tech editors are idiots

it's the end of the year and of course this means everyone is doing their stupid end of the year 2008 wrap ups best of this worst of that lists. and for some reason, a bunch of tech column writers have decided that the peek is awesome. in fact, it is so awesome that it is in the running for time magazine's gadget of the year. the peek, if you don't know, is a small handheld wireless device that lets you check your email. that's it. you can't surf the web. you can't talk to your friends. you can't text message. you can't even check your work email, just web-mail. it costs $100 to buy the device and about $20/m for service. i can see how you might think this is awesome, if it was oh, maybe 1998, about a year or so before blackberries came out. but these days my dog can get her email on her cell phone. so why would anyone buy this thing and why would people who are alleged technology pundits think this thing is so great?

how dan missed out on the second biggest single-day gain in the stock market ever.

last week i had decided that i'd had enough of sitting this one out and watching my retirement slip further and further into the future. i moved my international investments into us value oriented funds. then on monday i decided it was time to start buying some stocks. overseas markets were down 10-12-14 percent monday and the us market were about even. the week before i had transferred some money to my ING account, who now operates their brokerage program through sharebuilder. i put the order in to buy monday night after the markets closed. today the s&p had it second biggest single-day gain ever. up over 10%. awesome, right? i logged into my sharebuilder account to check out the massive amounts of money i had surely made today. the order i put in monday night? still "processing". seriously though, we're not talking about a lot of money, but if i were someone else, it could have been. mostly i'm mad because honestly, i have no idea what i'm doing with my investments and there's basically no chance of me timing the market that well ever again. ever. fuck.

trucknutz. tacky? yes. illegal? also yes.

what are trucknutz? they are exactly what they sound like. they are testicles for your truck, now available in camouflage. who puts these things on their trucks? pretty much exactly who you'd expect. oh, and a state senator from florida whose wife recently made him remove them from his, as he put it, "pimped out" truck. of course, if his wife hadn't made them remove him, the local morality enforcement division police department would have. just the other day florida passed legislation banning what state senator jim king described as "an expression of truckliness". to be honest, i'm torn about whether this guy should be in office or not.

my thoughts? how kind of you to ask. i understand some people might find these things offensive, but unfortunately, offending people is one of the costs of free speech. i know it's a reach (around?) to call trucknutz free speech and that argument gets used probably way more often than it should, but you can't just go banning stuff because some people find it offensive. and secondly, doesn't the florida legislature have anything better to do than debate the societal pitfalls of trucknutz?

superbowl

superbowl superbowl superbowl. that's right. none of this "big game" bullshit. and what's more, i fully intend to give a verbal account of the game monday without expressed written consent.

in your face poor people

laura and i just went to the inn at little washington for dinner for her birthday. the tally, not including gas: approximately $405. was it worth it? unlikely. was it delicious and amazing? absolutely. they printed individual menus with our names on them, which we got to take home. the service was ridiculous. they had synchronized servers. two people would come over to our table and pour glass of water at the same time. food swooped in as if from no where and landed in front of us from either side. it was almost silly.

for the first course, laura had the "crispy maryland crabcakes with a trio of sauces: garden sorrel, classic tartar and roasted rep pepper" and i had the "carpaccio of herb crusted baby lamb with tabouli and rosemary mustard".

the second course laura ordered the "macaroni and cheese with virginia county ham and shaved black truffle" and i had "roasted egglplant raviolis in a tomato basil butter sauce with medalions of main lobster".

my main course was "seared alaskan halibut and a maine diver's scallop with a ruby port reduction on a rutabaga puree with local baby turnips". and yes, baby turnips are as adorable as they sound. for laura, they delivered "veal parmesan reincarnated: prosciutto wrapped, pan roasted loin of veal with spinach raviolini and parmesan broth".

and for dessert, i enjoyed the "southern butter pecan ice cream sandwich with hot caramel sauce" and laura took part in the "chocolate menage a trois: black forest mousse bombe, chocolate creme brule and bitter chocolate souffle." i think i saw her eyes tear up a little when she had a bite of the chocolate creme brule. mine had gold leaf on top.


here's a list of things you could eat with $405:

• 5 trips to the melting pot for two
• 11 trips to a casual dining restaurant for two
• 29 large one-topping papa john's pizzas
• 65 whopper combos from burger king
• 162 frozen dinners
• 314 wendy's jr. bacon cheeseburgers
• 506 cans of giant brand chicken noodle soup
• 580lbs of russet potatoes
• 3375 packages of ramen

other things you might consider doing with $405:

• buy a round trip plane ticket to california
• make a car payment
• take you and 9 of your friends to king's dominion for a day
• buy a new ps3
• invest in 2/3rds of a share of google

obesity in america

this morning i witnessed a school bus hold up three lanes of traffic waiting for one kid to get on. it then, and i shit you not, drove half a block to the school and let the kid off. i've included a diagram illustrating what happened for you visual learners.