I want a rocket car.

Museum Fatigue

2012-01-14T20:36:00.004-06:00

I just got back from visiting my friends Peter and Naomi in NYC. While at the American Museum of Natural History, Peter and I defined the 5 (6, including the zero-state) stages of museum fatigue.

Stage 0 - You arrive at the museum, start an exhibit, and happily read the description of each item in an exhibition, regardless of personal interest.

Stage 1 - You're still reading all of the item descriptions and carefully perusing the items on display, but you get bored about half way through reading the descriptions.

Stage 2 - You begin skipping descriptions for items that aren't immediately interesting and start paying more attention to the other museum attendees. You're still enjoying your experience.

Stage 3 - You hate other people. People are taking pictures of the paintings and taxidermied animals. They are idiots. When you finally get a good view of an item that interests you, you take your time reading the description, just to get in the way of the photo-obsessed philistines. You are not quite enjoying yourself, but you are persevering to appreciate the privilege of learning, observing, absorbing.

Stage 4 - You hate yourself. Exhibits you've dreamed of seeing, sights that should unleash the *squee* of your inner child, even dinosaurs cannot capture your full attention. You're still looking, sure, but you've developed a disgust with your inability to pay your due attention to truly magnificent displays.

Stage 5 - You can't take it anymore and exit the museum.

2011-12-14T00:49:00.002-06:00

I stare at her chest. As she breathes, the rounded peaks move up and down like the swell of waves, somehow reminding me of rain falling softly on a broad stretch of sea. I'm the lonely voyager standing on deck, and she's the sea. The sky is a blanket of gray, merging with the gray sea off on the horizon. It's hard to tell the difference between sea and sky. Between voyager and sea. Between reality and the workings of the heart.

Transition

2011-08-20T13:30:00.009-05:00

Like so many Americans, I've suddenly found myself out of work with little prospects in my immediate future. While I was really planning on living out the dream described in my prepared response to a popular interview question (-"Where do you see yourself in five years?" -"I was hoping to just stay on as an intern...forever"), my fortunes have not been so fair. So, it looks like I'm headed back to school to get the Political Science major that's really gonna make high quality employers get weak in the knees for me.

Bumming around Riverwest and short-sighted late night hangouts with Ellie made this summer into more than (well compensated) slave labor for my corporate overlords. In fact, summer in Milwaukee, with old familiar faces and new connections through the Sandy Pasch for Senate campaign, far exceeded my expectations. As I leave my childhood home again, eager anticipation for the friends, bars, lakes, and quiet corners of Wisconsin's capital eases the longing I'll feel for a place I never expected to miss.

Thus, I transition once again. Taking my commitments in 3-6 month bites, I've just two semesters left to complete my undergraduate experience. I'm fortunate to have another year. New friends and opportunities presented themselves in earnest at the close of last year and I'm thrilled at the chance to see where they'll lead.

I'm going back to Madison in 3 days. I hope to see you there.

Joe has some good ideas

2011-04-03T18:23:00.003-05:00

me: smell-o-vision has been a long time coming

i think obama should make smell-o-vision a national goal by 2015

Benjamin: xfd

me: sputnik moment

Benjamin: peace in the middle east. no more hunger. improved math education. smellovision. reduced emissions, free university. improved healthcare.

me: guns in schools

Benjamin: that

me: a cat for every family

facsimile 2.0

Benjamin: horsehair toothbrushes

me: better perforations on legal pads

a temperature gage on every coffee cup

the destruction of the vegetarian-socialist economy

Benjamin: cigarettes that dont give lung cancer

me: food that quenches thirst

3-d fire alarms

libraries in space

Benjamin: sanitary pooping without wiping

me: this guy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaoLU6zKaws on every corner

The "Rockford" Strategy

2011-02-18T12:45:00.006-06:00

Yesterday, Wisconsin Senate Democrats left the state to hold up a vote on Governor Walker's "Budget Repair Bill," which will remove collective bargaining rights on benefits for state and local employees and remove the legislature from future decisions regarding Medicaid (leaving them instead with the Department of Health Services and the Governor). Unable to reach quorum required for budgetary legislation, 20 Senators - 3/5 of the chamber, Republican efforts have been stalled in hopes of potential negotiation and a chance to give the public a thorough look at the bill. The discovery of this minority power drew my thoughts to its oft-criticized Federal analogue, the filibuster.

As much as you can complain about use of the filibuster, GOP filibuster of the healthcare law allowed people to learn information, with varying levels of accuracy, about the bill before it came to a final vote. Lacking similar procedural minority rights in the Wisconsin legislature, Senate Democrats have created a comparable solution with their "Rockford" strategy. This does not have the same power to change the overall legislation as the filibuster does, but it does accomplish what the filibuster intends - to allow for debate and public awareness of legislation and its potential impacts. Instead of less than a week of discussion, we're getting at least a few days more, enough to educate WI residents and allow them to communicate their opinions to their elected representatives. To borrow a phrase from the week's rallies, this is what democracy looks like.

A family of trees

2011-02-08T23:13:00.005-06:00

Hey dudes. I wanna stop in for a real post right now, but I'm gonna do homework instead. So much for procrastinating.

In lieu of me, here's this (song starts at 1:10):

Official Warning

2011-01-30T14:06:00.003-06:00

Don't go to Madhatters. A random drunk guy thought it was a good conversational move to put me in a headlock and had a hard time understanding "Don't touch me like that" and "just leave us alone" afterward. I think that's a solid excuse to never go there again.

-1/5 Plazas

Cold Winds, Hot Toddies

2011-01-22T16:11:00.012-06:00

Last night I went to Shabbat at Ofek Shalom, Jewish Co-op and the place my friend Aly calls home. Every Friday they hold a Shabbat dinner open to anyone (though knowing someone there is probably requisite), and I attended with Tom and Pavlos in tow. With Friday's temperatures kicking around between -15F and -5F, a special remedy was in order, an ambiguously defined standby, the Hot Toddy.

Hot Toddy recipes have few rules: serve hot and involve a permutation of sugar, spice and ~~CHEMICAL X~~ alcohol (brandy or whiskey of some kind). They range from more tea-like honey and ginger varieties to recipes like Hot Milk Punch, found in the nytimes under the headline: It's Toddy Time. Our recipe differed slightly due to availability of time / ingredients.

This goes out to all the whole milk fans in the audience:

1 cup whole milk
1 tablespoon white sugar
2 ounces strong bourbon (45% by volume)
1/2 tablespoon vanilla extract
ground nutmeg

"Heat the milk in a small saucepan over medium heat, frothing it with a whisk until it is quite hot but not boiling. Whisk in the sugar. Remove from the heat and stir in the bourbon" and vanilla. "Pour into a heatproof mug and" sprinkle nutmeg "atop the foam. Serves one."

I suggest making them in batches.

This drink took Friday's stinging cold and transported me to a lovely velvet island of lush creamy delight. An admitted sucker for dairy, I make no exception for whole milk, which dominates the flavor of Hot Milk Punch, freeing the bourbon and nutmeg to create subtle flavors and the warm embrace that accompanies each swallow. If Mr. Tom Collins is the man to drink on an August afternoon after mowing the lawn, Hot Milk Punch is the perfect drink for the heart of winter, best enjoyed in an old, well worn kitchen snowed in with friendship.

5/5 Tom Collins.

In other news:

I haven't mentioned it yet, but I'm thrilled with how many top x album of the year lists Joanna Newsom made last year (and how high she was indexed). She's certainly not for everyone, but if these tracks from Have One On Me tickle your fancy, I'll cut you a slice of my joy - but this is a particularly savory and delicious joy, so I'm keeping most of it for myself. Saw her at the Pabst with Jessi last year and she contributed significantly to one of the best nights I've had, ever.

"In" joke of the day: A libertarian-themed metal band (possibly with train enthusiast mistresses) could classify themselves as Rearden Metal.

We can't go off the rails on this crazy train because the rails are made of Rearden Metal and are five times stronger than steel.

The Big Boy Milkshake

2011-01-21T00:08:00.004-06:00

aka the Caucasian aka the White Russian. The Dude's beverage of choice.

Simple, classic, potentially stomach churning.

2oz vodka
1oz kahlua
half and half

Pour vodka and kahlua over a glass with a couple ice cubes in it. Add half and half (or third and third and third) to taste - I may have indulged a bit.

What emerges from what appears as a trainwreck of combination is a smooth, iced coffee-esque beverage with an oh-so-slight bite after swallowing. A treat to enjoy as I further put off catching up on my reading.

4.5/5 Tom Collins.

Best Coast

2011-01-18T16:43:00.006-06:00

Best Coast debuted their video for "Crazy For You" (album has the same name) on icanhascheezburger.com and it quickly becomes obvious why:

Best Coast put out one of my favorite albums of 2010, and I'd highly recommend it. Coming in around 37 minutes in total, it's not a huge time investment either (unless you repeatedly loop it, which I also recommend).

In other music excitement, there's are new Cut Copy and Decemberists albums just around the corner.

Full intentions to write more. blahblahblah. Now that I'm back in school my life is more interesting, as my social life exists and I talk to people other than middle aged co-workers and my parents. In other words, I'm feeling pretty optimistic having just finished up my first day back to school.

Fathers and Sons; Family and Friends

2010-11-11T22:02:00.006-06:00

My dad and I went out for a one-on-one, man-to-man, father-and-son, just-two-guys-and-we're-having-a-good-time dinner tonight at the Comet Cafe, an undisputed jewel of the Milwaukee culinary scene. About a year ago I had one of my few pre of-legal-age drinks in a bar at Comet and today I revisited this delightful, bacon garnished beverage - the Bloody Mary:

Served with the traditional beer chaser, Comet's Bloody doesn't pack too much spice, though the mini beer was welcome and refreshing. Nostalgic for a simpler time, dad told me about the old days of 7oz Schlitz malt liquor chasers and I assured him that, Schlitz aside, all the old malt liquor brands are still alive (Olde English), kicking (Colt 45), and flying off shelves at college campus convenient stores across America (Mickies). Hipsters and work

ing class drinkers, feel free to correct me as to today's more popular brands.

I love Comet. I love my dad. I very much enjoy the occaisonal Bloody Mary.

4/5 Tom Collins

As promised, a quick DC update:

Davidson was a wonderful host (and it was great to meet Sarah). I never got tired and actually began to delight each time I'd hear him utter the phrase "I promise this is the last train story I tell you." He's been living out in D.C. with Jon since this summer, working for a train consulting firm while Jon spits his lobbying game to keep religion and government distinct and separate. I didn't get to spend time with Jon though, till I flew back to Milwaukee, as he'd come back to help with that never to be mentioned again election on the same day I'd arrived.

The rally itself was fantastic. Hilarious, heartfelt, honest performing; good spirited, demographically diverse (from where I was standing) people; and signs. Thousands and thousands of snarky, ironic remedies from the extremely foul disposition one seems to take from reading and watching too much election coverage. NPR has a great, accurate breakdown of the day's festivities and how they sat in the eyes of the attendants here, so I won't go through a play-by-play. But I will show you our signs. (Huffington Post, though typically only useful for increasing rally attendance, reading pre-editorialized news, and studying the latest celebrity gossip, has a great user submitted gallery of rally signs. But I'll leave you to wade through that shithole.)

