On how technological advances affect expressions and a peerless cocktail

Moore’s law describes the long term trend in computer hardware where the number of transistors that can be placed on an integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years. While this trend is currently slowing down, it has remained relatively consistent for the past sixty years. Although Intel co-founder Gordon Moore was originally writing¹ about transistors, this phenomenon applies to processing speed, hard drive capacity, server capacity, and the overall capabilities of many digital devices.

We experience this “law” in everyday life and price this into our decision making³. Last year’s model although state of the art at the time of purchase is now, for lack of a worse word passé. Every year the maximum processing speed or hard drive space increases and pushes down the price of what was previously the top model.

And now that we have some shared context, let us get down to the crux of this article.

I very much like expressions. I would self-describe myself as someone who has a fair number of personal expressions, sayings, expressive hand-motions, diction, and who has a general tone of voice. This is all greatly accentuated if I am telling a story, a yarn, or even recounting a flimflam⁴.

Four days ago at approximately forty minutes past noon I was taking my lunch in Madison Square Park, enjoying the welcomed nice weather and Shack Burger. I happily divided my time between reading, drawing, and being pensive in thought. My thoughts tend to be jumbled, convoluted, and alternate between the rather complex and thoughts that simply are not getting their due time and attention and are at risk of being classified as unimportant by many.

In some way or the other I started thinking about the phrase:

“Nothing to write home about”

I have certainly used this phrase⁵; the last time being in regard to an un-eventful lamb burger. The expression would be used to describe something not particularly exciting, nor special, or was not newsworthy. According to the Random House Dictionary of Popular Proverbs and Sayings the expression in its current form dates back to the late nineteenth century citing; “he was bleeding a bit, but nothing to write home about. G.D.H. Cole, "The Man from the River." There is also a foot note mentioning that this expression gained favor among WWI troops stationed far from home.

While the surface level purpose of the expression has remained constant, the underlying connotation of what constitutes “something to write home about” certainly has not. Over time the marginal cost and barrier to convey news has exponentially diminished. The extraordinary number of technological outlets that spring everyday allows me to express any opinion with increasing speed. The barrier to write home is so low that nearly everything can be written home about at virtually no cost other than the time based opportunity cost. The wounded soldier who was bleeding in the initial citation would have no doubt tweeted home if the technology was available. The type of news that would eclipse the “Writing Home Threshold” from a WWI foxhole is quite different than what the threshold is today. I speculate that in the 1890s you diligently thought about when you would write home and if the information would in fact be timely by the time it arrived. Late hours into the night, scotch in hand and peering out the window from that space you stand when you are thinking, would be devoted to evaluating if this news is in fact something to write home about. The drink in hand would probably be something like this:

The Peerless Martini:

• One cap full of dry vermouth
• 3oz of Plymouth gin
• Ice
• 2 dashes of orange bitters

Remove your martini glass from your bar. Fill the cap of the vermouth bottle with dry vermouth (this should be approximately 1/7^th of an oz). Swirl around the vermouth coating the inside of the glass. Pour the excess vermouth into a shaker filled 3/4^th of the way with fresh ice. Pour the 3oz of gin plus that additional extra ounce if it has been a long day or a day ending in “y”. Vigorously shake for approximately 28 seconds. Strain and pour into the glass. Take a generous twist of lemon and twist over the martini releasing some of the natural oil; run over the rim of the glass and place on top. Add two dashes of orange bitters and stir.

The orange bitters takes a perfect drink and truly makes it peerless.

Footnotes:

¹Moore’s original thoughts can be found in the April 19^th, 1965 issue of Electronics Magazine in a piece entitled “Cramming² more components onto integrated circuits.”

²Excellent diction in the usage of “cramming”

³I have another conceptual idea about how activity based peak performance will effect pricing of personal computers for the next 10 years. Conceptually Moore’s law is also slowing down because the demand for capability utilization on some electronic will be significantly less. The marginal difference between yearly models will diminish.

⁴I was surprised flimflam was one word in the OED

⁵You are probably thinking about when you did right now

On Economic Principles and the Barney’s Warehouse Sale

Semi-Annually Barney’s holds its warehouse sale at the Co-Op location conveniently located on 17^th street and 7^th avenue in Chelsea. Hordes of shoppers flock to find deals, whether it is that men’s two button Jil Sander suit, a pair of Louboutins, or a more haute-couture piece that doesn’t quite fit well and was scuffed in transit and was inevitably an expensive mistake.

I have been attending the warehouse sale for a few years now. I self describe my style of dress as classic and style conscious with an affinity for craftsmanship and detail. Over the years I’ve had some great finds; a Burberry trench, a classic pea coat, a Margiela button down, and a Band of Outsiders suit to name a few. Factoring in a few purchases that didn’t really work out I’ve probably saved as much as I have could have buying at the proper end of season Barney’s sale and could have traded shopping in a controlled and sane environment for trying on clothes in the corner of the Chelsea passage. I always stop in and like to take in the maelstrom that is the Barney’s Warehouse sale.

This year I went to browse and noticed a few things. Some of these things were blazers, some were economic principles.

Pre and Post Price Expectations:

Everyone forms price expectations in making a purchasing decision. The expectation of price becomes a reference point of compare that influences the propensity to buy a product. In the case of the warehouse sale we are exposes to both pre-price expectations and post-price expectations.

Pre expectations would dictate what we would expect to pay for a Dior shirt and post price expectations would factor in our expectations to purchase a Dior shirt at another occasion, after being exposed to the Barney’s warehouse price. The forward looking expectation is typically more responsive in reacting to store prices in forming price expectations. I believe this is accentuated for discounts on luxury brands.

“When is the next time you are going to find Lanvin on sale” or the infamous “Chanel never goes on sale”

This concept of a ticking-time window for the deal becomes very important. The cramped and crowded mob environment of the sale makes you ponder the time when your “future self¹” will not only want this item, but also have the money. This sense of pressure, time, and desire for exclusive goods is a driving force why Gilt is one of the fastest expanding sites.

