Ultimate Warrior

Saturday marked the end of the summer ultimate frisbee season in these parts. Our team didn't do all that well, I think we either tied for dead last or came in second-to-last in the eleven team league. It seems like whenever I participate in team sports, the team I'm on doesn't do all that well. I've even been accused of being an inverse Michael Jordan, i.e. someone so bad that he makes the people who play with him even worse. I don't think that's he case, but I haven't ruled it out either.

Some people would argue that ultimate frisbee really isn't a sport. I don't enjoy getting into these kinds of debates, but I will say that I think a lot of people confuse "not a sport" with "a sport that I don't like". When I started playing ultimate a couple of years ago, I did it mainly as a way to get some exercise. It delivered plenty of exercise, but I didn't really enjoy it that much. I stopped playing for a while, then came back to it last fall with a different attitude. Instead of just looking at it was a way to get my heart pumping, I decided to make more of an effort to learn the game. I have enjoyed it a lot more ever since I started caring more about the game.

Here's a picture of me from last Saturday's tournament. Lest anyone think my hairline has receded drastically in the past year, I'm the nose, arms, and knee on the right side of the photo. Note that I am severely out of position on defense in this photo. I was getting burned by this guy all game long.

Circus Clown

Making fun of the Family Circus comic strip is certainly not new. I'm pretty sure that I was appreciating the Family Circus on a purely ironic level by the time I was 12 or 13. Pearls Before Swine, a comic strip that I'm admittedly not too familiar with, is mocking the Family Circus this week, with fairly hilarious results. The premise is that comic strip writers are no longer allowed to keep their characters in a state of suspended animation where they never age, so the kids in the Family Circus are now all grown up. Only instead of growing up into fine and upstanding members of the community like their parents, they are a bunch of lowlifes, as evidenced by today's strip.



I feel like this is probably a fairly accurate depiction of how the lives of Family Circus kids would turn out if they were allowed to grow up. After living such an idyllic childhood, I'm pretty sure that once they got out into the real world, they'd have trouble coping and wind up running a meth lab out of their Dad's tool shed or something like that. If desire a significantly more profane send-up of the Family Circus, be sure to check out the Dysfunctional Family Circus.

Victory Day

Today is Victory Day or V-J Day, the day that Japan officially surrendered to the allies in World War II. The only state that still observes this holiday is Rhode Island. My commute was noticeably faster today, which is probably due to the fact that the only "difficult" part of my relatively painless commute is the interchange in front of the Rhode Island state house. As far as I know, state employees are the only people in Rhode Island who don't have to come to work on Victory Day.

Apparently, Victory Day is somewhat controversial due to the events leading up to Japan's surrender. Why Rhode Island is the lone holdout amongst the states is somewhat confusing. According to the Wikipedia entry, one of the men purported to be the jubilant sailor kissing a nurse in Times Square in the iconic Life Magazine photograph was from Newport, but that doesn't seem like a good enough reason to keep observing the holiday. For the record, I don't really have an opinion about the holiday. Not observing the holiday because of the atomic bomb smacks of historical revisionism to me. At the same time, we don't commemorate the end of any of our other wars with a holiday. Armistice (Veterans) Day once commemorated the end of World War I, but it's scope has been expanded to honor veterans of all wars since then.

I wouldn't be surprised if Victory Day eventually gets dropped from Rhode Island's state holiday roster after all of the people who fought and lived through World War II are gone. Then again, I wouldn't be surprised if people are still taking it off 100 years from now, completely unaware of the historical significance of the day.

Land of the Blind

We checked out the Rhode Island International Film Festival last night. I try to attend film festivals whenever I have a chance, more out of a sense of obligation than out of a love of cinema. I feel like I should take advantage of the chance to see some interesting films when I have the chance, but I find the whole thing somewhat tedious. Even a small-time festival screens at least a couple dozen films. Deciding which film(s) to attend is not exactly a logistical nightmare, but it's a lot more demanding than deciding between the 6:30 and 9:30 showing of Talladega Nights. Selecting films from this year's festival was a bit easier than the past couple of years at the Syracuse International Film and Video Festival. The RIIFF is a much bigger festival so a number of films featured actors and directors I had actually heard of before. I discovered last night that the thing I really like about film festivals are the short films. The movie we checked out last night was feature length, which was fine, but at that point, it's basically no different than going to the movies. The only difference is that there are no previews. Unlike most of the feature length movies in the festival, the one we saw last night didn't start out with a short film appetizer. The bulk of the shorts are being screened during the day, so I don't think I'm going to get a chance to see any of them. The other downside of seeing big name movies at a small festival is there is very little chance that the director or the actors will be on hand for a Q&A session after the screening.

The movie we checked out last night was called Land of the Blind. It was a political satire starring Ralph Fiennes as an idealistic and patriotic army officer and Donald Sutherland as an imprisoned revolutionary playwright. The movie took a cynical yet honest look at how revolutions that topple an oppressive government often wind up being as bad or worse than the previous regime once they take power. The president (for life) is a fairly amusing composite of tyrants throughout the ages. His preoccupation with film and exaggerated basketball skills are an homage to Kim Jong Il, I assume. He's got some Franco in him as well as some 18th century aristocracy, as evidenced by the powdered wigs. There are several none to subtle similarities between him and George W. Bush as well, in case you were wondering. The movie starts off a lot better than it ends. I tend to have trouble with the endings of a lot of art house films, and this was no exception. The story was told in a somewhat non-linear fashion, and unless I was totally missing something, the final scene chronologically occurred about two-thirds of the way through the movie. So I left the theater without a lot of closure, but I got the point. As Roger Daultry once said: meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

The movie had a very sparse score, but the music that was there was excellent. Another thing that I liked was how they mixed American and British-accented English. Most of the actors were British and it appeared to be filmed in Britain (the cars were all right-hand drive, for example), but the American actors didn't change their accents. I thought that this made the film more universal. By mixing accents from the US and Britain and symbolism from around the world, the place that they created was completely fictional but entirely realistic.

The film was screened at the Cable Car Cinema, a small art house theater in Providence. It was our first visit to the theater and we found it quite nice. It was the first time I ever watched a movie at a theater seated on a love seat. One side of the theater has regular fold-down movie seats while the other has rows of love seats. It's a nice touch and fortunately, they seem to keep the couches pretty clean, which is a welcome change from some art house cinemas.

Benedict Wallace

Mitch Albom's column today is a perfect example of why he's a horrible sports writer. If this column is to be believed, either Mitch is personally hurt and offended by Ben Wallace's decision to sign with da Bulls for a truckload of cash or he's extremely naive. The whole sportswriter feigning outrage over someone signing a contact with an inferior team just because they offered him more money is tiring, to say the least. I'd like to see every writer who is guilty of this transgression detail all of the times that he personally has turned down a new job that paid 40% more than his current position.

All Mitch does in this column is try to connect with the Pistons fans who feel slighted by Wallace's departure. It's little more than a piece of propaganda designed to stoke their outrage and make them feel like Mitch shares their pain; presumably as a way to feed dollars into the Mitch Albom media empire. I love how Mitch states that he should be used to these kind of moves by now, but he really thought Wallace was different. Blaming himself for being so blind in the final sentence is the coup de grace. I hope that Morrie Schwarzenegger returns from his long hiatus and weighs in on Mitch's latest piece of work.

Carolina Hurricanes: 2006 Avco Cup Champions

With their victory in game seven of the Stanley Cup finals last night, the Carolina Hurricanes became the second team to win the top prizes in both the long-defunct WHA and the NHL (Quebec/Colorado was the first). This is assuming that you include the storied history of New England/Hartford Whalers in the Hurricane's lineage, of course. This was the first Stanley Cup final that pitted two former WHA teams against each other. The WHA has a pretty impressive history in the NHL. Since the four surviving teams joined the NHL in 1979, all but Winnipeg (now Phoenix) has won a Stanley Cup. Hartford (now Carolina) has one, Quebec (now Colorado) has two, and Edmonton has five. The ex-WHA teams have combined for 11 appearances in the Stanley Cup finals since 1980. Not bad for a league that could barely pay the rent at its arenas and distinguished itself with garish (even by 1970s standards) uniforms. Finally, this marks the third consecutive Stanley Cup final in which the team that lost eliminated the Detroit Red Wings from the playoffs in an earlier round (Anaheim in 2003, Calgary in 2004, and Edmonton in 2006).

