I Heart New Jersey

Is that a pencil or a shank?

2007-01-22T18:24:00.000-05:00

<-----What is this picture trying to portray exactly? "I'm a poor prisoner trying to learn, and better myself and I'm gonna use this pencil to do it" or "Why don't you go ahead and open this cell so I can shank you with this sharpened pencil"? Regardless, check out this pretty interesting post over on Marginal Revolution. For you lazy slackers who won't click on the link, the basic point is that people living in prison are dying at a slower rate than people living outside of prison. If you read the comments on this post, you'll see a ton of people actually suggesting that this is proof that government provided health care would work better than privately provided health care. I can understand how somebody would make that mistake by just looking at the raw statistics. Prisoners have state-provided health care, and they're dying at a slower rate than those of us on the "outside" who have to worry about providing our own health care. One plus one must equal two, right?
The post and subsequent comments on Marginal Revolution reminded me of a quote by Milton Friedman (surprised aren't you?) that I will paraphrase here:

The general public is uninformed about economics, and that causes them to make poor decisions.

And I generally believe this to be true. I mean, how many of us have the time to get a PhD in economics or statistics? Well I hate to tell you folks, but that's nearly what it takes to truly understand a lot of the stuff that get thrown at you in the paper and on the news these days. Take this prison data for instance. Economists learn to ask the important questions about data. What is the average age of a prison inmate, as compared to the average age of somebody not in prison? When a person has a terminal illness, do they actually die in prison or in a hospital, and if they die in a hospital outside of prison how do they count that? What about death row inmates? How are their deaths counted? There are many questions to be answered, but what you should realize if you look critically at these statistics is that there is something called "selection bias" going on. We all know that the average inmate is much younger than the average person not in jail. Prison is a young man's game, as one commenter said. So we would expect the rate at which prisoners die to be less than that of the general population!
I say all of this as a very long-winded way of saying the following:
Learn to think critically about everything.

Addendum:
Um, the shelf in our walk-in closet collapsed. Pretty hilarious.

Lazy Sunday

2007-01-21T10:45:00.000-05:00

And I'm back. I just can't stay away. Even if nobody is out there, I guess it makes me feel better to get things out of my head and on to the screen. And there are a lot of things in my head, so this could take a while.
<----Here is my new home office, in its natural state of disarray. I love it. There is nothing better than waking up early on a Sunday and getting a paper and plopping down for hours at the desk. And herein lies my first thought. Any relatively long-time reader of IHNJ, or anyone who even just reads the previous post, knows that I have a very heavy bend towards the free market and individual liberty in general. I am a Wall Street Journal-reading, entrepreneurial, card-carrying Libertarian. But my favorite Sunday activity is reading the Sunday Edition of The New York Times, which is unabashedly "liberal" on economic freedoms. Meaning that they don't like economic freedom for the most part. Especially the opinion pages, which espouse the benefits of a socialist society on a daily basis. So why do I love the Sunday Times so much? Well, the whole paper isn't that way, I guess. I mean, it's hard to put a spin on the travel section, or the style section, or the arts & leisure section. The Book Review is always great. And the business section isn't particularly bad I guess. The real estate section is always a lot of fun to browse. But I also read the front section (news) and the opinion pages and the Week In Review section even though I really disagree with a lot of the sentiment. Why torture yourself, right? But I've discovered something about myself:
I am an information junkie.
I want to know everything. I need to know everything. About everything! If I had my way, I'd have time to read about 3 papers a day, along with countless websites, and still have time for some personal reading later in the day. I just can't get enough. I want to know all sides, understand all sides of a debate, then think logically about it and give an informed opinion. I guess that's another reason why I keep coming back to this blog; I also want to put some information out there.
My current obsession: Google Reader. If any of you don't have an RSS reader set up yet, do it. All I do is log in, and Reader sends its feelers out to the websites that I scour on a daily basis, and brings their updates to me and organizes them. It's like having an inbox for the internet. I don't have to go searching for new posts and articles. They show up in my "inbox" when I log in. James does an update about John Mayer? It shows up on my Google Reader feed immediately. Slate posts a new article? I'm on it. Trust me, this is a good thing for information junkies. It's like I've been a recreational information user all this time, and now I'm freebasing. And it's a high like I've never experienced. You should totally try it. C'mon. I'll give you this first link for free: Google Reader.

So, In Other News
I know that this blog has a slight political lean towards it, and for a while I fought that. But no longer. Not only am I an information junkie, it also turns out that I'm a policy dork. I like discussion and debate and opinions, especially ones that are different than mine. And I do feel it is the responsibility of the citizens of this country to talk about stuff. So, in that vein, be prepared. Maybe you'll find out that this stuff isn't that boring after all, and it certainly effects your life.

Uncle Milty and The Free Market

2006-11-21T10:53:00.000-05:00

The flag flies at half-mast here at IHNJ, and it has since 11/16/2006, when Milton Friedman passed away at the age of 94.

A quick check of political/economics/policy blogs will tell you how he has been at once hated and loved. It's been very popular among bloggers over the last few days to do a RIP Milton Friedman post, deifying the man and his ideas. I want all of you to know that I've been working on a post since Friday morning when I heard the news, and I have filled nearly an entire legal pad with my thoughts and drafts and ideas for a post. I have read old journal articles and excerpts from his books and I have poured over this stuff in a way that I haven't since I left grad school. I've been trying to find a way to put down on paper what MF means to me. My wife thinks I'm crazy. I mean, I never even met this man. I never heard him speak in person. But I don't know how to explain the loss that I feel over this, except to say that by studying his work over the years he has had the largest impact on the framework I've developed to think about everything that goes on in this world.
And one of the reasons that I'm so sad is that he spent his entire career advocating ideas that were and are correct, and when I look at the newspaper today, I see the world disregarding those ideas, much in the same way that they always have, and to their own detriment.
The most common misconception made by his critics was that Milton Friedman hated poor people. Why? He opposed the following ideas:

1. The welfare system
2. The minimum wage, or wage controls of any kind
3. Organized labor unions who keep wages higher than they would be otherwise
4. The military draft

These are ideas and policies that are easy to get behind and support. They sound great. We should raise the minimum wage. Of course! Help the poor! The only one that is counterintuitive is the 4th one: Milton Friedman supported an all volunteer army. His critics said that a volunteer army would be composed mostly of low income soldiers, because the rich would never choose to put themselves in harms way, and the only ones who would be attracted to the army's relatively low wages were poor people. So, MF must hate the poor and downtrodden citizens of the world. He wants to change the welfare system, he wants to abolish the minimum wage, he wants to get rid of labor unions, and he wants to send all of our poor off to die in times of war.
If the reader gets sick of all my babbling and only gets one point out of this entire piece, let it be this one:
Milton Friedman understood that you cannot judge a policy based on its intentions. On the contrary, a policy should be judged based on its results.
After all, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. What do I mean by this? Well, each of the policies above is only meant to help the group that it is aimed at. It has only the best interest of the poor in mind. However, the group that winds up getting hurt the most by these policies is the very group that were supposed to be helped! MF believed that the welfare system had to be overhauled in a big way. He believed that we were paying people too much to be poor, and were actually encouraging them to stay that way. One of his solutions was a sort of reverse income tax. This is one of the few MF innovations that we see actually working today in the real world: The Earned Income Tax Credit. In effect, this tax credit reduces the payroll taxes of low income people and actually acts as an income supplement. As the amount of money earned by a low income person increases, so does the credit. This goes on up to a certain plateau level, and then begins to phase itself out as the person continues to make more money. The plan rewards the low income worker for working. It does not pay the person who sits and home hoping to collect a check from the government. As well as this program has worked, none of his other ideas for welfare reform were implemented. He realized that people respond to incentives, and as long as we keep lowering the cost of being poor with government subsidies like welfare, we would continue to see an awful lot of poor people.
Probably the most frequently debated and most controversial topic has always been the minimum wage. This is something that is on the front page of the WSJ even today, and it was one of the hot button topics of the most recent Democratic victory in the House and Senate. It is a gimme. We can make low income citizens better off by raising the minimum wage! And if you oppose such a thing, you must hate the poor and you must be insensitive. This could not be farther from the truth. Dr. Friedman has (and many others have) explained many times over that by raising the minimum wage (or forcing higher wages in any way) you are actually hurting the low income worker. When you raise the minimum wage, you raise unemployment. The worker who was being paid $6/hour will now likely be out of a job if his employer is forced to pay him $7/hour, because he isn't worth that to the employer! Why would the employer keep him on? Charity? Proponents of wage controls simply don't believe this fact. They believe that an evil capitalist sits atop the company holding workers as wage slaves and reaping all the benefits, but this idea is silly. If i own a business, I have to hire workers in order for the business to run. I want the best employees I can have, so I have to attract them with wages and benefits, but I will only pay them what they are worth to me. I can hire a worker for $5/hour and he provides me with $10/hour of labor. This is great! I get to keep the leftover $5! However, my competitor also wants employees and he sees that I have this good one. He offers my worker $6/hour to do the $10/hour worth of work that the employee can do, and he keeps the $4. It is still worth it to me to offer $7/hour for the $10/hour worth of labor, so I do it. Do you see where this is going? If a worker is being underpaid, he can always go somewhere else and make more money. A worker will get paid what he is worth based on his skill level. If I am hiring somebody at todays minimum wage of $5.15/hour or whatever it is, and then I am forced to pay him more by law, I won't do it. If they raise the minimum wage to a level of $7/hour, I will only keep on those employees that are worth $7/hour and I will fire all of those who are worth less. By simply existing, the minimum wage is discriminating against low skilled laborers. I don't know how much more simply to explain this.
Another interesting debate involves the military draft and the all volunteer army. Critics say that the poor will be "forced" to go and die, while the rich stay home and enjoy being rich. The defense of the all volunteer army stands on the foundation that individuals should be allowed to self-select into an occupation, and they will choose the option that is best for them. The critics are correct that the army would be made up mostly of lower income individuals, but what they fail to recognize is that these individuals are better off in the army and would be worse off if they could not volunteer. Nobody is forced into wages that they don't deserve. If the army pays $15k/year, and I can only make $10k/year because I have few skills, then I am better off by choosing to go into the army. However, if I am highly skilled and I make a good wage for myself, I am made much worse off by being made to join the army. I lose my high wages, and society loses my high output because of my skills. And if I am a low skilled individual and I'm not selected by the draft, I am being denied the opportunity to better myself and my situation. It's just rational.

You can see that the ideas of Dr. Friedman are based on a few ideas:
1. Individual freedom to choose is paramount because,
2. Individuals can better choose for themselves what is best for themselves, and
3. The government cannot choose it better for me.

I could almost cry when I look at the news lately and see how so many of MF's ideas are horribly misunderstood at best, and completely disregarded at worst. Look at the campaign platform of the democrats who just came into power! Raise the minimum wage! Let's make this economy more "fair"! What does that even mean, "fair"? That sounds like the rantings of a child that doesn't have a toy that his friend has. The fact that some people are rich and others are poor has nothing to do with fairness, and you can't make it "more fair" by taking what the rich have and spreading it around so that we are all equal. That isn't what fair is. Fair is everyone having an opportunity to succeed. Being created equal doesn't guarantee equal outcomes, just equal opportunities. The fallacy believed by so many in this country is that we can solve the problem of poverty and wage inequality. There will always be people who are less able than others. We can't make our society better off by punishing its most productive members (the highly skilled) and rewarding its least productive members (the low skilled). What we can do is to have policies in place that actually work to make life better for the least of our population, not just policies that sound like they should work. Artificially increasing wages won't do this. At best you get higher prices to cover the new higher costs of wages, and this is just redistributing wealth by taking it from the rest of the world in the form of higher costs and giving it to the workers in the form of higher wages. At worst, you get increased unemployment.
I could go on for days here. I haven't even touched 25% of my notes, and what I have written so far is scatterbrained enough as it is. But I will close with a positive takeaway that really just came to me this morning:
I think that politicians and the general population might finally be understanding the fact that we have an economy that works from the bottom up. The consumer makes demands of producers for goods that they want and at what prices and quality, and the producers then produce those goods as best they can. The most recent attack on Walmart has been a consumer driven one: a boycott. Barack Obama said in the teleconference supporting the movement that if you disagree with Walmart's wage practices, you should shop at Costco like he does. There they pay a much higher wage and much better benefits. He isn't recommending a new law requiring Walmart to raise its wages; Obama is recommending letting market forces regulate wages. I hope this means that he realizes that you can't tell the American people what they should want or what is best for them. In the same vein, I recently saw a commercial for Gateway that was highlighting their policy of 100% North American based tech support. Basically what they are saying is, if you hate all this outsourced tech support, if you hate talking to some guy in India every time your computer messes up, then buy a Gateway. Presumably you will pay more because an American tech support worker costs more than an Indian one, but if you buy the computer it means that this is something that is important to you. So, you are keeping some tech support jobs here in North America. This isn't because of some protectionist law requiring Gateway to hire only locals; it is because there is demand from consumers for this job to stay in the United States! And if these kinds of things go well, you will see more of this from other companies. How long will it take for governments to realize that they can't tell their citizens what they should want? When governments try to legislate choices on the people, they only cause inefficiencies and loss of both jobs and money. Look at what happened with trans fats. The government won't have a chance to outlaw them because companies will stop using them first because of consumer choice! In all of these situations, people are better off because they have chosen for themselves what is best, and not because of politicians in DC choosing for them. So maybe there is a silver lining. Maybe these ideas aren't so radical after all. Maybe, as Milton Friedman so often suggested, things aren't always as they first appear.

This will likely be my last post for a good long while. I am currently studying for the CFA (just google it) and that is taking up all of my free time. However, I am completely open to discussion of anything I've written here. I actually think it would make me feel better. Free market ideas are always better when discussed rather than when presented. I want to leave you with the following link. This is Milton Friedman saying most of the stuff I've been struggling to get out, and doing it in the style in which he always did it: one that is easy to understand, and astoundingly brilliant. It is shocking how applicable everything he says in this video is today.

Milton Friedman on Everything

Thank you for indulging me this post. Milton Friedman is an idol of mine and I will miss him.

I don't wear jerseys, I'm 30 plus. Give me a crisp pair of jeans nigga, button ups.

2006-08-17T22:40:00.000-04:00

This picture is monumental for a couple of reasons:

1. This came from today's Wall Street Journal article about Rocawear's new clothing line called "Custom Fit". This, in itself, is funny because it is a WALL STREET JOURNAL ARTICLE ABOUT ROCAWEAR. It may be the first time that a black person has ever been pictured in The Journal. There is some crusty old white dude sitting in his office at Goldman Sachs saying something like "Well that fella has been spending a little too much time in Boca."

2. This is the first time in history that black culture has stolen something from white culture. It is always the other way around. Invariably. We steal phrases and styles of dress and we kinda stole (and castrated) rap music. But now look. They are trying to steal our hipster stylings! Jay-Z better watch out. James Yeh is gonna come kick his ass.

Wait a minute........James Yeh isn't white!

H to tha izz-O, V to tha izz-A. Fo shizzle my nizzle used to play pickle with James Yeh.

I said James Yeh a bunch in this post. That should help his Google rankings.

A Celebration of Justin/Jay/J

2006-08-14T18:31:00.000-04:00

Ladies and Gentlefolk, I'd like you to meet Justin Hockenbury. Hockenberry. Hock.......his name is Jayberry Hockenstuff. Otherwise known as Tall Jay. He is recently married and was unfortunate enough to have me as a reader in his wedding ceremony (First Corinthians bitch!).
What can I say about Jay? That dude is tall. He can dance on a pole like nobody's business. When he gets drunk, he runs around and flails his arms about in a such a way that he looks like some kind of lanky pole-dancing octopus. Also, he is currently tied with Josh for the title of Greatest Cower Player Of All Time.
Side Story #1: I looked for a link to show you guys what Cower is, but there isn't one. When playing Cower, you stand approximately 20 feet apart from your opponent, facing each other. You take a disc and hurl it straight into the air, as high as you can. Your opponent must catch the falling disc with one hand. NO TRAPPING THE DISC AGAINST YOUR BODY, bitch. One night, after many many Joint Chief's had been drunk, Jay and Josh decided to go out to the parking lot at around 2am and play some Cower. What ensued was the most amazing display of drunken athletic ability ever witnessed. They were throwing the disc so high that it went so far above the limits of the parking lot lights that it actually disappeared into the darkness. Then it came screaming out of the night sky and speeds that would chop off the hands of mortal men.
Josh and Jay played for something like 30 minutes without the disc ever touching the ground. I still have dreams about it to this day.
*Footnote to Side Story #1: If you are the one to drop a throw, you have to lay down on the ground in a COWERING position (hence the name o' the game) and let the other person throw the disc up into the air and try to hit you with it. It hurts, and it is scary.
Jay got married last weekend in his hometown of Just Outside Of Washington, DC. "Then why the hell are you posting a bunch of old pictures?" you might ask. "Where are the wedding pictures?"
Well, we kinda forgot our camera. So we had to buy a disposable one and I haven't gotten the pictures developed yet.
So anyways, I figured I'd post some old pictures I have.
These first three pictures are from Senior Walk, 2004. Jay and I were founding members of The Senior Mafia, shown to the left here. Long story short, we were drunk and eating pizza at 3am in Clemson when, by divine providence, the idea developed:
1. Send out a massive email
2. Design a t-shirt
3. Talk to bars in downtown and arrange deals
4. Pass out t-shirts to like 300 participants
5. Drink your face off
Sounds simple enough, right? Well, yeah it kinda was. The first picture on this post is Jay attacking me while passing out shirts. The second picture is Jay and me picking up the shirts with a whole lot of other peoples money. Again, the third picture is one of the founding fathers of Senior Walk, about 1/3rd of the way through the walk.
This last picture.....well I guess it needs some explanation. It was taken during the wee hours of the morning after my bachelor party. I don't think I'm even in the picture, but I can't be sure. My best guess is that two idiots tried to attack Jay in his sleep, and he quickly put them into submission while cheesing for the camera.
Jay is a great guy.
I'll take this post down if he ever wants to run for public office.

