It struck me tonight that San Clemente has a crazy Sushi Restaurant to Movie Theater ratio. There is only one movie theater in town, but at least 6 sushi restaurants! In Carpinteria there is one sushi restaurant and one movie theater, although it is a very small theater so not sure how to count that. I guess you could do sushi restaurants to movie screens, but I like the first metric more. I'm not sure, but I think that in Overland Park the sushi restaurant to movie theater ratio is less than one. I'm not sure what it is in Boston, but there are not many theaters in town so I'm guessing its ratio is high. What's the ratio in your town/general vicinity?
The other sushi restaurant ratio I find interesting in San Clemente is sushi restaurants to thai restaurants. Again, at least six sushi restaurants, but only one thai food restaurant. Carpinteria is again one to one. Again, not that sure about Overland Park or Boston, but I'm thinking that in both there are more thai food restaurants.
I have no idea why I find that so interesting and I'm probably putting most of you to sleep, so if you want something to wake you back up try jalapeno tempura stuffed with crab meat. Good stuff, supposedly invented at the latest San Clemente sushi restaurant I've tried.
Well, I doubt that I win for most occurrences of the words sushi restaurant in a post, but probably do win for most times spell check was used to correct the spelling of the word restaurant in the course of a single post.
Friday, December 22, 2006
Sunday, December 17, 2006
Bad joke
So I was driving up to Pasadena the other day and was thinking about how it used to be that everywhere I went in California was within a few miles of the 101, but now that I live on the 5 that's not true anymore. But then I realized that in some sense 101 and 5 are the same thing and for some reason I felt the need to share that with you. Feel free to groan now, although I am glad to see that my over generalization in some sense still holds true.
For those that don't get it I will point to my fellow winners of Time's Person of the Year for an explanation.
For those that don't get it I will point to my fellow winners of Time's Person of the Year for an explanation.
Thursday, December 14, 2006
HIV
This article is fairly interesting in and of itself (apparently circumcision reduces the chances of a guy getting AIDS from sex by about 50%), but the reason I'm linking to it is it reminds me of one of the worst lessons I ever had in Sunday school.
So one day at Sunday school they gather us in the big room so that we can watch a video. They are going to show us a video because they want to break the stereotype/misconception that Jews don't get AIDS. Now, ironic part #1 - I had never heard that Jews don't get AIDS before, nor have I ever heard it ever since then so its great that they taught it to me so they could then try to convince me it is wrong. Anyway, we are watching the video which is one Jewish guy talking about how he has AIDS. Now it is striking me that you don't really break a stereotype by finding one guy who goes against the rule (and really the fact they only got one guy somewhat reinforces it). But then as the video goes on it turns out that the guy is homosexual. Now I have nothing against homosexuals and I know that plenty of straight people get AIDS, but I did know that there is a stereotype of homosexuals having a greater chance of having AIDS. So well done, they found one guy who breaks a stereotype I had never heard of, but reinforces a well known stereotype. I guess the lesson is that while being Jewish will keep you from getting AIDS, being homosexual is the stronger force and will give you AIDS.
Now I always thought that was just funny that they had botched the lesson so poorly, but according to the above article, apparently there is actually some truth to it... Crazy.
So one day at Sunday school they gather us in the big room so that we can watch a video. They are going to show us a video because they want to break the stereotype/misconception that Jews don't get AIDS. Now, ironic part #1 - I had never heard that Jews don't get AIDS before, nor have I ever heard it ever since then so its great that they taught it to me so they could then try to convince me it is wrong. Anyway, we are watching the video which is one Jewish guy talking about how he has AIDS. Now it is striking me that you don't really break a stereotype by finding one guy who goes against the rule (and really the fact they only got one guy somewhat reinforces it). But then as the video goes on it turns out that the guy is homosexual. Now I have nothing against homosexuals and I know that plenty of straight people get AIDS, but I did know that there is a stereotype of homosexuals having a greater chance of having AIDS. So well done, they found one guy who breaks a stereotype I had never heard of, but reinforces a well known stereotype. I guess the lesson is that while being Jewish will keep you from getting AIDS, being homosexual is the stronger force and will give you AIDS.