Save Screech's House

Pity poor Dustin Diamond. Not only will he never be known as anything more than that guy who played Screech on "Saved By the Bell", he's also about to lose his home. In an effort to keep his house, if not his reputation, he's launched a campaign to get back at the shady financier who abandoned him in his time of need and raise enough money to keep a roof over his head by selling t-shirts online.

Mt. Tom Trail

We went hiking out in the Arcadia Management Area this past weekend. I'm writing this post mostly to document how we got there, since finding these kinds of hiking trails is generally more difficult than the actual hike. I'd like to do this hike again in the fall, since it offers some decent views. The trail takes you up to the top of Mt. Tom, which isn't much of a mountain, and back down to the road (RI-165). We turned around and came back the same way at that point, but there were some more trails north of 165 that we could have explored.

• Exit I-95 onto RI-102S


• Right onto RI-3 S (Nooseneck Hill Rd.)


• Right onto RI-165 (Ten Rod Rd.)


• Pass Arcadia Management Area main entrance


• Pass a white church on right


• Take the next left onto Mt. Tom Rd.


• Travel less than a mile down Mt. Tom Rd and park at small clearing on the left side of the road before small bridge over stream


• Mt. Tom trail starts on the other side of the road

Summer Reading

I just finished reading Little Children (in record time) and I recommend it to anyone looking for a good summer read. I love the idea of summer reading, but I've rarely gone out of my way to read during the summer, and most of the reading that I've done during the summer has been no different from what I would have read during any other season. Little Children has been on my to read list for a while, so it was somewhat coincidental that I started reading it on the beach over Memorial Day weekend, but it turned out to be a perfect fit. It's the second book I've read by Tom Perotta. I've also read The Wishbones, which I also enjoyed, but I didn't find the story, characters, or writing as compelling as Little Children.

As for summer movie recommendations, I've been on something of a 1980s New York movie kick as of late. I've watched Wall Street; Bright Lights, Big City; Party Monster and most recently, The Bonfire of the Vanities. I enjoyed all of the aforementioned movies, with the exception of Party Monster, but I really liked The Bonfire of the Vanities. I understand that it got some pretty awful reviews back in the day, but I think it's a really great movie if you're into ridiculous melodrama and overacting. I've never read the book so I don't know if the movie does it any justice. I can understand why the movie didn't get great reviews, but I found it really enjoyable.

Road Trip

Sports Illustrated has been dumbing down its content for quite a while now, and The Pop Culture Grid is one of its latest forays into People the Magazine territory. I don't mind the PCG too much because it's quick and to the point, unlike the puff pieces they run about various athlete's workout programs and interviews with B-list celebrities who happen to enjoy sports. This week's grid asks four athletes where they'd like to go on road trip. Two of the four listed places that, as of SI's printing, are not accessible by car from the continental United States. Kara Lawson of the WNBA's Monarchs listed Capetown, South Africa as her ideal road trip destination. Perhaps she envisions flying to Johannesburg first, the grid doesn't really allow for any elaboration. I would advise anyone to avoid getting into a car with White Sox slugger Jim Thome, whose idea of a good road trip is packing up the car and driving to Hawai'i.

Lost Angeles

In honor of the net's newest mp3 blog, brought to you by an old friend, I thought I'd share a relatively recent discovery of mine in the realm of online digital music. Ladies and gentlemen, it's The Hollywood Squaretet. If you like avant garde jazz and punk rock, which you most certainly don't, you'll love the Squaretet. Seriously though, I've only heard the two songs they have available on their site, Lost Angeles and Welcome to the F.U. Lounge, but it's some pretty interesting stuff. It's loud, abrasive, angry, and funny. Bonus points if you catch the reference to the Rolling Stone's "Heartbreaker" at the end of "Lost Angeles".

Death of a Salesman

I don't know if I'm cut out for a job in sales. When I was a kid, my parent's would usually participate in our neighborhood's annual garage sale. One year I was minding the store on a particularly slow afternoon when I decided that the best way to drum up business was to offer all shoppers free cups of water. I proclaimed this sweet deal with a homemade sign and went inside to fetch a pitcher of water and some cups, but it didn't manage to drum up any new business. Did I mention that it was raining at the time?

I was reminded of this today when I went to my local Stop & Shop and noticed a table near the checkout with a bunch of used books on it. Since I'm a sucker for used books, I took a closer look and saw that it was part of a promotion. Anyone who bought two raffle tickets to benefit a local children's cancer charity got a free book. Now I didn't look at every book on the table, but the stuff that I saw was pretty bottom-shelf material. I didn't see any microwave oven user's manuals or Garfield books, but it really looked like they asked all of the employees to bring in any books they had at home that they didn't want anymore. Free water, anyone?

Outside Providence

Michelle's parents were in town this past weekend (our first visitors in Rhode Island). Unfortunately, it was pouring rain the entire time, so we weren't able to do a lot of the things that we had planned. We wound up spending most of our time in the car and indoors in Providence. I like to write about travel, and while we didn't travel away from home this weekend, we've only lived here for a little more than a month so in some ways, visiting Providence was sort of like a vacation.

We kicked off the weekend on Friday night with dinner at Andino's on Federal Hill, Providence's Italian neighborhood. I hadn't been to Federal Hill since we moved here and the only place I had been to on Federal Hill was an Indian restaurant, so I wasn't really sure what to expect. Andino's turned out to be a pretty old-school Italian restaurant (what some might call a red-checkered-tablecloth Italian restaurant). Maybe I'm being a little bit too harsh, but my experience wasn't the greatest. We had a 7pm reservation and were running a little bit late, so I dropped Michelle and her parents off at the restaurant and went to find parking. When I made it to the restaurant, the first thing the hostess said to me was "it's at least a 45 minute wait." No greeting or even an inquiry as to whether or not I already had a reservation. The service was disappointing the entire evening and the atmosphere was a bit lacking as well. The food wasn't bad, but I'm pretty sure you can do a lot better somewhere else on Federal Hill.

The rain managed to let up for a little while on Saturday. We headed back to Providence and took a stroll around the Brown University campus. We've driven past different parts of the Brown campus several times since moving here, but this was the first time we have explored it on foot. We broke for lunch on Thayer Street, then went downtown and took a stroll through the Waterplace Park and the Riverwalk. We pretty much had downtown Providence to ourselves, which was somewhat disappointing, but not too surprising given the weather. I'm not sure how lively downtown Providence is on a typical Saturday afternoon when the weather is decent. It sounds like they have a lot of festivals downtown during the summer, so it sounds like it could be a happening place.

After the park, we headed over to the RISD Museum. The museum definitely lives up to its reputation. It's not a huge museum, but the breadth and quality of the artwork on display is quite impressive for a museum of its size. Unfortunately, a number of exhibits were closed. Of course, we'll have plenty of chances to go back and visit when they re-open for a very reasonable $8 cover charge or during their monthly free exhibitions.

I though that the RISD Museum provided excellent background information and context for most of the items they had on display. I always try to maintain a balance between observing art and reading about it when I visit a museum. It's tempting to just read the descriptions and give the artwork a cursory glance when you're at a museum that provides you with a lot of good information, but it's a chance I'm willing to take. I had one of my worst art appreciation experiences ever at the Isabella Stuart Gardener Museum in Boston, which deliberately eschews any information or context about the art on display. I think the best approach is to really key in on the pieces that captivates your interest and read about or just buzz by the stuff that you aren't really into.

We had tentatively planned to go to Newport on Sunday, but the weather was even worse than it had been on Saturday, so we decided to stick around Providence again. We did a driving tour of downtown and the east side, which probably wasn't much of a tour, seeing as we don't know our way around town all that well. We then headed over to the Providence Place Mall, one of the jewels of Providence's rejuvenated downtown. Putting a big mall in the center of a city may seem kind of strange or even grotesque, but I kind of like the idea. Providence is too small to support a blocks-long retail district downtown, so it's either a mall or nothing. They got a lot of things right with the Providence Place Mall, including a row of shops and restaurants accessible at street level and an architectural style that fits into the downtown landscape about as well as a mall could hope to. That being said, the parking situation was completely insane. Once we entered the parking garage from the street, it took at least five minutes to get to the take a ticket machine. Getting out took at least 20 minutes. It didn't appear that any of the ticket booths were out-of-service, so I'm guessing that it's that bad on most rainy weekends.