My own personal civil war

2006-08-07T17:50:00.000-04:00

Ok, so it only took me a little over a week to get the gumption to update again. Gumption is running at an all time low. I blame the heat. I also blame the people who keep saying "Hey, you're from South Carolina. I bet all this heat feels just like home!". Well yeah, idiot, it does kind of feel like home. But that doesn't mean that it feels good. If I wanted to sweat through my suit everyday, I wouldn't have moved. Gosh!
So ok, let's finish up some things from Robert's wedding weekend. The picture you see on the left is the classic "morning after" picture. From the left: my brother Jake, his girlfriend Lindsay, my wife Libby, ROBB, my brother-in-law and Libby's real brother Brad. We are standing on the back deck of my uncle's house in Aiken, SC. I'm not sure if I already said this (and I'm not going to actually go back and read my last post), but we stayed at my Aunt Colleen and Uncle Charlie's house/farm/heaven during the weekend. And I have to be honest, I wish we could have had another week just to stay there and relax. Don't get me wrong; I love New Jersey (actually I Heart New Jersey!!!!!!! Website plug!!!!!!!111) and I love living close to NYC. But my uncle lives on something like 10o acres.

He has horses and land.

Lots of land. And a lake. And a barn and a 4-wheeler and a golf cart and a pool and a ton of stuff. There is something about sitting on the back porch and looking out over the pasture and........I don't even know how to put it exactly. When you are in the middle of Midtown and you are looking up at buildings, you feel small. When you stand in the middle of 100 acres, you feel small. When an uppity French waiter turns up his nose at your wine order in a restaurant in New York, you feel small. When you are in front of a horse that stands over 7 feet tall and you feed him an apple treat and rub his nose, you feel small. How do you compare the two?
Speed? How to define that? How fast people drive or talk?
Maybe heart rate?
Cost of living? I hate that. It costs less down south, but you make less. So how do you quantify?
I don't know, they're just different. You can't quantify.
I just know that I was supremely relaxed while I was at my uncle's. I have to be honest: I can't relax like that here. I can relax here, but it's different. It's tough to describe, but let me try.
I like to imagine that I'm on a long never-ending run. A Sunday afternoon with the New York Times and a cup of coffee in my big leather chair here in my townhouse in New Jersey is like taking a break from the run and walking. It's a lot easier to walk than to run, and it feels really good to walk when you're tired of running. But when I was in Aiken, I stopped moving. I wasn't even walking. The rest of the runners were passing me by, and I was standing still. Then somebody brought me a chair. And a lemonade. And a book.
Does that make sense at all?
I hope so.

My name is Robb, and I'm an......
So I have had a lot to drink this summer. Loads of wine. I'm really into Barossa Valley (Australian) reds. They are big and dark with lots of dark cherry and dark chocolate and plenty of earth. And California Zinfadels are great with a big steak on the grill. Then it got hot and I started drinking some Italian whites: Falanghina and Trebbiano (those are grape varietals). I'm not grape-dropping here to make myself look good. I'm trying to inform. After all, I didn't know about these before a few months ago when my awesome wine shop folks starting bringing them in. So seriously, go get you some Falanghina and drink it outside in the sun.
But when it comes down to it, I'm a beer guy. My current beer of choice is Victory Brewing Company's Golden Monkey. But my all-time favorite brewer is Rogue. A few weeks ago, brother Brad told me about a Rogue tasting that was going down a few towns over at a bar called The Shephard And The Knucklehead (underneath the sign out front is the phrase: Celebrating The Duality Of Man). Eight Rogues on tap. Needless to say, I made a long night of it. I actually remembered to bring a small notebook with me to record whatever tasting notes I could come up with for the beers I'd never tried before. Luckily, I took notes on them all. They are hilarious. They started out clever and coherent:
"Altbeir - Easy to drink, complex. When Sierra Nevada dreams, it is a Rogue Altbeir"

Later:
"Hazelnut - Pure hazelnut flavor. Smooth, actually on the lighter side. Getting some vanilla, might be good with dessert."

And after that it went quickly downhill:
"Chocolate Stout - you know, CHOCOLATE. like a flourless cake. starting to get heavy. nah."
"Shakespeare Stout - like the chocolate, but no chocolate."

Obviously there were several beers between all of those, but those were the highlights. The next day, I was going over my notes and I flipped the page and it turns out that I tasted another beer that I don't really remember:
"Smuttynose IPA - nice, but strong. wheaty and hoppy, but NOT citrusy. YEASTY."

I mean, what? What does half of that mean? I don't know, but it sounds like a damn good IPA to me.

Blogging: Who has the time?

2006-07-30T22:24:00.000-04:00

So, obviously I took an unscheduled sabbatical. Part of me feels like I should be apoligizing now, but I won't. It was awesome. I remain happily unapologetic. But still, I do feel slightly guilty for bailing on IHNJ. Blogging is funny that way; you want to believe that you're doing this thing for yourself and only because it makes you happy, but then you don't write for a month and you get 13 comments from your entire neglected readership. Let me explain my absence, with the help of some pretty pictures!
In late June, I went for Chicago for about 4 days for the Morningstar Investment Conference, and Libby tagged along just for fun. Of course, we forgot the camera. No picture evidence. It was my first time in Chicago (which I will not refer to as The Windy City ever, since every person who hears that I went there says something to the effect of "Hey, the Windy City!"). It turns out that I a huge fan of Chicago! We stayed right in the middle of downtown, on Wacker and only a few blocks from the water. So while I listened to mutual fund managers talk about the market and why their fund is, like, the best ever, Libby was galavanting all over the city and sending me picture text messages of all the cool architecture, famous pantings, and beautiful parks in the city. Luckily, I was done every day by around 4pm, which left plenty of time for hanging out. We dropped over $200 on dinner at Crofton On Wells. Yup. I'll go into detail about the meal later if provoked. One night we went to Quartino. We sat outside and drank the 1/4 liter bottles of wine that give the restaurant its name, snacked on marinated olives, house-cured meats, bread dips, tiny plates of pasta, and a small pizza. We found out that the aquarium was staying open late one night for an event called Jazz at the Shedd, so we went and listened to live jazz and had a few drinks while we walked around and looked at fish and aquatic mammals. I had a brief glimpse of a brilliant idea for a bar, but then I thought that I'd probably have to pay somebody to feed all those fish, as well as buy the food and that all started to seem like a hassle.
Chicago was great, but on July 1st we left. You can't stay forever I guess. Unless you live there, which is a possiblility. It really is a great city.
Almost as soon as we got back, we drove down to Ocean City, NJ for the week of July 4th. Libby's folks have a place down there, and the entire family came: Mama & Papa Casanova, me & Libby, Jamie & Brian, and Brad even flew in from Asheville. The first picture you see above came from that week: Brad on the left with Carly the dog, then me and Cooper, and then Brian and Vance The Donkey. The week was relaxing and the weather was beautiful. I finished Gideon, which was a little heavy for summer reading, but brilliant nonetheless. I am sure I'll read that book about once every 5 or 10 years until I die. I also read Fluke, which was perfect summer reading. I don't care what anyone says, I'll never be too good for Christopher Moore books. We ate good food, we drank good drink. After that we were home for about 5 days and then we hit the road again.
Next we drove down to Garden City, SC to vacation with my family. We brought the camera, but didn't take one picture while we were there. Too bad for you guys, but it just goes to show you what life is like with my family at the beach. We stayed in a house right on the beach, with a screened back porch looking over the ocean and a weathered wooden walkway down to the sand. My parents were there, along with my brother and his girlfriend (who we met for the first time, and was pretty great). Here is what a typical day looked like:
1. Wake up around 9, fix coffee, sit on porch and watch the ocean.
2. Around 11am, change into swimsuits, pack a cooler full of beer (don't forget to cut limes for the Modelo), and head down to the beach.
3. Drink. Tan. Swim. Throw a disc around. Play some wiffle ball. Take a walk. Drink.
4. 6pm: Either cook dinner or go out to eat.
5. Play cards and drink until around 1 or 2am. Phase 10 is a favorite. That 7th phase is a bastard.
So we all hung out until Friday, when we drove to Aiken, SC for Robert and Polly's wedding. Robert, for those who don't know, is a former Clemson roomate/helpdesk coworker/ultimate teammate/partner in various crimes including but not limited to the following: my bachelor party, Senior Walk, and drinking a metric crap-ton of Red Hook Blond at some ultimate tournament in Tennessee with LJ.
The pictures you see here are from the post reception debauchery. Long story short, Tall Jay found like 8 bottles of opened wine that was going to be thrown away if it wasn't consumed immediately. The leftover partiers stood outside in a circle and passed the bottles until they were gone. Very few survived, and none made it out completely unscathed. For example, Brad had to crawl to his room from the car, and Jake proposed to his girlfriend in the bar and then cried and then tried to steal some guy's cigarettes. Tall Jay never made it back down to the bar after going up to his room to change. Miraculously, I just got semi-drunk.
I think this last picture of Jake and I is funny, but I have no idea what we're doing. Maybe we're showing how fat we're going to be. I have no idea.
I just ran out of steam. I have more to say, but I don't want to force it out. More to come!

A Thoughtful Response

2006-05-31T21:28:00.000-04:00

Well, Memorial Day weekend is over and I'm back in North Jersey. The sad thing is, I don't have much to report. I just sort of laid around in different places and read. I have a semi-tan. You might think that I mean that I got kind of dark, but the "semi" part really means that I got a farmers tan while playing tennis. But like I said, I don't really have much to say. Well, I didn't really have much to say. Leave it to Stripper to give me an interesting topic. If you didn't read his comment on the Out Of Office Reply post, then I'll rerun it here:

"When you come back I'll tell you something I was thinking this evening (or, rather, you'll read it, like, now.)On the one hand there is ample evidence from your entries that your atttiude to life is pretty laissez fare, and I mean that in more than purely market terms. You seem to be pretty breezy and laid back: a little like the Stephen Dorff character in S.F.W. or Jack Klugman in The Odd Couple (except neither of them liked cooking).On the other hand you don't seem to be able to quote Galbraith and John Meynard-Keynes without salivating in the abstract and you are , by your own admission, a pasionate lover of the capitalist system.That's a pretty interesting combination of contradictions."

I enjoyed this comment for a few reasons. It's always obvious to me that Stripper is a poet, because even his comments on a blog are well-thought out and put together. But more importantly, it made me think. Particularly, it made me think that I think really differently than some?/most?/many? people, at least when it comes to, like, well I guess economics and stuff. Maybe it's that other people don't think about it at all. So let me see if I can address the main point of the comment.
I won't go into it too much, because you can just go read the Wiki entry about it, but Laissez-faire is a libertarian idea that generally says that a government should keep from interfering with the private (business) sector as much as possible. Think "free markets". The government's responsibility is to protect property rights, and to keep the country safe and secure, and then to keep to itself. Proponents of Laissez-faire say that the government is too inefficient, and that the free market, if left unimpeded, will quickly handle any inefficiencies that might pop up. Once governments begin acting as the "central planner", and they try to determine the optimum prices and optimum levels of production and the optimum distrubution of goods, they actual create inefficiencies.
At this point, I always start to realize that I am using a lot of jargon that might not mean anything to a reader without a degree in economics. So maybe I'll simplify with an example. Imagine an economy that only produces and consumes one good: widgits. The government decides "It's only one good, so it should be easy for us to manage this economy." They set the price at $100 dollars. This is a low price for widgits. The people are happy, and they want to buy as many widgits as possible. The only problem is, the widgit producers don't want to produce many widgits at this price. They are actually losing money producing and selling widgits at this price. WIDGIT SHORTAGE ENSUES. "Shit guys, we screwed up." So the government says to the producers, "You guys have to produce at least 10,000 widgits a month." Pretty soon, the widgit producers go bankrupt. "Shit guys, we screwed up." Now what? Well, we're a one good economy, so the game stops here. They have to keep trying out new prices and levels of production until they find the level that makes producers and consumers happy. How long will that take? Got me, but you know how beaurocracy works. Things take a while. If this were a 2+ good economy, they could just tax another good to subsidise widgit production (take money from one industry and give it to another), but now you're getting really really messy. What is the optimum level of tax on the other good? How does this tax effect demand for the other good. As you can see, the single good economy is the simplest case, and the central planners are struggling even with that. If they had set the widgit price to high, producers would have produced more than the people wanted and we would have had warehouses full of widgits sitting idly by, unused. That's not efficient. The market, if left undisturbed, will correct itself much more quickly. If producers misprice too high, people don't buy, warehouses fill, the good gets cheaper because it is so plentiful, people begin buying it once it gets to a price that they like. If they price too low, there is a shortage, the good is rare, the price rises. You've seen the supply/demand "X marks the spot" graph. This is oversimplified, but it's the truth. It works. The essence of Laissez-faire: just leave the market alone because it an do it better and faster than you, stupid government.
Now, Capitalism is an economic system in which the means of production are private (i.e. not government-owned). I don't think I have to go too far into this before you see what is obvious to me: Capitalism and Laissez-faire go together. They walk hand in hand through the daisies. They "complete each other". Capitalism can only really thrive in a Laissez-faire environment.
I think that the seeming "contradiction" between Capitalism and Laissez-faire that Stripper is imagining, is that Capitalism seems to be a die hard, work your ass off, throat-slitting kind of society. To the victor go the spoils, etc. And Laissez-faire seems very laid back and tree-hugging and green energy and free love and all that. But Laissez-faire really just means "leave me alone and let me do my thing".
To me, it's always been obvious how these two cohabitate. I hope it's more obvious now to others why it should be so. If you think a little more about it, you can see how these ideas stand in the face of a tax on the profits of oil companies, farm subsidies, and many other things that I rant about on occasion.
As always, gimme the questions and comments!
Lastly, and most importantly, how freaking hilarious is that Milton Friedman quote above here?! I want to put that on a t-shirt and sell it to hipsters...

Out Of Office Reply

2006-05-26T21:54:00.000-04:00

Gone down to Ocean City for the holiday weekend. I'll get back to you on Monday night or Tuesday.
Peace out with your piece out.

I'm coming straight outta Little Rock

2006-05-24T20:49:00.000-04:00

As if I don't link Slate enough, today there was an article about how you can use all of your musical snobbery to mock politicians! Hillary Clinton made the mistake of naming names of artists on her iPod, and it looks like Condy Rice did the same thing earlier.
And now, I present to you, the little known favorite songs of:

Bill Clinton
1. "Nutz On Ya Chin", Easy E
2. "Say Goodbye", Dave Matthews Band
3. "Let's Get It On", Marvin Gaye
4. "I Touch Myself", The Divinyls
5. "Have A Cigar", Pink Floyd

Colin Powell
1. "Let 'Er Rip", Dixie Chicks
2. "Uncle Tom's Cabin", Warrent
3. Anything off of Barry Manilow's Greatest Hits album.
4. The entire S&M album from Metallica
5. "Bitches Ain't Shit", Dr. Dre

Dick Cheney
1. "Mo Money, Mo Problems", Notorious B.I.G.
2. "Heart Attack", Olivia Newton-John
3. "Cardiac Arrest", Jag Panzer
4. "Fat Man", Jethro Tull
5. "Pushin' Weight", Ice Cube

So, what did we learn? Most Washington politicians love NWA. Love them.

An Open Letter

2006-05-21T13:13:00.000-04:00

I want you to imagine a huge park, an endlessly expanding park of trees and walkways and benches. Now, I want you to place a perpetually drunk man on a bench in the exact center of your park. The stage is set. The drunk is asleep. The sun rises and he wakes up. Rubbing his eyes, he sips his drink, rises, and staggers about randomly (drunkenly) in any direction. Finally he has had enough wandering and he collapses on the closest bench and sleeps. He repeats this again the following day, and the day after that, and so on. His drunkeness and his random staggering continue on in perpetuity.
And now, for all of my clients who insisted on calling and wasting my time on Friday, I ask you this questions:

"Where is the drunk man going to be next week? Where will he be by the end of this year? Where will he be 10 or 20 years from now?"
My guess is that you have no idea. Well guess what motherf*ckers, I don't know where the market is going to be next week or next year or next decade. Wanna know something else? Nobody else does either. And lastly, if I did know, I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you right now. So put the phone down and get out of my ear. The market has taken a 5% dive in about a week. What are the chances that it'll dive another 5% in another week? Well, about the same as they were before last week. I don't try to predict market direction, and neither should you.It has been proven over and over by very smart (and very dumb) people to be an exercise in futility and poverty.

