Tuesday Poll

I'm going to start trying to introduce some recurring posts, mostly as a cop-out of having to think of posts as regularly.

Tuesdays are going to be poll days. You can find the polling button at the top right of the main page. Please vote.

Today's question is inspired by a comment that I heard on NPR in the drive in this morning. (I specify NPR not because it makes me sounds like a New England College Professor in multiple committed relationships. But because the subject matter). Today apparently is Paris's B-day and the announcer introduced her as "Socialite and factor in the 2008 Presidential campaign."

This made me think of some other potential NPR/Paris synergies and the poll is a result of that.

Please vote early and often and include any ideas that I missed out in the comments.

Tribute Post

I've been a bit busy at work and I want to use that as an excuse for my lack of blogging, but who isn't so I will avoid.  I also was on the road last week, but seeing as that has been the norm for about 2.5 years, I really can't use that as a good excuse either.  So maybe I go excuse-less and just try to pick up where I left off. 

I had planned on taking some time to write a nice thoughtful post, but after nosamrellim made such a nice request for a post, I thought it was better idea to change my blogging format a bit, so this is my take on the nosamrellim format, but with the Andy twist, despite it being a nosamrellim tribute post, any shortcomings and/or offense caused are all my own.

1. Wine corks are an awful idea.  I mean cork was the height of packaging technology about the time that wine was invented. But X,000 year later, can't we do better.  I can't count the number of times that I've either broke a cork, or had to cork a bottle of wine because I suck at getting the cork out.  Now I'm not talking about every other bottle or anything, but it's one of those things where you only remember if it has gone wrong. I don't remember the 99 time I successfully opened a bottle of wine, but i sure as hell remember 6 weeks ago when I accidentally pushed a cork through the bottle and the wine sprayed up and got all over my shirt.  I can't remember ever having ruined a shirt trying to open a beer?  It's really hard to jam a screw top down a bottle.

Furthermore, not only is cork sub-optimal in terms of ease, it also poses a significant risk to the quality of the wine.  When you taste wine at a restaurant, you aren't tasting it to see if you like it, you're tasting it to see if the cork has malfunctioned and the wine is now vinegar! This would only be an ingrained part of the wine experience if it was a relatively common occurrence. 

So cork is neither easier nor better at it's sole purposes which is preserving wine.  The only reason we still use it is tradition. And I'll admit that there is something to that, but with so much tradition in wine anyway, can't we take a pass on the cork.  Leave the French pronunciations, but for the sake of my pride and my dress shirts, I really hope we see more screwtop wine soon. 

2. One thing that there isn't enough of out there is people passing out pamphlets.  I love people who pass out pamphlets.  Yes! Give them to me. Let's communicate, share your ideas with me in a polite and passive way.  I don't want to be shouted at, I don't want you asking me "Do you have 5 mins for the environment," (which is insulting to the environment and my intelligence). But yeah, if you care enough to print something up, I want to read it. 

I grabbed one the other day outside my grocery store for vegetarianism. I looked at it and read it.  It took me maybe 5 mins, I read it while I was walking, and then threw it away.  I still remember what it said.  I'm not going to become a vegetarian, but i definitely thought about the pamphlet when I was ordering a slice of pizza later that night.  (I got cheese). 

It's not that I think I or many other people are going to be swayed by pamphlets, or that something going to change the world (although, I guess just ask Thomas Paine for proof that they can) but I really like the idea of people reaching out to others with their ideas. It's kinda like a blog, but a lot more personal. Thanks to google I do have some sense who reads this blog, but only in terms of bits and bytes. If I was printing up a pamphlet, standing on a corner and looking these people in the eye, I know I would feel a more personal connection to this thing.  It's good to hear new (even wacky) ideas about vegetarianism, Scientology or (wacky)Ron Paul.  Now I may think your idea/Ron Paul is ridiculous, but it still does me a world of good to hear about it. So keep passing that stuff out, I'm going to keep grabbing them. 

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Bankruptcy Update

Just so everyone is aware.  The foray into reader bankruptcy and rebirth has been a massive failure.
 
Not only did my unread posts count climb quickly back into the 000's (like in 2 days) but unsubscribing hasn't seemed to help the problem one bit. Now I have been busy the past few weekends, and focusing on reading a couple different books before bed, but at the same time, I find it hard to believe that I am simply incapable of keeping up.
What's worse is that the blogs that are causing the most trouble are some of the ones that I really value.  Huff Post, The Guardian, Gizmodo and others who posts on an obscene frequency, a pace that I'll never catch up to, but who's posts I really do value. 
I'm at a bit of an impasse it seems.  I genuinely think I would be better served to control my reading list, but at the same time I really want to keep these blogs.  One option that I've considered it getting the Huff Post on the Kindle, and unsubscribing. I'm not sure if this is the way to go however, since I'm a bit uncertain about paying for the Kindle version for a blog that I can get for free.  Regardless, I'm going to give it a few more weeks and see if I can get caught up.  If not, I need to reevaluate something.
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North Country

As I type I'm driving back from a great ski weekend in Wisconsin. A lot of good friends (including a surprise visit from a fellow blogger who I don't get to see enough), good beer, good food and good midwestern skiing.

There's something really refreshing about the northwoods and being outside. At one point during the evening we all walked down to the frozen lake that our friends cabin was on. We walked out onto the ice with some beers and crawled through the 2-3 feet of powder that accumulated up there. Standing there staring at the stars it was a really cool feeling. Cold air on your face, fresh everything. Fresh air, fresh snow. I think it really taps into the part of the human condition that needs space, and needs contact with nature and needs raw, unrefined experience. Everything we do/eat/feel has been processed, shipped pasteurized, filtered. To get a raw experience every now and then is so critical to who we are. Putting down the brita, staying outside a little longer in the cold, feeling sore as hell from moving up and down a mountain all weekend.

I'm really lucky to be able to experience these things, and really lucky to have friends who do them with me, and lucky to have friends who share there nice things, cars, cabins etc that make it work.

All in all and fantastic weekend. Attached are some rudimentary pics.
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