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Today we went to this place [Wikipedia] in Hartford, which opened up this past June, which was pretty interesting and certainly entertained my inner child. The exhibits on green energy and Connecticut geology were pretty cool (there was one where a helicopter traveled the length of the Connecticut River from source to mouth while shooting video, and you could scroll through this video to see various places along the river), as well as exhibits relating to being able to see weather and sunspot activity from the past year, being able to see things like hurricane activity, ocean currents, and how ash from the Mt. Pinatubo eruption spread around the world on a big globe, and seeing the math behind various high-speed activities like space shuttle landings, supersonic cars, and spacediving. My favorite was one where you had to wrap a band around your head and try to move a ball in a tube using your brain waves; it was a competition with a partner, where you were supposed to put the ball in the opposite end of the tube, and the way to do that was if you relaxed your brain enough, not thinking about it intensely like what one would expect to do in something like this. I lost the first couple of times, but then I got the hang of it and pretty much beat the other family units. XD All in all, a pretty good if very tiring day (although it was marred, as usual, when we were trying to find a restaurant that looked interesting in the downtown area, but seeing that Hartford is extremely difficult to get around by car, we ended up in the inner city instead, so we ate in another town instead; we should've either gotten directions off Google Maps beforehand, or ate at the museum café and save ourselves the trouble).

Three things I ended up thinking about during the whole time: 1) I had gotten this place confused with this museum [Wikipedia] in West Hartford, and thought that they had moved to this new location, but apparently I had just gotten the names confused; the museum in West Hartford used to have a name that sounded similar to the one we went to today, that's why. (I had actually been there a couple of times, and once for Cub Scouts we had an astronomy-themed sleepover one weeked, where they organized activites and had us sleep in sleeping bags in their planetarium. It's an interesting place, but it hasn't changed much over the years and I suspect a good portion of it is pretty outdated -- looking at their website, it doesn't seem like they have that open computer lab they used to have anymore, though I guess that's because almost every family that comes in there nowadays has a computer and an Internet hookup for themelves, and the computer were pretty old and had NetNanny filters on them anyway.) 2) While this place was very nice, The Tech in San Jose, CA [Wikipedia] was much bigger and had more exhibits, and some of the exhibits in each were the same or similar. 3) When I go to places like this, I can't help but wonder how many of the little kids who go there and (hopefully) have fun actually get inspired to do something science-related later on in life, and how many of them are so focused/invested on doing interactive/hands-on activities and having a good time that it seems like they care about science and/or nature when they really don't. (Of course, this speculation would probably be better in this Big Rant on Education that I plan on writing one of these days.)

Also, a bit of WTF from the local political front:
WWE confirms [Linda] McMahon's Senate interest

First rumors of Alec Baldwin contemplating moving to Connecticut to run against Joe Lieberman in 2012, now this. I'm well aware Chris Dodd is really at risk of losing this time around, I know the election is still a long ways away, and I know McMahon might not run after all, but this is still pretty WTF-worthy in my book. I mean, I'd like to think things aren't so insane here that celebrities want to try to get involved in politics, but I guess not. We're still saner than some other states, all things considered, but still. :/ (Then again, sometimes I forget WWE headquarters are in this state, and a lot of celebrities and plutocrats have their homes here, so...yeah.)

I got some memes I want to do, but I'll wait until later tonight because I'm way too lazy and tired right now.