straight line from the Sun to the moon through the Earth (ignoring the fact that they're not on the same plane).
• At sunset, a city on earth has just finished passing across the lit side of Earth and would be at a point on the planet that is perpendicular to the line between the sun and the moon.

I've sketched out a diagram with right angles so that it makes more sense, but any suggestions on how to simplify my explanation would be gratefully received.

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