The Effect of Price Framing: Deal versus Sale:

I was thinking about how different generations talk about shopping. My grandma very much enjoys getting a sales price at the supermarket. To a point I believe she thinks she is pulling a fast one on the supermarket for some reason. I recall a time when I mentioned that I enjoyed an occasional ginger-ale. A week or so later ginger-ale went on sale with a maximum purchase of 2 per customer. My grandma decided it would be prudent to go back and forth and make separate trips to stock up on ginger-ale for the apocalypse so I could have a refreshing beverage. I think the majority of the bottles went flat years ago.

The diction has changed. The word choice of “sale” has this association of “cheap” and of “diminished quality or value.” The deal is for the savvy. The deal is for the individual who has done the research and is making an informed decision on both price and quality. There is a semblance of pride in being able to snag that luxury piece at a most favorable price.

Luxury goods are prone to framing the sale as a deal. Designer goods often have very high margins as a layer of the cost is the design and not a cost of goods sold component such as leather.

This is the point in the blog post where I have more ideas and graphs on the subject but instead I am going to provide a punch recipe.

Punch is great at parties because it:

• Can be prepared in a large quantity prior to the party where diligence and time can be devoted
• Classic punch recipes are very tasty, awesome, and quite alcoholic
• Those crystal punch bowls or fountains are very cool
• Inspires a group atmosphere and festivity as everyone is in the same proverbially boat (or drink)

Below is an alt on a classic punch² recipe. The addition of rhubarb is great for parties in the spring. Poire Williams is great substitute for applejack for a fresh flavor.

Mother’s “Apple Rhubarb” Ruin Punch

• 10 cubes of brown sugar
• 3oz soda water
• 3oz fresh squeezed lemon juice
• 6oz fresh squeeze grape fruit juice
• 3oz Carpano Antica Vermouth
• 5 tea bags of earl grey tea
• 1 stick of cinnamon
• 6oz of Plymouth Gin
• 2oz of Applejack
• Split of champagne
• 6 drops of Rhubarb bitters
• 1 grapefruit

Recipe:

1. Earlier in the day place the tea bags and the cinnamon stick in the Carpano Antica bottle. Let sit and chill
2. Earlier in the day fill a bread loaf pan with water and freeze. When this freezes it will create ice. The ice cube will be about the size of a loaf of bread.
3. Coat the sugar cubes with the drops of bitters and muddle with the soda water
4. Use a chinoise to strain 3oz of vermouth
5. Combine all of the ingredients except for the champagne
6. Place the big giant ice cube in the center
7. Stir the mixture and garnish with slices of grapefruit
8. At the appropriate time add the champagne and gently stir
9. Serves 1-2 people

footnotes:

¹ I too often let future jason deal with problems
² Punch dates back to the 1600s, predating the term cocktail by over two hundred years. Punch literally translates to "Five," referring to the five original ingredients of sugar, tea, lemon juice, spices, and spirits

On Optimal Shaving Time, Extremes, and a perfectly imperfect Bloody Mary Recipe

Shaving is a ritual most men go through once or every other day. For some the process is quick and uninspiring and for others the usage of Penhaligon’s¹
and a silver tipped badger brush makes much more sense. Shaving is a refined process steeped in process and diligence. Looking at my medicine cabinet and the array of shaving supplies it would be easy to think that I take shaving to an extreme² point. To me shaving is a refined exercise that is both relaxing and elegant. Taking the thoughtful diligence in each activity, not matter how banal it may seem, is a quality I aspire too and try to respect.

No more than two days ago I was sitting in a bench taking in the lights from the Christmas tree at the Stuyvesant Town Oval where I got to thinking about optimal shaving time. This is of no doubt concern for me as my five o’clock shadow arrives at half past two and my night time stubble shows its face before the sun comes down.

There is a delicate balance then between what is acceptable for work, what is cool, and what is a scraggily mess.

To defined optimum shaving time we first need to define the optimal outcome. I’m going to choose to disregard work and focus on maximum time to being cool. Plotting against the standard CFFO (Coolness Form Factor from Optimal Shaving Time) some interesting results appear.

From the figure below we see that the optimal shave time is t-minus fifteen hours. This leaves a five hour window of that cool amount stubble. After that I begin to transform into what could be described as a very well dressed vagabond or drifter. After thirty six hours my beard begins to enter dangerous hipster related territory. Luckily I am well stocked with shave soap and a straight razor.



And now…

The Bloody Mary is a truly singular cocktail. The cocktail is almost always accompanied with excellent conversation.

In 1934 Fernand Petiot invented the Bloody Mary at the King Cole Bar⁵
at the venerable St. Regis Hotel. While there is little to no complexity in mixing tomato juice with vodka, the Bloody Mary becomes this personal experience as in its purest form is made to taste. “More Worcestershire sauce”, “lemon juice instead of lime juice if you please”, “pink sea salt on the rim.” Unlike most traditional cocktails steeped with history and precise parts, the Bloody Mary stands alone in being right when it is often wrong. What could be too spicy for some or most could be the perfect drink for someone else. The tangy taste of too much acid could be the well delivered wake up to your friend.

The Bloody Mary is peerless in its individuality.

What I present is an augmentation of a Bloody Mary I had at Eleven Madison Park and a portion of a meal I had at The Breslin. It’s quite good.

L'huître sanglante

To Make 1 Drink
• 3-4 Large Heirloom Tomatoes
• 3oz of Ketel One Vodka
• 1oz of fresh squeezed lime juice
• ¾ teaspoon of freshly grated horseradish
• 1 teaspoon of Tabasco
• 1 teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce
• dash of fleur de sel
• dash of coarsely grinded black pepper
• ½ teaspoon of Mignonette sauce
• Mignonette sauce for garnish of oyster
• 1 Shibumi or Kumamoto oyster⁶



Pass the tomato through a potato ricer. This will give you a large amount of juice steeped with some pulp. Remove the large solids by passing the juice through a cocktail strainer or using a chinoise if you prefer a smoother juice. Refrigerate the juice for about an hour.

