Yes, happy birthday! Your present was delicious.
Archive for the ‘personal’ Category
Happy Birthday Dad!
Friday, December 12th, 2008Happy Birthday Mom
Wednesday, December 10th, 2008Happy 39th birthday! See you soon.
Eating on a dollar a day
Thursday, November 6th, 2008From B comes this gen in the NYT: Money Is Tight, and Junk Food Beckons:
This fall a couple in Encinitas, Calif., conducted their own experiment to find out what it was like to live for a month on just a dollar a day for food. Overnight, their diets changed significantly. The budget forced them to give up many store-bought foods and dinners out. Even bread and canned refried beans were too expensive.
…
Breakfast consisted of oatmeal; lunch was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
I have to laugh, because that has been my diet for oh, ten years.
“This sucker could go down”
Saturday, October 4th, 2008From Jeff Matthews is not making this up:
FDR: “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”
Churchill: “We shall fight on the beaches.”
GWB: “This sucker could go down.”
FiveThirtyEight.com
Saturday, September 27th, 2008Am I the last one to discover FiveThirtyEight.com? Lots of great election data and analysis like this on strange betting patterns at Intrade.
Ballard real estate
Wednesday, September 17th, 2008I learned today from my new favorite blog myballard.com that our zip code is the eight fastest selling in the country, with an average time on the market of 86 days. Looking at the list Ballard has done pretty well in comparison to many higher up on the list, like Plano, Tex. (#4) where prices are down 2.8% year-over-year, and #7 Wakefield, Mass. (down 7.3%). We’re down just 0.9%.
Like most averages this one is totally meaningless. The slow end of the average has to be dominated by overpriced condos (like the two next door to us that have not sold in over a year – dunno who we should thank more for that, the a-hole developers who left nails in our driveway and gave us three flat tires over the year, or my neighbor who with his Native American friend put a curse on the a-hole developers) and run-down overpriced tear downs with a good view and elderly owners who need to cash out to retire.
IMG00062.jpg
Monday, September 1st, 2008
IMG00062.jpg
Originally uploaded by smooth.
Thank you racoons, for ruining my only remaining pumpkin and not even EATING the fu*king thing.
5 things the US still kicks ass at
Monday, August 18th, 2008So yeah, maybe our entire financial system is melting down (thanks wall street), we’ve f’d up the environment to the point of no return, and our war mongering has pissed off the entire rest of the world. And this week I’ve discovered that China even has some really bad ass female beach volleyball players.
It’s times like these that I like to think about arenas in which we’re still unquestionably the dominant world power. 5 things the US still kicks ass at:
- Baseball: Japan and Central America have some pretty good players too, but those players are notable still primarily because of their scarcity.
- Basketball: we might lose a couple of world tournaments once in a while, but let’s face it, just because we’re lazy and the players hardly consider world basketball important.
- Higher education: other countries might have one or two universities that can compete with, say, UC Berkeley. No other country can touch the number of high quality colleges and universities in the US.
- Health care innovation: sure we don’t have nationalized health care or anything, but you know what, we invest a crap load in drug discovery and medical devices, and the rest of the world benefits.
- Entertainment: whatever your thoughts are about American cultural hegemony, you gotta admit that John McClane and Die Hard kick ass. Americans make damn good pop movies, music and tv. And we make some pretty good independent films too.
Global Warming: Don’t worry, Chrysler is on the case
Wednesday, May 28th, 2008As if I needed another reason not to buy an American car, the inside cover of this week’s Business Week includes this gem of an ad from Chrysler:
We live in a car culture. Don’t apologize. Without our cars, we lose a measurable source of freedom, individuality and, yes, happiness.
That’s why we consider it our obligation to improve the technology within the car so your experience behind the wheel remains blissfully unaltered.
So thanks Chrysler, glad to hear that you have everything under control.
Dwight Schrute presenting The National
Saturday, May 24th, 2008
Dwight Schrute presenting The National
Originally uploaded by smooth.
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