Footnote #1: The park exists on a perfectly flat area.
Footnote #2: I am only a proponent of "The Random Walk Hypothesis" when it comes to predicting the direction of the entire stock market. I am a believer in market inefficiency on the level of the individual stock.
Footnote #3: On second thought, I believe that the entire market can be inefficient for certain time spans. Although some would argue that the market was acting effeciently "at the time", most rational people would point to the internet/tech bubble of the late 90's as evidence of the ability of the entire market to be ineffecient for at least a little while, which in that case was about 3 or 4 years.
Footnote #4: "The market can stay inefficient longer than you can stay solvent." JMK
Footnote #4a: "In the long run, we are all dead." JMK

In The Land Of The Rich, or Housesitting

2006-05-16T09:15:00.000-04:00

Remember that amazing cabin/mansion that we stayed in a few months ago? Well, we are now housesitting for the same family at their regular home. You've seen their vacation home, so you can imagine what their full-time abode might look like. We are also watching their 6th grader, who we'll call.......Chester. Below are my notes from our first few days.

Early Morning
Chester doesn't quite know what to make of me yet. His father is a big time honcho in NYC, so I assume that he's up early. Chester is also an early riser. I heard him stir at 5:15, then heard him shower and get downstairs and start banging around by like 5:45. He had band practice at 7 this morning. I forced myself out of bed and into some jeans and sandals and a hoodie and went downstairs at like 6:15 or so. He was making pancakes. For himself. He looked up when I walked in.
"Don't you have to go to work now? Where is your tie?" He seemed genuinly confused.
"Did you brew any coffee?" I asked.
"No."
"Ok. You got a Dunkin Donuts in this town?"
"There is a Starbucks on the way to my school."
"Ok. You got a Dunkin Donuts in this town?"
"I think there is one by my school too."
"Rock. Do you have all your stuff ready for school?"
"Yeah."
"Good work. I don't have to be at work til 9 by the way. I'm going to go lay down on the couch til you are ready to leave."
"I'm ready to leave now."
"Showoff."

Morning Commute
Every car is a Mercedes. Or a BMW, Infinity, Audi, or Porche, or Range Rover. This goes on for the first 10 minutes of my commute, until I get out of Franklin Lakes.
I am an awkward dancer in the commuting ballet today. I don't know the roads as intimately as I do my own route, so I am always in the wrong lane, careening over potholes as the others dance and dodge, at all times in sync with each other. I'm stuck in the wrong lane, behind a bunch of cars turning left. I feel embarassed asking to get over, clicking the turn signal on and feebly waving my thanks when somebody makes space for me.

Evening
Chester doesn't know what my deal is. I play computer games with him. I'm a Nazi and he's a US marine and we take turns killing each other on a digital landscape somewhere in digitally battle-scared Europe. That's cool, but then I get up and go in the kitchen and make dinner. I'm positive, based on his reaction, that Chester has never seen his dad do anything beyond manning the grill at some weekend backyard cookout, nevermind prepping and cooking an entire dinner for the family. I invited him into the kitchen to help with some non-knife prep work or maybe even some actual cooking, but he says "no thanks" and retreats into the relative safety and security of a world that makes more sense to him: killing Germans with a WWII era tank and laughing.
He doesn't seem to dislike dinner, but doesn't seem to particularly enjoy it either. He seems indifferent. I think i could have served him cereal or McDonalds or homemade pasta sauce (bingo) or Chateaubriand and he would have reacted exactly the same way. He is one of those who only eats to put calories and vitamines and other stuff into his body and has no thought or care what it is, so long as it is something "normal". That's what he told me he wanted when I asked what I should cook during this week. When I asked him what his Mom cooks for him, he really struggled to name one meal. It was obvious that he'd never thought about dinner before. He came up with the following list:

-Hamburgers

-Hotdogs

-Spigetti with marinara

-"Chicken", which I was able to figure out was baked chicken breasts with some Campbell's Cream of Mushroom dumped over the top.

How good does all that sound? Mmm-mmm. Everything I suggested, he pooh-poohed.
"Shrimp?"
"No seafood."
"Fried chicken?"
"Nah."
"Do you like Italian stuff?"
"I already said spigetti."
"I meant stuff like Chicken Picatta or Chicken Parmasean or like penne vodka or something."
"That sounds weird."
"Nevermind."
"Can I go play Battlefield 2?"
"Did you study for math?"
"Um, yeah."
"When?"
"Before you got home."
"Hey Libby.... did Chester study fo..."
"Ok ok fine, I'll study first."
"Good. But hurry, cuz I want to play before Grey's Anatomy comes on."
"My Mom watches that show. That show sucks."
"You suck. Now go study math."

Tomorrow I'm making sesame chicken because he said that's the only thing he orders when he eats Chinese food. If he remains indifferent, it's $0.99 individual microwave pizzas until his parents get home on Friday.

6? All I get is 6?

2006-05-02T19:53:00.000-04:00

Tagged.
By Brooklyn (not the borough), and semi-tagged by Brat.
As difficult as it was, I have whittled down my neurotic tendancies to 6 of the more entertaining ones.
I will present them here, for your judgement.

1. I am an Iron Chef fanatic. Recently the Food Network shuffled the time slots around and moved Iron Chef from its normal 11pm weeknight spot. I haven't slept well since.

2. I refuse to eat bottled salad dressing, especially of the fat free persuasion. I can make a better salad dressing myself in about 3 minutes, using only a bowl and a whisk. As for the low fat thing, that is simply explained. Salad dressings consist of 3 parts: acid, emulsifier, fat. You have to have the fat! Most people freak out when they hear the word "fat", but all that means is oil. Oil should be at the very least half of the dressing, and more than likely it is 2/3 of it. SO WHAT THE FUCK IS IN FAT FREE SALAD DRESSING? What takes the place of fat?! My guess, it's probably made in a lab.

3. My most roiling internal struggle is over fattened goose liver. I have only eaten foie gras a small handful of times, and it really does live up to the hype. No lie. But I am a little conflicted about it. I could trouble myself with much more important contradictions in my life, but this one stays on top. Should humans do this to geese? Is it just the food chain being acted out? Is it really such a terrible thing to the geese? Do they hate it? Should I care? Isn't it just a different kind of terrorism that the groups that harrass the foie gras producers take part in? See? I'm a godamned headcase...

4. I pick at my fingers and bite my nails.

5. I love MSG in my Chinese food. If they sold MSG in bottles in the store, I'd buy it.

6. I eat ice. I sometimes get a cup of ice and sit and crunch it all down.

I just noticed that all 6 of these have something to do with food or something going into my mouth. I know what my psychoanalyst would say...

I tag:
Robert
Jake - in hopes that he'll post for the first time in months
Brittany - same as Jake
Jared - same as Brittany
Dan - sames
Julia - different

Am I some kind of freaking internet genius?

2006-05-02T07:39:00.000-04:00

I guess we'll find out...

Will blogger let me post a video?

2006-04-30T23:43:00.000-04:00

Let's see. This was, like, the best part of my weekend. The beach was empty because it was so windy and a little on the chilly side, which means I had plenty of room to show off the little league throwing skills. Skillz, sorry. Cooper is a great dog.
Memorable meal: Shrimp marinated in a margarita, then grilled. Served with white coconut rice and mango salsa.
Memorable quote: "Hey New Century, this is Robb. I'm not gonna be coming in today. Yeah, my stomach is kinda, I guess I'm just not really feeling well. I'll see you guys on Monday."

Benny, I'm gonna get to that tagged thing ASAP.

Today is a good day.

2006-04-28T09:01:00.000-04:00

My Friday got a lot better when my alarm went off at 6:30am, I rolled over and told my wife that I was calling in sick and that we should pack our bags and head down to the shore for the weekend, and she agreed.

I am not a good single guy.

2006-04-20T19:35:00.000-04:00

My wife is out of town, gone with her parents down to NC to visit her brother. She left this morning, and she won't be back until Sunday sometime and I'm left here with two dogs (I'm watching after my in-law's dog, a sweet shepard/beagle mix). I've been planning what to do since she told me she'd be leaving. The plans mostly involved all of the beef, pork, duck, and game that I'd be eating while she was gone (regulars know that she doesn't eat that stuff). The weather was so nice here today that I took the day off and spent it mostly outside with the puppies. Then I picked up a beautiful strip steak from a local butcher. Beautiful isn't just a filler adjective here; my breathe caught in my throat when I saw it for the first time. Perfect marbling, bright red color, cut over 2 inches thick. I picked up some red skin potatoes and some asparagus and headed to the house. Potatoes: roasted, tossed with paprika, cayenne, S & P and olive oil. Asparagus: marinated in red wine vinegar, worchestershire sauce, olive oil, S & P and the grilled. I made a great spice rub for the steak: cumin, paprika, cayenne, garlic salt, seasoning salt and lots of cracked black pepper. I have to say, hands down, I can cook a steak. I can make you the best steak you've put in your mouth, or damn close to it. And tonight was no exception.
But I ate alone.
I cooked for myself, and I ate alone...

I just don't think I could be single again. I think it would be too hard on me over a longer period of time. Who wouldn't want to share their days and nights with somebody? Nobody really likes being alone for longer than a week or so. I mean fuck, the only talking I did today was to the dogs. I already miss my wife.

The upside: I finished Denis Johnson's Jesus' Son today. For the first halfish of the short story collection, I really had a hard time getting into it. There were bits and pieces that were stunning, but on the whole I just wasn't going there with Mr. Johnson. But then I think I got it. Outside, here in NJ, it was sunny and 78 and heavenly. But as I sat reading, I couldn't shake this feeling of hopelessness and sadness. I felt like my head was swimming. When I got up to go get some water, I stumbled on my way to the fridge; my feet felt weighed down. In my own little world, things were bleek and dark and ending.
Dennis Johnson got me. He got me. That bastard.
What a powerful writer. My world was sunny. And then..."It was still daytime, but the sun had no more power than an ornament or a sponge." Good stuff.

You guys have to keep me company til Sunday. I need to feel like I'm talking to somebody.

The French and their astounding stupidity

2006-04-10T22:52:00.000-04:00

Jacques Chirac decided to drop the law that would help begin the process of fixing France's hilariously inept economy.
Why would he do that? Because the people that the law was designed to help, the unemployed youth of the country, lost their godamned minds and started breaking shit. I honestly can't come up with an explanation. Is France not evidence that this great Socialist experiment has failed? America has created millions more jobs in the last few years than has any of the Socialist European states. France/Germany have rampant unemployment, and it's no mystery why. And when a lawmaker wants to help fix the problem, the people stop him. Maybe if they had jobs, they wouldn't have so much time on their hands. What is really hilarious is that this law wasn't even extreme enough. This law would barely have scratched the surface, the tip of this huge iceburg. It just goes to show you that when you give a population a huge endowment (i.e. guaranteed employment for life regardless of performance), it will be nearly impossible to ever reform it. It just amazes me that there is an entire country that lacks:
1. Any ambition to better themselves
2. Any ambition to better their economy
3. Any ambition to make their country a better place for their children and grandchildren and so on

Socialism is lazy, and what is happening to the Socialist European economies is exactly what any undergraduate economist could have told you would happen like 50 years ago. Sure, maybe you don't want to have to do any real work during your lifetime. I'm sure there are people out there who would rather live a mediocre life so long as they didn't have to exert themselves at all. Two and a half hour lunches. Two and a half glasses of wine at lunch. In at 10, gone by 4:30. Take the month of August off. Sounds great, right? Congrats, you just cost your kids and their kids a job. Your economy is a joke. But who cares! You're French! So kick back and take a nap at your desk. It's not like they can fire you.

Did you say duck bacon?

2006-04-09T22:32:00.000-04:00

Potato-crusted grouper.
Blue-cheese polenta.
Grilled baby zucchini and yellow squash.
DUCK BACON.

I've seen all different kinds of bacon. Even of the pork variety, there are several: applewood smoked, country style, etc. Then there's the ever-present turkey bacon. But today's discovery makes them all seem boring. Smoked duck bacon. It was even better than it sounds.
Also, this is the first grouper of the season......which is exciting.

Sunday

2006-04-09T11:42:00.000-04:00

We're heading out to Ramapo Reservation to go hiking with Cooper pretty soon, but while my wife gets ready I figure I have about an hour to sit down with some coffee and send a little something out into the eUniverse. Or is it iUniverse? I know what Steve Jobs would say...
There are 2 older ladies that I work with, who I will give funny names in the hopes that their identities will remain hidden. I'll call them Eeyore and Jean9.
Eeyore is an older lady, maybe 65. She is our office manager and she does all sorts of jobs. She keeps our office stocked full of the necessary supplies. She answers phones and directs calls. She maintains our database of client accounts and updates them daily. She is pretty busy most of the time. She's a grandmother of 9 grandchildren, and she loves them all dearly. And she's nice to people she likes. But she has this tendancy to the a mother figure for the office. If I show up late or take a longer than normal lunch, she gives attitude. She does the same for everybody, even though this has nothing to do with her job. She has the air of somebody who has lived a tough life and feels they haven't reached the heights of authority that they deserve to have reached. She seems pissed at me sometimes for being young and able to direct my own future. And she is defintely pissed that they hired me so young and put me in a position of importance, and there is no way that I'll ever be able to prove my mettle to her.
Jean9 is also older, 60 I think. But, and I'm not lying, she dresses like a high school senior from Mississippi: slutty, but hopelessly behind the times in terms of fashion. It's actually quite disgusting. She's single/divorced and has a daughter who actually is a senior in high school and who is pretty slutty as well. She gets her hair done every Friday. I can picture her going out to bars to pick up older, moneyed men. It's not working so far. Jean9 takes very long lunches and never gets to work on time, but she "stays late". That means that she stays at her desk until 5:30, but she's only paying her bills and making personal calls and writing personal emails. I know this, because I actually do stay late some nights to finish something. Jean9 carries an air of importance, like her job is the most important one around. All she does is process paperwork for new clients, and deal with client requests for money and such. She is very proud. She does such a good job of relaying her importance to clients when they call her for money, that some of our clients think that she is in charge of the office and they send their holiday cards to "Jean9 and staff".
As you can imagine, Jean9 and Eeyore don't get along at all. It is really silly how they go about disliking each other. It's an old lady war, waged on a very understated level. Eeyore tattles on Jean9 when she comes in late every day, and once made such a huge stink out of it that The Bossman sent around a memo to everybody saying that we have to be on time. Eeyore tattles on Jean9 when she takes an extra long lunch. She keeps her own tally of how many days Jean9 has taken sick and knows exactly how many more vacation days Jean 9 has until she runs out. Jean9 never answers the phone, even though she is basically a secretary as well. Jean9 is never at fault, and will do anything possible to deflect blame from herself to others. When Eeyore gets the holiday cards that hold no happy wishes for her and laud Jean9 and "staff", she fumes. Sometimes clients call and ask for Jean9 when she isn't there, and they are shocked with they learn that anybody in the office can perform Jean9's job. This infuriates Eeyore more than anything in the world, and I've actually heard her exclaim over the phone, "Well I can do that too!". Not in a happy customer service way. It was indignant.
Eeyore and Jean9 speak to each other, but it is painfully strained and the animosity is thinly veiled. And when either one is out for the day, the other one comes to me to complain. This is the part that I can't stand. I just can't take participating in 7th grade popularity battles with grandmothers. I will not take sides in this fight, and neither can understand why I can't see the evil lurking just under the surface of the other. I just think it's sad that this daily intraoffice war is one of the most important things in their lives.
I hope that this isn't what happens when you get older. Maybe it does. Maybe at the bookends, this is what happens. In high school, these little personal battles get waged and they're earthmoving events. Relationships begin and end, worlds crumble and are rebuilt almost every day. Does the same thing happen at the other end of your life? If it does, maybe that's not such a bad thing after all. I remember those younger days very well, and I sometimes miss the urgency and the hopefullness and the possibilities. I bet that the urgency returns as you near the end, but I just can't see the other two showing back up. And those were the best parts. "I can't wait to go to school today because maybe I'll see _______ and maybe today will be the day that something happens. But either way, maybe I'll just get to see her."
Maybe that was just me that was that way. The simple things were thrilling to me then, and I guess they still are at times. I was always the kind of guy who was friends with a girl for a long time before anything "happened". It was excrutiating at the time, but just made it that much more amazing when things started to finally develop. I never looked at being friends as a trap. It was always just the start. I tend to be very long minded about things, and I guess I always have. My relationships have been long and slow moving and there haven't been a ton of them. I'm a sea turtle at heart. I guess this bodes well for my marriage, right?

Williamsburg: A neighborhood in Brooklyn

2006-04-02T21:43:00.000-04:00

For those of you wanting to learn more about this wonderful place, I direct you to Mr. Wiki's House O' Knowledge.
I guess I read Slate a lot. Mostly at work. It kinda looks legitimate if somebody walks into my office and catches me goofing off, and it keeps me up to date with a lot of the political-type BS and other newsworthy stuff. So here are some things I've read there lately that I thought might spark some conversation.
First, NASA is a huge waste of money. This will probably really piss off every single dreadlocked white girl I know. And it pisses me off too. It actually reminded me that I'm pissed off, because I heard about this years ago and then forgot it. More people should know what a huge, bottomless, pointless, ego-stroking, clusterfuck the space program is. The sad part is, it could be useful! Instead of inexplicably spending billions on a useless "moon base" where the only objective seems to be Stay Alive Long Enough For The Replacement Astronauts To Show Up, why not use that money on a project that is likely to help us learn something about where we live and what is actually happening to this planet. NASA is like Pete Doherty: what wasted potential.
On a lighter note, this is an section of an article about old ass manslaughtering AARP members:
"Old people are thwarting efforts to get them off the road. People 85 or older are more likely to kill somebody while driving than 16-year-olds are; drivers 65 or older are more likely than teens to have deadly multi-car collisions at intersections. The number of drivers aged 70 or older has doubled since 1985 and will have tripled by 2020. States are trying to scrutinize older drivers for fitness, but AARP chapters and other senior lobbies are fighting age-based rules. Seniors are also hiring lawyers and telling each other where to find lenient license-renewal offices. AARP official's argument: You can't make a law based on a person's age."
Maybe it's just Pick On Four-Letter Anacronym Day, but why is there so much stupidity in this world? Old people are deadly dangerous behind the wheel, and when the government actually tries to do something to remedy the problem, here comes one of the most powerful lobbies around, the AARP lobby. Apparently they are so powerful that their official argument doesn't even have to be logical. "You can't make a law based on a person's age"? Idiots. I know some 15 year-olds taking the bus who'd disagree. And some 20 year-olds sneaking beer from the fridge who would too. This is one of the best arguments for outlawing/heavily regulating/at least reforming the lobbying scene in Washington.