Place a highball glass in the freezer to chill. In a cocktail shaker add all of the ingredients and the chilled juice and gently stir. Adjust to your personal taste. Remove the highball glass and rim half of the glass with fleur de sel. Fill the glass halfway with ice. Pour the mixture over ice and garnish on top by placing one shucked oyster and a delicate strip of mignonette sauce.

¹Penhaligon’s was the shave soap of choice by Winston Churchill. That was not by only determining factor in choosing Penhaligon’s, but it certainly did help.

²Annually American Express provides a summary detailing your purchases and your spending habits. It is a harrowing but necessary exercise to fully understand the often grim nature of the report. The eye is naturally drawn to the disproportionate size of the Restaurant/Bar column in the bar graph. Delving into the Restaurant/Bar column supported a key behavioral trait of mine, a proclivity for extremes.

My restaurant and bar tabs are often exorbitant or miniscule and largely back to back. Recounting many nights support that as I am wearing a suit at Eleven Madison Park and then wearing a suit at Mars Bar³. Both are excellent.

My ethos does not seem to support the common “moderation in moderation” mantra. Being moderately moderate sounds incredibly uninspiring. I greatly support being minimally moderate.

My being minimally moderate I often walk down the street with such thoughts as “why am I not on my way to trapeze school right now,” “at what height can you pour a gallon of water out and capture it all falling in one shot,” or “where does the J subway line even go.” I have the answer to at least two of those questions.

This focus and unrelenting desire to explore and understand everything has allowed me to hyper extend into many different tasks and activities. It has come to such a point where I have been forced to evaluate my time so much that it has forced new creativity to invent time saving devices and ways to accomplish my goals in proxy⁴.

³No less than three times at Mars bar has there been a seemingly dead corpse. Velvet Underground and Iggy Pop is always on the jukebox and a glass of gin is six dollars. Tonic available upon request.


⁴ http://capt-renault.blogspot.com/2010/12/on-exponential-art-number-59-vermillion.html

⁵The King Cole Bar is conveniently located two blocks from my office at 55th and 5th avenue. At the King Cole Bar it is ordered though as a Red Snapper. I prefer the Bloody Mary nomenclature.

⁶ My favorite. Extremely creamy with a nutty flavor

On Exponential Art, the number 59, Vermillion,

One month ago to the day four days from now I started an artistic endeavor having stationary markers soak through a stack of paper. I stood a set of Copic markers inside drinking glasses and waited. The neatly arranged set lived under a travertine coffee table in the auxiliary living room of my apartment. No more than 6 times did I accidentally disturb the glasses while I was sitting at the table drinking a bottle of wine.

Last night I revealed the sheets.

59.

The ink soaked through 59, 80gsm sheets of paper in one month. I was enjoying a bottle of Bordeaux last night and revealing each sheet one at a time. It told a story that I did not expect. As you moved the pages there would be a pint where one color would just disappear. Other colors expanded out, seemingly annexing other space and absorbing weaker colors. From page 12 to page 13 a half inch band of ice blue disappeared out of existence. I don’t know where it.

Vermillion.

Vermillion soaked through 59 sheets. I don’t know what gives Vermillion such persistence. It was quite the unexpected character trait. I expected Special Black 100 or Royal Blue 29 to penetrate the most. Or perhaps an intense purple. Sheet 59 had a pin dot of color in the upper left quadrant of the paper. On Sheet 1, vermillion did not soak and expand to the entire glass, the pigment focused into a dollop the size of a quarter.

Tomorrow I am going to take pictures and document all of the pieces with a proper camera. I’m also going to setup some triptychs and collections for those who are interested. Potential collections to include Prime Numbers, Even Numbers, my favorite numbers, your favorite numbers.

Excellent British shows vs. their terrible American counterparts

Yes, America dictates culture around the world. I know.

Why is it then, that the British invent so many awesome shows, which are then co-opted and bastardized by us, America, the kings of culture? Let's talk about a few examples: Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares, Top Gear, and Skins.

Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares (UK) gives us an intense fascinating look at fledgling restaurants around the Great Britain (and one British-owned restaurant in Spain). It follows Gordon Ramsey, a successful, hard-nosed, no bullshit chef who clearly possesses both great culinary skills and a fair amount of business acumen. He goes into a restaurant, gives it an evaluation, yells at the chef and the staff, helps them fix the menu, fixes the personnel-based issues, creates a marketing plan to drum up business, enacts said plan, then checks in at a later unspecified date to see how the restaurant is doing. This is all punctuated by Gordon getting flustered, quick interludes of staff confessionals, and Gordon's voice over saying how worried he is. It's a bit formulaic, but it's relatively cheap to produce, engaging, and it appears that the restaurants genuinely do benefit from the expert guidance. I thoroughly enjoy it.

Kitchen Nightmares (US) on the other hand, is a terrible show. For one, Ramsey's gotten either a lot wealthier or a lot more famous. But now whenever anyone mentions him on camera, they have to refer to him as Chef Ramsey. That's pretty douche-y. Secondly, because Americans are inherently much stupider than our British counterparts, we need a narrator (not Gordon) to tell us what is going on throughout the show. ("It's forty-five minutes into service and the kitchen is unable to cope with the new menu.") Also, as a condition of being on the show, we're basically guaranteed to see whatever restaurant it is get totally remade overnight by "Chef Ramsey's Team". Frankly this is unacceptable. Very infrequently did Gordon change the decor in the UK version, and when a change was made, it was the restaurant staff--and Ramsey--doing the work themselves. There also seems to be no interest in getting the restaurant to pull together as a cohesive unit, as compared to the UK version. If I had to sum up the American Kitchen Nightmares in a sentence it would be: Gordon Ramsey goes into a restaurant, tells them they suck, they disagree, he makes a new menu, they balk, he forces the issue, the restaurant gets totally redone overnight, the announcer announces the "grand relaunch", the restaurant flounders, Gordon yells, the owner yells, they try again and it gets better, Gordon calls the project a success and walks away. Similar to the UK version but with some key differences. Key stylistic differences that make the show terrible.