As I said, Davidson made an excellent host and between going out for wood fired pizza (literally feet from his apartment), a bike tour of downtown, plenty of stories and reminiscing, and my first time seeing Good Will Hunting, I maintain my faith in the people I got to know in high school. I spend so much time looking for new faces and relationships, and these, no doubt, are as surprising, deep, and valued as ever on the best of days. But with a simple look to the past and a mere phone call, I've recaptured from obscurity, a storied relationship with many more tales to be written.

well...

2010-11-04T00:04:00.005-05:00

I think that after Tuesday, we can all agree that it's time for a drink. Cocktail reviews make their triumphant return in my next post. I'll also give some impressions on my trip to D.C.

On my flight home, I sat next to NPR Reporter John Ydstie. Most starstruck I've been in my life. He was flying into Wisconsin to cover Feingold...

Russ, you will be missed. Thank you for 18 years representing the Badger State in the US Senate.

look it up

2010-10-29T01:08:00.002-05:00

One of my favorite guests to watch every election season, the number one hit on Google for "presidential historian," Doris Kearns Goodwin is making the rounds again and will be on the Colbert Report sometime in the near future. Speaking of, tomorrow I leave for DC, one of thousands (millions?) of people planning to attend the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear.

While I leave a community of dedicated volunteers for this weekend of respite, I've seen myself replaced by not just one but a handful of volunteers and willing hands who've driven in from so far as New York and Massachusetts in their own free time to keep Feingold from getting beat by a guy who can't find Washington D.C. on a map. (Last week, he came to my workplace for a Q/A and informed us that some key problems with America's educational system were a lack of free markets and too little emphasis on American Exceptionalism.) I've also gotten to know a legitimate grassroots organization of local advocates for progressive politics: Grassroots North Shore. Working with Organizing For America (where I began with campaigning - organization is more of an amalgam now), Grassroots North Shore has helped us turn out truly impressive numbers of volunteers knocking doors on weekends and their devotion and experience shows. Coming back into Whitefish Bay and finding strong supportive communities reminds me of why so many people put up with the absurdity that pervades the village. I'm re-evaluating my take on Bellah et al. and may be persuaded into a nostalgic desire to reclaim our lost bonds of community. Peter and I discussed how the Tea Party is turning our minds on this one. (On average, higher incomes, higher education levels, and better security than the median citizen, these adherents to Rand's gospel of selfishness spend their time complaining from a position of severe privilege. It's bad for everyone - you're just well off enough that you can take time off work to yell in a group of "patriots" who appear to be college educated white employed males.)

If this isn't organized well I'll fix it up later. I'm going to bed.

I've been busy.

2010-10-21T23:01:00.006-05:00

Still am actually. With this 8-5 M-F jobby and trying to keep Feingold in office, this whole blog-venture I've been leading you all on has screeched to the proverbial 'halt.' Just 2 more weeks and I'll have my nights and weekends back. Maybe I'll write you a poem, or perhaps a short story. I haven't stabbed at creative writing in years but this precocious 12 year old might just inspire me (she's Dan's cousin).

In the meantime, would you all please vote. If you're a Wisconsin resident and currently out of state, check out www.votenowwisconsin.com to learn how to vote here. There's also instructions there for early voting for those who are still in WI. Bring a friend with you when you vote. Talk about the election in spaces where you aren't typically political. Moving someone from apathy to action doubles your influence on the outcome here.

Thanks.

Update: Gail Collins offers admiration and support to Feingold, offers to stop calling us cheeseheads - if we want.

Wherein...

2010-09-30T22:34:00.003-05:00

I mischaracterize Ben with a clip from our exchange tonight:

Benjamin: so joe

outside of my starcraft addiction

ive decided that

on my lifes resume

under best things

star trek is going to have a spot

when i die

me: what?

so you like star trek a lot?

Benjamin: i dunno i was just thinking about how awesome star trek is

its the only thing im interested in now

In this episode of "Wherein..." I've mischaracterized Ben as a person who likes things.

Sufjan

2010-09-18T11:02:00.005-05:00

Sufjan Stevens just put out the All Delighted People EP, available now via digital download only. While some tracks on the EP bend towards the crazy, abstract side of some of his more recent work, others have the simple beauty of such tracks as Romulus, The Mistress Which From Mcclure, and The Upper Peninsula. Here's one of them:

Go Badgers! Fuck up ASU. Do it for me. No, do it for Ben.

Radiohead's Colin Greenwood also just wrote up a piece on music in the age of digital distribution and talks nonspecifically about the new album they just recorded. Quote: "we have just finished another group of songs, and have begun to wonder about how to release them in a digital landscape that has changed again."

crossing my fingers!

2010-09-17T22:00:00.012-05:00

The waiting is the

hardest part.

I wrangled with html so you blind kids can click the pictures. Updates pending. Bonus fact: there are only 28 people in the group.

A heartfelt thank you

2010-09-16T07:14:00.003-05:00

to Morning Edition and All Things Considered. You make me resist my strong bend towards road rage on the ways to and from work so that I can hear entirety of a story. Think of it as a daily "driveway moment" except instead of sitting with the engine off in the driveway I'm staying in the car during rush hour and resisting my urge to grab the nearest tire iron and going to town on someone's windshield.

I should probably donate. Maybe I can recount my story on air.

a brother in arms

2010-09-14T18:25:00.009-05:00

All you fans of destruction of the gender binary, Randall Monroe, of xkcd infamy, is on our side (link here). In a recent color survey he conducted (explanation somewhere here), he wanted to ask biological sex of participants (as colorblindness is much more prevalent among males). Instead of asking a typical (m/f) identifier question, he choose instead, after much discussion with peers, to ask this question:

Do You Have a Y Chromosome?

(Yes / No / Don't Know)

If unsure, select “Yes” if you are physically male and “No” if you are physically female. If you have had SRS, please respond for your sex at birth. This question is relevant to the genetics of colorblindness.

After months of not reading xkcd, I was thrilled to drop in on his blog and find he's part of the wave of gender liberation that seems to be sweeping social justice advocate communities across the nation. I really wish I was better with words and expertise to discuss this topic, so, instead of trying, I'll just point you here: Jessi's blog. Jessi's long been one of my best friends and they have an excellent education in and history of advocacy for gender liberation. They're basically the coolest.

*As part of their personal belief system and passionate activism, Jessi has abandoned self-ascription of gendered pronouns and instead asks that we refer to them as they/them. If you're confused, I'll re-recommend reading their blog.

**pretty ashamed of how many times I wrote "blog" in this post.

***I've also been listening to the hell out of this:

Home

2010-09-09T20:29:00.005-05:00

What does home mean? Three weeks after moving back, I have some more concrete answers to this question.

Home means I get to drive a car every day. Home means my parents welcome me home with a freshly painted room and a rapidly advancing (and now complete) re-imagining of my closet. It means long conversations with my mom about people she knew in medical school. Unwinding with my parents as we dribble through the door after each of our days at each of our offices. Eating a meal together on Sunday and instructing mom and dad on how to best use their votes in Tuesday's primary (Sept 14th. Open primaries mean you should vote for underdog GOP candidates - go Westlake and Neuman!). Fighting to clean out the refrigerator. Spending time with friends whose semesters/quarters/trimesters push back their first day of school. Going to the opera with mom. Sailing with my parents' friends. Listening to my favorite NPR station. Shaving every other day instead of every other week.

Business Casual.

And even though I have to wake up and work, not having homework almost makes it okay.

do you even have your own font?

2010-09-05T13:11:00.004-05:00

If your place of employment lacks it's own typeface, it's probably far smaller than my new employer and largest company on Earth - GE. And if your company does have it's own typeface, I'll bet it doesn't have serifs.

Here's our font - GE Inspira. See. I said our. They have me already.

for all the se7en fans

2010-08-30T23:50:00.002-05:00

Posted on the official radiohead youtube page titled:

MORGAN FREEMAN RECEIVES HIS RADIOHEAD IN RAINBOWS DISCBOX

Day 11: hocus pokus

2010-08-22T23:03:00.003-05:00

Winding down my first night back in Milwaukee, I mixed up, in highball glasses, what amounted to an improvised kiddie cocktail. From my newly established and entirely appropriate post behind the basement bar, Reena suggested adding spirits to avoid feeling particularly juvenile in our beverage selection. Thus, from the ashes of whatever I could find in my basement, hocus pokus, my first 'original' cocktail, was born.

hocus pokus

diet 50/50
Rose's grenadine
Reyka vodka

Pour diet 50/50 over ice in a highball glass. Add a spash of grenadine and a shot of Reyka. Serve with a straw or stirring utensil. I chose a broken in half chop stick.

ooo. pretty.

The drink is pretty evidently pink as hell, sort or reminiscent of the elephant hallucination during Dumbo. Also, the drink is pretty evidently a spiked kiddie cocktail. With a bit too much syrupy sweetness, I'd consider mixing this in the future using club soda instead of diet 50/50. In fact, I will never be making the original hocus pokus again, as, seriously, when is the next time I'll have access to f'ing diet 50/50* and no other lemon lime soda. Despite my complaints, hocus pokus is more than palatable and is considerably more of a drink than the vodka/mountain dew comparisons less discerning individuals might present. As a first and on the spot attempt, I'm also quite happy with my work.

Decent job Joe: 3/5 Tom Collins

*diet 50/50 is not even lemon lime. It's grapefruit / lime. Thank you Dr. Pepper Snapple Group.

Holy cats.

2010-08-20T19:21:00.003-05:00

I just listened to this 3 times in a row.

Cee Lo Green : Fuck You

This is hitting me as hard as the first time I heard "Hey Ya."

An Open Letter to John Oliver and Andy Zaltzman and Chris

2010-08-18T20:51:00.002-05:00

Dear Andy, John, and Chris,

I really, honestly love your podcast. It makes my week. When I heard about the hero masquerading as a flight attendant at JetBlue, my second and third thoughts turned to how eagerly I awaited the Bugle's return and their coverage of such a 100 year event in living one's dreams. And you did not disappoint!

Except you did. The same way you continuously disappoint week after week. Your volume levels are far too low and fluctuate wildly throughout a given program. Please increase and normalize your volume levels. If you don't, I will certainly continue to listen long into the future.

Sincerely,

Joe

Double Rainbow Spotted in Madison, WI

2010-08-13T21:19:00.002-05:00

Day 9 and 10: New and old friends

2010-08-07T21:26:00.007-05:00

Earlier this week, Rosh and I went to Pizza Brutta, always good, and then out for a drink. Fumbling towards an eventual decision, Rosh and I decided to bike to the square and decide from there. Along the way there, I found out that no one ever taught Rosh how to properly ride a bike - he needs to be on the seat, he can't stand on the pedals and ride, but we're working on that. Finding Genna's closed (my pick), Rosh steered me towards the Paradise Lounge, described as one of Madison's "hipster bars." Hipster or not, midday on a Sunday brought a markedly different sort through the doors, the same live-in-bar types I saw when I patronized the Blue Moon for early morning World Cup games. On the way out, I complimented a man smoking outside on his "gun show" patterned t-shirt (the negative image of this), and he informed me the hoodie is coming out this season; apparently orange is the badass, super rare color. I'm new to streetwear, so these insider tips are great. Also, I just ordered a wallet with that pattern in white on light blue.