Now I always thought that was just funny that they had botched the lesson so poorly, but according to the above article, apparently there is actually some truth to it... Crazy.
Sunday, December 10, 2006
Quicksilver, Millionaire Next Door, and maybe a little about me
Well I've been a bit bad about keeping up with my self imposed book report. I somewhat recently finished Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver. It's the first of three books (about 900 pages each) which are historical fiction about the Baroque-era. This might not sound like my normal choice of books, but Neal Stephenson is awesome so I figured I'd try it out. It is interesting because it concentrates on the science of the time (and in particular the development of calculus and the fight between Newton and Leibniz). But it is definitely no Diamond Age or Snow Crash.
< tangent > I was skimming the wikipedia article about Snow Crash and it mentioned memetics and now that I actually know what a meme is, the whole book makes a lot more sense. < /tangent >
Anyway, Neal Stephenson seems to have a pattern of jumping into a story that is already somewhat crazy, developing it, and then toward the end going to the next level of crazy (that's part of what I like about his writing, is that his vision starts about where many scifi writers build up to through a whole book). Quicksilver had a bit of an interesting end, but not that much of a twist so I'm hoping that as I get into the next two books he will work his magic. If nothing else he does have a way of taking something somewhat mundane and making it interesting. I guess that is enough praising of Neal Stephenson for now.
To take a break between Neal Stephenson books (no matter how much I might like an author, after 900 pages it is time for a change) I read The Millionaire Next Door. Thanks Mom for loaning it to me. Allow me to summarize: if you want to accumulate wealth live below your means. Done. Actually, there was a bit more interesting info in there, but I think if you get that one line you can move on. The one other point I found interesting is that living below or above your means is somewhat self reinforcing. If you move to a nice neighborhood then it is hard to be thrifty with other aspects of your life and if you have a nice dinning room table you probably don't want the rest of your furniture to be junk. Vs if you live in a less expensive neighborhood you would probably feel odd driving a really expensive car. The two things I found disappointing are: one that the book is 10 years old so it is hard to compare yourself to the numbers in the book because they are vastly outdated, and two that their formula for how much wealth you should have accumulated is age divided by ten times your salary. If you are twenty five and two years out of school it is hard to have accumulated 2.5 times your salary... Perhaps their formula needs to be more generalized or have a minimum age associated with it.
Over Thanksgiving I headed home. It was good to see the family and it was nice to get back on a bike after about a decade (although my butt felt otherwise). It was also good to see some of my friends from high school. It is interesting that up to a certain age a lot of things change over the course of a year, but it seems like a few years out of college and you can ask someone you haven't seen for a year what's new and get the answer not much. I'm not criticizing anyone, just an interesting phenomenon. Although I would like to think that I kept myself out of that category by moving and changing jobs within the last six months, but if I keep that up that could be an issue. I guess when you are in school if nothing else you advance a year and get one year closer to some transition point. I see why at family events everyone wants to talk to the youngins (luckily in my family I'm still a youngin - largely due to me and a few other youngins' lack of bringing other youngins into the world).
Over the weekend I went to see Upright Citizens Brigade Theater with Evan. I had my first celebrity sighting, although I'm not sure how much it really counts since I don't know they guy's name. He is the bald fat one. Unfortunately he was not performing - I just saw him talking to some people in the ticket sales area. We attempted to see the 8 pm show, but due to all of LA heading to something in Griffith Park (I think the observatory may have just reopened) we ended up seeing the 10 pm show, which I have a feeling was amateur hour. At one point one of the actors made a comment about knowing everyone in the audience and I have a feeling that other than Evan and me he wasn't kidding. Since there were so few people, both Evan and I were dragged on stage at some point. When Evan went up he was funnier than the girl that had dragged him on. I think I'll give UCB theater one more chance, but before that I want to try out some of the other improv groups in LA.
