Notre Dame looks nice, mostly

I'm actually kind of surprised by how good the cathedral turned out.  The interior stone was dingy and gloomy before, but now it's white and gleaming.  The cleaned artworks have more "pop" to them.  The whole interior is brighter and more cheerful-looking.  Removing centuries worth of grime makes a difference.

The repair and renovation crews deserve a lot of applause for what they've accomplished.  And the French government deserves credit for not finding a way to muck things up.

The new altar sucks, though.  It's a Modernist nightmare.  Its flat metal surface could pass as a griddle.  When the priest was pouring oil on it, I half-expected him to start frying up some hash browns.  This sort of modern ugliness--which unfortunately applies to some of the other accoutrements, too, not just the altar--is about how I expected the whole renovation to go.  

But the building itself was fortunately spared that fate.  It looks the best it has ever looked in my lifetime, and the workers did a fantastic job on it.

Perhaps a future generation can replace the altar and other Modernist doodads with something that's actually handsome.

A baleful winter?

There's a scene from Groundhog Day where Bull Murray's character is in the doldrums.  He gives his speech to the camera and says his prediction is for a winter that will be cold and hard and last for the rest of your life.

I don't think things will get quite that bad, but winter has definitely come on strong these past few days with sub-freezing lows at night and bitterly dry air that threatens to turn everything to dust.

The good news is that Sunday is predicted to be a little warmer.  The low that day is just 45, and the high is projected to be 58.  But it's a long way to Sunday, and forecasts change frequently as you get closer.

My gut tells me that this winter will be no milder or colder than any other and probably fairly average.  But my cynical side is telling me to be prepared for an arctic blast that hits like a sledgehammer.

Worst coup ever

So the South Korean president decides that his government is full of guys who are conspiring with the North Koreans.  He then declares martial law, presumably to root out the traitors.  He has the support of the military.  He could become a dictator-for-life sort of thing in South Korea if he wants.

Then the parliament tells him to knock it off, so he does.  The tell him to resign or be impeached, so he resigns.  And that's apparently the end of the story.

I don't get it.  What was the point of it all?  Why take such a big gamble if you're just going to fold like a lawn chair at the first sign of resistance?

This all happened so fast and to such trivial effect that the price of gold didn't even spike higher.  Lol...