Now I'll jump back from my digression and get to the meat an potatoes, my first Alabama Slammer, as it were. I've been tending towards whatever the drink specials are, picking up behavior cues from the companions who accompany me on my watering-hole adventures. A typical Alabama Slammer, what an incredible name, contains:

1oz Amaretto
3oz Orange Juice
1oz Southern Comfort
1oz Sloe Gin

I'll go out on a limb and make the uneducated guess that the Sloe Gin really makes this drink. Sloe Gin is typically gin infused with sugar and sloe berries, giving it a deep cherry-red color. Even mixed relatively strong, the juniper-bite is minimal and between the SoCo, OJ, and Amaretto, the finish is sweet and savory. Served in a handled-jar filled with ice, I can picture sitting back on the front porch of an Antebellum mansion and drinking these through a lazy Sunday afternoon, then waking up with a pounding headache and the stark realization that my state is 31% obese and home to one of the worst educational systems in the country.

Thanks again to Rosh for the picture.

Excellent beverage. Would drink again. 5/5 Tom Collins. I'd also like to check out the Paradise Lounge's night scene sometime. Let me know if you're in. One last Alabama thought: recently, I've been caving to repeated cravings to hear Alabama's 1988 #1 country hit, Song of the South. I don't know what's happening to me.

Intermission: Old Me / Now Me

Continuing to ride the train of "hipster bars," I went out this Thursday to the Plaza with Stephen and his girlfriend Julia. My first time going there I ran into a) all of Stephen's friends, obviously b) Aly c) Jordan d) a neighbor who I haven't talked to since I was a child. All of these people yielded wonderful interactions and an extremely positive endorsement of the Plaza, despite Fred's warning that I might get stabbed there.

I also got my first taste of a proper Long Island, a Strong Island ifyouwill, the Thursday special that, at $2, seems to draw all kinds of people who I'd actually want to talk to into the same place at the same time. Though I'll admit that I was probably wrong about Long Island mix all coming in one bottle, there's no substitute for a properly proportioned mix. Unfortunately there's no picture this time, but my Strong Island came in a glass this time and the sweet and sour mix along with a splash of coke did a surprisingly great job masking the deadly concoction that it really is.

I give the Strong Island a 4/5 Tom Collins and am tempted to start ranking bars out of Thursday at the Plaza.

Ayn's ode to cigarettes

2010-08-03T02:59:00.007-05:00

We all know how wonderful, realistic, kind, selfless and altruistic Ayn Rand was through her life and her works. For those of you who haven't read Atlas Shrugged, here's another, actual, Ayn fact: she LOVES cigarettes. For those of you remaining non-smokers out there, I hear a good 80% of the US population, maybe this will turn you as fast as she turned you on to the virtue of selfishness:

I like to think of fire held in a man’s hand. Fire, a dangerous force, tamed at his fingertips. I often wonder about the hours when a man sits alone, watching the smoke of a cigarette, thinking. I wonder what great things have come from such hours. When a men thinks, there is a spot of fire alive in his mind-and it is proper that he should have the burning point of a cigarette as his one expression.

Just a fun little passage I've been thinking about over the past week. Loves me some Ayn.

In the line of fire

2010-07-31T13:00:00.007-05:00

Tom Barrett proved last August that he's willing to die to protect Wisconsin's children and families. Would Scott Walker do the same?

Opines Jack: if you were rich maybe.

Well put.

Also, the man who wrote this letter to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, is, simply, an asshole:

Helpless

The story of Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett's battery is a metaphor for his run for governor. While it is admirable that he wanted to help, Barrett was unarmed and is obviously not proficient in self-defense. He stuck his nose into something he was not equipped nor qualified to handle and got his clock cleaned. The same thing will happen if he is elected governor.

Paul W. Klahn
Milwaukee

You have got to be kidding me.

Day 8: Mistakes I won't make again

2010-07-30T18:07:00.006-05:00

include meeting my former roommate at awful, awful bars (i.e. Church Key, Chasers). After a night that took me from a Jewish co-op to a cancelled wop party/rock show at the Campus Lutheran Center, I found myself in the company of a supremely drunk Eric and a handful of acquaintances (also a few solid older relations) at bars with atmosphere that left me with an uncontrollable urge to run for the door.

But, seeing the Church Key's special - $3 long island ice teas - and remembering this wonderful/torturous experiment, I held my impulse for exodus, approached the bar and ordered my first ever of this supposed juggernaut of inebriation.

So they fill up a 12 ounce plastic cup with ice, pour a bunch of sweet and sour mix in, followed by one type of liquor (one bottle at least, perhaps they have a blend of demon water with the proper mix in it, though I doubt it), and then splash coke on it. I have approximately zero confidence that they mixed the drink properly, as a proper Long Island Ice Tea contains the following:

one part vodka
one part tequila / teqkilla
one part rum
one part gin
one part triple sec
one and one half parts sweet and sour mix
one splash coke

Of paltry size and assuredly improperly concocted, I was surprised by how mild my 'tea' tasted. Deriving most of the flavor from sweet and sour mix, it went down easily and quickly, almost refreshing. But, as I still lacked a true long island experience, coupled with the loud people, terrible music, and even louder announcements of adherence to traditional gender roles at Church Key, I give this cocktail 1.5/5 Tom Collins.

Chasers had even worse Atmosphere, worse than the City, so I ordered a water and tried to leave as soon as time, and acquaintances, would allow.

Camping update: After catching a 5 inch perch on Monday, it took me until Friday (with daily fishing) to catch another one. But it was worth it. 15 inch largemouth bass.

bye

2010-07-24T16:25:00.001-05:00

No updates for a week. Camping.

weekend update (i)

2010-07-21T16:44:00.015-05:00

Waking up after a Madison-Chicago bus ride on Saturday, my weekend in Chicago did not disappoint. Kicking off with a tour of local cuisine, sampling pizza, ice cream, and stomach aches, Casey, his girlfriend Sam and I moved on to see Inception (again, for me). Pro-tip: post movie discussions with a fiction major and film student, respectively, is a different ball game than you'd expect. Still no word from Casey on his general opinion.

Night, but mostly my cocktail project, took us to The Temple Bar, a local establishment specializing in live Beatles covers played at atmosphere ruiningly high volumes. Electing to sit outside, I ordered a John Daly - an Arnold Palmer with vodka. While it sounds great (I LOVE ARNOLD PALMERS), their particular blend of iced tea and lemonade lacked strength or character in both fronts, leaving a strong vodka taste and much to be desired. (Day 6: 2/5 Tom Collins)

observant readers will note that Casey is a fellow huge watch enthusiast

From there, we headed to Sam's apartment in Lincoln Park. The houses in her area area crazy nice, each with a strong personality and unique architecture, many boasting two car garages. Despite their affluent surroundings, Sam's apartment was far from overly gaudy, much more resembling a second story apartment in a house in Madison, but with higher ceilings, a gas stove, a back porch that wasn't sagging dangerously, and tall frontage windows. The apartment is currently for sale, as tearing down older apartments and homes in the area seems a pastime for the locals who frequent in consumption of luxury goods. They should be safe to live there for a while though, as in this market, most people would shy away from the $9 million price tag.

Casey brought materials and required equipment and we made blended strawberry margaritas. This time, chunks of ice didn't get stuck in my straw, like at Pedros, so I'll up my rating to 4.5/5 Tom Collins (Day 7). A wonderful way to kick back in the midst of some of Chicago's hottest days this summer (mid 90s).

Sunday

I made it to Pitchfork around 2, hoping to get a good spot for the Local Natives show at 3:25. Waiting in the heat (95, no shade), I introduced myself to some temporary friends, Michael and Ginny - recent Notre Dame graduates. My ongoing experiment this summer is to intentionally scare myself by willfully entering social situations that I'd normally avoid. Introducing myself to strangers at a concert (and proceeding to dance and talk with them through an entire show) certainly falls into this schema. The band before Local Natives was called Washed Out and consisted of a young man with a macbook and mixer. Playing a looping ambient sample, throwing a fat beat over it, then singing incoherently through a filter made for surprisingly enjoyable melodies. As the indie dance of choice is to sway gently while lightly headbobbing, I was pleased to find Michael and Ginny assuaging my self doubt and dancing alongside me (at one point Michael delighted that "this song is basically just house music"). Following Washed Out, maybe my second favorite show of the festival, if only for my delight in novelty, my new friends left me for Beach House, playing on a stage across the park.

Local Natives followed, gracing the audience with a bit from the National during a sound check - "I still owe money, to the money, to the money I owe. I never thought about love, when I thought about home." - they kicked the show off nicely. Playing through the entirety of their first album, I enjoyed a close spot to the stage (and some new friends, whose names I can't recall - perhaps I thought them less important as their apparent difficulties cultivating facial hair played into my inherent ageism). They sounded great, performing excellent renditions of "World News" and "Wide Eyes," personal favorites. The show was largely according to expectations, rarely transcendent.

She's so awesome she broke the stupid blogger formatting

Still alone, I ventured over to the connector stage, finding an excellent, central spot to watch St. Vincent, scheduled to come on at 5:15. I met up with Aly, who proved a wonderful companion for the duration of the festival as Casey's new job and the three hours of sleep he got the prior night disallowed his attendance. St. Vincent fucking tore it up. Her sound was immense and the building crescendos that so often scare me away from headphone listening to her drowned the audience in a sea of sound as she, in her brilliant orange dress, rode the sonic title waves of her own creation. Pounding on the body of her guitar, she conjured rhythms and blasted face melting solos that a nearby audience member accurately described as "perfect." When she took her sunglasses off and conversed with us for the first time, over half way through the show, the severe contrast of her meek speech and appearance against the pure, shaped, constrained power of her music manifested themselves with her few words: "I'm sorry. I did not mean to be so standoffish." 100% my favorite show. If she comes to a venue near you, do not miss her show.

Next stop: meeting up with Aly's friends Jessica and Kelsy, food, and an electrifying, beat pulsing dance party with Major Lazer. At one point in the show, he expressed his enthusiasm with the following (corrections welcome):

"This is Pitchfork. You see the ambulance here, and the fire department here. But you know who's not here? THE POLICE! We're going to get drunk! We're going to smoke weed and get high! And most importantly, tonight, people here are going to have sex and someone IS GOING TO GET PREGNANT!!!"

It is very important to Major Lazer that someone gets pregnant.

part ii tomorrow

overcommitted

2010-07-20T22:55:00.001-05:00

To all those who are eagerly awaiting more drinks, I realized that one a day is a totally unsustainable pace. Instead, I'm still going to shoot for 30, but I'll be putting more time/care/experimentation into them.

Heartbeats

2010-07-19T15:28:00.009-05:00

So with the latest news on our former Vice President, after 5 heart attacks, Cheney is now even more officially inhuman. The author left an extra word in the quote which I've taken the liberty of removing (emphasis mine):

Former Vice President Dick Cheney is recuperating from surgery to implant the kind of mechanical pump now being given to a small but growing number of people with heart failure so severe that they would most likely die within a few months without it.

The pumps are partial artificial hearts known as ventricular assist devices, and they come in various models. Mr. Cheney’s kind is about the size of a D battery and leaves most recipients without a pulse because it pushes blood continuously instead of mimicking the heart’s own pulsatile beat. Most such pulse-less patients feel nothing

Well. We already knew that, but it's always nice to have one's suspicions affirmed in print, again. Without a beating heart, does this make Cheney a zombie? or at least fodder for zombie jokes? Yes and Yes.

