Top Chef

 

Cream Puff has done it again with her Chef Gregory Barnhill, winning Best Entree and Best in Show at the Colorado Springs Chorale Chefs Gala . OK its not the Food Network and they are a AAA Four-Diamond restaurant and they did make surf and turf and sir sous vide short rib scallop and duck confit (Sorry Carrot Chopper) with asparagus and saffron potato puree. How can that dish not win!

Fast Friends

If you have been paying attention you will have noticed that the Carrott Chopper and the Buttery Stick have been tearing up the NCAA Div I track circuit as of late. Chopper was named to the Academic All-Mid-American Conference  squad for track and for Cross Country and has been breaking PR's like she rips the heads off of carrots. Winning a steeple chase event at UR and frequently being the top distance runner at UB. Meanwhile, Buttery Stick ran a PR of 3:45 at a 1500 meter event. For those of you keeping score at home, that's equivalent to a 4 :02 mile or a 4:00 mile if you ask Sticks Mom Mrs Prozak. This maven of the margarine is closing in on breaking the 4 min/mile barrier! Not too shabby! And that's two of the fastest 'friends' I know! I will refer to them collectively as Carrot Stick.

**Notice the mid-foot strike running form of Chopper and Stick as talked about in my previous blog.

How to Make the Run

Last year Buttery Sticks loaned me a great book entitle "Born to Run". I have been forefoot running ever since and recently bought a pair of these Newton Running shoes. Turns out we have been running incorrectly since Bill Bowerman founded Nike.

The Haggler

There is this great NY Times column entitled "The Haggler". Basically the guy asks readers to send in experiences in which they have been ripped off or annoyed by some company. Well, here is my haggle of the day, its called "We are approaching Technology paralysis". and I emphasize this really happened!

I wanted to call my uncle in England, so I use my skype account, the connection was horrible, so I tried my google voice account. My Java Plug in was out of date, so I had to upgrade that. Then I had to add some funds to my google voice account using my credit card, at which point my credit card company thought it was a suspicious charge and called me on my cell phone, at which point I had to log into my credit card account online, which required me to verify my identity by typing in a security code, which was sent to me via text message. Whew! I am really yearning to go back to that old landline where when you wanted to call someone you just picked up the phone and dialed.

Fruit Company Executives caught doing it again

I was going to apologize for equating the Fruit Companies CEO's practices to a dog licking his genitals but as soon as I turn my head away..Apple is Price Fixing...He starts licking them again.

Which brings me to the latest i device the iLickmyselfbecauseican

$378 million are you kidding me...

I recently found out the Fruit company CEO was paid $378 million last year...

Man I really hope he can scape by on that..Perhaps they could have paid him a $1M less and he could have forgone the gold plated option on his new Bentley...

Why do they get paid so much...I guess its not really about what they do for the money..did they earn it..or are they worth it or heavens to Betsy they might leave the company..no they get paid so much for the same reason a dog licks his genitals..because he can..they get paid so much because they can...The CEO is the only position in the entire company whose pay is determined by people they control...the board of directors. So this is why CEO's get paid 300 times the average workers salary while 20 years ago they were paid 30 times and average workers salary..So lets do ourselves a favor..Everyone buy 1 share of Fruit company stock..We are going to have to spend $600 a piece for that precious stuff and vote no at the shareholders meeting when they ask us to approve the executive compensation. I propose we allow the CEO's to be paid $1 million a year and they can figure out how to scrape by on that....

I got this e-mail the other day...thought it was ironic

I really need some sort of device that allows me to easily check my email from anywhere so I don't end up out of touch.... 

Sent from my iPhone - :)

Well at least everyone is not completely obsessed with all the features....

Some more new iDevices

Not long after I posted about the useless distractions of the i series products from that computer company named after fruit, we discover their evil ways of manufacturing such devices for cheap. Not only are the devices ruining our society, the way they manufacture them does so as well. So I came up with some more i devices to amuse you.

The iMadeaFortuneExploitingChineseLabor
The iDidntKnowThisandWillMakeitRight - I see this a lot, from many different companies
The iCantManufactureintheUStherereNotEnoughEngineersHere - Quoted by Steve J... Bull Sh..
Right now I am not making a face but a hand gesture.

The iDistraction

I just finished the biography of a very fascinating person. He invented some consumer devices which made him rich, famous and known as one of the most influential people of our time. Unfortunately, as I see it, the fruits of his labor have actually caused more harm than good.

The first product the "iBankrupter" causes the user to go bankrupt 99 cents at a time. It also causes the user to lose complete hearing function.

The next device the "iDistractor" causes the following symptoms in the user

1) Temporary but complete loss of function of one hand.
2) Temporary partial loss of function of the other hand
3) Causes the user to not look where they are walking and run into people
4) User will stop walking unexpectedly, unknowingly blocking pedestrian traffic
5) User will stare at the device for hours on end ignoring all people within the vicinity
6) User will crash car due to unexpected and unavoidable urge to use the device
7) Once owned by the user the device become a part of them and must be within 4 feet of them at all times.