::Seamless Segue::

Speaking of lobbying (big grin and a wink to the crowd), Jack Abramoff was sentenced to 5 years in prison last week. People have been going on and on about how evil he is. And he is evil. But here at IHNJ we try to ask the questions that nobody else is asking. So, in that vein: Why does Jack Abramoff wear these rediculous hats? What else is he hiding under there?

I'll end with what I hope is the beginning of a real discussion. I have been doing some research about the Slow Foods movement. I was going to become a member, but then i found that the group opposes bioengineering. So I didn't join. At first blush, I think genetically engineered produce is a good thing. It increases crop yields in such a dramatic way that we are better able to feed the growing masses of people on this planet. But then i started really putting some thought into this idea. Isn't this just making overpopulation possible?! Aren't we just facilitating population inflation? By increasing crop yields above natural levels, aren't we raising populations to artificially high and unsustainable levels? Is anybody else out there making this argument against bioengineering? I know that it might seem heartless, but wouldn't we be better off letting crop yields and populations fall back to more normal levels?
I guess this is the same kind of logic I use to explain tuition inflation at colleges. Cheap government student loans have increased the number of people who can go to college, increasing the demand for college, increasing the price. I'm sure I'm not the only one using that argument.
Peace bitches.

Hotface.

2006-03-28T09:50:00.000-05:00

Ok, so let's see if I can get a godamned post to actually appear on the website.
It's good to get back to the offices of IHNJ after a brief sabbatical. I leave for a few days, and nothing gets done. Typical. For those of you who frequent the site, you might already know that James "Clemson's only Asian hipster english major" Yeh was staying at my place for a few days over the weekend. It was a pretty busy couple of days, and I'm interested to hear him tell it from his point of view as well.
I should probably explain the picture to your left. Please allow me to shorten an unnecessarily long story. James and I have a friend named Dan, who will from here on out be called L.A. Dan (because he just moved there, and for reasons I will list shortly). Dan is gloriously vain. I love it. He's so unappologetic about it and he really embraces it, which I appreciate. James and I dressed up on Saturday night and took some pictures, trying to be true to L.A. Dan's style. As I knew they would be, they were quickly accepted and celebrated by Dan himself. Just look at his MySpace pictures. Dan rocks. And he really is a beautiful man. My mother-in-law said so when we showed her our pictures next to the real Dan. Too bad my wife doesn't wear eyeliner, otherwise I would have really been able to finish off the mock-you-photos in a more authentic way.
I think that the highlight of my weekend with James actually came on Thursday night. I found out that Clay Ross had a show in Brooklyn that night, so we decided we had to go. Clay is an old T.L. Hanna High boy (where James and I attended [also the home of Radio {whose story was turned into a major motion picture staring Cuba Gooding Jr.}]) who has made something of a name for himself in the jazz music scene. So James takes the subway to Brooklyn from Columbia's uptown campus, and I fight the commuter traffic and drive in from Jersey after work. I knew that the show was at a place called Moto, and I knew the address, and that's all I knew. James gives me a call while I'm still driving in, and he's there already. Some time later I get into the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn and find a parking spot a long ways away from where I want to be. I'm walking down Broadway (not the big and famous one, the slummy one in Brooklyn) under the raised train tracks of the above-ground subway, and I'm counting down the numbers to Moto's address.
Did I pass it?
I couldn't have.
I did.
WTF?
So I backtrack, head on a swivel, looking for any sign of this place. I come to a door that I figure must be it. On the door, in permanant black marker:
"Please close the door behind you"
I had no way of knowing at the time, but this would become our motto for the evening. I opened the door and stepped through a dark curtain into a bustling gothic bistro. Old stone walls, crumbling in places, adorned with black cast iron light fixtures. Obviously very old hardwood floors with huge gaps between the boards. An interesting bar in the back with shelves holding all sorts of paraphanalia from.......where, what? I don't really know. James was seated at the first tiny table on the right as I walked in, and he already had a beer waiting for me. What a guy. The beer was great: dark and deep, and with a name I had never heard. We were going to eat before the show started, so we took menus and actually wound up getting the same rottiserie pork ribs dish. The ribs were just OK. The flavor was there, but needed more moisture to become tender like ribs should be. They probably could have been basted with something during the rottiserie process.
Clay showed up and started getting things ready in the corner directly across the front "entry" from us. Not knowing how to get his attention, James simply says "T.L. Hanna" fairly loudly. Clay snapped his attention towards us immediately, and he spent most of his breaks with us for the rest of the night. Clay's a great guy, and an amazing musician, and it was a lot of fun to listen to his stories. Trips to the Balcans, Kosovo, Greece, and all over. Playing for high school kids and dignitaries and all kinds of people. And his show that night at Moto was really great. Clay played an acoustic, and a female vocalist named Krystle Warren belted and crooned and generally impressed the crowded restaurant. I would urge you to head on over to the website and give a listen. I'll let James wax poetic about it, and I'll just tell you that she sounds a bit like Tracy Chapman hopes she sounds. For the second set, she stood up on a booth along the wall and sang over the tops of heads. I had a great time. I nearly forgot about the freezing wind that hit me every time somebody opened the door.
We slunk out of the place around 12:30 and drove out across the Williamsburg Bridge into Manhattan, enjoying the views of the city from the east. I don't usually get to see it from that direction, and it was nice to see the skyline again through fresh eyes. It really was beautiful. Through the tunnel, out into Jersey, and into the house around 2am.
Out late on a school night. You're only young once.

ihateblogger

2006-03-27T22:20:00.000-05:00

i'vebeentryingtopostforoveranhourandbothbloggerandpicassahavelostmyposteverytimesofuckthemi'llpostwhenihavemoreenergyforit.
I mean honestly.

I hate Picassa. But Picasso is ok by me.

2006-03-21T10:03:00.000-05:00

Picassa has eaten my blog balls TWICE in about 12 hours. I mean, these weren't huge posts, but they were posts. They had hopes and dreams all their own, and now they're gone forever. Lost somewhere Out There.
Are there any options for posting pictures besides Picassa, because I would gladly look into an alternative at this point. For the time being, just imagine a big picture of the Whole Foods logo right below this paragraph. Ready. Go.

*picture*

I ran across this article on Slate yesterday and I really enjoyed it: Is Whole Foods Wholesome?
This piece touches on what I think is so wrong about the direction of the organic food movement in this country: it has been reduced to a marketing ploy. Read the article for support of this statement, but I believe that the only reason to buy organic is that it might be better for you than conventionally grown food (if you are the kind of person who doesn't wash his produce before eating it, that is). Don't buy it to "support small family farms" because you aren't, even though that is at the heart of Whole Foods image. The idea that farmers of organic vegetables don't enjoy economies of scale simply because their produce is organic just doesn't make sense; these veggies are grown on huge corporate farms (for the most part) just like those perfectly unblemished pesticide-covered tomatoes down at the A&P. If you really want to support small family farms, and eat some really good stuff at the same time, then shop at a small family farm!. Go to a farmers market or roadside stand, or better yet, head out to the farm itself. Maybe I'm spoiled by living in the Garden State, but I'm sure that you have plenty of opportunity to do this wherever you are. We're starting to get into farmers market season now, so start looking around. Talk to the farmers. They can tell you what's good and in season, and if they don't have something specific you're looking for, they can probably tell you where to get it and who to get it from. Chances are, they also have some other interesting stuff at their stand to check out: honey from their little honeybee hobby, home-smoked bacon from the couple of pigs they raise on the side, fresh flowers, preserves, etc. And wouldn't you rather know (and see) exactly where your produce somes from? At least that way you can be sure that your organically-grown, free-range, growth hormone-free bell peppers were flown in on a private jet from somewhere in South America.

On a related note, I bought the new album from Coheed and Cambria yesterday on iTunes. It rocks. Hard. Here is the evolution of my interest in the band:

1. I heard them on Accuradio while at work. I was impressed with the sound. Impressed enough to stop what I would be doing to see who it was when they would have their turn on the "Listening Post" station.
2. I bought the album on iTunes. I rocked out. The lyrics are kinda weird though...
3. Started doing a little research to find out more about the band and why their lyrics are impenetrable by the normal human mind. But the music is so good. It's almost like 90's metal, 80's hair rock, Tenacious D, and Bach had a love child and named it Coheed and Cambria.
4. Ok, these guys are strange. They're from Nyack, NY. This is right around the corner from me, which isn't strange in its own right, necessarily. However, that is where we leave normalcy behind. As it turns out, this is Co&Ca's 3rd album. This album continues a science fiction storyline that has carried through each of their albums so far, with each album taking the story a little farther. Let me paraphrase the story as best I can: There is a married couple named Coheed and Cambria. They are a human/robot half breed and they have 4 kids. Coheed, the male, has a virus injected into him by a dragonfly sent by a powerful and evil overlord. When Coheed next lays eyes on Cambria, the virus is activated and he turns into an evil beast of some sort. Then we don't know what happens, but we know that both Coheed and Cambria die, and 3 of the 4 children die at the hands of Coheed. The one that escapes is named Claudio (also the name of the lead singer of the band) and he is like the chosen one who will fight the evil overlords. He gets help from some kind of fairy. We then meet The Writing Writer, so is actual a regular human being on Earth who is writing this story and he's gone mad over a woman and it's effecting the story he's writing and then he gets into an argument with a 10-speed bike about whether or not to kill of a character (which happens during my favorite song on the new album). So yeah, it is REALLY WEIRD.
But the music really is great. It is soaring and overly dramatic and adrenaline-filled and full of truly amazing musicianship on the part of all band members. I'll forgive them the sci-fi geekiness. For more of the strangeness that is Coheed and Cambria, check out their Wikipedia entry. Oh yeah, and the lead singer is hispanic and has a huge afro.

Rock out.

Robb's Special Update Corner: "To all the girls in the world who say they would sleep with Angelina Jolie, please knock it off. You're ruining everything."

Title TBA at a later date

2006-03-14T23:50:00.000-05:00

It's Tuesday night and I am tired, but I feel like I need to write something. I'm already hitting that point where I feel like I need to write something. That's kind of frustrating.
I'm sitting in bed, New York Times from last Sunday next to me, right next to today's Wall Street Journal. On the night stand are like 4 or 5 books that I want to read (or re-read). A double old fashioned glass filled one quarter full with bourbon sits on top of The Plot Against America, which still needs finishing. Down on the floor is yesterday's Journal that I just finished. My desk is pilled high with research just waiting its chance for attention.
I don't have enough time to read everything I want (need) to. Another reality of grown up life.

I had a strange dream last night. Highlights include driving my wife's car into the lobby of a hotel and filling up the tank using the gas pump that was, of course, located near the elevators, and taking a wrong turn off of our street and winding up on Route 123 between Clemson and Greenville in South Carolina. There was another reoccuring theme in the dream: I realized that I was taking a class and that I hadn't been to the class in a long time and was dreadfully behind in the work. Isn't that bizarre? This has popped up in dreams over the last year or so. I mean, I have actually experienced this in real life, but it is much more traumatic in the dreams. I once walked into an econ class in undergrad and found out that we were having a test. I hadn't been to the class in weeks. I did fine. That last part was in real life; it really did happen.
And this dream-theme seems to have evolved from a former one: I am waiting tables and I am "in the weeds" as they say. I have too many tables, I can't keep up, my customers are unhappy. To make matters worse, I inexplicably leave the restaurant. Realizing my folly, I return in a panic to find myself even deeper in shit. Then I wake up.
I need some dream analysis. What do these reoccuring themes mean? Are they my version of the "getting chased by something terrible and not being able to run fast enough" dream? Which reminds me of a dream I used to have as a child:
...something is chasing me and it is not fast, but i am fast i'm plenty fast enough to get away. this thing or whatever-it-is is actually very slow but nothing can stop it. it comes. i can run miles and miles away or drive for days or fly to a different coast but i can't rest because i know that it comes, no matter from how far away, and i can't escape it for good and i won't ever be able to...
Strange, but I remember it well (the first time I saw, your head round the door, and mine stopped working).
Next reoccuring dream from childhood:
...i am walking down the street of a city as i imagined a city might look up close as a child, with buildings so tall that they bend and hang out over the street and there are many dark alleyways. i look down one alley and see a portal open to a different world and i decide to take a look just for a second and i step through and it closes behind me and i'm trapped forever. this world has a red sky and is prehistoric with huge plants covering the ground that will snap their plant-mouths shut on me if i step on them and i am terrified and thinking about my family. above in the sky i see the care bears in their cloud car and the fly down and scoop me up and i'm rescued and flying back to the real world and i wake up...

And there she is. Robert is the only person with the psycho-chops to actually tell me anything about my head, but I'm willing to bet that Benny's insights will be funnier.

Leo the Lion: generous, warmhearted, creative, enthusiastic, bossy, pompous, born leader, strong sex drive

2006-03-08T21:25:00.000-05:00

I was going to do a long list of famous Leos, inspired by several of the blogs I read on a regular basis. So I started digging around, doing the research, and I made The Discovery: I share a birthday with the world, NAY, universally-renowned economist Milton Friedman.
Nobel Prize winner, libertarian, free market capitalist, genius.
I know that most of my readership has already stopped reading, but I read all of your literary stuff, and I enjoy it, so read on. I'm just going to post a few of my favorite Friedman quotes here for your review, and I want you to really read and interpret these (again, just like I try to do with all of your stuff) and I think you'll either agree, or be challenged.

"Governments never learn. Only people learn."

"Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it."

"I'm in favor of legalizing drugs. According to my values system, if people want to kill themselves, they have every right to do so. Most of the harm that comes from drugs is because they are illegal."

"Many people want the government to protect the consumer. A much more urgent problem is to protect the consumer from the government."

"The black market has a way of getting around government controls. It has a way of enabling the free market to work. It has a way of opening up, enabling people."

"The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem. "

"We have a system that increasingly taxes work and subsidizes nonwork."

"The most important single central fact about a free market is that no exchange takes place unless both parties benefit."

"The problem of social organization is how to set up an arrangement under which greed will do the least harm. Capitalism is that kind of a system."

"Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself."

So obviously, if you hate Bush and big government, then you love Milton Friedman. I hope I could broaden a few horizons with my infinitely dorky obsession with really old white economists, since my horizons have been broadened by being exposed to really really old white writers (thanks Benny).

And now, a few Leos whom I also share traits with:
Amelia Earhart - bravery, and also the tendancy to get lost
Mussolini - mind-controlling charisma
Henry Ford - brilliantly innovative mind
Yassar Arafat - great head wraps
Jerry Falwell - mind-controlling charisma
Annie Oakley - my scary good sharpshooting skills
Alfred Hitchcock - my growing midsection
Fidel Castro - my penchant for good cigars, and more mind-controlling charisma
Napoleon - ambition......is it just me or are there a lot of dictators on this list?
Robert Redford - my as yet untested ability to age really fucking well
Wilt Chamberlain - this one should be understood. I shouldn't have to say anything. I'm good in bed. I said it.
Half of the cast of Friends - Leblanc, Kudrow, and Perry, from whom I get my magnetic good looks, inability to play the guitar, and my quick wit and zany one-liners (respectively).

American Idol: a guilty pleasure.

2006-03-07T22:52:00.000-05:00

Ladies and Gentlemen, let me introduce you to Katharine McPhee. She is my current celebrity crush, as of tonight. I liked her before, but something about her tonight just grabbed me and slapped my ass and made me feel nice. Expect much more obsessing over her in the days and weeks to come.
Yes, I watch American Idol. No, I don't feel ashamed. It's just good clean fun. And since my restaurant post was largely panned by the blogging community, I will try something more.......pedestrian?
So I present to you, my American Idol Predictions, 2006 edition. I tried to use more pictures, but Picasa is my bitch lover. Go to www.idolonfox.com to see the pictures of these folks.
The bottom 4 (to be eliminated on Thursday)
-Kevin Covais: How long with the ghost of Clay Aiken haunt this show? Although I respect his poise at such a young age, he still has to go.
-Bucky Covington: If I were an A&R, I could really do something with this guy. Fix those teeth, get some voice lessons, cut that rediculous hair. Then you've got a great country musician. But I am not an A&R (inexplicibly), so he will leave.
-Ayla Brown: Boring. Forgettable. Plain. Vanilla. Decent voice. Leaving.
-Kinnik Sky: So your name is spelled the same forward as backward? That does not an American Idol make, Kinnik (Kinnik? Either one). Although those Angelina lips are nice......you got me thinkin' though! Not enough to save her, she's out.