Also, turns out South Park was right about the cure for AIDS - constant servings of cash. Ah World Bank, sometimes you're not a complete asshole.

Sorry but

2010-07-17T00:47:00.004-05:00

I'm badass tired. You lushes are going to have to wait a day for your fix this time. I'm going to Chicago for the weekend. Hopefully I drink something interesting there.

Update: before I go to bed, I really hate Charles Krauthammer, but he's got an interesting article today almost congratulating Obama for his legislative accomplishments and all but says he's got reelection in the bag. Quite the backhanded insult.

GObama

2010-07-16T17:21:00.005-05:00

Remember when I posted this?

Well, FinReg fucking passed the Senate today! Obama's success in addressing some of the largest problems facing our nation (albeit imperfectly) gives us something to be proud of.

NYT:

"The financial regulatory bill is the final piece of a legislative hat trick that also included the stimulus bill and the landmark new health care law. Over the last 18 months, Mr. Obama and the Democratic Congress have made considerable inroads in passing what could be the most ambitious agenda in decades."

Let's hope they still have some steam for sustainable energy policy, ideally stimulating domestic growth in the renewable energy sector and creating jobs while moving us closer to kicking our fossil fuel drug habit. I've sort of resigned to the political impossibility of cap and trade, but I love being pleasantly surprised.

Day 5: For Real!

2010-07-16T16:17:00.008-05:00

So, plans to arrive at the midnight showing of Inception at 9:30pm were totally unnecessary. I guess Madison doesn't do midnight showings like Milwaukee does. I remember getting to Revenge of the Sith at 9 at North Shore and waiting in a huge line stretching out of the theater for hours. Good thing Stephen recommended a contingency plan: Cheap Margaritas at

After getting to the theater at 10 and observing zero people in line, Rosh and I walked a few blocks over to this picture of local color. A policeman stood guarding the door, next to a sign indicating appropriate attire: "No Game Jerseys. No Camo." Luckily, I choose not to wear my camo out last night, and we walked into the Americanized Mexican Bar / Restaurant with no problems. Two more policemen were stationed in the bar area, really solidifying the unexpected vibe that a fight could/would break out without the presence of local authorities.

Rosh and I grabbed a table on the outdoor patio and I ordered my first state-side margarita, strawberry and blended. The only other margarita I had was during day trip to Tijuana during a family vacation to San Diego. While leaning in for a photo, my chest hit the straw, spilling my first legally purchased drink all over the table. Better luck this time though, no spills and the bonus of half priced appetizers (I got a steak quesadilla, $4!). The margarita itself was like a finely blended slushy, effectively concealing its alcohol content. At $3 a pop, I gained full understanding of the police presence - cheap, delicious, and, imbibed repeatedly over the course of a summer night, dangerous. I'd love to go back some night and really take advantage of this great deal, but I'm pretty sure the driving element makes this logistically impossible. We left at 11 to wait in the line for the movie, which was yet marginal, maybe 15 people. With excellent seats, Inception blew us away. I can't wait to see it again.

Blended Strawberry Margarita: 4/5 Tom Collins

Day 5: Forthcoming

2010-07-16T02:56:00.004-05:00

No time for an update tonight as I went to see the midnight showing of Inception. I went out for a drink beforehand and my thoughts on said drink and the serving establishment will be up sometime tomorrow.

I give Inception 10/5 Tom Collins. Go see this movie. I want to kiss Ellen Page.

Day 4: Lemonworld

2010-07-14T22:42:00.007-05:00

The title of this post is also my favorite track off the new National album. Additionally, I hear this next drink is all you're allowed to imbibe in Lemonworld (a fictional world invented to aid in the writing of this introduction) - the Whiskey Sour.

This cocktail requires simple syrup, an impressively concentrated sugar concoction. And when I say concoction, I mean to say you mix one part sugar with one part water and heat over a stove while mixing until the sugar has completely dissolved. Pretty much the same recipe as rock candy.

Once you've made the simple syrup and allowed it to cool, you're ready to make a Whiskey Sour. As I found the next recipe on wikipedia, I've deviated from using ounces for measurement and instead broken things down by parts.

3 parts Bourbon
2 parts freshly squeezed lemon juice (I opted for real lemons this time, and then made Alex buy them and drive them over)
1 part simple syrup
Garnish: Lemon Wedge (my call)

I think you could stir this guy and be satisfied, but I mixed him on ice in a shaker before pouring over ice in a tumbler (fresh out of storage).

Thoughts: I keep expecting these drinks to bubble, as the Tom Collins was my stalwart for about three or four weeks at the beginning of summer. All the ingredients certainly amount to more than the sum of their parts here, resulting in a lemony beverage with hints of the charred white oak barrels that give Jack Daniels its signature flavor. I'm not sure how the simple syrup compares to standard white sugar in this beverage, but I'll keep experimenting with each throughout the rest of this project. On the whole, I've really enjoyed the Whiskey Sour and would strongly consider enjoying one on the outdoor patio of a local tavern on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

[4+(pi/10)]/5 Tom Collins

A Recommendation

2010-07-14T10:47:00.006-05:00

Last night, while working on downloading polling results at the terrace, I was fortunate enough to catch a good portion of open mic night. There were some interesting artists, from a former high school colleague of mine turned singer-songwriter, to a passionate, middle aged woman imploring us to repeal an obscure section of Wisconsin's state constitution (accompanied by a varied feverish guitar riffs by a member of the Union staff.

The act I enjoyed most featured a mohawked young woman on acoustic guitar and vocals accompanied by a violinist and upright bassist. I can't recall their name, but I fondly remember a few songs they played as well as the general tone of her responses (e.g. offering their CD free in return for sexual favors, responding to the MC's question of where she was from with "your mom"). While introducing a cover, the lead singer asked the audience, "Do any of you know Edgar Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros?" [waits] "Good. They fucking rule." She's right. They then played a cover of Janglin, and I was immediately caught up in both its folksy authenticity and poppy-catchy-ness. I looked them up on my laptop and downloaded their CD, Up From Below, when I got home, which I've been playing throughout the morning.

The song I'd sell the band on, Home, is best described by NPR as "enough to make even the tiniest heart grow three sizes." This song makes me feel literal warmth when I hear it. Here's the video (up to 1080p on youtube):

p.s. If anyone knows the name of the band that played the cover, I'd appreciate if you could jot that down in the comments.

Day 3: In the Midnight Hour, She Cried 'More More More'

2010-07-13T23:05:00.007-05:00

I can't make quite enough of a scowl to properly honor Billy Idol for today's cocktail: the Rebel Yell.

In place of Triple Sec, I used Blue Curacao, as liquor stores were closed by the time I decided on this drink and, according to wikipedia, Triple Sec is just a specific type of Curacao. I also accepted the fact that this would ruin any hint of seriousness about the drink, staining a comical blue color.

It did not look THIS much like swamp water in real life.

Rebel Yell

2 oz. Bourbon
1 oz. Lemon Juice
1/2 oz. Triple Sec (replaced with Blue Curacao)
1 egg white
Garnish: orange slice (we are all out)

Mix all ingredients in a shaker with ice, then pour over ice.

The egg white does some interesting things to this drink, clouding it up while at the same time taking the edge off the bourbon. The flavor, as expected, is a pleasant citrus / bourbon mixture, quite palatable and even refreshing. I'm interested in what color it would have been if I'd used proper Triple Sec instead of blue dye.

Overall: Not revolted, but not totally impressed either. Though, I will say that my fears about the egg white have been assuaged, and I won't shy away from further drinks that call for them.

2.5/5 Tom Collins

Wonkbook Ripoff Interlude: Indie DJ + Southern Rap + English Electropop Interlude: Major Lazer & La Roux ft. Gucci Mane - I'm Not Your Lemonade

How I Learned to Love the Bomb

2010-07-13T16:07:00.007-05:00

While I'm not interning at the capitol this summer, I fill my idle hours procrastinating to avoid the work I'm supposed to be doing for a political science professor. Right now I'm going through an historic polling database kept up by the University of Connecticut and searching for party preference (generically and on specific issues) from the end of WWII onward. Today, I stumbled across this gem of a question, asked in May, 1951:

WHICH POLITICAL PARTY DO YOU THINK WOULD BE MORE LIKELY TO KEEP THE UNITED STATES OUT OF WORLD WAR III--THE REPUBLICAN PARTY OR THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY?

Republicans have a decent lead on this question, favored by 26% of those polled. Democrats aren't far behind, capturing 21% of the sample. This leaves a whopping 40% of respondents answering "No Difference" (10% no opinion). Reading this with a slant, you could argue that a full 50% of people believed that our politics had absolutely no control over the prospect of another world war, and we can't say how much the other half honestly believed their party of choice could make a difference. Really captures the angst and paranoia of the Cold War era.

Update: The same question, asked again in 1959, shows a real shift (perhaps an effect of Eisenhower). 31% GOP, 26% Dem, 25% No Difference, 19% No Opinion. Interestingly, 8 years makes people both more and less decisive.

Day 2: Natural Orange Flavor; Unnatural Blue Color

2010-07-12T18:45:00.017-05:00

This next drink calls for Blue Curacao, but Romulan Ale will do fine if you're all out. Another worthy substitute would be the poison from the Lady Gaga / Beyonce Telephone video (apparently there is fan art?). You might want to do something about the Tiberium in there though. That stuff can't be good for you. or real.

This one's called the Cyclone Attack. Having never tasted Blue Curacao in my life, I'm not sure how good of an idea this is. I don't even know why we have this in the house (actually I do). Anyhow, let's do this:

2 oz. lemon juice

2 oz. Blue Curacao

First Impressions: this shit looks so awful. Sort of like melted blue moon ice cream.

You'll notice it's in a jar. Sarah moved the cocktail glasses into the basement so I'm making do.

Taste.... OO! Not so bad! Citrus is really the dominant flavor here and the odd coloring doesn't seem to affect the flavors, if you'd believe that. As mine is a few degrees shy of room temperature, I'd recommend serving this cold in the future - maybe shake it with ice first.

Certainly not overtaking the Tom Collins as the favorite, the Cyclone Attack is actually quite lovely, a sort of alcoholic, opaque blue lemonade. I give it 3 / 5 on a scale of 0 to 5 Tom Collins. I realize this scale could prove problematic, but we'll worry about that later (and it solves day 1 nicely).

Day 1: Not Just for Billionaires

2010-07-11T22:44:00.007-05:00

The Cocktail-A-Day ~~Giveaway~~ Challenge

Here it comes. Another big let-down. In lieu of other things, for the next 30 days I'll be attempting to mix or consume a different cocktail each day. Day one begins with a brand new favorite: the Tom Collins.

As Xander Crews would be happy to tell you, the Tom Collins is the drink of billionaires. While not wearing a tuxedo, I can still enjoy this wonderful, simple, perfect summer drink.

My recipe, like many others, comes out of the Seagrams Bartending Guide that I found downstairs in the liquor cabinet. I think my recipe differs slightly as I use coarse white sugar instead of finer bartending sugar, but who has that around the house anyway.