Destination Unknown

The Economist weighed in (subscription required) on Syracuse's DestiNY USA shopping and entertainment complex this week. Needless to say, they aren't exactly bullish on its prospects. They more or less echo the sentiments that I have already expressed on this blog. The project still appears to be a longshot, and even if it ever gets off the ground, it's not going to magically solve all of Syracuse's economic woes. As an added bonus, the print edition has a nice photo of Clinton Square under an almost eerie purple-colored sky. On newstands now.

Syracuse Destiny USA

Weigh In

I just got my new Rhode Island driver's license in the mail. It's the first driver's license I've ever had that has my weight printed on it. Perhaps it's part of a statewide attempt to shame people into losing weight.

Maple Leaf Rag

This is a cautionary tale about the consequences of wearing sports apparel for teams that you do not follow or support. My good friend Greg Wu gave me a nice Toronto Maple Leafs "throwback" t-shirt a few years ago. When I wear the shirt out in public, I often get comments from people who see the shirt and assume that I am a Maple Leafs fan. It happened to me twice today at the grocery store. The first encounter was with an employee who told me about a co-worker who loves the Maple Leafs so much that he flew to Toronto a couple times this past season to watch them play. The second encounter was with the aforementioned employee himself. I finally had to fess up and tell him that I wasn't actually a Maple Leafs fan after he started asking me my opinion of some of the personel moves that the Leafs made this season, about which I knew absolutely nothing.

These kinds of interactions make sense. There probably aren't too many die hard Leafs fans anywhere in the States, so when people see someone who they think shares their allegiance, they want to acknowledge it. Two interactions that I still don't quite understand are a cabbie who once asked me if I played for the Maple Leafs when I wore the shirt and some fans at a Kansas City Royals game who called MDS (who was wearing a Detroit Red Wings shirt at the time) and me out for wearing hockey t-shirts to a baseball game.

Swass

Between the NHL and NBA playoffs and the NFL draft, I've been watching more sports programming than usual as of late. Because of this, I've seen that commercial for Heineken Light about a million times. The first time I saw it, I instantly recognized the song as a very bad rip-off of the old Sir Mix-A-Lot tune "Swass". I'm not much of a music downloader, so I can't offer a link to the song, but check your favorite legal or illegal download sites if you're curious. The lyrics are available here. According to the Urban Dictionary, swass either means super cool or sweaty ass (or perhaps both, depending on context and usage).

Tags: Heineken Swass

You Shot Who in the What Now?

This week's AV Club has a handy guide for anyone out there who is not annoying enough on their own and needs more obscure Simpsons quotes to insert into daily conversation. I have been accused excessive Simpsons quoting many times, so I have some pretty strong views on what constitutes a good Simpsons quote. The AV Club has picked out some good ones. Personally, the only quotes from their list that I ever use are: "I was saying 'Boo-urns", "Crisitunity!", "You shot who in the what now?", and, of course, the timeless "Worst. Episode. Ever." Some of my other favorites that weren't listed in this piece are:

Quote: "Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter"
Episode: "Mountain of Madness" (2/2/97)
Context: Homer's response after Bart launches into a diatribe against teamwork, sharing, helping, and tolerance.
Real-Life uses: Any time you see somebody broadcasting strange and frightening viewpoints. Of course, if you think this person really is a nutjob, it's best not to let them hear you, lest they add you to their mailing list.

Quote: "But I did a good job... a good job"
Episode: "Homer at the Bat" (2/20/92)
Context: Mr. Burns is upbraiding the hypnotist that he hired for his softball team for making Roger Clemens think he's a chicken. The hypnotist pulls out his watch and utters this quote to convince Mr. Burns that he actually did a good job.
Real-Life uses: Whenever you mess up, you can mimic the hypnotist's soothing voice to try and cover up your mistake.

Quote: "One highway, zero city"
Episode: "The Bart Wants What It Wants" (5/18/99)
Context: Rainer Wolfcastle speaks this memorable line when Homer asks him what kind of gas mileage his gigantic SUV gets.
Real-Life uses: A good way to describe any gas guzzler. Bonus points for saying it with a German accent.

Quote: "Fox turned into a hardcore sex channel so gradually, I didn't even notice"
Episode: "Lisa's Wedding" (3/26/95)
Context: This episode shows a look into the future (2010), where Marge is upset with the state of the Fox television network.
Real-Life uses: Any time you need to bemoan the state of network television programming.

Quote: "The nye Mets are my favorite squadron"
Episode: "Much Apu About Nothing" (5/5/96)
Context: With an anti-illegal immigrant fervor spreading across Springfield, Apu tries to blend in by feigning an interest in Major League Baseball.
Real-Life uses: A humorous way to declare your ignorance in a certain area, especially sports.

Quote: "It's my first day"
Episode: "Simpson Tide" (3/29/98)
Context: After using this excuse for his latest screw-up at work, then using it again after Mr. Burns learns that it was not Homer's first day and demands to know why he thought he could get away with lying to him, Homer loses his job and joins the Naval Reserve, where he uses the same excuse yet again after nearly causing an international incident on the high seas.
Real-Life uses: A way to absolve yourself of any and all responsibility no matter how badly you've just screwed up.

Tags: Simpsons

On the Rhode

When I started this blog, I hoped that it would be a good way to keep friends and well-wishers up-to-date on the latest goings on in my life. I have attracted more readers than I thought I would, but I haven't been very good at keeping anyone up-to-date. Keeping that in mind, I'm happy to announce to that we bid adieu to Syracuse about three weeks ago for the biggest little state in the union, Rhode Island. This was the fourth time I've moved across state lines since graduating from college, so I guess this shouldn't come as too much of a surprise. Syracuse was never my favorite place to call home and in some ways, I knew that we were going to be leaving there sooner rather than later.

It's not too difficult to find people who are ready to bad mouth Syracuse. On at least three or four occasions over the past three years, I have met people who, upon learning that I lived in Syracuse, proceeded to tell me how much they loathe the 'Cuse. I don't consider myself a master of social etiquette, but I try to avoid openly insulting someone's hometown upon meeting them, no matter how much I might dislike it.

Sadly, a lot of what people dislike about Syracuse is true. Like most once vibrant cities that are down on their luck, Syracuse is trying to reinvent itself. There seems to be a real effort to help improve the relationship between the university and the city and if that continues in earnest, I'm sure it will pay some dividends. Without the university, Syracuse really would be the hellhole that people claim it already is. So while Syracuse may get a bit of a make-over, it will probably never be the hip and vibrant city that it claims it wants to be. Even in its glory days, I doubt it was all that exciting of a place. Still, in my opinion, there are no boring cities, only boring people. My grandparents spent most of their lives in Terre Haute, Indiana and probably lived a more stimulating life than some people who live in the middle of great international cities.

Not to kick Syracuse while it's down, but I have to say that the weather there is really awful. I've spent most of my life in so-called bad weather areas, but Syracuse is only place where the weather really bothered me. According to the National Oceanograhic and Atmospheric Administration, the average annual chance of precipitation in Syracuse is 46.6% and the average percentage of available sunlight is 44.6%. Statistically speaking, you have a better chance of seeing the sun and staying dry in Seattle and Portland than in Syracuse. On top of that, you've got a mean annual snowfall of 110 inches to deal with.

While our careers are ultimately what pulled us away from Syracuse, the general malaise that permeates life in Central New York was a strong contributing factor. In Syracuse, it is impossible to ignore the signs of decay and decline. Even if you look beyond the vacant buildings and empty freeways, there is a strong undercurrent of negativity and resignation flowing through almost all public discourse. It's difficult to enjoy life in a place that everyone is trying to figure out how to get away from.