I'll be brief on the other two. Top Gear UK (heretoforth known simply as Top Gear) is a hilarious show where there are the three goofy (yet clever) older presenters who do ridiculous shenanigans in cars and also happen to do a very good job reviewing these amazingly expensive and rare supercars. They're also excellent drivers. It's a beautifully done show, from the score, to the cinematography to how they portray the vehicles.

From the five minutes I watched of Top Gear US, it's a fat guy who tries to be funny and fails, and a skinny guy who is utterly humorless. Not only that but the segment I saw was almost a direct rip-off of the real Top Gear, just much more poorly done. It was way too contrived, too choreographed, too obviously fake. Not only that but the car they were in was a Dodge Viper. Yes, it's a $90,000 car, but this was the premier episode and that's what they're leading with? I wouldn't exactly call it a supercar. It just doesn't have the appeal of Bugatti Veyron or a Konigsegg anything. I had no choice, I couldn't take it anymore. I had to turn it off. The fact that Top Gear US plays on the History Channel probably doesn't help.

Skins US isn't even out yet but it's going to be terrible. I'm not even going to go into it. Just click on over to We Knew the MTV Version of Skins was Going to Suck, but not this Much (courtesy of Gawker).

Exponential Art...

My desire to create art, my artistic ability, and my availability of time do not line up. My desire is extremely high, my ideas are extremely conceptual, my ability is lacking, and I don’t always have the time available or I become distracted and switch to a different project before completion.

So it occurred to me in a stroke of madness that I should be focusing less on creating art, and focus on creating devices that make art for me. Yes. Now let me preface this with a few things:

1) I do not like automated or computer generated art
2) I don’t like robot art (art made by robots and art with robots as the subject (…for the most part, I saw Bender in this sketch that I liked))
3) I enjoy art that can be tailored to an individual somehow or is based on a set of constraints or determining factors that influence the outcome. Ephemeral, singular, and serendipitous
4) I want art that is in a series or some sort of progression
5) I very much enjoy color field art (Morris Louis, Barnett Newman, Kenneth Noland)

fig 1. Morris Louis

So I’ve devised in my mind and on no more than three pages of a three and a half inch by a five and a half inch Moleskine notebook a rudimentary schematic of how I will do this. I will need nearly all of the following materials:

1) A large amount of Copic markers across the color chart (http://copicmarker.com/)
2) Eighteen inch by twenty four inch paper, no more than 80 gsm
3) Lattice structure to hold markers
4) Wine (Bordeaux (Haut Medoc))
5) Time

So as you, the illustrious reader (…quite the appositive), have surely guessed I will be arranging the markers to be held in the lattice structure as individual pixels that will be pressed down upon 200 sheets of paper. Leaving the markers to bleed over time (I am thinking one month) the ink will continue to draw down into the depths and begin to blend together. Some colors will penetrate deeper, some will blend and some will not, and after a month I will have a progression of prints (a large amount that I will no doubt send to anyone interested) Yes.

But first I need to do some test and some trials. For the first trial I tried some pointillism work with five sheets bundled together and being manually held to the paper for only thirty seconds. I bundled the paper with this set of fun clips that were purchased at Blick Art Materials at around one forty today. They were more effective than fun. When I first started I was very deliberate with the color choice of each dot and spent too long thinking about the difference in color of lilac and pale lilac. Below are the results from the top sheet to the bottom (…Blackberry Bold 9800 1.8x zoom (flash?(I know…horrible picture quality as the real deal is really vibrant(I have a camera but lost the charger)))

So I was able to clearly get to four sheets with only mild color appearing on the fifth sheet. I like the overall aesthetic and particularly the comparison of sheet 2 with sheet 4. With ink traveling to sheet four without any problem at 30 seconds I am interested now to find out how far it will travel after one minute, ten minutes, and one hundred and forty seven minutes.

Donate Your Facebook Status Today!

I really don't care about your political beliefs. Really. And you know what else, nobody else does either. Maybe you want to bomb the Palestinians back to the Stone Age, or throw the Jew down the well (So my people can be free!). Keep it to yourself.

I've recently learned I have the ability to (annoyingly) donate my Facebook status to a cause!
Gah, what a waste of fucking time. The most recent example I can think of, obviously, is the current Israeli Gaza Situation. Now I'm all for causes, but what I'm not for is forcing me to hear about them while I'm trying to figure out who you hooked up with last Tuesday at McFaddens.

But I am not without compassion! And when a good cause comes along that directly affects someone immediately close to me, I'm more than happy to stand by it.

Let's look at the following example:

Hmmm, Blah blah blah, Hamas is such a bad organization, Israel's being unfair, more of the same. But wait. Holy shit, Jarryd lost his dog. That's horrible! And if you click on the link, which by the way please do: http://findmydogalli.blogspot.com I think you'll agree that this is miserable, and Alli is lost and scared and alone.

Alas I digress, the point is, donate your status when something is really important, but not when there's a news story that's halfway around the world and EVERYBODY knows about anyway.

Ben and Jerry's decides against 'Mother's Milk' flavored Ice Cream

I wonder who in PETA (that's the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) decided that it would be a good idea to send a letter to Ben and Jerry (formerly of Ben & Jerry's, now of Unilever) suggesting that they completely transition from cow milk to breast milk.  Either they completely didn't think this through (possible) or its just a publicity stunt to get PETA back in the news (probable).

Let's think about this for a second.  First off, let's talk logistics before we delve into the slightly more ludicrous.  Cows provide us with roughly 8 gallons of milk a day.  People produce 40 oz a day--at most.  So for every cow, we'd need nearly 26 women producing at maximum capacity just to equal what a cow averages every day.  Two questions arise:  where would we get these droves of lactating women, and what should they do during the roughly--I don't even know how long it takes to milk a cow (or a person), but that long.