2 tsp sugar
2 oz. gin
2 oz. lemon juice
club soda

Mix sugar, gin, and lemon juice with ice in a shaker. Pour over ice in a tall glass and top off with club soda. Invite your favorite childhood friend over and enjoy this refreshing classic.

As I drink this, I'm sitting in my room listening to a CD on loan from my dad - Never No Lament; Duke Ellington, the Blanton Webster Band. The sound of muted horns drifting out my window into the night, crisp from today's rain, I wonder if the neighbors don't think I've moved out and been replaced by a much older, more refined gentleman.

edit: I edited in some better writing and also low quality humor.

WE CAN NEVER GO BACK TO ARIZONA

2010-06-09T22:15:00.008-05:00

Greetings from Arizona! Home of the free! Home of no license conceal and carry! Home of a truly wonderful immigration law! The first leg of my first cross country road trip - Phoenix, AZ to San Francisco, CA (via LA, not by choice) to Madison, WI.

After several days in AZ, I've noticed a few things.

1) They love trucks

2) The government is hilariously inept

a) immigration law

b) gun laws

i) no license required to

j) buy a gun

jj) fire a gun

jjj) open carry

jv) conceal carry

ii) you can shoot guns on public land so long as you're a quarter mile off the road

c) no money

i) they have closed all the rest stops

ii) they have sold their state capitol and are leasing it from the bank

iii) $100M state university budget cuts

iv) massive k-12 education cuts

v) early release for many non-violent offenders

vi) closing non-Grand Canyon quality state parks

vii) the housing boom hit this place extra hard, unfinished construction projects are a common sight

3) It's hot - 110 during the day, 100 in the shade

4) Sprawl - Phoenix is the largest land mass city in the world (unsubstantiated)

5) It's beautiful - mountains form a ring around Phoenix; Sedona's majesty made coming back to AZ worth it alone; The Grand Canyon; Saguaro Cacti dot the landscape

*Ben is responsible for the above "facts"

I've taken full advantage of the opportunities found in this gorgeous chaos by shooting an AR-15 and a shotgun (first time I've shot guns. surprise, they're loud. Also, while buying shotgun ammo at Wal-mart I indulged myself and bought my first BB gun), visiting the Grand Canyon (albeit briefly), going to a Diamondbacks game, eating authentic Mexican food (Tota Del Rey - Truly "sandwiches of the kings") and giving real purposeful use to my SLR. As I write we're in route to San Francisco to visit Tom's hometown (he's in the car with us), currently driving through Yuma (as in 3:10 to Yuma). Apparently this is a 12 hour drive. I plan on passing the time by playing Plants versus Zombies on Ben's Ipad; listening to the Bugle, Sleigh Bells, Super Mash Bros., Neko Case, Lady Gaga, and, the best possible music to listen to while traversing the United States, Modest Mouse; and reading The Wayfarer Redemption and a ton of tabs I loaded up in Chrome before we left.

More updates to come. Let's hope we get more clear days, smooth roads, and great food.

My First In-N-Out Experience.

Just take a good look.

Flowering Agave plants.

The beginning of a lifelong love affair.

Me, Ben, Tom at the Grand Canyon.

P.S. Don't go to Garcia's Mexican Restaurant if you're ever in Flagstaff.

P.P.S. We just saw a border patrol car pull over an unmarked white van.

Liveblagging the primary

2010-05-19T10:55:00.004-05:00

Yesterday, I volunteered myself to become part of Prof. Charles Franklin's primary team, covering the PA, KY, and AR primaries in real time on his twitter feed (twitter.com/pollsandvotes) and on a live blog / discussion at pollster.com. After a semester of learning R, I was ready to do no R work whatsoever, helping with mundane, yet necessary tasks like gathering machine readable information on prior presidential, senate, gubernatorial, and attorney general's races that we might fit to predictive models for last night's races. With a crack team of grad students, we managed to grab data from all kinds of past races (for poorly formatted data sets, grad students busted out their USB num-pads, activated their powers of extreme data entry, and went to work hand entering county level data for entire states' presidential results - with no errors (I was floored)). Matt put together code that enabled us to take county level data for each state and graphically display it on maps of the states, showing partisan breakdown, votes cast as a percentage of registered voters, etc. Basically, we crafted the same maps that the big news organizations put up on their oversized touchscreens, in a basement, with 5 grad students, an undergrad, and a professor steering the ship (with the mouth of a sailor). Once polls began to close and precincts started reporting, we recorded every update in election results, enabling us to create predictive graphs like this: Rand Paul closes in on the prize. That graph's a little weird, read it from right to left. When the outstanding vote is smaller than the number of votes required for the challenger to overtake Paul, we've reached the red line of death.

It was fun to watch the tight KY Democratic Senate Primary race, the PA 12th district special election, and the early returns for the PA Democratic Senate Primary, where Specter and Sestak were neck and neck.

Overall, yesterday was a great experience. I got an idea of the power of R, saw some really ingenious tricks, and got to be part of a news organization struggling to keep up with a story as it unfolds live. I hope to continue to learn more and can't wait until the next big primary day.

The Graduate

2010-05-16T23:25:00.005-05:00

My dad's graduation was yesterday. Decades after obtaining an English Major, he took night classes and has now earned an Executive MBA from UW-Madison. Robes make for some great photo-ops. I took full advantage of this one.

Create avatar

Ding!

2010-05-14T15:15:00.002-05:00

My sister leveled up from Mrs. to Dr. today! I'm so proud of her.

Marriage Backed Securities

2010-05-04T00:58:00.007-05:00

While cleaning and rearranging my room today (I think I liked it better before, though there's less dust now), I came across what I believed to be quite and absurd idea: marriage insurance. Just in case the wife / husband won't agree to a prenuptial agreement, you can still cover your ass. For a few hundred dollars a year, if you and your spouse can't make it work, you can still cash out, theoretically with a good amount more than half. Tossing this idea around with Ben, I come out with the idea of Marriage Backed Securities: huge aggregate pools of marriages, split up fine and packaged into securities. Ratings agencies stamp them with a rating and boom, we're buying and selling, speculating and profiting on the continuing success of other people's marriages. Then Ben tosses me this, bona fide marriage insurance.

There are few guarantees in life and based on current divorce rates, marriage is certainly not one. Sadly this cornerstone has eroded over time to the point that nearly half of all marriages that take place in westernized societies fail.

There is no company in the world that currently provides insurance coverage against the often devastating financial impact caused by divorce, much less a guaranteed, high return payout for achieving such a milestone as a 25th (Silver) wedding anniversary... until now.
SafeGuard Guaranty Corporation will be the first company in the world to offer an insurance based "Guaranty" on marriages, by providing a method of substantial wealth creation to those couples with a loving relationship strong enough to last 25 years and at the same time, providing a financial safety net, in the form of insurance protection against the inevitable financial loss as a result of divorce, to those who don't.

Looking carefully, this doesn't seem like such a terrible idea after all, covering the cost of a potential divorce. But let's think a little harder about what's really going on here.

Husband: Honey, Todd and Shirley were telling me about this new kind of insurance, I think we might want to consider it.

Wife: Oh yeah? We already have life, homeowners, car, and health insurance. What else could we need?

Husband: Get this. It's called marriage insurance.

Wife: Wow. I'm glad you're betting against our marriage. *leaves*

As much of an oversimplification as that was, let's return to the idea of marriage backed securities, which seem as possible and real as ever. Ben dibs'd the Latino and Muslim communities, leaving me with the white upper class. But with the way the ratings agencies work, I should be able to splice together a set of particularly troubled marriages, sell them with a AAA rating to some "sophisticated" but ignorant investors, bet against them, and make a fortune. Oh wait. Then I'd be Goldman Sachs, it'd be houses not marriages, and I'd still be betting against the American dream.

Instead...

2010-05-02T21:26:00.004-05:00

Instead of a new post, perhaps detailing my summer plans, friends and relationship updates, the 21st anniversary of my birth, I'm just going quote a post of Jessi's verbatim:

The law discriminates against rape victims in a manner which would not be tolerated by victims of any other crime. In the following example, a holdup victim is asked questions similar in form to those usually asked a victim of rape. “Mr. Smith, you were held up at gunpoint on the corner of 16th and Locust?”
“Yes.”
“Did you struggle with the robber?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“He was armed.”
“Then you made a conscious decision to comply with his demands rather than to resist?”
“Yes.”
“Did you scream? Cry out?”
“No. I was afraid.”
“I see. Have you ever been held up before?”
“No.”
“Have you ever given money away?”
“Yes, of course–”
“And did you do so willingly?”
“What are you getting at?”
“Well, let’s put it like this, Mr. Smith. You’ve given away money in the past–in fact, you have quite a reputation for philanthropy. How can we be sure that you weren’t contriving to have your money taken from you by force?”
“Listen, if I wanted–”
“Never mind. What time did this holdup take place, Mr. Smith?”
“About 11 p.m.”
“You were out on the streets at 11 p.m.? Doing what?”
“Just walking.”
“Just walking? You know it’s dangerous being out on the street that late at night. Weren’t you aware that you could have been held up?”
“I hadn’t thought about it.”
“What were you wearing at the time, Mr. Smith?”
“Let’s see. A suit. Yes, a suit.”
“An expensive suit?”
“Well–yes.”
“In other words, Mr. Smith, you were walking around the streets late at night in a suit that practically advertised the fact that you might be a good target for some easy money, isn’t that so? I mean, if we didn’t know better, Mr. Smith, we might even think you were asking for this to happen, mightn’t we?”
“Look, can’t we talkin about the past history of the guy who did this to me?”
“I’m afraid not, Mr. Smith. I don’t think you would want to violate his rights, now, would you?

I can tell that we are gonna be friends

2010-04-01T01:54:00.003-05:00

Earlham's a Quaker school, and however that showed up in my short visit, I'm in. The people I met felt as if they had genuine interest in me, like they'd eagerly anticipate a future visit upon word of its planning. I had a nice vacation, made some friends, and will make an honest effort to return in the future. Driving home even went without a hitch.

Thanks Alby, Max, Cem, Guy and everyone else who made my visit so memorable.

plansplansplansplansplansplans

2010-03-25T20:44:00.003-05:00

This week's been pretty great. An early test and much coasting to close out the remainder of the week. And to top it off, surprise visit from Ellie! I took the bus back to Milwaukee yesterday and will be departing shortly to visit Charlie at Butler and see Girl Talk!! I've never been to Indianapolis before and partnered with my first long solo drive in years, this will be quite the unique experience. Thanks to my dad, the car stereo has just been fixed in time for my trip, else I would have seriously risked a fatal falling asleep at the wheel + running off the road. Following my Butler adventures, I hope to spend a few nights visiting Alby, Max and Pyong at Earlham. Never thought I'd make it down there, but I can't wait.

I love my friends and can't wait to see more of them. Nice to have the time to do it.

Whatever you say

2010-03-22T01:41:00.004-05:00

Whatever you say, it'll be hard to deny that Democrats just passed the initiative that Obama ran his campaign on. Because they just did.

Now I'm going to fall asleep content and have sweet dreams of financial sector reform. (Maybe Volcker and I will go on my dream vacation to the four corners!)

Bigger Than Guns, Bigger than Cigarettes

2010-03-20T11:10:00.005-05:00

Ke$ha, Beyonce, Lady Gaga.