Best Job Ever

I subscribed to Money magazine not because I thought it was a great publication, but because they offered me a one-year subscription for $10 and threw in a bonus one-year subscription to Business 2.0. I figured that I could easily get $10 of value out of that proposition, so I accepted. This month's issue of Money ranks the top 50 jobs in America, and as it turns out, I've got the best job. Actually, that's not entirely true, as I am unemployed right now. When I start my new job in a week or two, I will once again be employed in America's top profession (drum roll, please)... software engineering.

I don't know if I entirely agree with their methodology. For one, the person they singled out as having the number one best job in America is the director of technology at Electronic Arts. I don't know anyone who works at EA, but I have found that most video game companies have a reputation for being relatively bad places to work. Still, I'm glad that they didn't join the chorus of media types who have been proclaiming that software engineering jobs are all going to India, China, and other low-cost areas of the world. Outsourcing is real, of course, but there is still plenty of good work left for talented software engineers in the US and I can't see that situation changing any time in the foreseeable future.

Me and My Shadow

MDS pointed me to Kevin Smith's blog yesterday. Be sure to read his nine-part series about Jason Mewes (Jay of Jay and Silent Bob fame) and his struggle with and victory over drug addiction, entitled "Me and My Shadow". It's a great piece of writing. I read all nine parts consecutively yesterday afternoon.

Fish Story

If you have enjoyed a nice sushi dinner recently, you may have the Rev. Sun Myung Moon to thank for your delicious meal. According to this story, which ran in the Chicago Tribune yesterday and was also featured on the public radio program Marketplace, True World Group, a vertically integrated fresh seafood wholesaler, was founded by Moon and is closely affiliated with his Unification Church. As the article states, True World supplies most of the estimated 9000 sushi restaurants in the US and funnels a portion of its profits to Moon's Unification Church.

Tags: Sushi Sun Myung Moon

Help Wanted

I'm back in the job market, and I have learned a few things that may be somewhat useful and/or interesting to other job seekers out there. These things only apply in situations where you are receiving a lot of unsolicited job leads from various staffing agencies and recruiters who find your resume on any of the big job searching web sites. These recruiters abound in the high-tech world, I'm not so sure how common they are in other industries. Some recruiters have good leads, but most of them are trying to fill pretty undesirable jobs, IMHO. A good way to figure out who they are working for without having to call them back is to take the company description out of the e-mail they sent and search for a key phrase from that description in Google. Generally, they just cut and paste the company description from the company website, which Google has almost certainly indexed, so you can figure out if its a company you are interested in or not pretty easily.

The other thing that I have learned is that a lot of these staffing and recruiting companies have outsourced some of their work to India. I've gotten numerous phone calls from people who spoke barely intelligible English about six-month contact development positions in Iowa that utilize technologies and skills that appear nowhere on my resume or online job profile. I guess with the money that these companies have saved by outsourcing their work to a C-list Indian call center, they can afford to have someone call every job seeker in their database about every position that comes across their desk regardless of their qualifications, location, or experience.

Still, I think that job searching technology is improving. I'm a big fan of Simply Hired, which is a job search engine that searches all of the major job search engines and corporate websites and aggregates the results for you. It has the most extensive search filtering capabilities of any job search engine I have seen.

Tags: Job Search

School Days

I was filling out a job application that asked for the mailing address of my high school. To my surprise, my Google search turned up a Wikipedia entry for my high school. Any estimate on how much longer until Wikipedia has cataloged every piece of information known to man?

Country Bumpkins

I can't believe that this story didn't get more coverage in Syracuse. Last week, New York gubernatorial candidate Elliot Spitzer gave a speech in Manhattan where he compared upstate New York to Appalachia. I don't think that Spitzer was trying to insult upstate New York (or Appalachia, for that matter) as some of his opponents have suggested, though I disagree with his analogy. I agree that upstate New York is in pretty bad economic shape, but it is facing the same problems that plague almost all of the rust belt. It's more of an urban poverty/blight issue, whereas Appalachia's problems have more to due with crushing rural poverty.

Tags: New York State Appalachia Elliot Spitzer

Get Physical

I was flipping through an inflight magazine last month when I came across an ad for ROM - The 4-Minute Cross Trainer. I tend to be skeptical of anything that I see advertised in an inflight magazine, so when I saw an ad for a machine that looks like a torture device that promises a full-body workout in only four minutes and can be yours for the low, low price of $14,615, I thought that I had stumbled upon a satirical inflight magazine that was planted in my seatpocket by the editors of The Onion. The ROM is apparently legit, and there are even ROM gyms opening up that allow regular folks to experience this amazing workout without having to shell out 15 grand.

As this article points out, the four minute workout claim is misleading. It's a four minute upper-body workout, four minutes of rest, and a four minute lower-body workout. Maybe the ROM really is a 60 minute workout compressed into 12 minutes, I'm not really in a position to judge. Their low-quality website doesn't really inspire much confidence, and the endless barrage of high-pressure sales tactics only makes matters worse. If these two things weren't damning enough, the magazine ad included a testimonial from Tony Robbins, who owns three ROMs and keeps one at his home, one at his vacation home in Fiji, and brings the other one with him wherever he travels. Yikes.

Tags: ROM Exercise

Facts about Corned Beef

1. Corned beef was my favorite food for a number of years. My Mom made corned beef on my birthday (per my request) at least once between my sixth and eighth birthdays.
2. For much longer than I care to admit, I thought that corned beef was pork. I assumed that any pinkish colored meat came from a pig, even if it was called 'beef'.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Expectations for Demographics

A number of pundits have been using demographic data to map out the end of liberalism in America. For whatever reason, conservative pundits love to point out that Seattle has 45% more dogs than children. Since Seattle is a liberal place, this can only mean that liberals and their dogs will die out faster than they can reproduce, and voila!, permanent conservative majority, right? I'm no demographer and I have no data to back up my claims, but maybe the reason Seattle is approaching a 2:1 dog-to-kid ratio is because it's so damn expensive that families can't afford to live there anymore. Then again, according to this dataset, you're more likely to be a conservative if you like dogs, so maybe Seattle is actually the most conservative city in the US. Maybe I'm right, maybe the conservative pundits are right, the point is that cherry-picking demographic data that supports your pet thesis (no pun intended) and then extrapolating it out 20-30 years into the future is idiotic, which is exactly the point that Kevin Drum makes today.

It's probably true that religious conservatives are reproducing faster than their liberal counterparts. I'm even willing to concede that most of these kids will maintain a good chunk of their religious upbringing well into adulthood. What we cannot possibly know right now is how politics, religion, and culture will change in the future. After all, prior to the 1960s, the northeast was the power base of the Republican party and the south voted Democrat. Some people have their political affiliations imprinted on their minds at a young age and never deviate. For everyone else, the issues of the day influence their voting patterns.

Even if the important social and political issues remain the same, which is highly unlikely, the next generation of liberal and conservative politicians will have different attitudes and approaches than their predecessors. My gut feeling is that the post-boomer generation of political leaders are going to reject a lot of the culture war issues. They weren't there to take sides, so it will be much easier for both sides to cut their loses and stop arguing about the 1960s.

Tags: Demographics

A Tale of Two States

There seems to be a lot of resentment towards New York City up here in Central New York. I'm not sure that I understand all of it, but this article really illustrates the cognitive dissonance that exists between these two very different regions of the same state. The article addresses a bill that is going through the New York State legislature that would force all non-agricultural and manufacturing companies doing business in the state with 100 or more employees to provide health insurance to all full-time workers. This is similar to a bill that was recently passed in Maryland that critics agree was a thinly disguised jab at Wal Mart. By lowering the bar to 100 employees, the New York legislation is less symbolic but potentially, more far-reaching.

What does this have to do with the disconnect between NYC and upstate? I think this quote, from Alex Navarro of the Working Families party, says it all

...retailers such as Wal-Mart and Victoria's Secret have no choice but to remain in the market.

This may be the case in NYC, where any retail or media company that wishes to be relevant needs to have some sort of physical presence. The same is not true for update New York. NYC can get away with assessing extortionate taxes from anyone wishing to do business within its borders, since so many companies have no choice but to be there. When these policies get applied to New York state as a whole, upstate loses out since it offers most of the disadvantages of doing business in New York with virtually none of the benefits.