Sneaking into the top 12
-Will Makar: He's good, but he's just too young. His voice will get stronger as he gets older, but he did this about 2 or 3 years too early. He'll be one of the first few to leave of the top 12.
-Melissa McGhee: Sort of boring. Smokey voice, yes. Ability to sing in anything like an upper register, no. There are only so many Etheridge songs you can sing in this competition.
-Ace Young: How fucking L.A. is this guy? I wish he'd just sing LFO's "Summer Girls" and get voted off before making the top 12, but he appeals to the demographic who vote like mad.
-Mandisa: I am so tired of Aretha wanna-be's, and she's not even that good of one. Although she looks like she might have eaten Ms. Franklin. Fat Joke! For some reason, the judges adore her. She screams everything, she has pitch problems galore, and she's only done classic big girl songs so far. I'm bored.

Middle of the pack
-Kellie Pickler: She very likable, but I HATE her "dumb southern girl" thing. I mean, she really is a dumb southern girl, but it's just so stereotypical that I hate it. And plus, she gets really tinny in her upper register. There's no power there.
-Lisa Tucker: Very talented, but too young. And even more than that, she has very little personality. She's just going through the motions of what she thinks a pop star would do on stage. Her voice has no real character.

My top 6 can sing their asses off
-Katharine McPhee: *sigh* She is so beautiful. I'm a smitten kitten. And man does she have pipes. This girl can sing, and she's so comfortable on stage. She is an enormous talent and eternally likable. I'll enjoy watching different sides of her come out as the show progresses. I'll also enjoy seeing different camera angles of her as the show progresses. Don't tell my wife, but I think I'm in love.
-Taylor Hicks: The gray-haired guy! This man comes from a land where people don't talk, they only sing. He simply radiates passion for music. It takes him over and he has no idea what he's doing. Very Ray Charles. Very Joe Cocker. Very talented. His voice makes me feel like I'm in church and I want to stand up and clap my hands and praise something.
-Paris Bennett: Very very good for her age, or any age. Famous grandmother. Tons of soul. Very likable. She has really great control over her voice, which always seems barely contained by her enthusiasm. There is a lot of joy in her voice.
-Gedeon McKinney: What a freaking performer this guy is. Guaranteed, he will be making money when this is over. He is compared often by the judges to greats like Sam Cooke and Al Greene, and I think he fits easily into their company. I'm always astounded by his performances.
-Elliott Yamin: The biggest surprise. When I saw him, I remember thinking how talented he was, but it was all wasted because she was so thuggish. And then, he opened his mouth in Hollywood and I was simply stunned. His voice is the most soulful of any that has ever been on AI, and his control is just superb. He might not know it, but I think he might have perfect pitch. The tone of his voice is so silky smooth and he is very polished on stage. He knows his voice well, and his song seletion will continue to impress.
-Chris Daughtry: From the first time he opened his mouth in his audition, singing a smoking personalized rendition of Joe Cocker's "The Letter", I was a Chris Daughtry fan. For me, he is the complete package. He is a huge talent, a mammoth talent. His command of the stage is awe-inspiring. He is humble and excited to be there, and he always seems to genuinly enjoy listening to the other performers. He always gives a nod to the amazing house band, which shows a lot of class. You can't tear your eyes away from him when he is on the mic. He radiates energy. His tone is smokey and raw without being rough around the edges. His pitch is spot on, and he knows his voice very well and how to push himself just far enough, to keep challenging himself to go higher and better. I get really excited to see him perform, and that's a really good sign.

So I guess we will see how these predictions hold up. Somebody once said "there is no accounting for taste", and that is never more evident than on American Idol. Who knows, the 12 year old girl crowd might push Ace into the top 6. And then I will have to kill him on live television. I'm very protective of my top 6 this year. If this isn't the top 6, a searing tirade will be written here on IHNJ. You heard it here first.

Slater's Mill, the new home of Chef/Owner Robb Calhoun

2006-03-06T23:02:00.000-05:00

Ok, 2 things. First, I've already written this stupid fucking godamned post already. My fucking dog jumped up in my lap and erased it from existance while I was in the middle of doing the whole "highlight and copy everything just in case" process. He, in his evil fucking piece of shit brilliance, chose the precise moment that I had highlighted everything to jump up into my lap and press a key.
"c"
That was all that was left. So if I've lost some of my chipperness, I promise I'll gain it back as I retype this.
Second, I have gotten out of my funk about the whole restauranteur thing. It took a few days, and a few more bottles of wine, but I made it. And I'm a better man for having gone through it. Don't hate; appreciate. Am I right, or am I right? If I'm ever in Columbia, SC (which I pray every day will never happen) I will totally hit up Mr. Friendly's, act like I'm a famous food critic from The Times, request a free chef's tasting menu, and write about it here on IHNJ.
Until then, let me introduce you to my current obsession: Slater's Mill.
This beautiful structure is abandoned, and has been for some time. I drive past it a few times a week, and I always think how rustic and perfect it is. And then I saw the "Lease" sign and my mind started churning and really solidifying thoughts and ideas that had been roughly coming together in my head over the last few months.
The first picture is the view from the right side of the building, on the driveway that wraps down behind it (straight into a gravel "parking lot" type thing, I might add). Obviously, we're a little run down and in need of some fixin'.
The second picture is the front of the building, from the road. Notice the room that juts out from the left side of the mill. Remember that, you'll need it for later.
The third picture is from the back of the property, down in the gravel parking lot. You can see that the back deck is decaying, which is fine because I'd love to replace it. Again, we'll get to that later. You can't tell from these pictures, the the view out the back is amazing. It looks out over a stream, into the forest and up the mountain called Federal Hill. Almost wouldn't know you were in Jersey.
The last picture is from the left side of the structure, down the road a little ways. I may or may not have taken these while driving. You'll notice the big "Slater's Mill" painted on the side. I have no idea what this place used to be, but it is old and has been here a long time, that much is obvious. I would keep the name there, I think.

I know that I don't have the means to make this happen right now, but that's why they call it a fantasy, right? So, if you will indulge me, here it is: my fantasy.

You are downstairs in the basement of Slater's Mill. The walls are all exposed brick, the floors a white pine. 12 foot ceilings. There are wine racks running floor to ceiling, full of bottles, and you realize that this is the wine cellar. Two cast iron chandaliers hang, and beneath them is a large rustic table with plenty of chairs. The room is not dark, as plenty of light is given from the chandaliers and other wall sconces, and the pine floor reflects the light well. The ceiling is exposed wood rafters, lightly stained, with high-hat lights hidden to add even more light. This room can be rented out for special events and wine tastings, or even just a gathering of family and friends.
Now, imagine yourself walking into the white front door in the second picture above. You stop as soon as you make it through and into the room. It is immediately obvious that the top two floors have been made into ONE floor with very very tall ceilings. A large cast iron chandalier hangs down from the center of the room, acting as both a piece of artistic interest, and a tool to draw the eye up to the original exposed beams of the old mill. In the center of the room and right beneath the light fixture there is a tree, growing from a small tree box. It is about 8 feet tall with dark branches and nice, but thin, foliage with white flowers. Maybe it is a dogwood. It seems to anchor the chandalier to the floor, although there is still about 10 or 15 feet between the two. The front windows let in lots of light, and illuminate the detail of the dark walnut floors that cover the space. The wall on the right has 6 large windows, 3 on each "floor". The wall has been painted a deep, rich khaki color, and the windows remain white. The back wall has been turned into a wall of windows. These allow you an almost completely unobstructed view of the screened in back porch, with its large ceiling fans rotating above, and beyond that the stream, the forest, the mountain. In front of the windows is the wine bar, which is open every day and has anywhere from 30 to 40 wines by the glass. Wines are also served by the half-bottle.
You are still just inside the door. Now look to your left. The room that juts out from the left of the building has been turned into a prep kitchen, butcher station, general work area, and cold storage. You can see back into this area by looking over a bar and through the window of a swinging door. This bar runs the full length of the left side of the room. It is an interesting bar, zinc, like the classic bistro bars of Paris. Durable, easy to clean, stunning. Bar stools follow the bar for its full length. On the left of the bar is the full working kitchen: running down the left wall is the salad and cold apps station, grill, saute line, ovens below, but on the center of the wall is a beautiful wood burning brick oven. In fact, the entire left wall above the cooktops is exposed brick, with large stainless steel hoods to catch smoke. Chefs have plenty of work space on the customer side of the bar for preparing and plating food, wide butcher block counter tops are slightly below where the zinc bar and the customers are. Food is finished in front of you, and handed to you by the chef who cooked it. Ask him questions. He has answers.
There are 10 additional tables on the floor and on the wall opposite the bar. White linens. Simple place settings with white plates and light gray/blue linen napkins that match the paint on the outside of The Mill.
Please call ahead at least one week in advance for reservations, and one month ahead if you wish to sit at the bar, as these are coveted seats.
"It really is a dream come true" says Chef/Owner Robb Calhoun, knife in hand, slicing a perfectly medium-rare duck breast that has just come out of the brick oven. He looks up from his work, smiles and pushes up his glasses. "Who wouldn't want to do this for a living? The people who eat here are as passionate about food and wine as I am. They love this stuff."

Whatever.

2006-03-02T23:47:00.000-05:00

This is a pork porterhouse. It's just like a beef porterhouse, but it's from a pig. Kind of a cool cut. I dusted it with a custom Chinese 5-spice powder and served it with a homemade dark soy BBQ sauce. Baked sweet potato. Bok choy braised in chicken stock. Recipes available upon request, of course.
But honestly, fuck it. I'm distraught. Today, I found out that a guy who I'm pretty sure went to my high school is a godamned restauranteur. He is 28 and he's opening his 3rd place in Columbia, SC. His flagship is called Mr. Friendly's and there are links on that site to the other restaurants. I found this out mid-day, and I haven't been able to shake this overpowering jealousy since. And I'm not even regressing into my Pat Bateman American Psycho character, although that is very tempting. I just can't shake the feeling. I mean, I'm all the time seeing a building for sale and thinking "Wow, I should open a restaurant there". But the difference is, this guy is actually doing it! How did he get to that point at age 28? I can't even imagine. I know from years of living it that the food service business is hard work, but he's already at the point where he's not working the long hours. He's the OWNER. He can just stop in and check on things and then leave. He has all the time in the world to eat at other restaurants and read and get ideas and get inspired and talk to other foodies and sample wines for his fucking enormous wine list. He's already at this point and he's only 28 years old. Oh my god it makes me want to leap out of my own skin.

Why?

As terribly arrogant as it sounds, it's because I think I could do it just as well as he is (and maybe better). I can write up a pretty great menu, one that is at least as interesting as his, from my own notebooks of ideas I've built up over the years. And maybe it's just because he's in Columbia, SC, but I just feel like I could out-class that menu easily. And I'm not talking about loading every dish up with fresh truffles and foie gras and stuff. I'm not going for $30 plates. But I mean, just give me something I can't get at Applebees, you know? And he won some award for his wine list. Please. This is a list populated by someone who decided to get into wine about 6 months ago and took a crash course. Ok, the wine list doesn't look bad. But it's not interesting! Do you know how many solid B+ restaurants there are out there like this place? Fuck!

So here is my thing. I want a smallish place with a bar that you'd find in a diner or a real bistro. I want most of the seating at the bar, and maybe a few long fairly communal tables in addition. A relatively small menu that is changed monthly, with new specials every few days (maybe about 6 specials a day). The kitchen is open to the bar and the people talk to each other while food is prepared right there in front of them. Big pots of braised dishes being pulled out of a wood burning brick oven. Roasted chickens, etc. The wine list is eclectic, with many (maybe half) even having screw tops. Some of the best bottles I've had the last year have no cork! There is a standard $15 per bottle premium above the retail price of the wine, so you aren't getting raped. So order a few bottles and share with the folks around you. Talk about what you're eating, maybe even pass over a taste. My place feels comfortable, and it's a place for people who love eating and drinking. So here is your sample tasting menu for tonight, if for no other reason than to make myself feel better:

-fried green tomatoes with a celery root remoulade
-seared orange-dusted scallops with a port wine demiglace
-5-spice rubbed pan roasted monkfish with mashed sweet potatoes and wilted spinach with a tamari BBQ sauce
-braised stuffed leg of boar (like pork, only better. And dried cherries are a must have in the braising liquid. You could probably serve this over grits and it would be amazing.)
-salad of bacon-wrapped roasted pear stuffed with gorgonzola, beet vinaigrette
-goat cheese stuffed figs with honey

Ok, I feel better now. And honestly, Mr. Friendly's looks pretty kick ass if you ask me. If it was my place, I'd be proud. It's just that right now I'm borderline Bateman with jealousy. Ricky Mullohand is a talented restauranteur and probably a really fucking cool guy who I'd want to hang out with and talk food and drink too much wine. I'll get over this in a few days.

For tonight, at least, I am a bachelor

2006-02-28T19:00:00.000-05:00

"I'll have a Number 6 Combo please."
"Yeah, why don't you go ahead and Biggie Size that."
"Diet Coke to drink."
"Can I get the student discount please.......oh wait, nevermind........motherfucker.

Tonight, I fend for myself. I was told by The Wife that she was having dinner with a friend, and I rejoice.
She asked me, with a big smile, what I was going to cook for myself.
You see, she and I are nearly complete opposites when it comes to food. She doesn't eat ANY red meat or pork. She silently counts calories. She doesn't drink red wine. She likes to eat "healthy". She loves fat free. She wants the boneless, skinless chicken breast.
I, on the other hand (or on another continent even, it would seem) eat nearly everything. Gimme the big steaks. Gimme lamb chops. I love marrow. I love tripe. I am in awe of the magic that happens when you take a fucking cheap, trash cut of meat like oxtail and you cook it slowly for hours and it transcends itself into something really beautiful. I like big, in-your-face red wines. When I found out that there was a dish in France in which pork is cooked slowly in its own fat and then smeared over baguette slices, I nearly cried. I think food is one of the basic raw joys in this world that should be embraced. Dont deny yourself. Just eat. Be a glutton sometimes. Love it.
So, you see, it would be easy to assume that when my wife isn't around, I would go nuts and cook and eat myself into coronary oblivion. But you'd be wrong. I don't really like to cook for myself all that much. I like to feed people. That's what really satisfies.
So tonight's menu looks something like this:
Spicy Chicken Sandwich combo from Wendy's
Biggie Fry
Diet Coke
Red wine in a pint glass

Ooh baby I like it RAW.

Upon my return from the wilderness.

2006-02-26T21:11:00.000-05:00

I loved these birch trees, and this picture of them that my wife took. Hands down my favorite picture of the trip, I think.
I don't know that I can do the house any justice with words, so hopefully you get the idea with the pictures below. I'm still working on a word for just how big it is. I only showed you pictures of one level of the house; there are two others. But we got over its size in a day or so. We never got used to the views however. Up early in the morning, bundle up in a blanket and drink coffee out on the porch, watch the fog get burned off as the sun rises, start a fire and read something in front of it. Then maybe take the dogs out for a hike. Cook a big dinner. Keep the fire going. DRINK. Watch a movie. Read some more. That's how the days went. It took me all week to read last weeks Sunday Times. We just sort of meandered. Enjoyed the solitude.

Usually we go someplace and do things when we vacation, but we really didn't do a godamned thing on this trip and it was great.

On a different note, we did get really into Olympic Curling. It took us about 2 days of watching and some very slow 56k internet research to figure out just what the hell was going on, but once we did.......man. What a sport. I mean, the grace displayed by those guys and their stones is just breathtaking. Sometimes, at night, I still think of the stones. And the grace. Then the stones again.

2006-02-26T21:07:00.000-05:00

Le Domaine.

2006-02-26T21:06:00.000-05:00

Good fences make good neighbors.
Some old stone walls we found while on a hike.

2006-02-26T21:04:00.000-05:00

One of the lakes on the property, frozen over.

2006-02-26T20:56:00.000-05:00

The house from distance, taken while on a hike.

2006-02-26T20:53:00.000-05:00

Bernee, the beautiful Berneese Mountain Dog with the painfully unoriginal name, out on a walk with us exploring the 500 acres of property we stayed on.

2006-02-26T20:52:00.000-05:00

I have no idea what is on the TV, but isn't she loverly?

2006-02-26T20:50:00.000-05:00

A boy and his dog.

2006-02-26T20:48:00.000-05:00

Me and Cooper outside on a walk around the property.

2006-02-26T20:44:00.000-05:00

The dining room (notice the snow).

2006-02-26T20:42:00.000-05:00

Me and Cooper making agnolloti (fresh stuffed pasta).

2006-02-26T20:40:00.000-05:00

Keeping the fire going.

2006-02-26T20:38:00.000-05:00

Sitting on the couch in the great room.

Out Of Office Reply

2006-02-19T21:37:00.000-05:00

To Whom It May Concern,
The offices of I Heart New Jersey will be closed until 2/24/2006, due to a staff vacation to the Catskill Mountains of New York. Obnoxious vacation pictures and stories to follow. And now a word from our President & CEO, Robb Calhoun.

"Hello from the Catskills, as well as from the last 56k modem in existance! It takes so long to do anything on this computer that I won't try to post again. Just know that me and the wife are living WELL beyond our means in an enormous cabin on 500 ACRES here around Prattsville, NY. This place is straight out of Extreme Home Makeover, for real. I'll be sure to post pictures when we get back to Fast Cable Internet Land, as well as an explanation for our luck in securing such a vacation spot. Until then, I'm going to make a fire and drink some bourbon in front of it and maybe read a book.
Peace bitches!"

