Random Thoughts

Some more random things that you probably have zero interest in:

• While watching the NBA Finals last night (Go Lakers!), I noticed that GM ran an ad about how although they were bankrupt, they still have awesome plans in the works. Hey, wait a minute, GM. Let me repeat, you're bankrupt. This is even with a extra couple billion dollars in your pockets after the big bailout. And somehow, after being terrible enough to burn through all of this cash, you are spending big dollars running an ad campaign about how awesome your plans are? And people wonder what's wrong with the automotive industry in the U.S.
  
• Dwight Howard has the broadest shoulders in the history of humanity. This is a scientifically proven fact*
  
• When did they stop making regular shorts? All I ever see these days are either plaid shorts, or regular colored shorts with 50 cargo pockets sewed onto them. Can't I just get a regular solid colored pair of shorts sans ancillary pocketage? Why is this not an option anymore?
• And on that note, how come I can't buy multi-colored striped knee high socks to wear with aforementioned shorts?
  
• In my hometown of Monterey Park, CA, some of the officials running for city office used to send pot holders in the mail to each resident with their names printed on them. I guess the hope was that we'd remember their names by using them often. My sister was baking something the last time I was home, and promptly burned her hand using this flimsy pot holder. I said, come on, if you were dumb enough to trust Judy Chu to protect your hands, you deserve to get burned. So, Judy Chu, if you wanted us to remember your name, mission accomplished! However, just know that we associate it with crappiness.
  
• Wi-fi on Virgin America is the best idea since live TV on airplanes. Flying is now just like being in my living room, only with more neon lights and a very, very tiny couch.
  
• Science has shown that skinny jeans have proven to be an indicator of mental retardation in males.*
• This is a fun article.
• I like dogs.
  

* Keep in mind that "science" is defined in this blog as "stuff that seems true to me with utter disregard for fact"

Feeling oh so swine

Swine flu. It's all I hear about these days. On the news, on the web, even on everyone's Facebook and Twitter statuses. I can't escape it. And I'm sure it's no laughing matter, but isn't this whole thing a bit overblown? I looked up the average data on yearly flu related deaths on the CDC website and found the following:

Every year in the United States, on average: 5% to 20% of the population gets the flu; more than 200,000 people are hospitalized from flu-related complications; and about 36,000 people die from flu-related causes.

Here's the current stats on the swine flu: 109 reported cases, 1 death. Any sort of death is lamentable, but in the grand scheme of things, this strain of flu seems no worse than any other strain of flu that we encounter each and every year. Again from the CDC:

The symptoms of swine flu in people are similar to the symptoms of regular human flu and include fever, cough, sore throat, body aches, headache, chills and fatigue... Like seasonal flu, swine flu in humans can vary in severity from mild to severe.

But yet, the Mexican Football Federation says all pro soccer games in Mexico this weekend will be played without fans in an effort to slow the spread of swine flu and high school and college games have been cancelled altogether to curb the spread of swine flu. Why don't we do the same to curb the spread of the regular flu if it's just as, or even more deadly? Am I completely underreacting to this? Is underreacting even a word?

Someone please enlighten me if I should be running out and buying a mask tonight. Until then, I'll just react to this the way I've reacted to the bird flu. Wake me up when it's over.

Worst Recession Discount Ever

I got this email from Ticketmaster yesterday:



Sadly, I missed out on saving an extra 5% to something I have no interest in at all because I didn't check my email fast enough. Oh no! How can I live with myself knowing that I could have saved a couple bucks on tickets I would not even spend a couple cents to buy?

How did I even get on a Sparks mailing list? Because I used Ticketmaster to buy Lakers tickets a few times? If the common ground here is basketball, let me throw this out there: Both NYPD Blue and Cop Rock were TV shows about cops, but the approach and the execution were very, very different. Let's not pretend it's all the same, shall we?

Set It and Forget It

Behold. The madness that is the Showtime Rotisserie Grill. For some reason this thing was a crazy hit seller about 10 years back. The only question, why?

Because in reality, you're paying about $200 for this tool, which still doesn't actually do anything, until you:

1. Buy a raw chicken
2. Clean it
3. Prep it
4. Place the raw chicken in the Showtime Grill
5. Set it
6. Forget it
7. Wait 1 hour
8. Pull flaming hot rotisserie chicken out of grill
9. Take flaming hot rotisserie chicken off the flaming hot chicken holding unit
10. Put flaming hot rotisserie chicken on plate
11. Eat rotisserie chicken
12. Go back in the kitchen and clean grill

OR, you could just do the following:

1. Go to grocery store
2. Buy rotisserie chicken
3. Eat rotisserie chicken

All for about $2 more than buying a raw chicken. Um, is this really a difficult decision? You'd have to cook about 100 chickens for the grill to break even on the cost vs. buying the fully cooked chicken, not to mention the 50 other ridiculous steps needed.

Showtime Rotisserie Grill owners... you all fail.

*Special thanks to Jenn for making me think about this lame product this afternoon.

A Valentine's Day Card For You...

Thought it would be nice to have a Valentine's Day card that my readers could download and share with their loved ones. Enjoy everyone! And, have a very happy Valentine's Day!

Random Thoughts

Some random thoughts on a Wednesday evening...

• Why is good mexican food so hard to find in NYC? It really doesn't seem that hard to make. Spices, meat, tortillas... am I missing something here? Note to all taco truck operators in California -- if you move to NYC there's an absolute KILLING to be made here. Seriously.
  
• Do not buy 2-in-1 stain and polyurethane. It way too hard to control the depth of color and amount of sheen this way. Definitely buy them separately. It's a little bit more work, but you'll thank me in the long run.
  
