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Monday, November 10th, 2008
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I went to see this place this weekend. Didn't go inside (JJ didn't have ID with him) but it was fun to see where it is.
Also at a Peruvian place called Lima's Taste at 122 Christopher Street. The food was good, although not much like the Peruvian food I had in Madrid, and relatively small portions for the price.
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Comments: Add Your Own.
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Sunday, November 2nd, 2008
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George will puts the spending for the 2008 political campains into perfect perspective:
"The Center for Responsive Politics calculates that, by Election Day, $2.4 billion will have been spent on presidential campaigns since January 2007, and an additional $2.9 billion will have been spent on 435 House and 35 Senate contests. This $5.3 billion is a billion less than Americans will spend this year on potato chips."
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Comments: Read 6 or Add Your Own.
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Tuesday, October 14th, 2008
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Monday, October 13th, 2008
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I was in Union Station today and I saw this boy, about 10, with a home-made-looking paper cone hat. I thought he was just a weird kid who made himself a weird hat, but then I saw it had writing. Looking closer, I felt instant pity:
"I will only fart in the bathroom"
It said it twice, once on each side. There's not a lot these days that really surprises me, but I was pretty well shocked that a parent would make a kid wear that. What is the world coming to, when a 10-year-old boy can't fart?
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Comments: Read 5 or Add Your Own.
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Sunday, September 28th, 2008
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Eating Cheetos(tm) or other cheesy poofs with chopsticks keeps your fingers pristine clean.
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Comments: Read 8 or Add Your Own.
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Just when I thought I'd heard every horror story our of Africa, there's a new one about the treatment of albino people, including a young girl attacked in her home, her legs hacked off and left to bleed to death.
Yes, reading it did make me cry.
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Comments: Read 1 or Add Your Own.
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Work is starting to really pick up. I've been working 12 hour days lately which wouldn't be an issue, really, except that JJ is in from New York until he goes back to China for a month in June. So it's a little inopportune.
I found out this week than I have 268 euros worth of photo sales through Emporis, a commercial buildings site. I think I need to step up my photo-taking and maybe I'll make more sales. Apparently most of those sales were from almost two years ago, so I guess by waiting I've inadvertently played the currency markets to an extra gain of about $65. :-)
As I'm sure those of you in Chicago have heard, foie gras was unbanned here. It took me about a week to take advantage, what with my work hours and all, but when I finally did it was quite worth it. I'd forgotten how much I like it. Anthony Bourdain (sp?) has a video on YouTube where he goes to Hudson Valley Farms in New York to show the process and talk to a vet about how ducks and people are different. It was interesting, and while I'm sure there are a few cruel producers somewhere, the process is considerably less cruel than animal rights people would have you believe.
Click here to see the video.
In fact, at Hudson Valley Farms, I'd say the foie gras ducks are treated exceedingly more humanely than the chickens that fast food chains source most of their chicken from. The foie gras ducks are free-range, after they're fed they just waddle away at a normal gait, quacking normally. The vet explains that the throat of a duck is not shared between the stomach and the lungs, so they breath normally during the feeding, and that their throat is designed to have large, tough things go down it (think about what ducks eat in nature), so they're not very stressed by the feeding process. Tubes are not left down their throat - it's like a 10-15 second process. The vet also points out that fatty liver in mammals IS a disease because it's not normal and impedes liver function, but in water fowl it's normal and doesn't impede liver function. In other words, it's not a disease, but a normal part of how a duck's body functions.
I really think that if people actually do the research they'll come to the conclusion that foie gras production is no more or less cruel than factory farming - and if done right, it's considerably less cruel than factory farming. As anyone who's had any relationship with a real farm knows, stressed animals don't make good food. People who eat foie gras care more about food quality than your typical diner, ergo it's in the best interest of foie gras producers to keep their birds under as little stress as possible.
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Comments: Add Your Own.
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I've been thinking about Clinton v. Obama from a pragmatic strategy standpoint.