I can imagine gigantic milking facilities, fully stocked with Us Weekly and As The World Turns and I must say, I can imagine how GreenPeace would get pretty angry about that.  The carbon emissions from such a gigantic human milking factory must certainly outweigh the benefits of drinking human milk.

More importantly, ewww.  I already had human milk, and you know what, I kicked that habit years ago.  Maybe because it's gross.  Do the PETA people drink breast milk?  If so, where do they get it from?  And I'm not talking about formula, because you can't make ice cream with formula.

That brings up a new point.  With all these mothers producing flat out to provide Ben and Jerry's with top quality product, what about the children?  Presumably they can't outbid Ben and Jerry's--I mean they're owned by Unilever for Christ sakes--so I'd say its a fair assumption to say that they'd only get second-rate reject milk.  And you know what, that's just not fair.

Could you imagine the baby riots that would occur as a result of this?  "We're not second class citizens" they'd say.  If we oppressed them with sub-par formula, and poor quality breast milk, eventually they'd rise up, probably violently.  And then the uprising would have to be put down, which means babies would end up getting hurt, or worse killed.

And then there would be outrage.  And it would be directed at the politicians who authorized the use of force.  Against babies.  Which means that they would either a. get kicked out of office and be replaced by people whose campaign would be 'baby milk is for babies' or b. institute some kind of Human Milk in Ice Cream ban to save their jobs.  Regardless we'd be right back to cow milk and the net change would be zero.  Except for those poor, needlessly murdered babies

See, PETA, I can come up with ridiculous and outlandish concepts too!

From: AdAge or

Read the original PETA press release

Hey, What'd You do Last Night?

How nice of you to ask. After a rather uneventful evening of watching Zoolander on a gigantic television, I ran over to the Pike house to pick up some random shit I had lying around.

As it turns out, I still can't say no to an invitation to a bar, so Camille (in her pajamas), Jack, and I depart for Marshall's, in a 4ride no less. As it turns out a $50,000 annual tuition check also includes a complimentary ride or two to the bar.

Jack, who is by no means an alcoholic, literally knows everyone that works at Marshall's. Everyone. It's reminiscent of my freshman days at the Exchange--more on that never. So we sit down with some drinks and begin to talk about what we always talk about--nothing. That's where it all went downhill.

Enter: jockish looking white guy who already appears to be kind of wasted. This gentleman comes up to Jack, and asks him to referee a game called who can finish an Irish Car Bomb faster. Sure, why the hell not. Cool, that takes 4.5 seconds and we return to our regularly scheduled drinking.

The guy sticks around and continues conversing with us, it appears Jack may or may not know him (it was hard to tell), so we indulge in his conversational whims. As it turns out he looks jocky because he in the Army and recently got back from Iraq. He's talking to us for a while shooting the shit and what not, when out of nowhere, the idea of the "Triathlon" enters the conversation. For you who remain unenlightened--and I was at the time--it's one of each of the following drank in quick succession:

• Irish Car Bomb
• Jager Bomb
• Pint of Beer

Did I mention that the entire thing had to be finished within 30 seconds? It's like 4 shots.

So Camille, the already somewhat tipsy, Irish diehard that she is decides she can stand up to the hard drinking, U.S. Army Infantryman that is already undressing her with his eyes.

She clearly lost.

Now Captain America's putting the moves on. I'll spare you most of the details but I will say that an Eiffel Tower was discussed--seriously. If you need to ask, go to urban dictionary. Oh and the subject of his wife and young child came up. The kid's named Killian. You know, like the beer. Apparently its not cheating if its a threesome. Anyway, at last, a moment of opportunity: G.I. Joe goes to the bathroom, I grab Camille and we catch a cab the hell out of dodge without saying goodbye to anyone. Another boring ending to an otherwise bizarre set of circumstances.

Moral of the Story: Make sure you always have necessary cab fare for emergencies.

Pay it forward? Fuck that, stock up.

I dislike the idea of paying something forward. Because, what if something bad happens and nobody is there to help you out. Instead, I take the backwards approach: have a good deed surplus, so that way when something happens, you're prepared.

Take for example the events that occurred over the last 36 hours or so. It may be less, but I'm too lazy to subtract it out. Maybe it's closer to 25 hours. Whatever.

Last night, I got off of work at around 1:00am, and got back to Farragut West at around 1:30, give or take. Swiping out of the turnstile, I see two people staring at the fare machine, apparently trying to figure out how to add value to their Metro cards. If it was me, I wouldn't like being in the position, so I stopped, and walked them through the process. No big deal. It was late, they were trying to catch the next train out (like 2 minutes away), and I was in no particular rush. It must be my Connecticut upbringing. Anyway, I didn't even give the whole thing a second thought--that is, until tonight.

Big night tonight. I took the girlfriend out to eat in Georgetown at this Vietnamese restaurant. (Full disclosure: I had already eaten so I sat there and watched her.) Anyway, little did I know it, but I had left my Blackberry (yeah, yeah, I have one) sitting on the table at the restaurant. About half a block away, this guy--who clearly didn't work at the restaurant--came running up to us and asked, "Is this your phone?" Amazing! I hadn't even thought about it, and I would have never dreamed of looking at the restaurant.

I really do believe that good things do happen to good people (most of the time), and that good deeds repay each other.

So in conclusion, don't pay good deeds forward, rather, collect back-pay.

Oh and one more thing. How rude of me. Please welcome Jason as our newest full-time writer. That puts our numbers up to two. Jason's an overall great guy (even if you don't know him, you know him, you know?), and along with being a lot smarter than I am, he has some really cool insights and perspectives.

That's all for now, but be sure to stay tuned next week for: When Blondes Attack: An Introspective

Days of Future Passed

I'm sitting in my apartment right now, depressed because I don't have a DVD player so that I can watch the Great Gatsby. The Great Gatsby, of course, being an excellent book and great movie starring Mia Farrow, Sam Waterston and that guy whose name you don't know but would recognize if you saw him. Anyway, I was just thinking of the irony of the situation. Of course, you don't know why that's ironic, but that's OK, we'll get there.