< tangent > I was skimming the wikipedia article about Snow Crash and it mentioned memetics and now that I actually know what a meme is, the whole book makes a lot more sense. < /tangent >
Anyway, Neal Stephenson seems to have a pattern of jumping into a story that is already somewhat crazy, developing it, and then toward the end going to the next level of crazy (that's part of what I like about his writing, is that his vision starts about where many scifi writers build up to through a whole book). Quicksilver had a bit of an interesting end, but not that much of a twist so I'm hoping that as I get into the next two books he will work his magic. If nothing else he does have a way of taking something somewhat mundane and making it interesting. I guess that is enough praising of Neal Stephenson for now.
To take a break between Neal Stephenson books (no matter how much I might like an author, after 900 pages it is time for a change) I read The Millionaire Next Door. Thanks Mom for loaning it to me. Allow me to summarize: if you want to accumulate wealth live below your means. Done. Actually, there was a bit more interesting info in there, but I think if you get that one line you can move on. The one other point I found interesting is that living below or above your means is somewhat self reinforcing. If you move to a nice neighborhood then it is hard to be thrifty with other aspects of your life and if you have a nice dinning room table you probably don't want the rest of your furniture to be junk. Vs if you live in a less expensive neighborhood you would probably feel odd driving a really expensive car. The two things I found disappointing are: one that the book is 10 years old so it is hard to compare yourself to the numbers in the book because they are vastly outdated, and two that their formula for how much wealth you should have accumulated is age divided by ten times your salary. If you are twenty five and two years out of school it is hard to have accumulated 2.5 times your salary... Perhaps their formula needs to be more generalized or have a minimum age associated with it.
Over Thanksgiving I headed home. It was good to see the family and it was nice to get back on a bike after about a decade (although my butt felt otherwise). It was also good to see some of my friends from high school. It is interesting that up to a certain age a lot of things change over the course of a year, but it seems like a few years out of college and you can ask someone you haven't seen for a year what's new and get the answer not much. I'm not criticizing anyone, just an interesting phenomenon. Although I would like to think that I kept myself out of that category by moving and changing jobs within the last six months, but if I keep that up that could be an issue. I guess when you are in school if nothing else you advance a year and get one year closer to some transition point. I see why at family events everyone wants to talk to the youngins (luckily in my family I'm still a youngin - largely due to me and a few other youngins' lack of bringing other youngins into the world).
Over the weekend I went to see Upright Citizens Brigade Theater with Evan. I had my first celebrity sighting, although I'm not sure how much it really counts since I don't know they guy's name. He is the bald fat one. Unfortunately he was not performing - I just saw him talking to some people in the ticket sales area. We attempted to see the 8 pm show, but due to all of LA heading to something in Griffith Park (I think the observatory may have just reopened) we ended up seeing the 10 pm show, which I have a feeling was amateur hour. At one point one of the actors made a comment about knowing everyone in the audience and I have a feeling that other than Evan and me he wasn't kidding. Since there were so few people, both Evan and I were dragged on stage at some point. When Evan went up he was funnier than the girl that had dragged him on. I think I'll give UCB theater one more chance, but before that I want to try out some of the other improv groups in LA.
Saturday, December 09, 2006
Installing Firefox
As I sit here using firefox, which I just installed, on a computer I am not supposed to be able to install programs on, I thought I might discuss this with the world (aka the couple of people that read this). I have run into very few computers on which I could not install firefox (I'm not trying to brag, all the credit definitely goes to firefox, and maybe a little to window's flawed concept of security). The one trick I thought I'd bring up, which might fool a few people, is that sometimes it will tell you that it cannot install in Program Files, which is the default destination. So if you get this error message, pick a place you do have permissions to write to, such as My Documents. Not terribly elegant, but usually does the trick and saves you from staring at that increasingly stupid looking blue e.
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