Here are some stats for the two, showing how many electoral votes they each have locked up or have put into play versus McCain, then showing how many electoral votes they'd have to campain for to hold their current lead against McCain, how many they'd have to actively campaign for to create a big win, and how many they have to campaign for to be absolutely certain McCain couldn't come in with an upset.
Currently, Clinton is the value-priced candidate for a minimum spend to hold a Democratic win, at about half of what an Obama campaign requires. To go for a big win, though, Obama is only about 25% more costly than Clinton, but the potential reward is also much higher, since if Obama got all the states he puts into play, he'd win 369-169, a huge landslide, vs Hillary's merely very strong win at 319-219. By the time you go for the jugular and do everything possible to defend against a Republican upset, the difference in cost between the two is only about 6%. So, from a pragmatic standpoint, there's not a big difference.
Another consideration is that if you look at the states that could go Democratic, Obama is weaker in than Clinton, they all would likely respond positively if Clinton campaigned on behalf of Obama in them. Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania would probably listen to Hillary if she told them to vote for Obama. I suspect the reverse isn't true.
Clinton
18 dark red (131 ev)
7 dark blue (109 ev)
7 mid red (88 ev)
8 mid blue (135 ev)
3 light red (17 ev)
6 light blue (47 ev)
1 tie (11 ev)
291-236-11 current poll
244-294 bad case (lose all light colors)
319-219 good case (win all light colors)
407-131 best case (win all but dark red)
"must spend" to win current 75
"win big spend" (must spend + mid red) - 163
"defend big upset spend" (win big + mid blue) - 298
Obama
15 dark red (101 ev)
12 dark blue (104 ev)
8 mid red (63 ev)
4 mid blue (103 ev)
6 light red (94 ev)
4 light blue (57 ev)
1 tie (11 ev)
264-263-11 current poll
207-331 bad case (lose all light colors)
369-169 good case (win all light colors)
432-106 best case (win all but dark red)
"must spend" to win current 151
"win big spend" (must spend + mid red) - 214
"defend big upset spend" (win big + mid blue) - 317
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Comments: Read 1 or Add Your Own.
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Say what you will about Chicago transit politics, but I don't recall them ever getting the kind of messy they got early this year in the Dallas area (from Wikipedia - DART is "Dallas Area Rapid Transit"):
"In December 2007, DART revealed that it was facing a $1 billion shortfall in funds earmarked for the Blue Line light rail service to Rowlett, Irving, and DFW Airport. In January 2008, DART announced that it would divert monies from rail lines being built in Dallas. When Dallas officials protested, DART president and executive director Gary Thomas -- who had known about the shortfall for at least eight months -- announced that the agency would borrow more money instead.
In late January, DART Board chair Lynn Flint Shaw, who was also treasurer of Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert's "Friends of Tom Leppert" fund-raising committee, resigned from her DART post. In February, she surrendered to the police on charges of forgery. On March 10, Shaw and her husband, political analyst Rufus Shaw, were found dead in their home in what turned out to be a murder suicide."
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Comments: Read 1 or Add Your Own.
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Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008
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Hillary Clinton asks "Why can't Obama win the big states?"
What she's really asking is "Why can't Obama win in states that have been Democratic strongholds most years?"
The answer, to me, seems patently obvious:
Democratic stronghold states have always voted Democratic, so people there who are going to vote Democrat are already registered Democrats. They also will be more tied to traditional (or "Establishment") candidates because that's just the way of the world. The big, traditionally Democratic strongholds are the base, and an outsider pitted against an insider almost never wins over the base.
That rule will hold true in November, too. If Obama wins the nomination, he'll become "the insider" for Democrats, and the base will vote for him. He'll win New York and California and Pennsylvania because Democrats always win there and he's the Democrat. But he'll also have a shot at winning places Democrats don't usually win, a lot of those little states he trounced Hillary in. And even if he doesn't win in them, he'll make inroads for local Democratic candidates there who will, in turn, sow the seeds of the future of the Democratic Party.