The final device is the "iTimeWaster". No one knew they needed one of these until they came out and now they are so desired that the version that they had to have 6 months ago, now will just not do and causes the consumer to wait all night in line to fork over $600 for the newest model because "Its screen in sharper".
The iTimeWaster is a device that the user will stare at doing things they can already do in other ways but in a manner so portable it supplants ordinary conversation for a bunch of people sitting around staring at screens.

So if you are addicted to any of these devices there should be a way to get clean.
You know, they need an App for that!

Turning the world on its head

Suppose the financial model of the music industry worked like this. The artists are employed by record companies who also owned all the record stores (or iTunes store). The artists wrote produced and performed music for a flat salary. After the songs were written they became the sole property of the record companies and the artists could be fired or have their salary reduced at the whim of the record companies. It was illegal for the artists to bring their songs to other record companies and for other record companies to hire artists or use their current catalog at the new company. The sales clerks in the record stores were paid salaries higher than artists and are given bonus incentives to sell the artists work. The executives of the record companies are paid salaries 384 times higher than the artists. Ludicrous you say....

Well this is the model that business follows every day. The artists are the engineers, scientists and inventors and the record companies are the corporations. If an engineer uses his or her creative talents to develop an award winning product which results in 500 Million dollars a year sales. He or she will receive no royalties for the results of their work. For the resulting patents, that engineer will receive $1 in compensation. That's per patent mind you so it not quite so bad.

The less you know about some things... the better

When I was a young college intern at General Motors I used to play tennis with a group of guys after work. After tennis we would sit on my friends back porch and he would bring us frosty glasses of draft beer from the keg in his garage. Seemed great, life was good. Then one day I wanted another beer and I volunteered to get it myself. I grabbed a fresh glass from the freezer and poured myself a cold one. I asked him what to do with my used glass and he said to put it on the towel on top of the fridge. I figured he washed them later. Then one day as I was leaving, I saw him put the used glasses on the towel directly back into the freezer.

I can apply this metaphor to many situations I have encountered in life. You are fat dumb and happy until you realize your drinking frozen backwash swill from dozens of other people.

So what have I learned..... As the saying on the best beer I have ever tasted goes.. Drink from the Can!

No Impact man tries to go greener..or browner...

Full Disclosure....I was practicing the technique featured in the above video.
That was until the Red Queen asked me what the hell was the deal with those sh--t rags in the bathroom, then she yelled "Off with his head" and now I am back to toilet paper.

No Impact Man

I have been ruined for life! Why you ask....

Well I read this book entitled 'No Impact Man'. There is an accompanying documentary which you can watch on Netflix. But the book is way better than the movie. Find it at your local library as to have the minimum impact. 

http://noimpactproject.org/

But back to the original question of why I have been ruined. The book follows a man who attempts to live for one year and make zero garbage (no landfill impact), produce zero carbon emissions (Do you know what they call a pile of horse manure in the road? that's called an Amish Carbon Footprint). and buy only local produce and goods. He even goes so far as to not buy anything new. The guy ends up drinking spoiled milk and living in the dark but that's his dilemma, now here is mine.....

When you combine a person trying to be more socially responsible (worried about the impacts we are making to global warming, Arab oil, Chinese goods, landfills, pollution, water usage etc.) with a warped engineering mind that is always trying to optimize everything, with a person with limited funds and resources and what do you get.....You get me. How you ask...let me give you an example.

I was riding my bike to work to try to save some money on gas...when one day I almost passed out on the way home. A quick calculation showed I was burning an extra 2000 calories a day to cycle the 50 miles round trip. So I started buying an extra sandwich. Well that costs about $6. So another quick calculation and I find out riding your bike costs twice as much as driving your car when you factor in the food you need to fuel your body. Per mile traveled, food is 3 times more expensive than gas . So bag the biking too expensive. So in this analysis I discover it costs 0.34 cents per car mile traveled. That's everything for the life of the car. So now I am doing these freaking calculations in my head every time I do anything, should I pay the extra $2.00 ATM fee, well yes I should if the drive to my own banks ATM is more than 5 miles out of my way. Ridiculous I know. But you would really be surprised at the results you get when you do the math. Cheapest way to heat your house....Electricity. Can you believe it. I cant even put saran wrap around a vegetable without weighing the impact it will have on my checkbook and the environment. Is it better to put it in tupperware? I told you I am ruined....My friend just recommended I watch a movie about people who dumpster dive for their food. Its called "Dive". So you can look for my feet sticking up from the dumpster at that W place...oh wait ..they sell stuff in the store which is way past its due date..I shall be dumpster diving at Trader Joes!

How to Make the Posse

 Everyone needs a posse. here is mine

Psychologist

 

Savory Chef (Its a wonder I don't weigh 300 lbs)

Pastry Chef. (If she lived at home full time I would weigh 300 lbs)

Bike Guru, muse, fellow lover of Bitter Ales.

You got to love a guy in a stocking cap and a leather apron.

Uh, er ,uh....he helps me keep it real.

Mixed Up Martial Arts Trainers.

Fruitshi Chef.