For dorks who like Star Trek and flow charts: the original Star Trek plot-generating flow chart. (I assume this covers most of my readers.)

This is a cake.

I'd blog more, but I'm hungry.

Que Sarah Sarah

Today's Word of the Day is: SarahPac!

SarahPac is Sarah Palin's new PAC, or Political Action Committee (I'm almost positive that's what it stands for, but in the spirit of discussing Sarah Palin I've decided to do no extra research whatsoever...you know, out of solidarity).

What this means ostensibly is that Sarah Palin now has a vehicle for both accepting and making campaign contributions. She can raise money for herself, and take money from the PAC and direct it strategically, probably to support candidates fighting for things she believes in all over the country, from Iowa to New Hampshire, from Florida to Ohio...

Slightly less ostensibly, but no less obvious, is that this keeps Sarah Palin in the spotlight and help set up her primary run in 2012. She's also begun keying in on her #1 issue: energy independence. This is good for her, because she seemed fairly competent talking about the issues involved in the campaign, and coming from Alaska, she actually has credibility when she says "drill, baby, drill." (Plus, isn't it adorable when she says "baby"?)

I was thrilled to hear this news. And not because I'm a huge fan of clever names for PACs (though I am). I was happy because it means I get more Sarah Palin news without the stress of worrying if she might actually hold high constitutional office next year (as was true in the campaign). I miss her, but not the way I'll miss Ed Rendell or the way people miss Ronald Reagan. I miss Sarah Palin the same way we all miss Aaron Sorkin, who should come back and write another awesome TV show. She's so gosh darn adorable and entertaining, and I'm glad to see her back on the public stage with no hope of winning a high-ranking position in the federal government.

I feel like I'm in another Dilbert strip this week, except it's not so much fun as it is sadistic. Definitely starting to think about that PhD in a wistful manner.

Here's a question: why do people live everywhere? I mean, I know that sounds odd and obvious, but why does anyone move TO some sleepy failing economically depressed half-city, or to a place where the average temperature is 1 degree? There have to be some places that aren't first on anyone's list, and yet, you find lots of people in places like that anyway. I don't get it. I can't be the only one who wonders such things.

When I first started this blog, at the request of my friends (who probably still make up a decent portion of the readership), I promised lots of random Futurama references. Since discovering I actually have some things to say and can start an interesting conversation, I've strayed from that. Tonight, as I sit in the Harrisburg Hilton, I'm going back to my roots. This comes by way of Barkeep:

http://i44.tinypic.com/28aki86.jpg

I'll get back to serious posts soon enough, but for now I thought I'd share a website that Super King introduced to me. It's a restaurant review and ranking site, but it's remarkable for it's nation-wide reach, and for the fact that the rankings and ratings are based on tastiness of the food alone (the written reviews address other things, but if you're like me, you'll agree that rankings and ratings are already subjective enough without having to deal with the reviewer's opinion of the decor).

The website is www.gayot.com. One page I've fixated one (well, two pages, there's a "next") is the list of top restaurants in Philadelphia. I'd love to hit all of them at one point or another.

(There are a few restaurants notably absent from the list, such as Lacroix at the Rittenhouse and the Fountain at the Four Seasons--when restaurants are undergoing changes, their rankings are temporarily removed.)

[Editor's Note: the website is not just for Philadelphia. It has rankings, ratings, reviews and Top 10 category lists for restaurants nationally, and in many cities, from San Francisco to Harrisburg.]

Our Inauguration

January 20th, 2009. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Inauguration day.

Today I saw a man promise to preserve, protect and defend a living document that counted him as three-fifths of a person until an amendment was added in the back.

Today I saw a man take the reins of leadership of a country in which he could have once been owned as property two centuries ago, in which he couldn't have voted one century ago, in which he wouldn't even have been served in some restaurants or been allowed to sit next to me on the bus half a century ago. I saw him become the most powerful person in the world.

Today I saw a great mind become president as the clock struck noon, as he listened to perhaps the most talented quartet of musicians the world has ever seen--a Jew, an Asian, a Christian and a black man--playing a variation of "Simple Gifts," a Shaker melody whose almost-forgotten lyrics declare that it is a gift to be free.

Today I saw a man offer patent honesty about the challenges face by a nation when offered unadulterated devotion and jubilation by the masses. I saw him redirect our attention from the afterglow of an election to the real work that lies ahead.