In closing...
Brooklyn: Tonight was Poulet Roti night and it was kick ass.
James: I'm almost done with American Psycho and it stopped being a fun read a LONG time ago.
Dan: I'm thinking about trying my wife's eyeliner tomorrow, but that could just be the cabin fever talking.
Anybody else who reads this: Suck it because you never post comments!

Live, from my corner of Wall Street

2006-02-15T13:48:00.000-05:00

I meant that metaphorically. I'm in Jersey. But I am, as of this posting, at work. Mercifully, I am experiencing a slow day after many very very fast days in a row. It feels decadent and luxurious to be sitting in my office blogging in the middle of the day, drinking coffee (decaf) and ignoring the talking heads on CNBC. Hopefully I'll be able to do more of this, although I should really try to remember to bring my fuzzy slippers to round out the experience.

ALTERNATE BLOG TITLE!

Anti-love is dead. Long live Anti-love!

Yesterday was obviously Valentine's Day. I haven't been truly single on 2/14 since I was a Sophomore in high school, so this day doesn't have nearly the weight for me that it aparently has for others. It's just a good excuse to go out to eat on a Tuesday. But for countless others it's a day of teeth-gnashing and garment-rending. The deeply creative members of that group use Valentine's Day as fodder for some serious, and seriously good, dark comedy. I hold up my friend Tara as an example. When I showed up at work yesterday I had the following email from her waiting for me in my inbox:

"I found a ladybug on my desk today. I named him Anti-love."

I would like to nominate Tara for Best Comedic Anti-Valentine's Day Sentiment in the Email catagory. The emails that followed back and forth between us afterwards formed a sort of storyline that can only be described as award-winningly hilarious. (More than) a few excerpts:

Tara: Meanwhile, Anti-love is chillin' on the top of my monitor. I might have killed him. Tara killed Anti-love. I wonder if that has any deeper meaning...

Robb: I don't like to think of it as "Tara killed Anti-love." I like to think of it as "Anti-love was dying, and Tra kind of helped him along." Plus, if you kill Anti-love, that has to be a positive thing for love in general. Maybe without Anti-love, regular love can flourish?

Tara: Tara has not killed Anti-love. He's crawling around on my stapler. But you know, maybe smiting the little bastard might not be a bad idea - I mean, for regular love to flourish.

*The following day, um, today I mean

Tara: I left yesterday thinking that Anti-love would be gone when I came in this morning. Instead he was upside down. So I flipped the little bastard over, and somehow he is still alive. I feel like he just can't leave, so real love cannot flourish for me.

Robb: Possible metaphors and connections to real life to be drawn from this story: #1. Anti-love feels as though he is trapped on your desk, even though he's really just lazy. Life could be better for everybody, including himself, if he just left, but he just can't shake himself up enough to do it. #2. You are waiting for Anti-love to leave so that Love may flourish, as if you hae no power over the situation. When in reality, you could SMITE Anti-love of your own free will, thereby opening the door for Love to come in and hang out for a while.

Tara: Anti-love has one antenna in the grave.

Robb: Maybe you should embrace Anti-love, appreciate his presence for a while, and let him drift off at his own pace. And maybe Love, seeing this, will reward you for your kindness.

Tara: I gave him a leaf and a drop of my sugar free french vanilla cafe.

Tara: Aparently sugar free french vanilla cafe is lethal in small doses.

Robb: The Tara-assisted suicide of ladybugs is legal in the state of North Carolina. Rest in peace, Anti-love. We hardly knew ye.

Tara: I feel a burial at sea is in order - viking style...

Robb: You should fashion a boat out of a sticky note, light it on fire, and flush it down the toilet.

Tara: Looking for matches...

Tara: That was more undignified than I imagined.

Tara: Poor dumb bastard. I gave him a salute as he swirled down to the depths.

I mean c'mon people. That's good comedy.

In other news, Saddam Hussein is going on a hunger strike in order to protest something. The funniest quote from Blogdad is from a site called Irish Pennants:
"Somebody should clue in Saddam that hunger strikes only work when a lot of people don't want you to die. Ganhdi he isn't."
I love it.

In closing, "Walking On Sunshine" came on the terrible office kitchen radio today, and I almost broke into the Jack Black from High Fidelity dance, but then realized that nobody would get it. I made a quiet joke to myself about Mitch Ryder and The Detroit Wheels "Little Latin Lupe Lu" coming on next and walked back to my office. I hate working with old people.

A Public Service Announcement

2006-02-09T23:22:00.000-05:00

Ok ladies, this is Robb here. I am making Pudgy Cheeks Face and I'm bringing you the news. I've brought it to my own attention that I've been talking about food too much on IHNJ, especially when I already have a forum for shit such as this: The Guilty Pleasures. So I'm officially restarting that blog for all things food, wine, beer, liquor, and sexy lying videotapes. So check there periodically if you dig on those kinds of things like I do. Like the lamb dish I made tonight. You'll get nothing but the standard gibberish from me here now. And that's a promise. Straight from the horses mouth.
Which brings me quickly to my second point: Everybody is flipping the fuck out over advertising with Google. Every company now thinks that if they aren't putting ads online with Google, they are missing The Next Big Thing. Google's stock has made some stupid move like quadrupling in a year. But why isn't anybody talking about how IT DOESN'T WORK THAT GREAT? If I want to buy a digital camera or a TV, I'll probably just go to Best Buy's website. If you search for that on Google, you get a link to Best Buy in the "sponsored links" section (which I assume they pay for) and then their website is the FIRST ONE DOWN IN THE REGULAR SEARCH RESULTS. This happens to me all the time. Has anybody ever clicked on a "sponsored link"? Once Wall Street figures out what everybody else under 30 already knows, Google drops from $360 to $100.

Amazon is so confused right now

2006-02-08T19:02:00.000-05:00

I like to buy books from Amazon. Almost every time I go there, I buy a book. It really is a dangerous addiction. Point and click, and wait for the delivery truck. Today I bought the following:
-Anthony Bordain's Les Halles Cookbook
-American Psycho

I've also, over time, bought lots of books on economics, financial markets, historical fiction, hilarious historical fantasy fiction stuff, classics, and many others.
So you guys know that if you've ever bought something off of Amazon, they then taylor their advertising to you based on those purchases.

I've confused Amazon.

They don't know what to suggest to me. I broke Amazon.

So that got me thinking about what possible combinations of book orders might screw up their little automated book suggestion device. Here are a few that I've come up with off hand:

-The Communist Manifesto, The Wealth Of Nations, and Jim Cramer's Real Money
-American Psycho, My First Winnie The Pooh Book, and The Complete Illustrated Kama Sutra
-Guitar for Dummies, Rachael Ray's 365: No Repeats, The Strippers Guide To Looking Great Naked

Gimme your suggestions.

And I'm seriously thinking about buying that last one. Fo' real.

I have something of a salad fetish.

2006-02-07T22:38:00.000-05:00

I don't know how these things happen. First, it's a shitty day at work. Market is down. My picks are farther down (temporarily). I have a BIG bond deal pulled from under my feet when the company decides to reneg. Renig. Whatever.
The next thing you know, I'm elbow deep in beer batter and I'm cutting paper cups into ring molds. It's just a thing that happens. The whole time that the shit is going down at work, I'm thinking about what I'm making for dinner. It's a sickness.
So anyways, let's go over tonight's plate.
This is a chopped salad. For real. It's just lettuce, tomato, bell pepper, cucumber, shallot, sauteed chicken, bacon, some blue-vein cheese, and a champagne vinegar dressing. I could have just chopped all that stuff up and tossed it in a bowl like I usually do. But remember, I had a bad day. So I decided to use some things that I had in the house already to dress it up a bit. The curved thing standing behind the salad on the left and the round thing on top of the salad on the right are parmesean crisps. You just grate some good parmesean (the good stuff, no green can) and put it on a silicon baking sheet so that it doesn't stick and bake it in the oven til it crisps up and browns up slightly. I cut up a paper cup to make a ring mold so that the round one was nice and round. And these things are very moldable while they're warm, so I used the side of a warmed martini shaker to round out the triangular one so that it would stand up. I had a leftover shallot, which is like a smaller and sweeter red onion, so I cut it into rings and made a quick batter of beer and flour and made myself some shallot rings. The blue-vein cheese is so good that I chuncked a few pieces to eat with the rings. To add some color and flavor to the plate, I used two different kinds of salt that we were given as a gift. The orange one is called coral salt and the grey one is, surprise, grey sea salt. I finished plating it just as my wife walked in the door. She just shook her head and asked why my day was so bad. She knows me pretty well.

Robb "More Excited About Grey's Anatomy Than The Super Bowl" Calhoun

2006-02-05T22:05:00.000-05:00

I mean honestly, who really gives a damn? The Super Bowl is just a really good excuse to drink too much on a school night. Which actually makes it sound like a very good thing.

I have had a change of heart!

The Super Bowl rocks. As does this bottle of Bonny Doon Cardinal Zin 2003 that I'm finishing off. Great pairing with the steak frites that I made tonight. And if anybody other than Brooklyn knows what that is, good job. I mean, there has to be at least a few bistros near 74 Rue du Cardinal-Lemoine, am I right B?

I am writing this in lieu of writing anything of real substance.

I have been working on a piece for The Clemson Forum that is loosely based on both the structure of Edmund Phelps' "The Golden Rule Of Accumulation: A Fable For Growthmen" and the content of my own post/tirade about the price of oil. The later is just a little bit below this here post; the former is from the 1961 American Economic Review. I officially win the most obscure reference award. As a side project for you guys, if you can find me a working link to that article, I will be eternally grateful. I can't find it anywhere, and my access to Clemson's library facilities finally expired. Bastards.

Here is an excerpt from the (first draft of the) intro:
There is a place called Hummerica, in which there lies a population of well-meaning, if overly-excitable, citizens. The people of this country can quickly and easily become "experts" on a wide range of topics, simply by reading part of an article on the subject (often just the title), or listening to someone else who said they read something about it.
The Hummericans love to argue and display their expertise to others. Both sides of an argument will be represented and debate will typically go on indefinitely. On occasion, however, a topic will come up where the "experts" all seem to agree. It is by this means that a Consensus is reached, which can then become Common Knowledge, quickly followed by its ascent to Conventional Wisdom status. Once this point is reached, it is usually followed by Public Outcry, where it is unanimously determined that "something must be done".
It is precisely at this point that we now find the citizens of Hummerica, rallying behind one particularly well-entrenched nugget of Conventional Wisdom: "Big Oil is evil". The Public Outcry has just begun. The Hummericans charge their capital and demand answers.

NEXT: A bold citizen of Hummerica stands against Conventional Wisdom.

Now taking reservations

2006-01-30T22:01:00.000-05:00

Catharsis (ka-thar-ses) n. - A release of emotional tension that restores or refreshes the spirit.

For some reason, cooking is mine. This picture is the salad course of the dinner I made for me and my wife on Thursday. At home, it's called a roasted beet salad with goat cheese. In a pretentious oak-walled restaurant, it looks more like this:

Salad of Roasted Hudson River Valley Organically Grown Beets and Fresh Local Goat Cheese, Topped With a Frisee Salad Dressed With a Homemade Classic French Vinaigrette, Served With a Swath of Reduced Balsamic Vineger. $21

Of course, all of that would be true, but I digress.
Yes I actually made this, and it was a lot of fun. I had a rough day at work on Thursday and needed to unwind, and this was the result. I also pan-roasted a whole chicken and made an asparagus risotto, but they escaped the camera's eye. If I were a food critic who loved to read his own writing, and thinks he's a better writer than he is, I would have said the following about the dish:

"The roast beet salad was ethereal, rising above us all in the homey but elegant bistro/trattoria dining room. It danced in the rafters like a balloon released accidentally by a small child, promising not to come down for a least a few days (when it ran out of air). The beets were roasted to a soft tender perfection, while the creaminess of the goat cheese complimented the sweetness brought to the table by the lovely Hudson River Valley beets. Riding atop this tower of brilliance was a beautifully crisp frisee salad, its own bitterness and the acidity of the vinaigrette cutting the richness of the goat cheese. The brush stroke of thick balsamic reduction not only offered a surprising tartness, but a reminder that we eat first with our eyes. The salad transcended this place, showing the effervescant personality of this ambitious young chef."

Well, that was fun. James taught me that what I just did was called a "back story". Onward to the front story!
I actually considered culinary school and the life of a cook. I applied to grad schools, and then filled out the application to the Culinary Institute of America. If I was denied entry to a Masters program, I would have been off to chef school. Clemson let me into their Economics program; the CIA application went into the trash.
My love affair with the restaurant business began at the age of 16, waiting tables at a local Chinese place in Anderson, SC called Masters Wok. Not haute cuisine, but damn fine Chinese food and the best I've found anywhere so far. It was here that my infatuation with the other side of the pass-through window began. Watching the cooks tame the flames and throw those big cast iron woks around was awe-inspiring. I was there for 2 years.
Next I was on to Don Pablos. Corporate kitchen, hispanic cooks, mostly just an enchilada and sauce and slap it on the conveyor belt oven kind of operation. No real cooking. But I did make my first foray into the world of restaurant cooking in this kitchen. I was the terrible American chain restaurant version of the French garde mange, or the chef that handles cold apps and salads. And I did get on the saute line a few times, but only to cook my own dinner (a perk of the job, if you wanted to do it). And I stole mini bottles of vodka from the bar. That's about all from Don Pablos. My tenure there was about a year and a half.
Then it was Chili's for a summer. More of the same corporate kitchen stuff, but I got to drink at the bar underage and for free. More salad prep. I was there while I worked an unpaid internship in North Jersey.
Which leads me to my last and most interesting restaurant experience: Reunions in downtown Greenville, SC. Very cool location on the less developed, but "up and coming" West End of downtown. Located in a beautiful building with a great arched and cast iron gated entryway. Nice dining room, good layout. You could see right into the open kitchen. Great looking bar. Upscale menu. The bones of a great restaurant were definitely there.
I helped open the place, setting up the standard procedures for the wait staff. Opening duties, dress code, closing duties, etc. This was a privately owned place, so I got to get my hands into everything. I was able to taste wine from the wine dealers and help set up the wine list (which was good because the owners knew fuck-all about wine). I tended bar, shook martinis, discussed bourbon, taught the servers how to perform formal tableside wine service, all the fun stuff.
The chef was really good, the menu was interesting and fun, the kitchen staff was hilarious. I started coming in early to help with prep after they found out my knife work was good. Endless chopping and dicing and mincing, trimming and packing for cold storage, stocking kitchen stations and the big walk in fridge. I got to taste the specials as they were being created each night. Stock was made, sauces too. The kitchen banter was dirty and testosterone-driven and jesting. I worked the line once when somebody didn't show up to work, and I held my own.
But the highlight for me was my quick ascent from prep cook/waiter to Master Of The 3 Ring Circus, better known as expeditor. For this job I donned a stunningly white chef's coat and one of those little black chef's skull caps. As orders came in, I announced them to the kitchen. I stood at the pass-through window and got each table's plates ready to go out. I timed everything.

"15 is done with salads. Gimme apps and let's fire their filet medium rare, and drop that fucking flounder for 21 already! Jesus Christ you guys are dragging ass."

That was some of the most fun I've ever had.
But the place was failing, right from the beginning. It was palpable and it choked the restaurant. We had a few months of steady business, and then began the slow trickle of customers out the door. There was no foot traffic to speak of, and if someone did accidentally come in, the empty dining room scared them away. My last 2 paychecks were in cash, and the place was dead in about 5 months.

Who knows why restaurants fail, but most of them do. So I cook at home, where I don't have to worry too much about food costs and wait staff and rented linens and such. But I can quietly do my own prep work in my own kitchen and relax and impress my wife with a truly fancy-pants dish.

A quick Sunday morning counter-rant

2006-01-29T10:33:00.000-05:00

I was drinking some coffee and watching cartoons and thumbing through some blogs that I read, when I came across this post on a blog that I enjoy on a regular basis. Normally I just enjoy reading about insomnia and looking at cool artwork, but todays post kinda bothered me.
And I felt the need to respond. For the reader who is too lazy to click on the freakin' link, this is a pretty typical democrat/socialist/borderline communist rant about how The Man is keeping the working class poor. This particular outburst focused, as has most of the media and all of the worst politicians, on oil companies and their record profits in the last 2 years. To be honest, the only reason that anybody is even talking about this in the first place is because gasoline broke over $3.00 a gallon for a while during the past year. Otherwise, nobody would care. But I just need to throw out a few facts for you guys in order to hopefully give you another perspective.

-Most people have no idea how a barrel of crude oil is priced. Unfortunately, I think that most people think that major oil companies actually set the price. I want to make this very clear: oil is priced on an open market (the oil spot and futures market). I'm not going to get into what futures are, but I will explain in further if pressed. Think about it this way. There are buyers and sellers of oil in this market. It acts very much like the stock market, except for one very important detail: buyers of oil have to actually take delivery of this oil, and sellers have to deliver that oil. In simpler terms, if you buy 200 barrels of oil, it WILL show up on your doorstep. If you sell 200 barrels of oil, you have to be able to put that oil on somebody's doorstep. So how does this market help determine the price of oil, and more importantly, why has the price of crude been steadily on the rise for the last 2 or 3 years? Well, two things can cause the price to rise, and ONLY THESE TWO THINGS. First, supply is low (i.e. there are fewer sellers of oil in the market). This has been the case, but I'll get into that later. Second, demand is high (i.e. there are lots of buyers of oil in the market). More on this later as well. The important thing to get out of this bullet point is that oil companies do not set the price of oil.