I'm all for sensible approaches to increasing accessing to health care, but I think that linking health care even more tightly to employment is a bad idea. I doubt that this bill would even do much to increase health coverage for service-sector employees, since I'm sure most companies would find ways to reclassify their full-time workers as part-time workers or independent contractors in order to avoid having to pay for health benefits. That's if they decide not to leave the state altogether.

Tags: New York State Health Insurance

411's a Joke

Are all the calls to directory assistance on your phone bill sending you to the poor house? If so, get a damn phonebook and/or Internet connection, you lazy bastard. If you can't change your ways, try 1-800-FREE-411. If you think I'm lying, you're wrong. I haven't tried it yet, but I definitely will the next time I need to call information from my cell phone.

Tags: Free411

The All-Name Team

I don't follow college hoops that closely, but it sounds like Syracuse's first-round Big East tournament match-up was a pretty exciting game. Gerry McNamara hit a three with half a second left to lead the Orange to a one-point victory over Cincinnati. I feel a little sorry for Cincinnati losing a heartbreaker like that, but I really feel sorry for Cincinnati's Jihad Muhammad. Not only did he get burned by McNamara on the game-winning basket, but his name is Jihad Muhammad. I can't think of too many names that would arouse more suspicion in this day and age than his. The only thing more surprising than McNamara's buzzer-beater was the fact that Muhammad was allowed to board an airplane to come to Big East tournament.

Syracuse Basketball Jihad Muhammad

Iraqi Gandhi

This week's installment of The Onion is one of the better issues that they have put together in a while, and this story about an Iraqi version of Gandhi is Onion journalism at its darkest, most cynical, and most hilarious.

Rock Paper Scissors Rumble

Anyone who is still unable to figure out why people who have very similar religious beliefs have been killing each other over the minor differences between their faiths since time immemorial should read this article. Not only are there people play rock-paper-scissors competitively, but there are two federations that are embroiled in a feud over their respective visions of how RPS should be played, marketed, and officiated.

Incidentally, I once had a co-worker who told me about two alternate rock-paper-scissors throws, fire and peeing man. Fire beats all throws other than peeing man and peeing man is defeated by all throws other than fire. The catch is that a competitor can only throw fire one time in his life. I don't know if he made these up himself or there is some subculture of rock-paper-scissors players that observe these rules. I still find them highly dubious, but it's a funny story.

Tags: Rock Paper Scissors

Credit Is Due

I called the Post-Standard out for shoddy journalism last week after they published an article about record profits at Excellus, so I should mention that they ran a much better article about a related story today. Today's article looked into the factors behind the rising costs of health insurance premiums. It looked into a bill that has been stuck in the New York State Assembly since 2000 that would reinstate public hearings any time an insurance company raises health insurance premiums by more than five percent.

This is a very complicated issue and I think today's article, which attempts to explain some of the factors behind the high cost of health care, is much more useful than last week's article. I tend to believe that onerous levels of regulation are more to blame for the high cost of health care than insurance company greed, so I have my doubts that this bill would really bring down the cost of health insurance.

Tags: Excellus Health Insurance

You Might Be A Redneck If...

You go skiing in sunny Colorado and forget to put sunscreen on the parts of your neck that aren't covered up by your jacket or hat. I developed this truly unique sunburn on my neck just behind my ears, as you can see in this photo. Luckily, I remembered to put sunscreen on my face and nose. Also, be careful when you open that tube of sunscreen that you packed at sea level once you reach the mountains. I failed to do so, and gave Michelle, who was standing next to me at the time, a shot of sunscreen to the shirt sufficient to cover a small child from head to toe.

Gouging

The cover story from today's Post-Standard is about Excellus (the local arm of the Blue Cross Blue Shield network) and their record profits from last year. From the numbers that are reported in this article, I have no idea if Excellus is ripping off its customers or not. They posted a $198 M profit on revenues of $4.43 B, which works out to a profit margin of about 4.5%. Excellus is a nonprofit health insurer, so they don't really have a profit margin, per se. According to the article, their profits would have been $133 M excluding unusual one-time events, which brings their margin down to 3%. These numbers don't seem unreasonable to me.

The article also mentions that five executives earned more than $1 M and another 53 earned at least $200,000. The print edition listed all 58 of these employees by name and salary, but I couldn't find this information in the online version of the article. The article doesn't directly take a position on whether or not these salaries are excessive, but the fact that it took the time to list all of them in a separate table is suspect. The article doesn't compare these salaries to comparable health insurance companies so I have no idea of they are in line with the industry or totally exorbitant.

Perhaps the most telling clue about the non-so-hidden agenda of this story is the full-page ad that Excellus purchased in today's Post-Standard that compares their financial performance with some of their local competitors. The figures that they include in their ad show Excellus to be a great deal when compared to their competitors, of course. I don't expect an advertisement to present an unbiased look into the finances of the company that purchased the ad, but the fact that the company felt the need to run this ad the day that the story about their profits broke shows that either they are ripping everybody off and they know it or that they knew the article was going to portray them in a negative light.

This article was given the lead in today's paper for one reason, to manufacture outrage against health insurance providers. If any other local business posted an 88% jump in profits, the article about it would have been written in an entirely positive tone, would not have included a table of the most highly compensated employees at the company, and it would have been the cover story on the business section, not the front page.

Tags: Excellus Health Insurance

Rocky Mountain High

We were out at Breckenridge this past weekend, and I managed to take this great panoramic shot from peak 8. Special thanks to the skiers in the right-hand corner for not moving as I snapped the pictures.

Tags: Breckenridge

2 Legit 2 Blog

With some help from Valleywag, I stumbled across MC Hammer's personal blog today. I didn't read too much of it, but it's sort of interesting. It's got a very DIY look-and-feel to it, so I'm guessing that MC Hammer is running the show instead of relying on somebody else to format, publish (and possibly write) his posts. He links to Wikipedia, Flickr, and YouTube and posts from his Sidekick so it seems like he's pretty comfortable with new technology. MC Hammer appears to be more intelligent and tech-savvy than I would have guessed prior to my discovery of his blog. That's not saying a lot, but it's something.

Tags: MC Hammer

Trogdor

Trogdor, the code name for Google's online web page editor application, has just been launched. The service, called Google Pages, is not letting any more users in right now due to heavy demand. Techies seem to be pleased by the slick WYSIWYG page designer interface. Valleywag seems to think that the emperor has no clothes. I haven't been able to try it out yet, but if all Google Pages turns out to be is a Web 2.0 version of GeoCities then it seems like a waste of time to me.

Tags: Google Pages

Pinchy Would've Wanted It This Way

MDS and his wife were gracious enough to give us a lobster gram for our wedding, and we finally enjoyed it last night. Even though I had never prepared lobster before, I decided to forgo the traditional boil them in a pot method and try my hand at one of my favorite Chinese dishes, Cantonese style lobsters. The trick to this dish is that you have to kill the lobsters and crack them without removing the meat from the shell before cooking. Michelle has watched her Mom do this before and she wanted no part of it. I was a bit apprehensive about it myself, but I decided to give it a shot. I'm pretty sure that the lobsters died a quick and relatively painless death at my hands, but there appears to be a lobster equivalent of rigor mortis, because I saw movement in their legs even after I had torn off their claws and tails and split open their bodies.



Eating and cooking shellfish is about as close as most of us are going to get to the actual process of turning live animals into food. I know of a lot of people don't like to eat fish and shellfish because of this, but I think it's good to get up close and personal with your food every once in a while. It doesn't hurt that the stuff tastes so good, of course.



Tags: Cooking Lobster

Gun Show

I really wanted to see Lord of War when it came out last year, but by the time I got around to seeing it, it had already left the theaters. I finally caught it on DVD this past weekend and I was very impressed. For starters, casting Nicolas Cage as an international arms dealer was a stroke of genius. He played the part of the Yuri Orlov, an amoral Ukranian-American arms dealer, with the same wit and humor that you expect from any character being portrayed by Nicholas Cage. It may be that Cage is not a very good actor and he can only play one personality type. I don't agree with this assessment, but even if it is true, it works to advantage of the movie because it makes it very difficult to root against Cage's character. By getting the audience to side with the gun runner, the movie forces the audience to examine the moral questions raised by the film instead of having the answers dictated to them directly.