Today I saw a man captivate the world by raising his right hand, by becoming not just the head but the real face of a nation that leads the world into prosperity and crisis alike, whose relationships with its global neighbors define the destiny of a planet. Today as tears fell, as leaders and peasants held their breath, as humanity watched a transition and a transformation from over 240 nations and territories, we all heard a man say to world leaders--and really to the whole world--that we will be judged by what we can build, not by what we destroy. Leaders will be judged by their people, citizens will be judged by their peers, and nations will be judged by history on the basis of what we create, what we leave behind, and how well we fulfill humanity's pledge to leave for our children better than that which we ourselves received.

Today I saw a man ready to lead, and a nation willing to follow.

So the Eagles lost. Big deal. They made it to the playoffs when everyone had given up on them; they won two games on the road, including against the defending Superbowl champs; they made a good game of it; and also: the Phillies are WORLD CHAMPIONS.

I'm not complaining about Philly sports for a while.

Philly pride for this weekend.

Everyone who's been on a plane knows that they spend a good amount of time preparing passengers for "the event of a water landing." It's certainly a high percentage of the talk passengers get about safety and what to be prepared for.

This week's water landing was apparently the first in 150 MILLION commercial flights.

And looking at the pictures, no one seemed to be blowing into those yellow life jackets with the red straw or hugging their seat cushions tightly. Can we modernize the safety talk? How about "in the event of an attempted terrorist highjacking, everyone rush the offender and take the bastard down." Or some better advice...have the experts work on it.

I think most of America is feeling this way.

My Graphs (I make a lot of them)

The NYTimes Freakonomics blog cited one of my favorite unacademic studies (cited author: Simpson, L.) along with an academic one:
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/is-ignorance-really-bliss/

The academic study argues that intelligence is very slightly correlated with happiness. But it measures intelligence through questions in the same survey that asks about happiness. The surveys included questions about happiness, a vocab test, and a small logical reasoning test. I think it's quite possible this study was flawed (though I haven't read the study itself), because if you're taking a vocab test and don't know the answers, then someone immediately asks you how happy you are, you might be feeling dumb or inadequate and give a lower self-reported happiness score. Likewise, if you're feeling smug and smart, you might give a higher one. These would be temporary effects causing the happiness score to be more closely associated with temporary satisfaction with one's own intelligence rather than overall life happiness.

Either way, one fundamental truth remains the same: I make a lot of graphs (I do!).

I think there are certain TV shows and movies you should make life decisions immediately after watching.

(That sentence was a little grammatically awkward, but I can't think of a good way to word it without changing the first 9 words, and I liked the way it started.)

My Kangaburger

A coworker informed me today that a restaurant in the Philly suburbs makes burgers out of exotic animals, most notably, kangaroo. Needless to say, I want one.

I realized shortly after my hunger for the meat down under (you have a sick mind, you know who you are and you know that's not what I meant, kangaroos are Australian...jeez) that this will put me at solidly having eaten three animals from Winnie the Pooh (Rabbit and Piglet being the first two). This bothered me. I always thought of the bunny I ate as more of a Thumper thing, but with Rabbit, Pig and Kangaroo soon to be under my belt (literally, ha!), this presents a problem. Piglet and Rabbit are annoying, but Kanga's a real sweetheart! This was going to take some mental reconciliation.

A few hours later I figured it out. Kanga's an absolute doll, but have you ever noticed how she's a single mom? To get over my mental block, I decided to pretend I'm eating Roo's deadbeat dad.

Now all is at peace in my mind, and come DeluxX's Spring Break, he and I will be off to try kangaroo and perhaps some other delicious meats, depending on the special (regular specials include elk, emu, and caribou).

For those of you interested, the locale is called the Half Moon Restaurant.

Why is it that you can get flawless high-speed internet access while deep underground on an incredibly fast-moving bullet train in Japan, but I can't get reliable internet access while plugged into a wall in a building so close to Comcast's global headquarters that I could hit a golf ball with a sand wedge off the roof and into quite a few of their offices?

Here's hoping Obama's plans for a massive infrastructure investment actually goes through and focuses on more than roads and bridges. If we want to be a global leader in technology, our technological infrastructure should, you know, be at least pretty good by international standards.

More on Nth-hand Smoking

It seems like the debate as to the dangers of secondhand smoke are over, and now doctors and scientists are investigating the dangers of thirdhand smoke, as reported by the New York Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/03/health/research/03smoke.html?em

Thirdhand smoke is what's left behind by secondhand smoke. Just because you can't see the smoke in the air doesn't mean there aren't toxins and carcinogens left behind. Basically, if something smells like cigarette smoke, it's probably toxically unhealthful.