Of those three, I'm inclined to diminish Ke$ha's influence; but even so, it's impossible to deny these three women's (awesome, positive) impact on today's pop music landscape and through this, on society.

Every once in a while, I check up on the Billboard Top 200. As nauseating as the Black Eyed Peas reigning position on the top 20 has been (40 weeks), Lady Gaga blows it away with The Fame at #8 after 72 weeks and The Fame Monster (a re-release of The Fame with 8 new tracks) at #19 after 16 weeks on the charts.

Most pop today is throwaway, but Beyonce and Lady Gaga have solidified their positions as the two women at the top of American pop music. With two recent Tarantino inspired collaborations on telephone-centric anthems, music videos leave the background noise of popular culture and enter the realm of art and true expression. While the "Telephone" video has been eating up masses up public attention, "Video Phone" more than holds its own with Beyonce clad in a Land Of The Rising Sun (Japanese WWII Naval Flag) dress, alternate color schemed guns of various shapes, sizes, future-origins. I love that these two women are dominating the top. Between inspiring outstanding dance renditions of "Single Ladies" (one of note from a certain golden birthday girl), and pushing for liberation from traditional sexual and gender norms, these women are as culturally relevant as it gets.

As for Ke$ha, TiK ToK has some great things going on in the sample department and utilizes both gold and mustaches to great effect. But mostly, I loved her recent appearance on NPR's Planet Money podcast where she compliments a fictional rap battle between John Maynard Keynes and F.A. Hayek and NPR correspondents provide audio narration of her aforementioned video. (aside: I do not think Ke$ha understands bowling.)

I hope this stuff keeps up. Here's to another 72 weeks.

Three Point Six Jigga-Hurts

2010-03-13T12:56:00.006-06:00

Otherwise known as 3.6 GHz, the speed of the "new" processor I'll be putting into my desktop. For years now, my computer's gone without an upgrade. My single core, top of the line in 2005 AMD 64 FX-55, somehow, no longer cuts it. When I upgraded my OS from Windows XP to Windows 7, my video games took a serious performance hit. My CPU badly bottlenecks my graphics card, the zippy, powerful Nvidia GeForce 8800GTS 320mb edition. My girlfriend's laptop has a faster processor than my desktop.

But no longer! I'm finally updating (to 2008 nonetheless, but still!). My friend Justin hooked me up with an incredible deal on a processor, ram, and motherboard, to be installed this afternoon. After getting an even better deal on an Intel Skulltrail build, he dove right back into his strong suit, precisely planned, finely tuned, performance monsters. A step by step walk through his current build (still in progress) can be found here: Project Zyklon B (pictured below). Hands down the best modder I've ever seen. And today, I get his expertise in getting my poor rig up to 2010 specs.

Richards Elementary has nothing on this:

2010-03-12T14:10:00.002-06:00

Infinitely envious of the selections that these kids get to sing:

Phoenix: Lisztomania

Run This Town:

Have One On Me

2010-03-10T08:04:00.003-06:00

Recently, I've been trying to reclaim the reckless, compulsive drive to find new music that pulled me through the malaise that was high school. Things are a little different this time. For one, pitchfork is a hell of a lot less reliable (or maybe I'm not cool anymore; hard to believe I ever was). I remember how I used to read every review, rushing out to download anything with enough hype or a high enough rating. This strategy led me to such invaluable discoveries as The Hold Steady, The Knife, and LCD Soundsystem as well as the fun but more disposable Islands, The Boy Least Likely To, Chin Up Chin Up, and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! But being a music snob is tough, and even with the double edged sword of my yearly attendance at Pitchfork Music Festival (AAAND it's precursor, Intonation), I've had a harder time recently keeping up with the general trends in the indie rock scene.

And here's where I demolish all that hard earned indie-cred. I just, in 2010, got my first pair of girl pants. Just kidding. That would have been "2007 hipster" anyways. In reality though, in the past 2 months I've gotten into three different artists who sold out/got too big/generally aren't cool anymore. By this I mean, I discovered them after they got big enough to sell songs to television commercials. the XX and AT&T; Cadillac and Phoenix; Passion Pit and the Palm Pixi - All friends before I even got to establish a relationship with the bands. But, guess what, I don't care. If finding out about great music means I'm a few months late, I'll inevitably stomach the commercials responsible for introducing me to it. And with the infrequency of my television consumption (zero since the Olympics ended), I think I can listen with a safe disconnect.

Presently, I've been trying harder to motivate my musical curiosity than my academic. This means talking to my two best sources for music: Sarah and Sam. No link on Sam, but he's responsible for fostering my love of Jens Lekman as well as helping me burn a hole though the spot on my hard drive that stores Paper Planes long before the track touched the mainstream. In addition to personal recommendations, I've been enjoying Minneapolis' NPR music station The Current and have previously had a good relationship with Seattle's excellent KEXP (thanks Joel!). Finally, fans of NPR's Planet Money podcast will note their excellent taste for both the new and old in the songs that bookend each episode.

Looking to the immediate and the future, an excellent, haute-vocabulary piece in this week's NYT magazine profiling harpist prodigy and indie icon Joanna Newsom has inspired me to give her 2006 release, Ys, another look, as well as at least a few listens through her new release, Have One On Me. I bought Sarah and I tickets to Sunday of this year's Pitchfork festival and, to quote Sarah, "I hope I have time to go."

My friend Ben asked me recently, in the spirit of the straight edge month bet I made (and lost) on the Super Bowl, if I'd ever bet a month without music. I laughed at the absolute absurdity of the idea.

If I had to dip, I'd probably skip to Chicago.

2009-12-07T16:20:00.006-06:00

I've long held that the only proper way to visit Chicago is to throw together a last minute trip by the seat of your pants. In the past, I threw together a ride to 2008's lollapolooza on the day of, and found lodging and a ride home as the need arose. I generally favor driving down to Kenosha and taking the Metra into the city ($7) (versus $30ish for the amtrack from Milwaukee - give us high speed rail connecting Chi - Mke - Mad - Mpls please!!!). Anyhow though, this time Ben and I threw the trip together with the intention of patronizing one of the outstanding restaurants mentioned in this NYT article. Ben has special interest in Chicago related fanfare due to large amounts of family in the area as well as a future job he's lined up ~~profiting off the loss of human life~~ working for Northrop Grumman (yes. i know. defensive systems only. transferring to satellite division.. blahblah it's my blog and I'll rake dirt if I want to.)

Ben's familiarity with the area paid off, as (in addition to driving) he took us to Max's Deli where I enjoyed an open faced Reuben that easily surpassed the three inch mark, stacked high with brilliant red, delicious corned beef and covered with perfectly toasted swiss. Tom enjoyed the pastrami version of this (called the Rachel), while Gordy indulged in 'chicken in the pot' (a literal half chicken with several potatoes delivered to the table in the pot it was cooked in) and Ben choose the simple and delicious hoppel poppel (not in the Firefox dictionary).

In between gastronomic adventures, a fierce debate erupted over whether we should journey into the city, find parking and make our way up the ~~Sears~~ Willis Tower or retreat to the lovely blue and yellow behemoth, Ikea. We went with Ikea, each of us for the first time. Not quite as overwhelming as I expected, I was quite impressed with their lighting and kitchen supplies sections and enjoyed sitting down and standing up repeatedly to get a feel for the furniture. Ben bought a normal height table and some chairs for his apartment and I came home with a gift. We all came home with some sparkling children's wine (pear, peach, apple). (I didn't bring a camera on the trip and I'll spare you from seeing the poor quality cell phone pictures I took.)

From there, enough time passed that it was time for meal 2, the purpose of our adventure. From this map, it appears that this fine restaurant / metal bar is located in Wrigleyville and calls itself Kuma's Corner. We encountered the expected wait of close to two hours, though the cold weather probably helped us avoid a potentially longer wait caused by the NYT's recent article. The time passed quickly as DOA (muted with subtitles - best possible viewing scenario) played on a TV above the bar and loud metal (but not too loud for comfortable talking - somehow) blared. After soaking in the atmosphere (paintings of a topless woman in leather; a virgin mary complete with gas mask, bio-hazard symbol on chest, hypodermic needles for a halo; a few wonderful paintings of bears, we were eventually seated. (at this point, they put Rob Zombie's animated creation - The Haunted World of El Superbeasto - on the tv, taking the atmosphere to new levels - meta, offensive, gratuitous.)

Then came the food. All the burgers on the menu were named after metal bands, some more familiar than others. I enjoyed the YOB, Gordy the Lair of the Minotaur, Tom I can't recall offhand, and Ben got the special - eyehategod. I'll trust you can follow the link to the menu for me and Gordy. The eyehategod does a good job summing up the culinary side of the restaurant - a 10oz. burger topped with bleu cheese filled, bacon wrapped dates. Everyone had the best burger of their lives, complimented with waffle fries and home made ketchup. Full to the point of bursting, we enjoyed a peaceful ride home, afterwhich I slept until 3:30 the following afternoon.

Dan told me to blog.

2009-09-30T00:56:00.004-05:00

Hey guys.

I guess I can tell you about my classes and my life. I'll do it in my typically disjointed fashion. For those of you who don't know, I've been trying to figure out what I want to do with my life. Computer engineering seems to be the direction I've chosen today (for a while now) and this semester is designed as a test as to whether I actually want to pursue a career in the field. Right now I'm taking electrostatics I, circuit analysis I, a C and assembly programming class, and (a tip of the hat to my polisci major) Health Care Policy and Politics. This class lets me keep my sanity when I have to spend most of my day around engineers and lets me see some girls in at least one of my classes, which still doesn't mean that I talk to any of them. Attempting to immerse myself in the illusion that this is actually what I want to do, I dropped my resume on some companies at our Engineering Career fair about 2 weeks back. I have yet to file formal applications on all of the places I applied at except Ford. The other people who will hopefully be fighting over me (though probably not) are Facebook, GE ("um, I really love what Alec Baldwin is doing for your company"), and IBM. Personally, I'd love to see what it's like to work at IBM the most, though Ford or GE would be super interesting as well. Facebook I largely submitted because they were there - I'm no where near smart or motivated or neckbearded-out enough to get employed there - plus I think they're looking for coders and not so much engineers.

So there's school. In my other time, I just finished reading "I, Robot" - my first Asimov ever (GAWWW). I liked it a lot and have been enjoying reading books from a wide array of genres and authors of late.

In other Joe news, I got the best headphones I've owned in my life about 2 weeks ago. I could throw this little audiophile ego I'm fostering around on this page, but I'd rather not and you'd rather I didn't. If you care, I've probably told you about them already. Ok fine, I'll link to them at least: http://www.gradolabs.com/product_pages/sr80.htm

I've been working on getting my room into the shape I want it to be, which means that I'm in the market for a small couch to allow for seating on surfaces besides my bed, the floor, and the computer chair I spend so much of my time on these days (and those days - yay, i'm trying to be clever today). In other news, we got some hot peppers from Sarah's friend Mary. They were originally green but then one surprised us and turned orange! Soo I've decided to attempt some time lapse photography wherein I chronicle their adventurous deviation from their original color. No risk of them disappearing, they're too hot for us to eat any more often than the small nibbles Sarah and I risked tonight.