The other thing that I really liked about the movie was the time period in which it took place. The story begins in the final days of the Cold War and ends right around 9/11. I don't watch a lot of movies, so I may be way off, but it seems to me that there are not a lot of geopolitical thrillers that take place in the post-Cold War/pre-9/11 interregnum. It's a lot easier to make a thriller when you can draw a neat line between good guys and bad guys. In reality, that line is probably never as clean as we hope it is, but it's a lot easier to draw that line when the audience already has some preconceived notions about the players on the screen before the movie starts. It's harder to say who the bad guys are in this movie. If Orlov is a bad guy for running guns, what does that make the warlords he sells them to?

Lord of War thankfully refuses to tie up all of the loose ends into a neat little conclusion. I think that people will come out of this movie with different conclusions based on the way that they see the world. My conclusion was basically that man's inhumanity towards man knows few limits. Ultimately, there is nothing much we can do about it, but it wouldn't hurt to try once in a while.

Tags: Movies Lord of War

Starr Report

Michelle noticed a not-so-subtle dig on Paris Hilton in today's installment of Brenda Starr. I chuckled a little bit, and any time a comic strip makes me chuckle, it's big news, so I thought I should present it for your viewing pleasure. If you ask me, London Hyatt is comedic gold, but Madrid Marriot is taking the joke a little bit too far.



Tags: Comics Brenda Starr Paris Hilton

Gamble On

For starters, here are some thoughts about the NHL betting scandal that is getting ready to pop. First of all, I like how all of the articles that mention Janet Jones (Wayne Gretzky's wife) have felt the need to mention her profession (actress); some have even given her the hyphenated title of actress-wife. This information seems superfluous to me. If she was famous for her acting, it wouldn't be necessary to remind everyone of her profession. Since she is famous for being married to Wayne Gretzky (and for gambling, apparently), let's just call her Wayne's wife and leave it at that.

When Gretzky was traded from the Oilers to the Kings on 8/8/88, at least part of the reason was so Janet could focus on her acting career. Alan Alda can say all he wants about being a sensitive guy, but the greatest hockey player in NHL history leaving the greatest hockey dynasty of the 1980's so his wife could get a couple of bit parts in some crappy movies has to be one of the biggest sensitive guy moves of all-time. Of course, there were other factors that brought Gretzky to L.A., such as money, cash, and Bruce McNall's baseball card collection. Speaking of Bruce, I wouldn't be surprised if he's part of Operation: Slapshot, assuming he's not dead or in jail right now.

One final thought regarding yesterday's post, why do media outlets keep going out of their way to describe the Danish political cartoons as caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad? Would there be riots in the Muslim world right now if the paper had drawn caricatures of Muhammad Ali? Muhsin Mohammed? If the cartoons had featured drawings of Vishnu that some Hindus found offensive, perhaps some explanation would be warranted since I don't think most Americans are all that knowledgeable about Hinduism, but I think almost anyone who is aware of Islam is also aware of Mohammed.

Tags: Janet Jones Wayne Gretzky Operation Slapshot

Intoonfadah

I'm not usually one to write letters to the editor, but I felt the need to express my contempt for this editorial about the fallout from the Danish political cartoons from today's Post-Standard. Here's the text of my letter:

Your editorial addressing the furor over the Danish political cartoons was severely misguided. The European newspapers that printed these cartoons were not attempting to inflame extremism, as you have suggested. They were attempting to make a statement about efforts on the part of Islamic fundamentalists to force European societies into forsaking freedoms that are incompatible with their fundamentalist world view. As the rioters have shown us, freedom of expression and freedom of conscience, values that are essential to modern democratic societies, have no place in their world. To suggest that anyone should have to forsake or even temper these freedoms in order to appease radical fundamentalists is both irresponsible and dangerous.

Tags: Islam Cartoons Denmark

Super Sunday

I'm not making any predictions for the big game, but I am going to pull for the Seahawks because I think they have the coolest logo in all of pro sports.



As I have noted before, I'm a big admirer of the art of the indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest and I find it really cool and even a little bit subversive that the Seahawks managed to incorporate it into their logo.

Tags: Superbowl Seahawks

Happy Setsubun

Today, people in Japan are celebrating Setsubun by consuming long, fat rolls of sushi in a single gulp. According to this short write-up of the holiday, you are supposed to face in a certain direction while eating your sushi to ensure good luck for the coming year. I don't know if this a more urban and eastern take on Groundhog Day or what. I think Setsubun has a more universal appeal than Groundhog Day, but I have to disagree with the writer's sentiments that this holiday is going to be going global in the not-too-distant future. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to chug a sushi roll every Feb 3rd, but I don't see it happening.

Tags: Setsubun Japan

Design Flaw

I have become something of a design geek over the past few years. It all started when I worked with a couple of very talented user interface designers at previous jobs. At first, I thought they were cranks because they couldn't shut up about making things that already seemed pretty easy even easier, but after a while, I began to understand what they were saying. Software is way too complicated, and most high-tech gadgets aren't far behind. Once your eyes have been opened to the unnecessary complexities foisted upon us by our modern day gadgets and appliances, you start seeing the world a little differently.

Yesterday, I got into the same elevator that I ride every day at work and it suddenly dawned on me that I have never seen an elevator where the floor numbers are actually on the buttons. You always have to find the floor number, then find the button next to that number. I've always felt that finding the right button in a n elevator was unnecessarily complex, but I was never sure why I felt that way. My point is not that it's hard to operate an elevator, my point is that it and hundreds of other tasks that we all have to do on a daily basis could be a little bit easier.

Speaking of design, if you're ever looking for an excellent but lesser-known museum in New York City, check out the Cooper-Hewitt. It's a museum dedicated to (you guessed it) design housed in an Andrew Carnegie mansion.

Tags: Design Elevator

Moment of Clarity

Like many people, I often have trouble deciphering song lyrics. Every once in a while, when I hear a song that I have misunderstood for years and years, I suddenly hear a previously misunderstood verse with complete clarity. It happened to me last night. After a very long day at work, I was rocking out to my favorite nighttime radio program when Alice cued up Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water". One of my favorite things about Nights with Alice Cooper, besides Alice's witty banter, is all of the deep cuts he plays. "Smoke on the Water" is anything but a deep cut, so I was kind of bummed, but that soon changed when I, for the first time in my life, correctly heard the second line of the song as: "On the Lake Geneva shoreline". I still would like to know if the lyrics to the song are based on a true story. Did Deep Purple ever go to Switzerland for a recording session with Frank Zappa that ended in an unfortunate string of arsons? Perhaps Alice clued in the listeners later on, but my drive ended before the end of the song.

Tags: Deep Purple Alice Cooper

35-5

With their win over Memphis last night, the Pistons improved their record to 36-5. I'm always on the look-out for teams in any sport that manage to amass a 35-5 record to start the season. The reason for this is my beloved 1984 Detroit Tigers, who set the record for baseball's best record after 40 games at 35-5 en route to a World Series championship. I figured that the Pistons, who have now matched the Tigers' feat and followed it up with another win, would easily have the record for the best start in NBA history. After all, Major League Baseball's regular season is almost twice as long as the NBA's regular season. As it turns out, the best record 40 games into the NBA season is a stunning 37-3, a mark that has been reached by three different teams (da Bulls in 1995-96, The Lakers in 1971-72, and the Sixers in 1966-67). Every NBA that has amassed a record of 35-5 or better at the start of the season has gone on to win the NBA title (so far).

Courting Disaster

I had a very strange dream a few nights ago. I dreamt that I was the newest member of the Supreme Court. I really haven't been paying all that much attention to the Alito confirmation hearings, so I'm not sure why the high court was on my mind. In my dream, I had no recollection of the confirmation hearings that I presumably went through before becoming the court's youngest and least-qualified member. Apparently, the stature of the court was no longer what it once was (possibly due to my confirmation) so instead of hearing cases in Washington, DC, the justices all travelled to the plaintiff's hometown and held court in a local courthouse or possibly a school gymnasium. My first case was located, conveniently enough, in Ithaca, NY, so I headed down there and met up with my new colleagues.