I was trying to immerse myself in the 20's. I really wish we would return to times like that. Everyone just seems so much more civilized back then. Everything just seemed so much more classy. People dressed up to fly on planes. Men still held doors open for women. Your "Sunday Best" was actually your Sunday best. And Mia Farrow, Sam Waterston, and that other guy epitomized that for me.

Anyway, the reason this whole situation's ironic is because my reminiscing is being stopped by a piece of modern technology. Understand? Anyway, I've said my piece, and I don't care whether you enjoyed it or not.

Writing

I'm noticing a disturbing trend in my blog writing--mainly that I'm no longer doing it. This is disappointing because I don't like not writing. It makes me feel uncreative and boring. Also, if I was to make a New Year's resolution, it would be to write in the old blog more. I had a brilliant thought while I was walking today, though I'm struggling to remember what it was. Perhaps I'll think of it later.

I leave you with this passage I snagged from the Science of Sleep. I encountered it randomly and found great truth in it:

P. S. R. Parallel Synchronized Randomness. An interesting brain rarity and our subject for today. Two people walk in opposite directions at the same time and then they make the same decision at the same time. Then they correct it, and then they correct it, and then they correct it, and then they correct it, and then they correct it. Basically, in a mathematical world these two little guys will stay looped for the end of time. The brain is the most complex thing in the universe and it's right behind the nose. Fascinating!

Holistic Medicine...What a Scam

I talked to this holistic medicine guy recently. Not by choice. He and I were at the same dinner party (how frou-frou) and the host so graciously introduced us. Please note: I call him a holistic medicine guy, not a holistic medicine doctor. That's because he's not a doctor, he holds no M.D., as a matter of fact, he's a chiropractor. What a quack.

I should preface this by saying that I actually came into this with an open mind. I mean the shit I've been suffering from is rather bizarre and I was open to getting fixed. Clearly I had no idea what this guy did.

Mistake #1: Talking to this guy in the first place. He was dressed entirely in black. He had a pony tail, two earrings in one ear (none in the other), and a facial hair style that I can only describe as "never fashionable". But I'm a nice guy, I don't judge right away, I wait until after I don't like you.

Mistake #2: Telling him my relevant medical history. Like any good fortune teller, this guy was excellent at reading his surroundings. We made it a billion times easier for him by telling him what was wrong with me in the first place. Damn.

Mistake #3: Letting him "ask my body a few questions." Before you even ask, this is 100% as awkward as it sounds. Let me walk you through this little disaster. He had me stand directly across from him with my arm straight out to my side. It was that scene in Titanic where Kate Winslett is standing in the front of the boat with her arms out. Except she would only have one arm. And Leonardo Di Caprio wouldn't be behind her. He would then push my arm down towards the side of my body, apparently this was the Q&A period. He moved very fast, and had me place my hand in various places on my torso, apparently diagnosing me.

A quick aside: I think one of the reasons he moved so fast was so that I didn't have time to figure out what exactly he was doing. I mean anything is nifty, but if you have enough time, you can figure anything out.

Anyway, there were times where I could withstand his pushes and areas where I could not. This clearly meant that I had problems with certain parts of my anatomy and not others. Whether he could push my arm down. Right. Anyway, I started to notice a disturbing trend. When he was unable to push my arm down, he would pull his elbow in and grunt, in a concerted show of strength. Okay....thats believable. He finally decided that I had a problem with the bacteria in my stomach and that I should take this supplement. He confirmed this by being able to push my arm down, but not being able to push it down when he produced a jar of some supplement and put that next to my chest.

Let me just clarify the audacity of this. He had me point to my stomach (apparently where I was being questioned) and then pushed my arm down. It went down. He then put a closed glass bottle where my finger was and pushed my arm again. It didn't go down, and he happily proclaimed that he could "walk on that arm." So let me get this straight. My stomach somehow recognized that the substance I was deficient in was in close proximity to my body. Let's say my eyes told it. It, in turn, was kind enough to relay this information to my arm muscle, essentially saying "you can be strong now, the objective is in sight." What a bunch of bullshit. I mean oh yeah, it looks good if you are a monkey, or have an IQ below 70, but if any person put any amount of thought into this, you would see how utterly ridiculous this proposition was.

OK, now that I've been rambling for quite some time, let me wrap this up quickly

Mistake #4: Not punching him in the mouth.

So holistic medicine, the art of studying the entire body, or something like that. As far as I can tell, it's like communism, great on paper but pretty shitty in practice. Stay tuned next week for a discussion with Gore Vidal.

The Wrought Iron Age of Air Travel

Perhaps it should be called the Gilded Age of Air Travel instead. Just regular steel for Economy, but coated in gold for anything higher. Everyone hassles through security, everyone has to wait to get their luggage, and delays and cancellations plague everyone, but the airline staff are so much nicer and more accommodating when you're ticket isn't marked "Economy". Anyway, I just got back from London the other day, and I managed to weasel my way into Premium Economy (Virgin Atlantic's version of Business Class) on the flight home. Although I didn't even get the full bump to Upper Class, the stewardesses were like a thousand times nicer to me than when I sat in plain-old-economy. This is absurdly cliche.

Don't get me wrong, Virgin is a great airline no matter what price point. But I must say, they really step it up a notch for the upper classes. For one thing, I was literally plied with booze the entire time in Premium Economy. Glass of champagne before we took off, and three glasses of pre-dinner wine before we were in the air. Another two glasses of wine with dinner, and a glass of Bailey's Irish Cream as an aperitif. Total cost to me: $0. Also, the seats were much nicer. They had substantially more leg room, reclined a lot more, and were much more comfortable. All-in-all, a very pleasurable ambiance indeed.