Living with what I'll call "real adults" (granted they're all still in school) has been a nice experience. I get to eat real cooked meals, the dishwasher works really well, I have my own room (unrelated), people clean up after themselves, we have nice things, I don't worry about the nice things that I have getting broken / stolen / lost. The only real downsides are that I don't have 20 year olds at the ready to help me make bad decisions and that I have to bike 1.5 miles to and from school every day (sometimes more than once! and with hills!). Hopefully this means I'm getting in better shape.

I'll be home on Friday (leaving Saturday morning). Much thanks to Scott D. for the ride home from the bus stop.

lil space needle action

2009-08-26T23:52:00.003-05:00

[view of the Space Needle and the mountains surrounding Seattle from the Capitol Hill neighborhood where my cousin Joel lives]

End of Summer

2009-08-21T00:58:00.003-05:00

Yesterday marked my last day at the job I'd held since February. It feels sad to leave people I've gotten to know so well over the summer, but I've also made some friends that I plan to keep. I could have kept riding my gravy train of a job for months or even years to come (see Chuck, Kate), but I was getting bored of playing Peggle for hours each day (beat all the peggle nights challenge levels!). I just moved in with Sarah, Nick and Mike and things are starting to fall into place, even if I have yet to really unpack anything besides my bed and computer. Today, I plan to spend the day racing to try and catch up with friends, run errands, and pack for my trip to Seattle (Saturday). In my apartment last year, I never really felt like Madison was home. Though I'll miss our wonderful fifth floor balcony and living with Pavlos and Eric, I'm looking forward to getting to know all my new roommates. When I make it back to Milwaukee during the summer, I feel such strong connections and mutual understanding among my friends. It's a shame that today will be the last time I'll be able to see so many old friends for a long time (people leaving for school, leaving the country). I'm questioning whether engineering is really the path for me, but this upcoming semester will hopefully give me the answer I've been waiting for.

I just got a little notebook where I've begun to write thoughts and lists (mostly lists). Hopefully this means I'll update with regularity.

more coming

2009-06-02T21:00:00.001-05:00

I've got a post about the "Honeypie" restaurant in Bay View all written out and will post it when I get back from CO on Saturday. Also upcoming, trip synopsis and photos.

2009-05-06T20:16:00.002-05:00

Summer Goals (v1):

Take a picture of some awesome lightning.

I love storms.

Warning: Post may contain rambles.

2009-05-04T23:28:00.003-05:00

I've been feeling bored lately. Perhaps it's that the school year has been drawing on and, though the end is near, I feel that chance will simply never arrive. On a related thought, I often ask myself the question of "what I want to do with my life" but seldom even try answering it. What would I enjoy doing? Perhaps I'll work for a company like Intel. Maybe I'll start my own business. Perhaps I'll use my PoliSci major and do some sort of political or advocacy work. I've also been thinking about the only time in my life that I did know what I was going to do: work as an Engineer, driving trains. I can't remember when this ceased to be my dream, but I've never had another dream job since. I think perhaps instead of bored, my life decisions are too difficult to really think about too often, too many options with little guidance.

I just read this article, which prompted me on this whole look into my future. I might not live in the U.S. when I grow up. I might live someplace where I take up a language as a primary instead of English. The choices are huge, but perhaps reassuringly, they are also mine. I've made decent choices so far, so chances are I'll keep steering right in my future (that's how it works, right?). I hope that I make the right calls, but I'm happy with the choices I've made. Though I could certainly do for some more risks and should be willing to embrace systemic change. Hopefully I have 50-70 years left to live. That's a lot of decisions to make. It's a good thing I'm surrounded by people who I trust to steer me right.

A Man Like Putin.

2009-05-04T11:00:00.002-05:00

I expected my Russian history lecture today to be super boring and poorly delivered since the guest lecturer was my polisci 106 professor, who generally gives bad, boring lectures. But apparently post Soviet Russia is her specialty and she gave a decent lecture (though still full of the underestimation of our previous learning that makes me put headphones in during her normal lectures. The lecture culminated with this gem, a most likely state produced song that translates to "I Want a Man Like Putin." Women outnumber men significantly in Russia and further difficulties are found if you're not looking to marry an alcoholic or negligent man (Alcoholism is a HUGE problem). Add one part state propaganda and one part cult of personality to this predicament and voila, you've got this masterpiece.

I poked around online and found this translation:
"
My boyfriend is in trouble again,
He got into a fight and got stoned on something,
I am sick of him and so I told him, 'get out of here',
And now I want a man like Putin.
A man like Putin, full of energy,
A man like Putin who doesn't drink,
A man like Putin who wouldn't hurt me,
A man like Putin who wouldn't run away from me.
I saw him in the news yesterday,
He was saying the world was at the crossroads,
It's easy with a man like him at home or out and about,
And now I want a man like Putin."

Rocket Cars! (well, just one actually)

2009-04-21T10:30:00.007-05:00

This car is not really even a car. It used to be a plane. Then they cut the wings off and attached some wheels. Let's hope this handful of volunteers can break the land speed record! They named it Eagle.

Its competition is a well funded, well staffed, actual rocket car project referred to as "Bloodhound."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/21/science/21speed.html?pagewanted=2&8dpc

Fix It Again Tony

2009-03-30T21:09:00.003-05:00

A car this ugly you have to drive in a suit.

Welcome to the future of Chrysler. At least it's red.

Thoughts on the page about Religion and MN

2009-03-26T17:53:00.010-05:00

On a This American Life TV episode, a former Mormon girl describes herself as "an atheist who prays when she's in a bind." I thought that resonated strongly with me and even a bit clever. I've never considered myself religious at all and yet I hesitate to put a label on myself. I dislike the finality that "atheism" connotes and yet feel like declaring as "agnostic" is essentially the ultimate cop out - BUT also very realistic, holding out hope for some power but not putting all of one's chips in either way. I also feel that I might hold an unfair bias against religion, growing up with science as unquestioned truth (which I still believe). Were I to start exploring religion, I'd probably start with Reform Judaism. It seems like they have very open views about things, allowing agnostics / atheists to feel welcome in the wonderful, tight community they enjoy (the other huge attraction - for examples of this see Dan, Jessi). I'm sure I'm making unfair, uneducated statements all around here, so I'll close by saying I should get back to the paper that I'm avoiding.

To swing subjects completely (and continue to evade work), I have meant to comment on my wonderful time in MN over spring break. Hanging out with Greg and Jessi was really nice. I enjoyed Minneapolis as a city and liked the contained nature of the campus in a city (opposed to the campus as a city model Madison seems to employ). Jessi and Greg live in Uptown in a cute apartment. They have a great street near them full of nice places to eat. Hope (Alby's mom) was super happy when I told her that Jessi had swung left super hard when she went to college and gave me money to take her out to dinner (we had delicious sushi). Dan lent me his bus pass which was extremely helpful in getting around inexpensively. The fabled Head Shops of Minneapolis were quite impressive, notably Hideaway for great selection and prices and Clownglass for the beauty of their work, which is hand blown in the shop. Jessi and I had a great time discussing ethics in video games, prostitution, relationships, and life plans. She let me borrow her copy of Watchmen, which I just finished and thoroughly enjoyed (though I'm not sure how the ending's sitting with me). I can't wait to go back to the Twin Cities and find all the places alluded to by the Hold Steady with Dan.

I'll actually close with some pictures from the trip and some bits on the book I just started reading. I borrowed a book called "Better" from my mom - it's a collection of stories set inside hospitals written by a doctor. I started reading it over summer but didn't want to steal it from my mom. Now it's my turn to read it!

For Pavlos:

Sophie:

My Reason for Visiting:

Specials thanks to the people who made this possibe: Maisie for giving me a ride to the bus station, Maisie's mom for checking my email and giving me my reservation code for the bus, Sarah for picking me up when I got home.

2009-03-17T09:29:00.003-05:00

I have been having such a wonderful spring break. After spending time with my family (eating baby cows), they've since left (my parents for Michigan, Sarah for her apartment closer to the hospital) and I've gone on a few adventures and seen some wonderful people. Alby's friends from Earlham are some of the coolest college kids I've met. period. Somehow he managed to meet kids that vibe exactly on his level after less than a full semester. Getting to see Hope was fantastic and tomorrow I'm taking a bus to MN to visit Jessi! Yesterday I had a wonderful time riding bikes around Milwaukee with Ellie - I felt like I was a little kid riding my bike around my home town except now my home town was a lot bigger and involved a lot more potentially dangerous areas. I've got to go now, dentist appointment, but I'll try to post again with an end-of-break wrap up. I want to visit you, so let me know when and we'll figure out how.

Chance Run-ins

2009-02-28T13:08:00.003-06:00

I'm home for this weekend as yesterday was Sarah's birthday and my grandma is visiting from Flint, Michigan. Last night I hung out with Sarah and her med student friends and ate the amazing food my grandma'd prepared. This morning I ran some errands with my mom. Observations were - people at Stein Optical are rude and unhelpful, pedometers are not as simple as I want them to be, and Whitefish Bay has a great sense of community. My last point refers to a our stop at Ace Hardware. Not only did I run into Mr. Groble, but also Madame and Mr. Kessler and the Mr. and Mrs. Schact. It was great to come home and find such varied, yet significant people from various segments of my life. I was most happy to run into the Kesslers. They asked me about school, we talked about my degrading French skills and Maisie's attempt to restore them and they asked me if there are any love interests in my life. These are the people who make our schools great.

It's been nice being home. I really enjoy the change of scenery, talking to my parents, and the idea of a genuinely relaxing weekend. Speaking of which, I'm going to get back to that.

A brief lesson on...

2009-02-19T23:27:00.001-06:00

Auto-Tune

Apparently it used to be used for discovering oil.

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/musical/2008/06/09/080609crmu_music_frerejones?currentPage=all

This is where I...

2009-02-15T16:06:00.003-06:00

shamelessly link over to my sister's blog to tell you all something very important.

upcoming: I get around to answering Jessi's question of why I'm a feminist.

2009-02-12T12:16:00.000-06:00

I thought this article made some pretty good comments on some events of late.

http://egan.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/11/young-and-stupid/

Update

2009-02-02T13:24:00.003-06:00

I had a pretty good Sunday. Jessie and Max came up and went with Maisie and me to Dottie's Dumpling Dowry, which ironically serves no dumplings and is famous for their burgers. It was great to catch up and get a reminder that my life is not contained to this city. Also my room is rearranged, and actually well this time. I just got a job with Housing IT as a "Help Desk Technician" so I assume I'll be doing Best Buy type work, minus the pressure that comes with private industry. (I'm gaining appreciation for markets and private enterprise). I'm taking a very interesting class that can accurately be described as "a class about Russia." We learned about decreasing fertility rates and oligarchical control of private industries (notably natural resources) last week and this week we're taking it back to the effects of the Mongol invasions in the 13th and 14th centuries. It's pretty great. I'm also taking some less interesting classes and hopefully seeing Neil deGrasse Tyson give a guest lecture at the union tonight (He's a publicly recognized astrophysicist who, along with Richard Dawkins, is part of a movement to bring science to the masses. Their differing approaches are illustrated here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_2xGIwQfik ). Needless to say, I'm quite excited and hope that they have seats left for me. Anyhow. that's a brief update. Also the ball fell off my hat, but Sarah's going to fix it for me!

