Thank God it's Pi Day

I had started a post about this the other day but I nearly forgot to publish it.

Can you imagine the calamity it would have caused if I would have celebrated Pi on 3/14 and all of the circles in the world suddenly had to correct the ratio of their circumference to their diameter? It would have been pandelerium I tells ya.

Thankfully, May jogged my memory and I can now happily report that my birthday is in the top 500,000 digits of Pi.

Also, I hereby challenge you all to test your Pi knowledge in the Pi triva challenge.

But first, check out this music video for a refresher course.



tagged: Pi, Pi Day, mathematics, science

Friday Feast: All you can eat

Just a reminder, the county health department requires that you use a clean plate each time you return to the buffet. Thank you.

• Appetizer
  On a scale of 1-10 (with 10 as highest), how much do you like your own handwriting?
  Like it? Probably about a 6.5, the main problem being that it's illegible.
  
  
• Soup
  Do you prefer baths or showers?
  Are you kidding me? Showers! I can't stand the thought of sitting in a tepid pool of my own filth.
  
  
• Salad
  What was the last bad movie you watched?
  Blades of Glory. Will Ferrell is funny and all, he had some good one-liners ("No exaggeration, I could not love a human baby more then I love this brush."). But still, that's an hour and a half of my life that I'll never get back.
  
  
• Main Course
  Name something you are addicted to and describe how it affects your life.
  I'm addicted to being awesome. It affects my life by the sheer about of awesomeness that I am forced to live with.
  
  
• Dessert
  Which instrument is your favorite to listen to?
  Stan Getz' saxomophone:
  

Others who have bellied up to the buffet: Logtar, Bea, Shane, Chimpo, H-Train

tagged: meme, Friday Feast, Stan Getz, shower, handwriting

Friday Blogthing: Eeeeevil

I'm thinking if I grow a goatee and wear a Nehru jacket, I could ratchet up my ranking a little.

I am 44% Evil Genius.

I want to be evil. I do evil things. But given the opportunity, and a darn good reason I may turn to the good side. Besides I am probably a miserable evil genius.

Take the
Evil Genius Test
@ FualiDotCom

tagged: Friday, test, genius, evil, blog, Dr. Evil, meme

3AM Poll: Spitzer swallows

Every blogger and their dog has an opinion (generally a low one) of the actions of former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer.

If only he would have checked with the Inkernetz before dropping 80-large on "personal gratification services" over the past few years. We could have helped him. All that is water under the Chappaquiddick causeway. But in the interest of helping future philanderers, this week's poll focuses on alternatives that Gov. Spitzer could have pursued.



*For you who read this in an RSS reader, you'll have to go tot he actual blog post to benefit from all of the juicy cleverness and cast your vote.

tagged: Eliot Spitzer, Chappaquiddick, cigar, intern, Kansas City, Johnson County massage parlor, prostitute

Random photo X: In case of emergency

I snapped this pic with my crappy phone camera at the hotel in Atlanta.

It's genius.

"In case of fire, drink beer"

tagged: fire, beer, emergency, Atlanta, humor, picture, photo

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Brain-Dead Liberals

A few months ago the charming and totally hunky Xavier Onassis posted another Rambling and Utterly Pointless® (his words, not mine) rant about The Fallacy of Borders.

Of course I let it angry up my blood. I posted a few responses in his comments trying to get across that bigger governments are worse not better and the government is best that governs least (up to a point anyway) and that one of the big fallacies of so-called Liberals (or Progressives as they now like to call themselves) is that they ignore basic human nature.

I actually had planned on doing an entire post in rebuttal -- pointing out that the genius of our constitution is that it assumed politicians would be douchey and try to grab power (which, by the way, our current Legislative branch has allowed our Executive to do in recent decades, but that's a different post).

I thought it important that people accept themselves for the animals they are, holistic of all the greatness (creativity, compassion) and jerkiness (lust and greed) that entails.

Unfortunately, in the midst of formulating thoughts on this I became distracted by more urgent issues such as college basketball and Magnum PI's birthday. So the aforementioned post never materialized.

Fortunately, I read a really good essay today by New York author/playwright David Mamet titled Why I Am No Longer a 'Brain-Dead Liberal'.

Mamet touches on a lot of the same points I would have made, except as a professional writer, he does it much more eloquently.