-Why has demand for oil been so high, and the supply so low? Demand for oil from China and India has been growing at a rapid rate as these countries are starting to pull themselves out of the Third World and into the Developed World. Who can call this a bad thing?! Billions of members of the world population are beginning to live better lives as these countries grow into full-fledged members of global society. But as they grow, they need more energy. So as their needs grow, they buy more oil.
The class was heard to say: "More buyers in the market raise the price!" Good job, class.
But what about supply? Why is it low? Shouldn't free market economics dictate that when the price of a good goes higher, producers want to produce MORE?
THAT, people, is the conundrum of our current situation. THAT is what we should be debating in the media and with our friends and in Congress. But since nobody is, I'll offer my opinion. First, we aren't able to produce as much oil as we used to from the old reliable sources. I think that the OPEC countries have vastly overstated their oil reserves over the last decade or so. As a cartel, they allow their members to pump oil based on their reserves; the greater the reserves, the more oil they are allowed to pump. Obviously, they have every motivation to overstate the amount of oil they have in the ground. And who regulates OPEC? Who is checking to see if they're lying about their reserves? Nobody. Don't be surprised. These countries answer to nobody, except their own royalty. So anyways, I don't think they can produce the amount of oil that they used to be able to.
Second, oil companies themselves don't believe that crude oil prices will stay this high for long. Ever since oil prices peaked during the late seventies inflation-fueled oil embargo scare, prices have been on a 20+ year decline. Trying to take advantage of the high prices of the time, oil companies turned on the spigots. They produced as much as possible. They flooded the market with lots of supply and it overwhelmed the existing demand, so
"So prices went down!" cried the class. Right again guys.
During this decades long price decline, there have been short periods of rising prices. When oil prices would rise, the major oil companies would get excited and pump more oil. This would again cause prices to drop. After this happened many times, oil company executives became very jaded. They didn't believe that prices would ever really rise enough for them to need to produce more. And many still don't (Lee Raymond of ExxonMobile being the most famous; he is calling for sub-$20 oil in the next few years, but he is sadly very wrong). By the time that crude prices finally bottomed out in 2001/2002, the energy sector was decimated. Many many firms had simply gone out of business, pushed into bankruptcy by the high cost of pumping oil and the low prices at which they could sell that oil. The companies that remained usually merged with each other to make it easier to survive, which is why we have ExxonMobile, ConocoPhillips, ChevronTexaco, etc. They won't aggressively produce more oil because they don't believe that oil prices will stay high for long. Why spend billions to expand production when prices will fall in a few years and catch them with their overextended pants down? They are simply acting in a way that they think will allow them to survive. As high oil prices continue to make its naysayers look like fools, the companies will eventually begin pumping more oil. We will see the beginnings of this in 2006, I believe.

-Lastly, and most importantly, oil companies do not have "excess profits". Sure, the billions of dollars that they have made over the last few years is a mountain of money. They have been the most profitable companies around. But their profit margins, or the percentage of their sales that aren't eaten up by costs, are some of the lowest in American industry. Here is a comparative list of profit margins(data taken from Business Week):
Energy (oil & gas) - 8%
Insurance - 10.5%
Software - 11%
Banks - 19%
So why aren't politicians on TV demanding that the profits of banks and insurance companies be taxed? Because oil companies only make good money when oil prices are high, and high oil prices piss of their constituents. People get outraged. "Why should they make money when I'm paying $100 to fill up my Suburban? It's not fair!" But what is "fair"? I didn't hear anybody calling for government subsidies for oil companies who were going bankrupt in the 80's and 90's thanks to crude prices less than $20 a barrel. We didn't want to give them money then, so why is it "fair" for us to take it from them now? They aren't gouging on their prices. Oil companies have 8% profit margins! Do you know how tight that is? These are tiny margins when compared to any other industry.
And think for a second about the implications of a tax on "excess" oil industry margins:
Step 1: Take away profits from the nasty oil industry.
Step 2: Oil companies think to themselves: "Why should I try to produce more oil? I'll just make more money, which they'll take away from me. Maybe I should even produce less, but I'm definitely not producing more."
Step 3: Supply of oil falls, price of oil rises.
Step 4: Inane Congresspeople freak out.
So why would we punish them for being profitable with very small margins? We want them to produce oil, right?
I'm just so sick of people thinking of the energy industry as some big bad titan of industry, when in fact, they are small and sickly and finally starting to recover from 2 decades of decay. And do you want to know why your gasoline prices hit $3.00 last year? The hurricanes. They shut down most of our meager little refining industry. The number of refineries (plants that turn crude oil into usable gasoline and other things) in this country have more than fallen in half since 1980. Why? It wasn't a profitable venture! With falling oil prices, refineries were being closed because they were losing massive amounts of money. Now, 20 years later, there aren't enough refineries to meet our demand. But environmentalists don't want more refineries built. "Not in my backyard" is their battle cry. So the last refinery built in this country was completed in 1976 in California. Well congrats, you just reduced our refining capabilities in this country, driving up gasoline prices and our need for foreign gasoline imports. So what CAN the government do to help? First, stop this idiocy about excess profits taxes. Second, make it easier for refineries to be opened in this country. And I'm not talking about easing environmental standards, as many people advocate. I think that the standards are fine. Just cut some of the red tape that makes the process of building a refinery cost even more billions of dollars and drag on for years. And what could they have done back in the 80's and 90's to help today's problem? They could have stopped celebrating the fall of oil prices and the 70's "Big Oil" companies and started subsidizing refineries so that more could have afforded to stay open. Then we wouldn't have the squeeze that we have now. Because guess what: you can't have your cake ("No new big ugly refineries in my country!") and eat it too ("It is such bullshit that my monthly gas budget is $2000. I should be able to fill up my Hummer for $10! That would be fair."). Idiots.
If you want to blame somebody blame China, India and your short-sighted government. But don't blame the oil companies. They aren't charities. They are businesses, run like businesses. You wouldn't have invested in a business that was destined to lose money, so why do you blame oil companies for acting the same way?
Either change your frame of reference or get used to dramatically higher oil prices for much much longer than you think.

It's 9pm in New Jersey. Do you know where your blog is?

2006-01-24T18:58:00.000-05:00

Wow, so I've had a little break from IHNJ lately. That's only because I've recently gotten into acronyms, like, hardcore. BTOKOWTTAH (But That's OK, On With The Task At Hand).
I'm a Portfolio Manager Stock And Bond Researcher Guy (PMSAwhatever I'm so sick of acronyms), so I get a lot of free magazines and newspapers and other schwag. And last week, a financial magazine that shall remaind nameless because I can't remember its name had a cover story about how blogs are evil. Needless to say, that was a smack in the face. Or rain on my parade. Or a cold shower. Last one: shit, I don't have another one. WAIT! Sand in my bathing suit.
The gist/jist of the article was that bloggers have amazing powers to ruin entire companies and end the lives of innocent people by posting lies on their blogs.
So I took the offending magazine around my office (which is made up only of people 38 and older) and asked what they thought about blogs. To make a potentially long story short, NOBODY EVEN KNEW WHAT A BLOG WAS.
Then today I run across this article on Slate. This article echoed the same theme, although with much more humor and WAY more plugs for Slate's forums.
But the author brings up a good point: why isn't he popular enough to have ever been attacked because of his writing? Which brings up an even more interesting point: why haven't I ever been attacked because of my writing on this site? I mean, I wrote a VERY conservative pro-big business diatribe about how I like Wal-Mart and nobody even fucking commented. Obviously Brooklyn Copeland doesn't read my blog, even though I read hers. And that can only mean that James Yeh hasn't yet hooked me up with a link in the margin of his pretty great blog. But maybe that's because I don't have even 20 posts yet. I DIGRESS!
My point of this whole thing is this: who thinks of bloggers as these big powerful players in the world of politics? I tend to think of bloggers as twenty-somethings who have opinions and nobody to express them to. So they start a blog, and then tirade it up. They don't care if it's only their brother and some indian dude who reads it. Seriously, the indian dude's site is HILARIOUS.
So how do you even piss people off with a blog? How do gain that kind of readership? Is it just inflamatory comments? Because I can do that!
AND NOW A LIST!
A list of the most offensive things that aren't really offensive to anybody that I can think of. Aaaaaaaaand go:
-Jaberwokies won't be offended by my blog. Everybody knows that they're illiterate! And homeless!
-The Ewoks cheapened the entire Star Wars Trilogy.
-Sonoma County wine is overpriced and overrated, on the aggregate.
-Chopped Salad is often neither chopped, nor a salad.
-Kenny G is a talented musician, but will never gain fame with the kids.

Ok, now let the hate mail come rolling in. I'll keep a running tab for my readers of the number of picketers outside of my house each day. With luck, I'll be declared the "Simon Cowell of Blogs" by Thursday. Or Friday, at the latest.

Lastly, Slate had a great nickname for the collective universe of bloggers: "Blogistan". Which is hilarious, and I put in second place in the competition to replace "Blogosphere", place right behind "The Collective Universe Of Bloggers". Which was coined right here on IHNJ about 10 seconds ago. And you tell me right now, how am I not offending masses of people. I mean goddamn.

I swear to God that this is not a political blog.

2006-01-17T22:35:00.000-05:00

So, it turns out that I'm a Libertarian.
Wikipedia defines Libertarianism as a political philosophy that values individual rights, private property rights, and free markets. If I were British, I would say this is spot on.
So why don't you guys take the quiz and post a comment telling me what your own personal tendency is. That way I can judge you.

You are a
Social Liberal
(75% permissive)

and an...
Economic Conservative
(80% permissive)

You are best described as a:

Libertarian

Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid
Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

And then you gotta take it down a notch, there are a lot of rules

2006-01-13T15:32:00.000-05:00

Ok, on a much more important topic than the Wal-Mart thing below, Wendy's made a very important addition to its combo menu. I would like to take the opportunity to welcome #9 to the menu: the 10 piece chicken nugget combo.
I know what you're thinking.
"Wow. Big loser."
But seriously, this is a much bigger deal than it might seem at first blush. Let me tell you a story of shame and guilt.
I used to go to Wendy's and order straight off the .99 cent value menu:
-2 orders of the crispy chicken nuggets
-medium fry
-medium drink
It was cheaper than a combo, so it saved money. But then I was in college, and that was ok. I was wearing jeans that were 5 years old and a free IPTAY t-shirt. But now I'm that guy in a suit and tie and I'm still ordering the same thing and they always made me feel cheap. And guilty. And full of shame. Sometimes, late at night, I can still see them rolling their eyes.
But now it is a full-fledged combo, with a number and everything! And it's still the same great price ($4.22!). No longer do they give me two little packages with 5 nuggets each; they put them in their own 10 nugget container with a fold-over lid!
Thank you, Wendy's, for making me legitimate.

You can put a price on my pride, and it turns out that the price is about four dollars and twenty-two cents.

Politicians (and the American Public ) are idiots.

2006-01-13T10:44:00.000-05:00

I generally won't talk about political stuff here. But I'm bored at work, pissed off about something, I have a blog, and I have internet access. Like to hear it? Here it go.
Here is the article explaining what I'm talking about, but basically Maryland is going to force Wal-Mart to pay more in health benefits. Over the past few years, different groups have been on crusades to lambast Wal-Mart in the media for various reasons, namely these two: Wal-Mart should pay it's employees more, and they should give them better benefits.
And Now, A Tirade In 3 Parts
1. Who is Wal-Mart anyways, but a really big retailer. They are like your corner quik-mart, times a billion (roughly). Or like a Bi-Lo times a million (exactly). I don't hear anybody crying out through the media for a pay increase down at the corner store or at the Bi-Lo. I don't see anybody picketing them to increase benefits. Did you know that Wal-Mart pays it's average hourly employee nearly $10/hour? And nearly half of its employees have benefits. How many Mom And Pop stores can match those numbers? How many grocery stores are paying cashiers like that. None, that's how many. And yet liberal Wal-Mart hater groups do the following math:

$9.68/hour x 2000 hours (a normal work year) = an annual salary of $19,360.

Then they see that the government says that the poverty level for a family of four is $18,850. They they cry out: "Wal-Mart is just barely allowing its employees to scrape by! Anybody who works full-time should be able to support a family."
No they shouldn't! They're freaking hourly workers for a retailer! They stock shelves! They ring people up at cash registers! Why should they make more than $20,000 a year!? This is an unskilled job, people. There are millions of unskilled laborers in this country. Wal-Mart is already paying its employees WELL over what an unrestricted labor market would pay them (many workers wanting a job, the wage falls. Econ 101), as well as what other retailers pay their workers.
The bottom line is that America is supposed to offer everybody equal opportunities, so when did that start meaning that everybody should get equal pay, regardless of the skill level? I mean hell, if lobbyists are able to get Wal-Mart to start paying it's full-time hourly unskilled workers like $25/hour, I'll quit my Wall Street job and stock shelves. Fuck it.

2. Why does everybody hate Wal-Mart in the first place? Let's think for a second about what Wal-Mart does. They provide goods at a discounted price. They do this because they are huge and can get discounts from their providers, and then pass those discounts along to consumers (it's called economies of scale, but enough econ for one post). Who should that piss off? The small local retailers who get closed down, so let's be generous and say that 10% of the population are small local retailers who go out of business because of Wal-Mart. That's a really small percentage who is mad, and a really big percentage who is happy because they can get LOTS of underwear for like $5. And I'm willing to wager that the actual percentage of people put out of business by Wal-Mart is significantly less than 10%. Probably closer to 10% of 10%. Or 1%. Shut up.
What else does Wal-Mart do? They pay wages to employees that are much more than they would get in comparable jobs at other retailers. Who is pissed about that? Lots of people, as it turns out, and for no good reason besides that they are bored and they NEED a cause. Just do a google search for "Wal-Mart" and "blog" for Christ's sake.

3. We live in a global economy. It's the new reality. And American companies already have a hard enough time competing without legislation being passed that makes it even more expensive for them to produce goods in this country. If this kind of law is passed in other states, and if labor groups are successful in raising wages in other industries, American companies will be effectively crippled. It is already more expensive to produce a product in this country than in any other country, because of costs associated with labor (high wages, health benefits, etc). Countries like Canada, where the government foots the bill for health care, can produce similar products at a much cheaper cost. This puts our companies out of business. Bottom line.
And what do all these Wal-Mart haters think is going to happen when labor costs increase? Wal-Mart is going to hire less people! Their margins are only about 3.5%, which is really low for those of you who don't know. They can't afford to dig into margins any deeper, so they will hire less people. Or raise their prices. Or even worse, just decide to close their stores in states like Maryland that pass laws that are unfriendly to businesses. Congrats, Wal-Mart Watch, you just simultaneously raised the unemployment level AND raised the price of consumer goods in Maryland! But at least you really stuck it to the big corporate machine. Idiots.

But before all of you think I'm some heartless conservative right-winger, here is a list of some left-leaning beliefs that I would be willing to post an equally-long tirade about (but don't worry, I won't):
1. I support abortion rights.
2. I don't like our president that much, or this war in Iraq. Pick your own link for that one; there are plenty to choose from.
3. I hate this self-righteous religious portion of the population that is gaining momentum in this country.
4. I am sickened that Brokeback Mountain isn't being more widely played around the country. I'm probably going to have to drive into NYC to see it, because nobody here in Jersey is even playing it. Ridiculous! It really is a beautiful story and if you haven't read the short story by Annie Proulx, then go read it right now you illiterate bigoted slaggard.

BUT I DIGRESS!

I am an investigative journalist.

2006-01-10T22:43:00.000-05:00

That's right folks. It does exist!
8:45am - I walked into my local Starbucks, special 2006 Starbucks Shareholder Giftcard in hand (it came with their annual report and is worth $3.50 (little did they know that I would be able to order upwards of 1.522 drinks with it!)). I step up to the counter and confidently order: "I'll have a short latte, please."
She paused, suggesting that people order the wrong thing all the time.
"I'll have a small latte, please." Don't you mean a tall latte?
"I'll have the little size." Yeah, we call that tall.
But then she heard what I said. She nodded and rang me up. Instead of screaming my order to the busy barista, she stepped over to him and asked him if they even had short cups.
"Sure, we have those. Why?"
"Because that guy ordered a short latte."
"Oh. Ok."
So I purposefully stood far away and pretended to look at mugs, so that he'd have to do the typical Starbucks thing and call out my drink order when it was ready. Instead,
"Hey mister. Excuse me, sir?"
Yeah?
"Hey, come here a minute."
What?
"I can't find the lids that go on the short cup, and nobody knows where we keep them. Can I just pour it in a tall cup for you?"
Sure (sly smile). Why not.

So that was kinda fun. Now I can't say I never learned anything from the internet. But we shouldn't be that surprised. It's just price discrimination, which is legal. The airlines do it every day. Where the airlines discriminate against last-minute consumers, Starbucks discriminates against ignorant consumers. And I have always been in favor of discrimination based on stupidity. It just makes good sense.
And I thought about something. Starbucks might actually attract more of the Young Hipster Elite (YHE) with their secret short sized drink. I mean think about it. What do YHE-sters love more than anything? That's right: knowing something that nobody else knows about. Why do you think they listen to terrible music? Because nobody has ever heard about it! Hell, they probably make most of those bands up just to have something to write about on their blogs.
"Yeah dude, they're called My Morning Commute. Real tight, lots of headphone tricks, great falsetto vocals, soaring choruses, melodramatic bridges. And the best part, the band recorded the album in the lead singer's Honda Accord on the way to their jobs at Kinkos. You can actually hear some of the traffic noise on most of the tracks. Freakin' TIGHT."