2009-01-23T23:28:00.000-06:00

No Snickering

Copycat

2009-01-08T12:10:00.003-06:00

Now that it's 2009 (we only have 3 years left! oh god!), I suppose I could copy Jessie and post some goals / resolutions for the new year. I'll do that after a few remarks.
Last night I finished watching the final episode of The Wire with Dan. I plan to move on to either a) re-watching it with my roommates b) watching the Sopranos. I'm currently reading "The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" by Junot Diaz. My math professor last semester (Jordan Ellenberg) would frequently recommend books to our class, some math related, some not. He endorsed this book as a the story of a Dominican hardcore nerd (think Tolkien, D&D, writing fantasy novels, etc) and his experience growing up in the states. Each character in the novel has incredibly strong voice, contemporary and powerful. Oscar, at one point, describes a particularly devastating rejection as "4d10." (Thank you for the context this summer Eric, you're a great DM (I'll never forget the Ham encounter)). Anyway, instead of letting Maisie read it, I sniped it out from under her and am currently entrenched in it, skipping hang outs with friends at night to read while drinking tea in the warmth of the fireplace.
I'm going up to Madison with Dan on Friday, will be back Sunday, then leave for school permanently on the 14th (Wednesday). School will be a huge change from this wonderful vacation but I'm looking forward to my new classes.
and Finally: The Resolutions:

Slowly and carefully begin to invest in the market, learning as much as possible as I go
Get more exercise (cliche, yes. needed, absolutely
Waste less time on computer
Keep reading for pleasure
Visit friends in Chicago, Milwaukee, Twin Cities (at least one visit to each this semester)
Make sure to find work (the gears are in motion for this)
Look into a summer internship
Spend more time outdoors (also generally outside the apartment)
Make new friends
Shave with relative regularity (no more irresponsible neglect)
make time for what's important
stop making excuses
Spend more time with family
keep learning more about photography
blog more regularly

those are just a few. if you feel, keep me on track with these. I'd like to think I can do it all, but I'll take any help I can get.

Z2K

2008-12-31T12:44:00.002-06:00

Apparently everyone who owns a 30GB zune now owns a nice brick as of midnight this morning. I found mine not working and looked online to see that it's endemic problem, all 30GB Zunes with the latest firmware are all bricks. Yay. Please fix it faster Microsoft.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/31/30gb-zunes-mysteriously-begin-to-fail-at-12am-december-31st/

http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/3790/zune-30-gig-deaths-on-123108/

Details to follow

2008-12-30T22:27:00.001-06:00

I had a wonderful time in Chicago today, and carried on my tradition of winging my trips to The Windy City. I'll elaborate tomorrow, but the drive back was less than wonderful (very very snowy. I'm quite glad we made it back).

Hello Again!

2008-12-30T22:21:00.002-06:00

Hi. I'm sorry it's been a while. I've been having a wonderful break. I've managed to get a lot of things done that I'd hoped I would over break, things I've been meaning to get around to but hadn't had the time. Thus far over break I've:

Finished Atlas Shrugged!
Written a resume and cover letter
Applied for a job
Watched Burn After Reading (Excellent)
Went to see Milk (quite good)
Seen a great many people, introduced Maisie to many of my friends
Taken some wonderful pictures (I'll post some when I get back to Madison)
Written thank-you notes
Wrecked my sleep schedule

The end of the semester went well, though the presence of a class like Student SEED will certainly be lacking from my upcoming schedule. I'm taking 2 (maybe 3 polisci) classes, econ 101 (micro econ), and cs 302 (intro to java). The polisci classes are intro to comparitive politics (106) and Russia: an interdiciplinary study. I hope to get into a third class on Radical Political Theory taught by the same professor I had for intro to political theory. I'm looking forward for the new semester, but I'm also enjoying my time now.
Being home is wonderful and strange at the same time. It's weird to have so much free time but I think I've been spending it pretty well, attempting to balance spending time with parents and friends while balancing my personal goals for the break. Tomorrow I'm going to Chicago, potentially going to the top of the Sears Tower and almost definitely going to the Museum of Science and Industry.

**I wrote this post on Monday and posted today because formatting was giving me headaches.

2008-12-13T10:54:00.001-06:00

From the people who brought you OFFROAD VELOCIRAPTOR SAFARI comes

Minotaur China Shop

More Love to Krugman

2008-12-12T13:18:00.005-06:00

Paul Krugman's been off this week receiving his nobel prize. But that hasn't kept him from blogging. Recently, he's linked to this gem:
http://www.salon.com/comics/tomo/2008/12/09/tomo/
Also, his announcement that he'd be off for a few days went like this:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/09/limited-posting-for-the-next-few-days/

Speaking of limited posting, I'll start writing more again after finals are over. Can't wait till break.

Apparently Piracy is a Real Problem.

2008-11-18T21:02:00.003-06:00

And I'm not talking about stealing mp3's. Just today, Pirates stole an anchored a supertanker full of crude oil off the coast of Somalia.

"In a typical pirate attack, a gang of young Somali men in a high-powered speedboat ambush a passing ship, firing automatic weapons and even rocket propelled grenades if an order to stop is ignored."

"The hijacking is likely to send shudders through the shipping industry. Insurance premiums for companies using the Gulf of Aden have soared this year as Somalia leapt to the top of world piracy charts. So lucrative is the crime - a typical western-owned ship can fetch more than £1m - that there are now at least five Somali pirate gangs employing more than 1,000 gunmen, according to the East African Seafarers' Association in Mombasa."

These guys must be having the time of their lives.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/18/somalia-oil
(Courtesy of Matt Drudge)

^___^

2008-11-07T01:19:00.002-06:00

Found on this isn't happiness via Boing Boing

Wow.

2008-11-05T20:28:00.002-06:00

Synchronized Debating

2008-10-29T15:34:00.001-05:00

You Can Vote However You Like

2008-10-29T15:24:00.003-05:00

P.S. The Lock Club meeting is a go.

Soo....

2008-10-26T22:35:00.003-05:00

I guess this exists:

Baconnaise.

Aaaand, I know what I want for Christmas.

It's starting to get colder, but I like fall

2008-10-23T23:11:00.006-05:00

Good news everyone!

Today in my discrete math class we were talking about recursion in sequences. Apparently you can find closed form solutions for the an th digit of the Fibonacci sequence (1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21....) without using recursion with the formula:

From there, we moved on to talking about how some sequences do not have closed form, such as this one called the "look and say" sequence - Discovered by John Conway.

1,11,21,1211,111221,312211,13112221 ....

The key to this sequence is to say that the next term is found by stating the number of the digits and how many times they occur from left to right in the previous term. So for the second term, The first term has One 1 --> 11. The third term is found by saying Two 1s --> 21. etc. I thought this stuff was really cool because Ms. Fortney had introduced us to this exact sequence!
My professor went on to say that John Conway had also invented "the game of life." No. not that game of life.
This Game of Life. AKA the badass game of life that Bruce Gill introduced us to (and Dan continues to play every now and again.)

So basically math today was a series of throwbacks to some wonderful times in my life.

In other news, I'm going to Chicago and staying with Robin so we can go see the Obama rally on the night of November 4th at Grant Park! This may mean that I miss some of Halloween weekend in Madison, but I'm willing to part with that. Also, I made friends in my social justice class so I'm looking forward to hanging out with some new people. Things seem to be going well; I just need to get through some tests next week and then I'll be moving towards some great days.

Paul Krugman

2008-10-14T23:00:00.009-05:00

With the current ECONOMIC CRISIS (god we need a new name for this),I've been trying to understand what's going on now, what ca used it, what will happen in the future, and what efforts are being made to dampen the blow across the board. Thus, Paul Krugman, already one of my favorite New York Times Op-Ed columnists, is getting read quite a bit. This week, he received a Nobel Prize in Economics. On his blog today, he posted this:

The truth comes out

Andy Borowitz knows!

Hilarious. And I guess I'm not the only one to notice his likeness to George Clooney.
Also I met with my math professor during his office hours today and learned about the economic crisis. I finally feel like I have decent understanding of how Credit Default Swaps (CDS) tied bankers and investors together in a web of shared risk. I also learned about how Hedge Funds work. Pretty interesting stuff.

A good read.

2008-10-03T00:10:00.006-05:00

My math professor wrote this article creating an analogue to describe the risks that led to the current financial crisis. He's outstanding. The second article explains how a complete badass turned badass mathematician proved that coin flips will land on the side they started from 51% of the time and are not truly random. I want to be as cool as either of these people.

We're Down $700 Billion. Let's Go Double or Nothing!How the financial markets fell for a 400-year-old sucker bet.

Lifelong debunker takes on arbiter of neutral choices

Reckoner

2008-10-02T12:54:00.003-05:00

Radiohead - Reckoner - by Clement Picon

This video is pretty cool. This was the first song off In Rainbows that I really got into and I like what the artist has done in providing a visual for the music. This week has been rather crazy and I can't wait until I'm done with class tomorrow. Also the Biden-Palin debates should be fun.

2008-09-24T20:21:00.003-05:00

Randall Munroe, author/artist for xkcd also writes a blag. Usually it's good, this most recent post is great (if you've been following any of the economic crisis going on right now). Check it out: http://blag.xkcd.com

Even hipsters hate hipsters.

2008-09-23T12:39:00.006-05:00

Jessi shared this nice article: http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/79/hipster.html. A notable excerpt reads : "These marketers and party-promoters get paid to co-opt youth culture and then re-sell it back at a profit. In the end, hipsters are sold what they think they invent and are spoon-fed their pre-packaged cultural livelihood." Although hipsters have even made hating hipsters as unoriginal as their "individuality," sometimes it's still fun to do and this article does a nice job tearing them up, taking note of the complete lack of counterculture in their so-called rebellion.

edit:
The best way to enrage a hipster is to tell them that they're inconsequential and that they don't matter. Which puts them in a paradox, their whole image is built upon not caring, so it's hard to defend it. It's like Russell's paradox: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naive_set_theory#Paradoxes . It's actually exactly like Russell's paradox.

Camera Challenge

2008-09-16T20:43:00.005-05:00

When I got my new camera, a Canon Rebel XSi, Jessi issued me a challenge: take a picture of my camera with said camera. Mirrors are not allowed. Reflections are not allowed. Taking pictures of pictures is not allowed. If anyone has any ideas, let me know. Until then, I'll be taking pictures of Eric every day this month while he grows out a beard which he'll shave off into a mustache. Let's hope he actually goes through with it.

Also, Dan just got the new 10" eeePC. I am super jealous.

LHC GREAT SUCCESS!

2008-09-10T12:23:00.005-05:00

The LHC (Large Hadron Collider) has been successfully tested! This will hopefully bring us closer to understanding the building blocks of physics and creating (hopefully miniature) black holes.

This will help you understand how it works!

It may be a little late but...

2008-09-07T19:54:00.004-05:00

Huckabee should have made this his entire campaign.

Edit: His band is called "Capitol Offense" - that is awesome.

Thank You Something Awful

2008-09-01T19:26:00.005-05:00

2008-08-25T20:06:00.002-05:00

Facebook ads know far too much about me.

2008-08-24T14:57:00.004-05:00

Recently I've been worrying that I don't fit in here. I feel like I want my friends from summer back. This is not to say that I haven't been having a good time here; but it's uncomfortable right now.

I think school needs to start.

The Mothership

2008-08-22T01:41:00.001-05:00