I began to question what I actually thought and found that I do not think that people are basically good at heart; indeed, that view of human nature has both prompted and informed my writing for the last 40 years. I think that people, in circumstances of stress, can behave like swine, and that this, indeed, is not only a fit subject, but the only subject, of drama.

I'd observed that lust, greed, envy, sloth, and their pals are giving the world a good run for its money, but that nonetheless, people in general seem to get from day to day; and that we in the United States get from day to day under rather wonderful and privileged circumstances—that we are not and never have been the villains that some of the world and some of our citizens make us out to be, but that we are a confection of normal (greedy, lustful, duplicitous, corrupt, inspired—in short, human) individuals living under a spectacularly effective compact called the Constitution, and lucky to get it.

For the Constitution, rather than suggesting that all behave in a godlike manner, recognizes that, to the contrary, people are swine and will take any opportunity to subvert any agreement in order to pursue what they consider to be their proper interests.

The essay is lengthy, but so well written that is absolutely worth your lunchtime reading. You liberals should consider it an inspirational testimony to your own recovery.

Your welcome, XO.

tagged: politics, Liberal, Progressive, David Mamet, brain dead, constitution, human nature

Random thoughts from the ATL

I just returned from a business trip to Atlanta. It was my first time there, and I'm sure I didn't get to see all of the kewl places but I did have some pretty good food. Here are some random thoughts from the trip:

• What sucks more than work travel? Work travel over the weekend. I left on Friday (during work hours) and returned on Monday (during work hours), so it's like I never had a weekend. Hopefully I'll be able to take off work a little early on Friday for some well-deserved Boulevard Wheat.
  
  
• Talk about urban sprawl! Atlanta takes urban sprawl to a whole new level. That city makes Overland Park look like downtown Manhattan.
  
  
• I'm not a connoisseur of grits. I barely know what a grit is. My last experience with grits was in New York, and I remember it was merely okay. But even the worst grits I had in Atlanta (at the hotel restaurant) were amazing. They served them plain, with butter, or in the case of the aforementioned restaurant, with a cream and cheese sauce and jumbo shrimp. Delish!
  
  
• Speaking of food, we dined at the restaurant of Iron Chef vanquisher Kevin Rathbun. You might remember when he and his brother totally flayed Bobby Flay. Anyway, I had the lobster taco with the charred corn on the side and a desert of 20-year-old Tawney port and Bailey's Crème Brulée.
  
  It was all excellent. Then Mr. Rathbun himself came out to our table to talk. Great guy, not at all arrogant or egotistical. Plus, he was at least 6'2" and north of 300 pounds. It's always a good sign with the chef is a big fella. It shows that he knows what he's doing when it comes to food.
  
  
• Speaking of food again, one of the people in our group read that Taqueria Del Sol was pegged by Bon Appétit magazine as having the best tacos in the FRIGGEN' NATION! So you know we would check it out. I don't know about best in the country, but the tacos were damn good. I had a one each of the fish, brisket and carnita tacos as well as a Memphis taco ("Chopped smoked pork with a spicy jalapeños cole slaw and tequila BBQ sauce.")
  
  
• I've decided that there are few things more dehumanizing than air travel. I was scheduled on a 11:30 a.m. flight out of Atlanta. I arrived at the check-in gate at 9 a.m. after returning my rental car. I then spent the next HOUR waiting in an unholy security line with 1,200 of my closest friends.
  
  It was so bad that the woman behind me actually left to see if there was a shorter security line down the concourse. She came back to report that the other three lines were worse. We let her have her place back in line because you have to do small things like that to maintain your humanity in such circumstances.
  
  Seriously the only difference between those of us in line and a flock of sheep being led to the slaughter was that we weren't as noisy and we smelled (slightly) better. Atlanta International is now my second least-favorite airport (nothing can be worse than Dulles).
  
  
• I'm not sure who first coined the term "Hotlanta" but I'm pretty sure they didn't coin it on a Saturday in early March. I had checked the weather forecasts before I left on Friday, so I had packed long-sleeved shirts and even a sweater. When I woke up bright and early Saturday morning, I couldn't find the weather channel on the hotel TV.
  
  Luckily I realized I could open the curtain and see whether it was sunny or rainy. I was a little afraid that I had packed "too warm." Well, when I pulled the curtain back my fear was gone. It was SNOWING like crazy. It barely got above freezing the rest of the day, which sucked because we spent most of the day outside. Luckily, Sunday was much nicer.