Well played, Starbucks. Well played indeed.

I'll have a Short Skinny Half-Caff Latte and a kick in the freakin' face, please.

2006-01-09T22:39:00.000-05:00

Click here to read Tim Harford's article on Slate about The Great Starbucks Secret.

And since I know that none of you actually read things that aren't written in blogs, allow me to paraphrase. Basically, Starbucks has a size smaller than "tall". It's called "short". They don't put it up on the big board or advertise the size in any way. The only way to get one is to know that it exists in the first place, and then ask for it. The author (who also writes for The Financial Times) does a pretty good job of explaining why the company would do this. Basically, if you would be willing to pay up another 50 cents for the next larger size, then they want to make sure that you do. The best way to do that is to make you think that you don't have a choice in the first place. I have to say, well done Starbucks.
But Slate is advertising this article as a "how to screw over the big bad corporation" story. After all, now you can order a smaller (and according to the author, a better tasting) drink and pay less for it. Starbucks' profit margins are sure to take a hit now. The stock will tank. Before you know it, The Wall Street Journal is reporting a hostile takeover by Dunkin Donuts.
But let's think about who goes to Starbucks in the first place. My bet is that it's people who don't really care too much about paying that extra 40 or 50 cents. They don't want to screw Starbucks. The people that want to screw Starbucks don't buy their coffee there! They are the Hipster Elite, and they only get their coffee from the organic roaster downtown who actually spends one week a month down in Jamaica helping to harvest the rare Blue Mountain coffee grown high in the hills. That dude wouldn't be caught dead in a Starbucks. So, for him to use his newfound knowledge of economics, profit margins, and The Secret Order Of The "Short"........he has to actually go to Starbucks and buy a cup of coffee. And even with the slim margin of the "short" size, that's still more profit that they would have made from you otherwise. Good work, you fucking hippie. You tried to "put one over on The Man" and you just made more profit for the evil corporation. So, what can you do? What is the answer? How can I stick it to Starbucks?
Why are you trying to hard to screw Starbucks? I mean holy shit dude, calm down. I'll paraphrase South Park on this one: Starbucks got to be so big and popular for one reason. That reason is that they make good coffee.
So basically the only way to really screw Starbucks with your new information without actually buying the coffee, is to post it on your blog and try to educate others who might be buying the coffee already.

Wait a minute...

Of Big Salaries and Bad Drivers

2006-01-08T22:45:00.000-05:00

Or, Robb's Theory of Regional Population Behavior

This post is a big deal. It is the first formal presentation of a body of work that has been growing in my subconscious for years. I have, on occasion, voiced some of these ideas during conversations, but now I will lay them out in the form of a theory. I suppose that this idea leans toward sociology, but I think it actually lies at the intersection of sociology and economics. But I'm an economist, so I think that everything lies at the corner of economics and something. After all, economics is about incentives, and that's key to this theory. I DIGRESS!

Intro
Stereotypes are often mean and hurtful, but even more often they are based in truth. I could list many stereotypes here (Asians know karate, for example), but we'll focus on a select few dealing with Northerners and Southerners. "They" say that Southerners are uneducated, poor, slow drivers, courteous, respectful, etc. Northerners are highly educated, wealthy, fast drivers, assholes, jerks, etc. Why the differences? It's just geography, right? Before we attempt to answer these questions, let me make a few assumptions.

Assumptions
1. These stereotypes are true. Relax, I think most people would agree, at least on some level.
2. I don't need anymore assumptions. Let's rock and roll.

Presentation of the Theory
So what makes a Southerner hold a door open for you, while the Northerner cuts you off in traffic and shoots you a bird? Why does a Northerner take 12 AP classes in high school before going to Princeton, while a Southerner graduates high school (barely) and then goes to work at "the plant"? The economist who lives inside of me immediately starts screaming that it's supply and demand, but he's always saying shit like that. Supply and demand of what?
Land.
Jobs.
Goods and services.
It's all about population density. In the most densely populated areas, you are in competition with others for a fixed amount of land upon which to live and a nearly fixed amount of jobs to support that life. Because the supply of land and goods is tight compared to the demand, the price of land and goods is high. Welcome to a higher cost of living.
People know that it costs more to live, so they know that they need to make more money. So they educate themselves. And they are pushed, from a pretty early age. Competition for the best pre-schools is pretty intense. Summer math camps, high-priced tutors, tons of AP classes, and extra curriculars out the ass. All because competition for the top universities is also pretty intense. And competition for jobs after graduation is intensely pretty. Wait........What? I DIGRESS!
If you don't get a good job, forget having a house. Get used to that studio apartment. Forget supporting a family.
On the other hand, in less densely populated areas, the opposite tends to be true. The cost of living is low enough that you don't even need to go to college to live a pretty decent life. I can graduate high school, get a job at the local power plant and make a good enough wage to buy a house on some land and raise a family.
So we've touched on education and wealth, but why are Southerners nice and Northerners jerks?
Population Density.
In a less densely populated area, I'm likely to see the same people more often than in an area with high population density. So I'll be courteous because I might know you, and I'll at least probably see you again. Or you might know my Mama, and she'd have my hide if she heard that I was goin' around not opening doors for folks. But in the crowded Northeast, there is just too much of that freedom that comes from being able to say:
"Oh well, not like I'll ever see that guy again."
But why are Southerners such slow drivers?
I don't fucking know, but I wish they'd get out of the godammed left lane.

Conclusions, Applications, and Critiques
So, what further conclusions can be drawn from this theory?
Absolutely none; I've sketched them here for you already and your mind is much too small to glean any more from the theory than I already have.
Are there any applications to other fields that can be teased out of our conclusions?
Simply stated, no. Now go away and stop teasing my theory.
Could there possibly be a critique of such a groundbreaking, mindblowing, secret of life equaling theory? I mean, just go ahead and give him the Nobel, right?
Right.
But since I'm the only person with a true grasp of the idea, I'll give you some possible inconsistencies:
-Shouldn't more people in the job market actually lower the average wage in that market?
-What about the state of California? Lots of people, real expensive to live, laid back people. WTF?
-People break the stereotypes all the time. REMEMBER THE ASSUMPTIONS!

So there it is. I've put my little creation out there, right out there into the void. It's a cold void, and kinda lonely for a young theory. I'm a little nervous for it, but it will find it's own way.
Also, I wrote this whole thing because some deuchebag Jersey driver almost killed me a few days ago because he didn't even look when he changed lanes in traffic because he, like most other Jersey drivers, are so self-important that he thought I should be looking out for him.

*Professor Robb straightens his tweed jacket, steps back from the podium, gets slammed in the face by rapturous applause and more than one pair of ladies underwear*

If it sucks, it's cuz I'm tired

2006-01-03T23:37:00.000-05:00

I made a special Tuesday night post-Christmas list for you. SPECIAL!
Santa's off season activities
-Frisbee golf
-Habitat for Humanity
-Logistics Consultant
-Dog Agility Competitions

And that's all for tonight ladies. Now go watch your new Wedding Crashers DVD. You fucking know you bought it today.

*Also, as a side note, I accidentally typed "Dong Agility Competitions" up there in the list. What's sad is, that is WAY funnier.

It's Christmas Time In The City, and A Christmas Photo Album

2006-01-02T16:34:00.000-05:00

And we're back.
I've been busy with visiting friends and family for what seems like ages, but in reality was only about a month. But it was great to see everybody, and good times were definitely had by all. One thing that always happens when people visit is a trip into New York City. It's just a given. And why not? There's nothing like the city during Christmas. What tourists are always looking for is the old romanticism of New York, and during December you find it in abundance. People are bundled up and carrying huge shopping bags, the big tree in Rockefeller Center, red and green lights on the Empire State Building, people riding in those little rickshaw bike things, packed sidewalks all the way down 5th Avenue, eggnog lattes at Starbucks, elaborate window decorations, white lights strung over everything. It's a sight to behold.
And now, in the spirit of balance, two complaints:
1. New York City has got the be the only city around that has an admissions price. If you need to get into the city, you HAVE to pay somebody.
Bridge? Toll.
Tunnel(s)? Toll.
Train? Ticket.
Ferry? Ticket.
Swim? Arrested.
It's just an expensive city. You can go in and do nothing and go home and it costs you about $100, minimum. Money seems to evaporate from your wallet, as if by magic. Add in dinner and drinks and shopping and maybe a show, and you may as well have flown to Mexico for a weekend. It would probably have been cheaper, and at least it was warm. Which is an amazingly well-crafted segue into my last complaint.
2. It is always amazingly cold during Christmas in the city. When you get over the Hudson and step foot in Manhattan, it's like stepping into a freezer. Like a freezer that doubles as a wind tunnel. Tourists who visit often don't own a scarf, but they almost always buy one while they're here. Which I like. I bet that there are thousands of "city scarves" scattered all over the country, even the world. They're great conversation pieces:
"Yeah, that's my city scarf. Got it when we went to New York last Christmas. You would not believe how cold it is there. Kinda makes you appreciate the weather here in Kansas." *sigh*

A Christmas Photo Album - taking a page from Chris Moore (see Ch. 13)

I sometimes find myself wishing I had pictures of certain moments, sort of a "fly on the wall" hidden camera kind of thing. But these moments just aren't conducive to cameras; you just can't capture and keep that sort of spontaneity. So I thought it might be fun to put them into existence here:

We're in a crowded pup, somewhere on the lower east side. Coats, scarves, and gloves are piled high on a table in the front window. Six sit, three on each side, shoulder-to-shoulder. They smile as they raise shot glasses of peppermint schnapps. All have rosy cheeks and noses, and two of the guys have slightly fogged glasses. The bar is noisy with chatter and old Christmas music, but all at the table listen to the toast being proposed. There are three couples in the group, and each one holds hands with their partner under the table.
A couple huddles together on the last ferry back across the Hudson to New Jersey. They make this trip every year during the holidays. The different shopping bags that sit on the seats beside them suggest a fun day in the city, which is exactly what it was. She is already fast asleep on his shoulder, even though it's only a quick ride and the river is choppy.
The little girl is bundled up under so many layers that she moves like a rusty tin man: no joints. But she obviously couldn't care less. She is holding her father's hand and her mother stands beside them, carrying her young brother. They are standing in front of the first of 5 windows at Saks, on a noisy and crowded 5th Avenue. When we see her, the music has just begun to play and the enormous pop-up book has just opened to reveal a scene depicting the Thanksgiving Day Parade. Her face is frozen in the kind of delight that only a child of her age can feel. Others looking at the window seem to enjoy her reaction, as they all wear smiles of their own.
We are on Central Park West, moving north. On the left: beautiful (expensive) apartment buildings. On the right: Central Park. It is about 8pm and cold. The wind has grabbed steam rising from a grate on the sidewalk, carried it in a stream down the street a ways, and (as if it was a real living thing) taken a left onto 72nd street. The sidewalk is empty, except for our couple. They have been walking to a Christmas party at a friends place. As we find them here, they are standing at a crosswalk, watching the steam flow around the corner. He has his arm around her shoulder, and she is leaning into him with her hand inside his coat. It's a sweet gesture, and he seems to be smiling.

CHRISTMAS BREAK!

2005-12-29T09:24:00.000-05:00

Hey guys, sorry I didn't announce this earlier: I'm taking a Christmas break. We have some family in town, and we're all kinds of busy until after the new year. But we are doing some pretty interesting things that I'll be sure to make up for the lack of posting.
Til then, a selection from my original poem The Christmas Limerick, which was my gift to my wife (it was mostly gift cards attached to a poem:

Start your day with a nice latte.
From the nation's most well-known cafe.
I know it's expensive,
But don't look so pensive*.
I had the foresight to prepay. (see attached Starbucks gift card)

*Alternative rhyme for those with poor vocabularies:
It's expensive, I know
But don't look so low.

I am a strong, sexy black man.

2005-12-13T11:40:00.000-05:00

I officially win the Google Search Award (we'll call it a Googy?) in the category of:
Best First Result In A Search Of Your Own Name That Is Not You.
Robert Calhoun Sings!

Lists, Volume 1 (only released in Japan, very rare)

2005-12-11T13:54:00.000-05:00

I'm going to take a page from an old friend today, and start things off with a few lists.
To paraphrase the book High Fidelity......that's right, the book, not the movie......I think it's important WHAT you like, not necessarily what you ARE like. "Books, records, films – these things matter! Call me shallow, it’s the fucking truth."
I kind of like this idea, so don't be surprised to see it pop up again.

List of things I'm supposed to be doing instead of writing on this blog
-mop the floors
-clean the garage
-laundry (check)
-clean bathrooms (check)
-dust
-Christmas cards
-pay bills
(The reader should know that this is not a normal Sunday. We have people coming over this week, and although I've assured my wife that my friends would much rather me spend the day reading The Sunday Times and drinking coffee, she has convinced me otherwise.)

Books I've read in the last 2 months or so
-The Plot Against America
-Lamb
-The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror
-Liars Poker
-Fortune's Formula

Music currently stuck in heavy rotation
-the new John Mayer Trio album, Try!
-Anthony Hamilton, Comin' From Where I'm From (which incidentaly is Charlotte, NC.)
-Pete Yorn, Day I Forgot
-a Christmas album by the Rat Pack

Favorite things about living here in Jersey
-proximity to NYC (25 miles-ish)
-snow (currently about 10 inches)
-I make more money than I'd make if i were still in SC
-great Italian restaurants/pizza joints/bagel shops on nearly every corner
-proximity to NYC
-great farmers markets (it is the Garden State, folks)

Least favorite things about living here in Jersey
-snow (it took me 30 minutes to get all of it off my car before work on Friday)
-don't you people eat ANYTHING else besides Italian food or pizza? I will burn the next new Italian restaurant that opens to the ground, and replace it with a Chick-fil-a.
-the strange mix of idiots and old people who are on the roads nearly 24 hours a day.

*I would make a list of the things that I like and dislike about South Carolina as well, but the things that I like seem to be mostly restaurants that I can't eat at up here (Chick-fil-a, Zaxby's, Wild Wings, Sullivans, etc) and the things that I hate tend to be those garden variety racist redneck slow-driving under-educated and under-ambitious over-drunk-all-the-time things that everybody thinks of when they sterotype the south. So what's the point in enumerating those?

Things that my dog Cooper has eaten today
-dog food, wet and dry
-a cardboard paper towel roll
-half a piece of bacon from my breakfast
-a Wheat Thin
-an empty plastic Diet Coke bottle

Movies that I want to see
-Brokeback Mountain
-Aeon Flux
-King Kong
-Syriana
-Walk The Line
-Chicken Little

Funniest list from McSweeney's today
"If Yosemite Sam's Curses Were Considered Real Profanity and Were Dubbed Over for Television in the Same Clumsy, Unconvincing Manner as 1980sR-Rated Movies."
-Original Version: Get outta there, you rassa-frassin' fur-bearin' critter!
Censored Version: Get outta there, you wrestle-freezing, forebearing creature!

-Original: Great horny toads! I done dug myself all the way to Chinee!
Censored: Great happy toads! I done dug myself all the way to ... is this Asia?

-Original: Cut the cards. Not that way, you idget!
Censored: Cut the cards. Not that way, you widget!

-Original: Now, ya racka-frackin' carrot-chewin' varmint! Get a-goin'!
Censored: Now, ya really freaky parrot-screwin' charmer! Get a-goin'!
Recensored: Now, ya rack of funky garrote-spewin' varnish! Get a-goin'!

-Original: Listen here, galoot! I'm the rootinest, tootinest here outlaw in the West!
Censored: Listen here! Salud! I'm the fresh 'n' fruitinest here outlaw in the West!

-Original: If they make me jump off that diving board one more motherfuckin' time, I swear to God ... How many takes could they possibly need?
Censored: Ooooooooooooh, I HATES rabbits!

-Original: Consarn it!
Censored: Daaaaaayum!

Ok, that's more than enough for now. More interesting posts to come later, I'm sure (read: I hope).

12/10/05

2005-12-11T01:24:00.000-05:00

Me and Cooper playing in the snow. I mean look at the size of those ears.

The First Of Many Witty Titles

2005-12-10T22:59:00.000-05:00

One of the great questions of the 21st century, i think, is this:
How do you start a blog? Or more specifically, how should the first post go? How best to display my wit?
Let's start off with a little introduction; a bio.
My name is Robb Calhoun. I grew up in Anderson, SC and went to T.L. Hanna High. Moved on to Clemson University for undergrad (Management), then back for grad school (Economics). While in school, I met a stunning girl from New Jersey who went to Furman. After graduation we moved to North Jersey and got married. We live in a townhouse about 25 miles outside of NYC, and I work as an analyst/trader/portfolio manager for an asset management firm here in Jersey.
Holy shit that was boring. But necessary, I'm sure.
The main reason I'm starting this blog is simply to write. Hard as it may be to believe, lots of stuff goes on in this area to write about. I find myself giving these amazingly well-crafted off-the-cuff rants and long rambling diatribes to my dog. And Cooper is really smart, mind you (he figured out how to turn our Christmas tree lights on and off using the clicker button near the base of the tree. Who would lie about this shit?), but I doubt he appreciates that kind of stuff as much as, you know, a person might.
So, here we go folks. Read, critique, interact, enjoy yourselves.