As an aside, I'd like to pose a few questions to the people still saying secondhand smoke isn't dangerous: if we have proof that inhaling certain things increases the risk of cancer and heart disease, and we have proof that those things are in secondhand smoke, why is it so hard to believe that secondhand smoke is dangerous?

Also, there's a certain disconnect, at least for me: most of the studies showing that smoke and secondhand smoke aren't that bad are funded directly by tobacco companies. Proponents of the minority opinion shoot back that the other studies are funded by the ACS (American Cancer Society) and similar groups. How the heck is that a relevant comparison? Tobacco companies have a bias towards smoking because they're pro-tobacco by definition, by the very nature and mission of the organization. The American Cancer Society has a bias because...what? Because it's AGAINST CANCER? To me, that's a pretty darn good motive for doing independent research, if they're consistently biased against things that cause cancer. I'm fine with that. It's not like they're secretly a militant group trying to take down harmless tobacco companies posing as a public health organization. They're legitimately against cancer. Also, the American Heart Association, the American Lung Association...they're pro-hearts and pro-lungs. And I've got three vital organs that fall into at least one of those two categories. I recognize that people get emotionally attached to opinions, and it's hard to change peoples' minds, but why are non-profits trying to save lives just as suspect on the subject of smoking as companies trying to sell cigarettes? If smoking was really harmless, you'd think at least a few of their leading members would catch on eventually and say "hey, let's get back to our mission and focus on stuff that actually kills people." If they say secondhand smoke kills you, and the basic science says it kills you, I don't need to nitpick every little study, finding flaws (which will always exist) in any one that disagrees with me before I avoid the stuff.

My Smoking Ban Dilemma

I don't think I have a single reader who is in the dark about my feelings regarding Philadelphia's smoking ban (I think one reader put it best, observing that, "If it were a woman, [I'd] marry her."). But now that over 99% of the places I'd ever want to go are in compliance with the ban, what do I do when I encounter a place that is non-compliant? (Bear in mind, when I say "non-compliant" I don't mean just "allows smoking" but "allows illegal smoking").

This dilemma hit me the other day. I was out with some friends at a dive bar, my first time there, and halfway through the meal, a nearby person lit up. The person next to him saw this, and lit a cigarette as well. Then the bartender came over. I was relieved, expecting him to enforce the "no smoking" sign hanging in the window (a requirement under the ban). Instead he bummed a smoke. I had finished eating, but hadn't paid yet. Part of me wanted to walk out, get stopped, explain I'm allergic to cigarette smoke and I'd be happy to sit back down and pay in accordance with the law as soon as they showed any sign that they cared what the law said. While witty, effective, and snotty, I decided that (a) two wrongs don't make a right and (b) it's not worth the risk to me--if they didn't realize I was making a point and had no intention of not paying under any circumstances, I could face criminal charges while they'd just get a small fine.

So I got the check, paid, and left. My coat now smells of smoke, and I wish I had some legal recourse to send them the dry-cleaning bill, but getting and enforcing such a court order would cost way more than the cleaning service. I brooded back at home, a little ticked off.

I liked this place. The food was decent, extremely cheap, before the cigarette incident, I was planning on coming back. Now my dilemma is: do I report the bar for the violation? Part me says to be the bigger man and simply never come back. Part of me wants to fire an anonymous warning shot, and maybe try coming back there. Part of me wants to stick it to them for causing me such discomfort and inconvenience. And part of me thinks the law is the law.

I was very close to just forgetting about it, and writing a bad review for the bar. But then I realized something else: Philadelphia has a billion+ dollar 5-year fiscal deficit. That bar owes the City some money. Not enough to make a dent, but just on principle. Furthermore, the bar is a poor representative of Philadelphia to any tourists, and discourages people from trying new places and going out. Beyond the fine, that's a lot of economic activity the city loses out on if such flagrant disregard continues. It's one thing to be gracious and nice to people, even if they're breaking the law. I'm not a law enforcement officer; they weren't hurting anyone (oh, wait, actually they were, but anyway...); and in the spirit of individual liberties, I was just going to let it slide. But I can't let it slide if doing so means siding with those people against my own city.

So after my own internal struggle, not only am I going to report the violation, but I'd like to encourage readers to do the same should the situation arise. Cities thrive when the citizenry actively protects it, and urban America needs the help these days. If the smoking ban is good for the city (and all the evidence suggests that smoking bans are great for cities), let's make it a real one, not just a piece of paper to whoever chooses to disregard it. Let's give visitors a good impression, and our fellow residents a cleaner, safer set of choices for going out, spending money, and having a good time. I'm siding with my city.

A simplified flash version of Super Smash Brothers. I just spent way too long playing it.

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/333995