Or so it would appear. One thing you can't escape from in any kind of travel is the people. In my experiences, my seatmate has usually been good or neutral. Which is great, I usually sit next to interesting people, or at least someone who has the courtesy to leave their iPod in the entire time rather than say they don't want to talk to me. (Full disclosure: I am guilty of the latter behavior myself.) Let's take a minute to visualize the plane. The rows were set up in a 2-3-2 configuration, and I was sitting in the right most seat in the middle. Got it? Good. The two nitwits I sat next to were quite possibly the most socially retarded people I've ever met.

I mean for one, (and this is going back to me being insanely judgmental), they were dressed like shit. Cheap ratty sneakers, jeans that looked like they were of the K-Mart persuasion and hoodies that looked like they hadn't been taken off in a week, let alone washed. They were in college. We were sitting at a bulkhead, so everything had to be stowed in the overhead bins. Our two compatriots clearly had a lot of shit with them sitting at their feet. After being told repeatedly that they needed to put their stuff in the overhead bins and barely responding, the flight attendant asked for each item to be handed to her as she put it in the bins. She didn't look happy.

When the flight took off, they got all their shit out of the overhead bins and splayed it back out where it was. Being the nosy bastard I am, I couldn't help but look over and check on them. The kid next to me was watching this soccer simulation. It involved red and blue dots moving around in no particular fashion. Whatever. When he was tired with that (after about an hour) he switched over to the in-flight entertainment system. Our young friend then proceeded to watch The Simpsons Movie in fast forward in its entirety, then proceeded to watch it again in normal speed. The two oddballs would whisper short sayings to each other, and would generally act weird. By this point, I stopped paying attention.

I guess my point is that you'd think that the more expensive your ticket, the more normal your fellow passengers would be. I have found that more often than not the complete opposite is true. Maybe paying more means that people get to act more eccentric, more bizarre than usual.

As usual, now that I have completely lost my train of thought and the end of the post is completely different than the beginning, it is time for me to depart. Goodbye!

Headlight Etiquitte

I was driving down Route 57 (like you have any idea where that is) when I passed a very well hidden cop facing the other direction with his radar out. I did the only respectable thing one can do for a fellow driver, which was to give the double brights to my fellow drivers, informing them of impending doom if they don't slow down.

However, my situation raised several questions. For example, how far away do you get before you stop informing your fellow driver? I think I stopped somewhere at the 2 mile mark, and I thought that a bit too far. Also, it raised hypothetical questions. What happens if you're behind someone when passing the cop, and the person in the lead doesn't let the drivers in the other direction know? Are you, as Car #2, morally obligated to do the double brights? If so, can cars going the other direction clearly see the brights action? Will the person in front of you think you're trying to communicate with them? So many questions.

So I then get on the Merritt Parkway, continuing on my journey. If you don't know it, the Merritt is a 2-lane in each direction highway with a narrow grass median and metal guardrails in the middle. The speed limit is 55 but the slow lane regularly goes no slower than 70. It is very narrow, very curvy, and has literally no shoulder on either side. It's awesome.

I noticed, whilst driving, that cars driving southbound (I was going northbound at the time) would have their brights on when no other cars were in front of them. (Did I mention there are also no street lights?) Some cars turned their brights off when they saw the car pack that I was in, and some just left them on. What's the proper thing to do in this situation? It's interesting because on the Merritt, most people left their brights on, while on the Saw Mill (a similarly designed road), most people tend to turn their brights off when they see a car coming on the opposite direction. Peculiar indeed.

Have you heard enough about me going on and on about a car's headlights? I have. Tune in next week for my dissertation on whether zebras are black with white stripes or white with black stripes. Until then.

Beauty is on the Inside...Right?

I went to my plastic surgeon today to make sure that my leg was still healing well. (Full Disclosure: I have a plastic surgeon.) The good news is that yes, the leg is healing well. Good, great, boring.

While I was sitting in the waiting room waiting to go in, I found myself sitting directly across from a young twenty-something (maybe 19?) girl that I would describe as rather attractive. Good body, cute face, and thin: what is she doing at a plastic surgeon? There didn't seem to be anything wrong with her, so I had to assume that she was going in for purely cosmetic reasons. And with that assumption, I became absurdly vain. As absurdly vain as a plastic surgeon.

So I'm stealing glances at her, trying to remain undetected, and attempting to figure out what she was doing there. Suddenly, I start thinking to myself, well, she's got a bit of under-chin fat, we could suck that out, she's got a cute nose, but I can understand why she doesn't like it, that can change, give her a bit of an eye lift, perhaps some work on the jawline, etc. I briefly considered a boob-job, but she was wearing loose-fitting clothing and the results were inconclusive.

Then, the kicker. Her friend comes out of the door separating the consult rooms and waiting room and she gets up to go. So now I feel like an idiot, she's not really planning on getting anything done. Oops. This poses a whole new set of questions. Do cosmetic surgeons see like this always? Do they get coffee and think, "A few strategically placed botox shots would really improve that barrista's quality of life"?

And what does that say about the kind of person who actually becomes a plastic surgeon? Do you have to be incredibly shallow in nature, or do they teach that in med school? Do they turn it off when they go home? Can they turn it off? Or do they go home, hug their 6 year old daughter, and think "I can't wait until you're 18 so I can give you a better nose"?

That's about as much as I can think about that. Stay tuned next week when we learn just why Peter Piper is so damn obsessed with picked peppers.

Above the Influence

I don't know why, but I've always really enjoyed all those anti-drug commercials. Not that they're good, or effective, or even have decent production values, but its fun to see what the government considers an effective tool to get through to 'todays youth.' Please note the gigantic air quotes around today's youth.

Today, I did something I never did before, I went to www.abovetheinfluence.com. I must admit my favorite part was the "Comebacks" section, where you are presented with different scenarios regarding drug use and appropriate comebacks to such "come-ons". The picture below illustrates quite nicely how much time was put into this particular endeavor.

"I snagged my younger brother's Ritalin. Want some?" "Nah. That stuff is bad"

So what's my point? Really I have no clue. Maybe its that my tax dollars should be going better places, like child health care, or perhaps, oh I don't know a thousand other uses other than an ineffectual campaign that even congressional reports call ineffective.