That’s about it for now except for this bitchin' video I found (that Shane probably saw two years ago). If you've ever been to the capital of the Peach State, let's compare notes in the comments.



tagged: Georgia, Atlanta, food, Bobby Flay, Kevin Rathbun, airport, grits, travel, Taqueria Del Sol"

YouTube Tuesday: Shine on

Normally when I hear a studio is doing a remake of a classic movie I roll my eyes and lament the lack of any real originality in Hollywood.

But when I saw this trailer for a remake of Stanley Kubrick's classic The Shining as a chick flick, I thought this is one romantic comedy I might be able to sit through without puking.

Check it out.



tagged: movie, YouTube, video, Stanley Kubrick, The Shining, humor, Jack Nicholson

Friday Blogthing: That's life in the big city

I was hoping for Florence, Italy, but I hear Barcelona pretty much kicks ass as well.

Hat tip to Janet.

You Belong in Barcelona

When it comes to Europe, you don't want to decide between culture and fun. You want art by day and a big party by night. Barcelona is ideal for you. You can check out some Picasso, eat some tapas, take a siesta, and then dance all night!

What European City Do You Belong In?

tagged: travel, Friday Blogthing, Europe, Barcelona, Spain, city, Picasso

Monkee see

I'm on my third Scotch in the bar at The Palm West.

The crowd is starting to thin out a little as theater goers leave to catch The Lion King, or Chicago or Spamalot or whatever the hot new show on Broadway is tonight.

We're standing there, our group of six, talking about nothing in particular but especially not work, when a distinctive looking older gentleman walks in the door.

Not distinctive in the sense that he was distinguished. His clothes, while not shabby, didn't appear to be overly expensive. He wore a brown fedora, which was unusual for the venue, and a tan topcoat.

It was his face that was so distinctive. A mile-wide grin seemed to force his eyes into squints. The smile was quite friendly but veered close to maniacal.

I could swear I'd seen him before, but chalked the feeling up to "he must just have one of those familiar faces."

So I went back to a discussion with my work associate, Brad Pitt, about lake front real estate prices or Brooklyn microbrews or whatever. I was absorbed in a conversation about the relative merits of various male skin care products when one of my female counterparts, Lindsay Lohan, asked me if "that guy looked familiar."

"Yeah, you mean that guy with the hat?" I say. "I swear I've seen him somewhere before."

"Doesn't he look like that guy from The Monkees?" Lindsay Lohan said.

That's right! My mind quickly sorts through its admittedly small database of useless pop culture trivia.

"Mike? Mick? Micky! That's it, Micky something," I say.

"Micky Dolenz," Lindsay Lohan gets it.

Lindsay Lohan is a bit star struck at the pseudo-celebrity sighting. She's old enough to know who The Monkees were, but not really old enough to have really been into their music when it was new. Still, she calls her husband to tell him the exciting news.

So I ask her if she wants to get her picture taken with the former Monkee.

"I don't know," Lindsay Lohan says. "Do you think he'll mind?"

"How about I just go ask him," I say. Heck it could be the Scotch talking, but the worst that can happen is I get blown off by a Monkee, which would also be a great story.

So I amble over to the bar where Micky is talking to what looks like a friend of his. I wait for a break in the conversation before saying "Excuse me. You're Micky, right?"

He flashes his big grin and nods with a "Yes" as we shake hands.

"Hey, great. You know my friend Lindsay Lohan is a big fan of yours, and I was wondering if you would mind taking a picture with her," I say, pointing over to our table.

Micky smiles again and says "Sure!" He's very gracious, really classy about the whole thing. While I was taking the pictures with Lindsay Lohan's digital camera, one of the other women in our party, Paris Hilton, was calling her parents.

She's just out of college and has no idea who Micky Dolenz is, but she said her parents were impressed. She decided to go ahead and get a picture as well and walked up to the Mickster to ask. He was gracious and kissed her hand as she introduced herself.

You hate barging in on the personal lives of people who aren't really in the public eye anymore. Surely they just want to have a quiet night out like the rest of us.

Normally I would just shoot a surreptitious picture from my camera phone as evidence of the celebrity sighting

But Micky Dolenz was really cool about the whole incident. Like I said, a class act. I get the feeling he's happy to be recognized at this point in his career.

tagged: Micky Dolenz, The Monkees, The Palms, celebrity sightings, New York, Scotch, Broadway