My waking self could probably pick 4-5 of the current Supreme Court justices out of a lineup, but when I arrived in Ithaca, I didn't recognize any of them. They all must have figured that I knew who they were because they didn't introduce themselves when they shook my hand. I was freaking out at this point. I knew it was only a matter of time before my complete ignorace of constitutional law would be exposed. I started trying to figure out people's names by process of elimination, but I couldn't even eliminate Clarence Thomas from the group. There were a couple guys who had darker colored skin, but neither looked like Thomas (or African-Americans, for that matter).

After the introductions, we all headed to the courthouse. I didn't know any details about the case until we arrived. The case involved a man who had donated a bunch of signs to the city of Ithaca. Some of them were the orange pylons that construction crews put on the road when they are doing construction, some where the yellow signs they put in the bathroom after they mop the floor. The problem was that some of the signs had religious symbols and messages on them (crucifixes, Bible verses, etc.). The question was whether or not it was constitutional for the city to use these signs in public places. The justices started giving their opinions and citing precedents, one after the other. Meanwhile, I was thinking to myself how stupid the whole thing was. I was about to blurt out "Who the hell cares!" during the debate, but I stopped because I realized that such an outburst might expose me as a fraud. If I was going to convince people that I was fit to be a Supreme Court justice, I had to care about the constitutionality of a municipality accepting a gift of traffic cones with Biblical verses painted on them. I woke up before I had to give my expert legal opinion on the issue, thankfully.

I wonder how often real Supreme Court justices feel the way I did in my dream? The cases that make it all the way to the Supreme Court are generally pretty important, but a lot of times, it seems like the justices have to split an excessive number of hairs to arrive at a ruling. We may someday have a case where the justices rule 9-0 in favor of who gives a damn.

Tags: Dreams Supreme Court

Worst Dictator Ever, Again

Parade Magazine published its annual survey of the world's worst dictators this week (read my review of last year's installment here). There were no major upsets in the world of tyranny last year. The top three dictators from the year before, Omar al-Bashir (Sudan), Kim Jong-il (North Korea), and Than Shwe (Myanmar) held onto their spots at the top of this dubious fraternity (still no ladies in the top 20). The big mover this year was Uzbekistan's Islam Karimov, who shot up from 15th place into 5th thanks to the massacre his regime engineered at Andijan in May. Iran's Ayatollah Khamane'i shot up from 18 place into ninth, presumably due to saber rattling on the part of Iran's new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. As the author notes, both Muammar Qaddafi and Pervez Musharraf have moved out of the top ten this year, "not because their conduct has improved but because other dictators have gotten worse."

I thought Hu Jintao was overrated at number four last year, and I still think that he is overrated at number six this year. Of the 20 countries listed in this year's survey, China is the only one that I would even think about living in, and one of the few that I would even consider visiting. China is of course run by a very repressive regime, but they at least give some of their citizens the chance to live a life that would be considered somewhat normal by free world standards. I don't think you can say the same thing for Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan, or Iran, three countries supposedly governed by more benign dictatorships than China.

This was definitely a tough year for dictators, no one got any rewards for good behavior this year. There was no mention of Saudi Arabia's small experiment with democracy and the author chose to criticize China for having no minimum wage instead of complimenting them on their continued economic expansion.

I still can't figure out why Parade Magazine devotes one issue a year to ranking the world's worst dictators. My cynical side says its yet another installment in the campaign to inspire irrational fears in the hearts and minds of Americans, which will in turn increase their appetite for "news" stories about things that they should be afraid of. Why else would a magazine that makes Reader's Digest look like The New Yorker spend any time writing about geopolitical affairs?

Tags: Dictators Parade Magazine

The Frozen Tundra

The AV Club has a good feature this week ranking their top XXII Superbowl highlight reels produced by NFL Films. As you would expect, most of them (8) are from the John Facenda era. I haven't seen all of the films included in this list, but I have seen at least a handful of them. Of the ones that I've seen, I'd have to go with Superbowl III as my all-time favorite (#2 on the AV Club's list). If anyone can find a recording of that corny Joe Namath fight song that they play in the film, please send out a link to it.

Tags: NFL Films Superbowl

The Truth is Stranger Than Satire

As a fan of both satire and sports, I initially held out a lot of hope for publications devoted to sports satire, such as Sports Pickle and The Onion's Sports Section. More often than not, I find the stories that they write lacking in humor, creativity, and wit. I have come to realize the real news that comes out of the sports world is usually so ridiculous, tragic, ironic, or funny that trying to satirize it is generally an exercise in futility.

Nothing illustrates this point better than this recent post on Deadspin. The post is a bitterly sarcastic take on the new Ultimate Arena Paintball League, a renegade extreme sports league that was either too cheap or too stupid to acquire the rights to www.uapl.com for their official league website.

Until the sporting world decides to stop providing us with Fark-quality headlines on a daily basis, get your sports humor fix from places like Deadspin or even your local sports section, where the truth is always stranger than fiction, and usually funnier to boot.

Tags: Sports Paintball

Fascist Gourmet

We do a lot of Chinese and Asian Fusion cooking at home, so we are no strangers to the mushroom section at our local Wegmans. My favorite mushroom variety is the tasty and versatile shiitake. The conveniently pre-sliced shiitake's that we usually get are grown in Avondale, PA by our good friends at To-Jo Fresh Mushrooms.



Am I the only one who finds it strange that a company that grows Japan's most treasured mushroom has a name eerily reminiscent of that country's wartime Prime Minister and convicted war criminal, Hideki Tojo? What's next? Hit-Ler's Choice sauerkraut? I'm guessing To-Jo is a combination of two red-blooded American names like Tom and Joe and is neither a tribute to Imperial Japan nor a deliberate attempt at irony.

Tags: Mushroom Shiitake Tojo Japan

Superbowl Shuffle

The Superbowl is coming, which means that it's time for companies to start blitzing the airwaves with promotions that promise a free trip to the Superbowl for a few lucky customers. We saw a couple of these commercials on TV last night, one sponsored by Sprint and the other by Burger King. It seemed like business as usual, until Michelle pointed out that neither ad mentioned where the Superbowl is being held this year (Detroit). I'm not positive, but it seems like in the past, these promotions included the destination in the commercial, i.e. win a trip to Jacksonville to watch Superbowl XXXIX. I checked out the online versions of these promotions today. Sprint doesn't mention the destination on their contest page, but Burger King does. I can understand how a free trip to Detroit in February (or any month of the year, for that matter) isn't as enticing as one to San Diego or Miami, but I would think the number of people who would be interested enough in a free trip to Superbowl to buy the sponsor's product would be roughly the same regardless of where the game was being played.

Tags: Superbowl Detroit

Where Dinner Is the Show

I'm going to do my best Ace Cowboy impression and write about some news of the weird from Long Island and the New York Rangers. Check out this story about a guy who died from complications after neck surgery. Neck surgery that was required after he "wrenched his neck" dodging a flying shrimp at a Benihana restaurant. A staggering, yet statistically insignificant, number of people die undignified deaths every year in this country, but this has to be one of least dignified ones that I've come across in a while. Could you imagine having to tell your family, friends, co-workers, etc. that one of your loved ones was done in by a flying shrimp? The family is suing Benihana for $10 million. It seems to me that suing the hospital where the neck surgery was performed or possibly even Jackie Chan would be a better legal strategy, but I am not a lawyer so I don't really know how these things work.

In happier news, the Rangers retired Mark Messier's number last night. I haven't been paying much attention to hockey this season, but I caught the end of the game and it really reminded me of what I like about hockey. For starters, the game was exciting. Jagr won the game for the Rangers 14 seconds into overtime after the Oilers failed to maintain control of the puck after winning the opening face-off. Both coaches wore a 'C' on the lapels of their suits in honor of Messier. They televised the three stars of the game ritual after the game, which was something that I had nearly forgotten about. Even Jagr, who is a prima donna by NHL standards, at least acted like he was happy to have been named the number one star of the night and acknowledged the crowd when he skated out during the ceremony. Most hockey players seem to genuinely enjoy playing hockey for a living, and that's not something that you always see with other professional sports.