On a lighter note, actually I don't know about a lighter note at the moment. I think the last time I left my house was Wednesday, which means two lovely days of watching TV, reading, doing crosswords, and getting a cold. Boo colds. Anyway, I've got a Bat Mitzvah to go to tomorrow which requires me to leave the house. More stories tomorrow!

Oh Connecticut

Here I am, watching more late night TV, which we've already established I shouldn't be doing. Today's choice is True Life: I'm the New Kid in Town. The on screen guide informed me that "Grace and her family move from Connecticut to New Zealand." Obviously the first question all the New Zealand girls ask Grace is where shes from. Her answer, "Basically right outside New York" really justified my existence.

Also, I respect the fact that MTV decided to subtitle half the things these faux-Australians were saying, because really, it just turns into gibberish after a point.

This girl is so awkward. Shes flirting (or trying to at least) with this guy. Shes talking like 200 miles a second and is trying to mock his accent. He's also speaking rather fast, which is difficult because hes incomprehsible.

In other news, I drove my car today for the first time since I got out of the hospital. It was good, and shifting was much less difficult than I had originally suspected. Well the show's almost over and I should really go to bed, so I guess that's the end of this post. Goodbye!

The Best Feeling

Here I am, in cozy Washington, resting my feet on the desk and watching as it rains cold, ugly rain while Connecticut is experiencing cold, beautiful snow. That one disappointment aside, I am having a great weekend.

I got in on Friday night, where I was welcomed to a surprise party in my apartment. I saw a lot of friends that I wasn't expecting to, and we had good times until the early morning. Also, I found out that there's a Thomas the Tank Engine movie, and that it's On Demand. I watched part of it before deciding I was too tired to go to sleep. The suspense is killing me, I must find out how it ends!

Pike Semi-Formal was on Saturday night, and I had a great time. Having not really told a whole hell of a lot of people I was coming, I showed up to the bar fashionably late. Before I even got a chance to show the bouncer my ID, brothers were already making off hand comments like, "Holy shit, its Jordan!" The bouncer had barely given me a wristband before there was literally a "JORDAN!' chant echoing throughout the bar. I was extremely flattered, to say the least. The entire night, brothers kept coming up to me and telling me how happy they were to see me, and that they were glad I was OK and doing well. Many commented about the appropriateness of me being the one to have a cane. I left the semi at around 1:00am and headed to Kelsey's 21st celebration at Buffalo Billiards. That was also very fun, and once again I got to see more people who were very glad to see me and who had been concerned about my condition. Not that I'm an egoist or anything (disclosure: I kind of am) but it's really just a very warming feeling to know that so many people were behind me and pulling for me. And now that I'm doing well enough to make it down to the District, you all are embracing me with open arms. This sounds corny, but it really means a lot to me. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Continuing right along...Sunday began with a bang at noon. I met up with even more friends at Ivory for lunch, and as it turns out, every time I tried to leave, I ran into more people and stayed and chatted in Ivory until literally until around 5:00pm. Hung out with the neighbors for a bit then went to chapter. At chapter, I got a dollar from Galmiche (the highest honor one can achieve in the Chapter Room) for having nasty wounds and everyone (sober this time) was really glad that I was doing a lot better and exhibited genuine concern for my health and well being.

I must be honest, I didn't know what to expect when I got on the train to get down here, but the outpouring of support and kind feeling has been truly overwhelming. It's been great to be back, and although people have tons of work to do, they still made time to see me, say hello, and see how I'm doing.

On another positive note, Camille came back from Ireland on Saturday, so now when I call her standard rates apply instead of exorbitant international rates. Hooray!

I'm out of here on Tuesday, so I'm sure I'll get another post in about the great times I've been having in DC. But seriously, thanks to all of you who have called, or sent me emails, or Facebook messages, or texted, or in any way gotten me through this particularly gruesome experience that has been the last two months of my life. I truly could not haven gotten through it without you.

Perhaps some day, I'll write up the sometimes comical tale of my hospital stay. Until then.

High Quality Doctors

One of the conditions of my leaving the hospital was that I had to have a primary care physician in Connecticut lined up to manage my care. Well, as it turns out, the last doctor I had here was my pediatrician. So we make the appropriate appointments, and out I go. Well not quite, but bear with me here.

I had my first (and subsequently my last) appointment with my pediatrician--who shall remain nameless--on Friday. Apparently it took me a couple of days to write about it. Regardless, My mom and I go in for a quick checkup of my leg (which has two gigantic incisions in it) to make sure it was healing properly. Just to get you, fair reader, up to speed, on my inner-left leg, I have about 10 inches of "linear" a.k.a. normal stitches that honestly looks like something out of Pirates of the Caribbean. The surgeons couldn't close the other side so they had to use a skin graft, which makes the wound look like an eye. Delicious. The only things protecting my wounds from the outside air are some Vaseline gauze, some non-stick pads and an ace bandage.

Anyway, my mom and I begin unwrapping the ace and taking the wrappings off, and Dr. Weak Stomach just begins backing away. He looks at my leg (from across the room) and made the determination that everything looked all right from a medical standpoint. He then added--and this is what kills me--"but man does that [my skin graft] look gross." I mean, don't get me wrong, it does indeed look gross, but that is definitely not what you want to hear from a medical professional regarding your body. I'm sure our faithful doctor made a similar comment the last time he saw a wound like that--in his textbook in med school.

I mean look, the man is a good pediatrician, but he just wasn't set up for this. At this point, I attempted to end the appointment as quickly as possible and get the hell out of there. I quickly discard all the information that Dr. Bedside Manner had annunciated to me and made a mental note to never go back there again.

Since then, and say what you will, I've decided to keep my care within the Ivy League community. Elitist? Yes? But I didn't spend 24 days in the hospital to have some joker with a degree from the back of a cereal box fuck it up in the last quarter mile. Is that even an expression? I doubt it.

So now that I've officially decided I'm rambling, I bid you, dear reader, adieu.