• Whoever created the 25 things about me phenomenon on Facebook, kudos to you! Even I'm surprised at what a phenomenon it's become. Although, I highly doubt it was just some individual user somewhere in the world that started this. I'm sure Facebook slyly perpetuated the chain letter to make people aware of the Facebook Notes feature, and show an example of why you'd want to tag people in a Note. Well played, Zuckerberg.
  
• If you can't trust Chris Brown, who can you trust? Next thing you'll tell me is that Kobe Bryant isn't as nice as he seems.
  
• Lost has me completely lost.
  
• I've pretty much given up on Heroes, but I hear rumors that it's actually watchable again... true?
  
• For some reason I'm actually excited about the G.I. Joe movie. Yo Joe!
  
• I do not feel the same way about the Watchmen movie though.
  
• Watchamals are too cool. Too cool!
  
• Did you know that guitars can dehydrate and start to collapse and crack? I learned this the hard way. Proper humidity is key, guitar owners of the world.
  
• If I was in Hawaii and a magical talking sea turtle swam up to me and told me a bad joke that really wasn't that funny, I'd still pretend to laugh. Just FYI.
  
• Yes, I'm blogging again after a 3 month hiatus. Why? Well, I never really meant to stop. The real world just got the better of me. So I'm back, people. I'm sure none of you really care. But I care. So there. Nyeah.
  

Chris Brown. And Black. And Blue.

As you've probably heard by now, singer Chris Brown has been accused of assaulting his girlfriend and fellow superstar, Rihanna this past weekend. Pretty big allegations that could land Brown in the slammer for 9 solid years.

The thing I wonder the most is this... was Ne-Yo licking his chops when he heard the news? Not that he wasn't sad for Rihanna, because domestic violence is a terrible, terrible thing. But in a small way, don't you think a little part of him was jumping for joy because he knows he gets to move up a rung on the R&B/Soul ladder?

I always felt like his fame got derailed by the emergence of Brown. They're basically the same dude in terms of type of song and general danciness (probably not a word, but I'm sticking with it). But poor Ne-Yo got brushed aside once Chris Brown hit puberty. Well, not so fast, music fans. There's a new sheriff in town. One that doesn't beat his gal pals (at least not that we know of).

Best PR of the Year

The best PR move of 2009 so far was pulled off by none other than... the Queensland Tourist and Travel Corporation? Yes indeed, by sponsoring the "Best Job in the World" contest, Australia's most lovable province has bought more attention than any advertising money could have ever provided.

For those of you who didn't see the contest, the job consists of living on an island in Australia for 6 months in a million dollar home, swimming in the Great Barrier Reef, soaking in the Australian sun, and blogging about it from time to time. That's it.

The site generated tens of millions of views, enough to bring the server crashing down for much of the first couple weeks after the announcement. The promotion also led to tons of radio and TV interviews from stations all around the world. Not bad for the cost of letting one freeloader lounge around on the beach for 6 months.

Tourism in general has declined in Australia, so they needed a way to bring people to the island in an innovative way, given limited advertising dollars. Well, kudos, my friends... you did it! Now, if there was only a way I could land this job myself...

It's Just Miley, Being Miley

From TMZ.com

Yet more people putting pee pee in your coke. Miley Cyrus (she's dead center in the pic, the 16 year-old girl who's sitting on her 20 year-old boyfriend's lap... but that's another issue altogether) is showing us how cool being racist is. OMG! Racism... *hugs*!

That one kid next to Miley has really got the look down, by the way. I mean the slant eyes on that kid are dead on. What's that? He is actually asian? Not just looking slant eyed for the sheer mockery of it? Oh. Right. Do you think he even knows what's going on around him in this photo? Actually do any of these kids? They all look pretty blitzed, and again, Miley is only 16 years old, so that's a pretty early age to get oh so wasted.

Eh, whatever. Billy Ray probably doesn't care, as long as the checks keep coming in from his little cash cow. Moo.

The Shake Shack

Today I had lunch at the Shake Shack, which if you aren't versed in Manhattan eats, is the very hyped, uber crowded outdoor dining joint in Madison Square Park. I've eaten there in the past, but didn't pay close attention at the time. This time around I have a couple tips to pass along, just in case anyone out there is considering a Shake Shack snack.

Tip #1 - Get there before Noon. Ideally at 11:30am. Unless, of course, you enjoy waiting for over an hour in line to get a hamburger. Because sometimes that's fun too.

Tip #2 - Unless you're a really big fan of "secret sauce" you should probably just get a cheeseburger instead of a Shackburger. Double cheeseburger? $6.50 each. Shackburger? $7.75 each. Both have lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, and two burger patties. So essentially you're paying $1.25 for ketchup mixed with mayo.

Tip #3 - The Double Stack and Shack Stack burgers are, in theory, amazing. The Double Stack is a cheeseburger topped with a deep fried portabello mushroom which has been stuffed with two kinds of cheese. Yes, you read that correctly. Can't quite picture it? Let me help:



The Shack Stack adds another hamburger patty to the mix, just in case your arteries were a little too free-flowing. The first three bites? The way the cheese explodes out its deep fried mushroom envelope and merges with the hamburger patty and bun below? Heavenly. Unfortunately, as you keep chomping, the grease and oil start to build up, like a cholesterol-fueled Voltron, as the flavorful mix begins a civil war with your stomach. My suggestion? Split this baby with someone else if you're going to try it.

In the grand scheme of NYC burgers, I'm not on board with Shake Shack as my favorite. Burger Joint in the Parker Meridien is my #1 in NYC, with good ol' In N' Out still my all-time fav. Care to disagree? I'm all ears.