Howard Dean is right to pursue the 50-state strategy. It's not just morally right, but it's very pragmatic, too. You don't win in the long run by only defending your base - you have to aggressively seek to expand the reach of your brand. Hillary has proven she can't expand the reach of the Democratic brand - but Obama's entire campaign has been about that reach, that push marketing to keep/make the Democratic Party brand relevant nationally.
My two cents.
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Comments: Read 2 or Add Your Own.
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I'd call the weather in Chicago today, "coastal," with a light wind and warmth but not hot. It was nice.
After work, I walked over to State Street and then up to Huron and over to home.
When I got home, I ate some Trader Joe's white cheddar corn puffs and drank a Trader Joe's chardonay that I'd paired with them. (oh yes I did pair cheese puffs with wine, and they were goooood)
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Comments: Read 9 or Add Your Own.
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Relative to this news about an effect of auto emissions on the ability of plants to attract bees and other insects to be pollinated, global warming is but a pinprick.
If pollution is a significant contributor to colony collapse disorder, I can't even imagine the impact on the world ...
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Comments: Add Your Own.
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Saturday, April 19th, 2008
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Friday night I went to see an Autechre concert at the Abbey Pub with some friends. That was a lot of fun and then we all had a late dinner together - the guy who organized it is the soon-to-be-father of twins, so it's probably good to get out with him while the getting out is still a possibility. :-)
Saturday I helped celebrate my middle brother's 30th birthday. 13 of us went out for dinner, and three of us got free entrees because we ordered the duck breast and they grossly overcooked them.
So they comped us a replacement entree, which was cool. Service was awesome - it was the Fiddlehead Cafe in Lincoln Square, if you're curious. I'd recommend them since the food (other than the over-cooked duck) was quite good, and the service went out of its way to make up for the overcooking fiasco.
Friday, Saturday and Sunday I was at McCormick Place covering the Kitchen and Bath Industry Show, which was interesting. I don't need to see another kitchen sink for a year or so, though.
Sunday night I just lazed around, and put off finishing my taxes to tonight.
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Comments: Read 2 or Add Your Own.
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Thursday, April 3rd, 2008
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This is why I love quantum physics:
"Dr. Arkani-Hamed said concerning worries about the death of the Earth or universe, “Neither has any merit.” He pointed out that because of the dice-throwing nature of quantum physics, there was some probability of almost anything happening. There is some minuscule probability, he said, “the Large Hadron Collider might make dragons that might eat us up.”"
From this article.
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Comments: Read 2 or Add Your Own.
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I went to New York again this weekend.
The last time I was there, I saw this, a sicko art installation at the Lever House.
Imagine walking down Park Avenue in midtown and happening across skinned animal carcasses on display in the lobby of an otherwise typically high-end office highrise. It was jarring.
Have any of you other travellers happened across that?
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Comments: Read 2 or Add Your Own.
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Saturday, February 23rd, 2008
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Google is so dumb.
For their streetview thing, they drove around Portland, Oregon taking images like this one, but when they did Chicago, they didn't even put on the cameras that pan up so when you're at the Sears Tower in StreetView, you can't tell what you're looking at. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Plus, "driving" along Wacker (the street the Sears Tower is on), you can see three cool buildings finished about two years ago. If you look at the satellite photo, though, those 50-story towers are just parking lots.
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Comments: Read 2 or Add Your Own.
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Wednesday, February 13th, 2008
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So I think all the bills are in for my gallbladder operation.
Here's the rundown:
Retail cost, as billed to my insurance company was just a shade over $35,000. Amount they paid to the providers, based on negotiated rates minus my deductible, etc, just a shade over $12,000. Amount I may end up being billed by the providers, just a shade over $1,600.
So, for insured people, the health care system takes in less than half what it charges the uninsured. Hardly seems just, does it, to overcharge those least likely to be able to overpay? The price differential is reminiscient of price negotiation in China. It might be marked 元80, but depending on how good you are at negotiating, you might end up paying anywhere from 20 to 40 to 80 for it. What value is there in setting prices so artificially high in what should be a fairly open market. Opaque prices are anticompetitive, and high variability opaque pricing is ripe for corruption.
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Comments: Read 3 or Add Your Own.
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backburner's journal