Tags: Benihana New York Rangers Mark Messier

Manifest Destiny

As I sort of predicted yesterday, the recently hired employees of Destiny USA got the axe today. While this is certainly bad news for the 190 people who lost their jobs, their hiring back in August was such a bald-faced publicity stunt that I can't say I am at all surprised. The whole thing was scripted to play into the hopes and fears of the average resident of a dying rust belt city. Local developer goes out and hires 200+ locals, many of whom have no post-high school education and gives them high-paying jobs ($60K/year) where they get to do exciting work. Destiny launched an all-out PR blitz after hiring these people, featuring testimonials from the new employees in television and radio ads whose common theme was: thanks to Destiny, I don't have to leave my family and friends behind to go find gainful employment elsewhere. This is a huge issue in Syracuse, and I'm sure the commercials were designed to milk it for all its worth.

If you haven't already guessed, I don't think that Destiny is the solution to Syracuse's problems. For that matter, I don't think that it's ever going to get built. The one good thing that came out of today's announcement is that it shows Syracuse how the 21st century job market works. A bunch of people in Silicon Valley or New York or any other place where high-skill employees cluster probably lost their high-paying, exciting jobs yesterday too. Most of these people are probably not too worried. If they were working for a company that, like Destiny USA, hired too many people they didn't need and paid them more than they could afford, they may have to take a pay cut at their next job and might have to do more actual work than they were doing before. Ultimately, most of these people will find new work that engages them creatively and allows them to maintain or increase their standard of living. I don't think that this will be the case for all of the former Destiny employees, but hopefully, they will get back on their feet quickly and be a little more skeptical of anyone else who offers them gobs of money to do a poorly defined job with little connection to a viable business model.

Tags: Destiny USA Syracuse

I Ate Beef Jerky

Here is an interesting article about how Mandarin is replacing Cantonese as the Chinese dialect of choice in business and conversation in North America. Cantonese, which has far fewer native speakers, is the dialect of the original Chinese immigrants and the dialect of Hong Kong, which was mainland China's main contact point with the west prior to the rise of China's economic market. With plenty of immigrants coming from Mandarin-speaking areas these days and China's rise to prominence in the global economy, it's not surprising that Cantonese is losing its priviledged position. I'm in no position to judge the quirkyness of the Cantonese dialect, though if this is the case, I have even more incentive to study it since I am a big fan of linguistic quirks.

Michelle's family is from Hong Kong/Southern China so they speak Cantonese. Michelle speaks it too, and while she's not fluent, she is better than she lets on. She has taught me a handful of words and phrases in Cantonese that I can manage to pronounce correctly on occasion. I'm still not sure if I have ever pronounced her middle name properly, however. The important thing is that I know the names of a number of different food items. When we make it over to Hong Kong, I fully intend to spend most of my time there eating, so I should be all set.

Hat tip: Marginal Revolution

Tags: Chinese Cantonese Hong Kong

Tag Team

Astute readers will notice that I have started added tags to my posts. These tags are little more than hyperlinks that link back to Technorati, which is a blog searching tool. The main reason that I did this was because I think that tagging is a really great idea. I was very enthusiastic about tagging from the get-go, and this article from Technology Review last year helped seal the deal for me. It's a simple way for content producers to associate metadata with their content that makes it much easier for search engines to find relevant content. I definitely think that it's going to become a lot more common over the next few years and I am fairly certain that new and better ways of tagging information will emerge. I wish Blogger supported tags natively like some other blog publishing software. Ideally, I'd like the tags on my blog to take readers to all of the other posts that I have written that contain the selected tags instead of taking them to the Technorati search engine, but the system that I have right now is a start.

Tags: Technorati Tagged Internet

Marching Orders

Allow me, if you will, to enjoy a little bit of schadenfreude. According to today's Post-Standard, Destiny USA tried to organize a march in front of the Onondaga county courthouse yesterday, where a judge was trying to sort out the latest battle in the ongoing dispute between the city of Syracuse and Destiny. Destiny tried to press some of its recently hired workers into service, but after waiting almost an hour for anyone to show up, they called off the march.

For those of you who are unaware, Destiny USA is project that has been trying to get off the ground for at least seven years now. The idea is to take Syracuse's already large mall and turn it into a shopping and entertainment complex larger than Minnesota's Mall of America. As far as I can tell, the developer (Bob Congel) is a huckster who is trying to extort funding and tax breaks from the city to finance what will at best be a minimal expansion to the existing mall and at worst be a boondoogle that will make Auto World look like Disneyland.

Regardless of whatever happens to the dream that is Destiny USA, I have to admire the pluck of the soon-to-be-laid-off employees who didn't bother showing up for the march on the courthouse. I'm not the kind of person who can easily avoid following rules, no matter how asinine or counter-productive they may be. Because of this, I take great pride in refusing to do anything that is suggested by an authority figure, regardless of how I actually feel about it. At my previous job, I was out visiting a client in the middle of the whole debate about the Medicare prescription drug act. The client I was visiting stood to profit from this piece of legislation, so the CEO sent out an e-mail to the whole company urging employees to write to their representatives in Congress and urge them to vote for the bill. I wasn't privy to this e-mail, but the guy I was working with mentioned it to me while I was there. I still get steamed when I think about this for some reason, and it really has nothing to do with how I feel about the Medicate prescription drug act. The whole thing is about as pathetic as a guy who protests his company's dress code by wearing white athletic socks underneath his dress socks, but I'm ok with that.

Tags: Destiny USA Syracuse

Jump Start

Jump Start, a comic strip that usually concerns itself with the life of an affable African-American family and their humorous friends and relatives, threw its hat into the intelligent design debate today.



I am totally stumped by this one. The moon appears to be talking to the earth, which the sun misinterprets as the voice of God. Perhaps it is an attempt to link the big bang, evolution, and intelligent design under the umbrella of some kind of super Gaia theory where all planets and celestial objects are self-aware and debate each other about culture war touchstones.

Tags: Comics Jump Start Intelligent Design

München

We saw Munich this weekend, and while I'm not going to review the film, I would like to address some of the criticism that I have read about the movie. Some people have argued that Spielberg made the terrorists look too sympathetic. I don't know what movie these people were watching. Without giving too much away, the film featured a bone-chilling reenactment of the Israeli Olympic team being taken hostage by Black September and the botched attempt to free the hostages. If this wasn't enough to establish the depravity of terrorists, I'm not sure what would Spielberg could have done to assuage his critics. The story was told from the perspective of the Israelis who were sent to Europe to hunt down the people who orchestrated the massacre in Munich with little more than a list of names. The lack of specific information about the targets affected their mission and affected each man in a different way, and the movie was much more compelling this way than it would have been if Spielberg had depicted each target as a cartoon villain who was kicking puppies or stealing candy from babies when he wasn't plotting to destroy Israel.

Tags: Movies Munich

Good Game

I've got to say that last night's USC-Texas game was one of the few super-hyped sporting events that actually lived up to its hype. I was on the edge of my seat for most of the night and I had no real rooting and/or betting interest in the game. Even the crowd was amazing. I can't recall any time during the game that the crowd wasn't making a ton of noise. They were probably screaming during the commercial breaks and TV times-out (does Keith Jackson always pluralize time-out that way? Is it grammatically correct?) When Texas cut their deficit to five with about 4:00 left, I scripted out how I wanted the game to end: Texas' defense comes up with a stop, Texas drives, scores a TD with < 1:00 left, USC takes over and tries to win/force OT as the clock expires. That's what I wanted, and it was exactly what I got. I can't really fault USC for not punting at midfield on 4th and 2 with about 2:00 left. Normally, I'm a big believer in field position, but when you're the defending champ holding onto a small lead with 2:00 left, you have to go for it and count on your defense to make a big play if you don't make it. The Vince Young touchdown that put Texas up for good with 0:19 left was amazing. When they lined up for that play, I had a feeling that Young was going to run it in for the score. I think most of the viewing audience, spectators, and players had the same feeling too. It was an incredible night of football.