Throwing Darts

I haven't blogged in a couple of weeks and I'd like to apologize to both my readers (and say hi to you mom!). I've replaced late night blogging with late night coding. Some of the coding has been on InstantEncore and some has been on my new pet project Should I Watch.

I've also been making my rounds on the internet. To see my holiday spirit, go to picture 18 on the Jeff and Jer show's ugly holiday sweater contest (here). Erin encouraged me to dust off the sweater I found last year. The winner of the contest gets $500, but there are some other good ones and I'd say my chances of winning are nill.

I also recently had a "bleg" of mine posted on the Freakonomics blog. If you haven't read the book Freakonomics I highly recommend it. It has made me ask "why" more often. The question I "blegged" was whether there is such a thing as too much data (I asked in relation to the Should I Watch website). A lot of people left insightful comments, so check those out. Thanks again to the freakonomics guys for taking the time to post and answer the bleg. I highly recommend checking out their blog regularly.

In other internet news, Erick Rarick, a co-worker of mine at InstantEncore, was recently on the news in San Diego. The music group he is a part of, Bach Collegium San Diego, was doing a Handel's Messiah concert and the news did a feature about it. You can view the news clip here. Erick is the very first person they show during the piece.

Lastly, I'd like to give a big congratulations to my mom. She was named Alameda Realtor of the year 2008. I think it's even more impressive given the slow down in the economy. Mom always said the bad times were good because it filtered out the realtors who couldn't cut it. Well, clearly mom, you make the cut. I hope they give you a big trophy like when a team wins the championship.

Looking ahead, I've been wanting to write a blog of hydro foiling sailboats. My brother in law, Sean, has been designing (and now sailing) one in NZ and it's one of the coolest things I've seen. Hope to get that out by Christmas. If I don't talk to everyone before then, hope you have a wonderful holiday!

Sometimes Bad is Bad

Let this be a lesson to everyone out there. Don't blog when tired. I actually wrote the following blog...

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It's 1:10am. I'm failing at prettying up the user interface that I'm working on. The team I played ball for tonight lost by 50 (I'm not exaggerating). And the Warriors lost in excruciating fashion in overtime. I'm convinced the coach is losing on purpose. On the bright side, I'm rocking out to Huey Lewis... but of course the current song is "Bad is Bad." Go figure.

At least I'm content knowing that Sports is the coolest name ever for album.

Lessons from Wall Street: Don't write checks for the Auto Companies

I recently read an insightful (and entertaining) article by Michael Lewis about the financial crisis. Actually, it's about people who saw the crisis coming and how they made a fortune off of it. It's a lot more fun to read a story about the crisis from that perspective. You can read the story here. I highly recommend, just for the fact that Lewis is a great writer and makes the story interesting while explaining how we got into this mess.

As an aside, Lewis is the author of Money Ball, a book about how the cash strapped A's managed to stay competitive in baseball by being smarter and applying math, reason, and an outsiders perspective. Another good read.

Back to the story, here is an excerpt from the article about how obvious it was that the housing bubble couldn't last.

At the end of 2004, Eisman, Moses, and Daniel shared a sense that unhealthy things were going on in the U.S. housing market: Lots of firms were lending money to people who shouldn’t have been borrowing it. They thought Alan Greenspan’s decision after the internet bust to lower interest rates to 1 percent was a travesty that would lead to some terrible day of reckoning. Neither of these insights was entirely original. Ivy Zelman, at the time the housing-market analyst at Credit Suisse, had seen the bubble forming very early on. There’s a simple measure of sanity in housing prices: the ratio of median home price to income. Historically, it runs around 3 to 1; by late 2004, it had risen nationally to 4 to 1. “All these people were saying it was nearly as high in some other countries,” Zelman says. “But the problem wasn’t just that it was 4 to 1. In Los Angeles, it was 10 to 1, and in Miami, 8.5 to 1. And then you coupled that with the buyers. They weren’t real buyers. They were speculators.” Zelman alienated clients with her pessimism, but she couldn’t pretend everything was good. “It wasn’t that hard in hindsight to see it,” she says. “It was very hard to know when it would stop.” Zelman spoke occasionally with Eisman and always left these conversations feeling better about her views and worse about the world. “You needed the occasional assurance that you weren’t nuts,” she says. She wasn’t nuts. The world was.

Sometimes the facts are right in your face and you choose to ignore them. I hope we can learn this lesson from the housing/financial crisis and apply it to the auto industry. I've come to the conclusion that we don't want to give the auto companies $25 billion dollars.

At first I saw the hundreds of thousands (or possibly millions) of jobs that relied on the auto companies and thought that they justified saving the companies. However, American car companies don't have a business model that can turn that into profit. They are fundamentally flawed and giving them $25 billion dollars would be like feeding the habit of a drug addict. Even if they switched to making small, fuel efficient cars they are still saddled by enormous contracts and liabilities to the unions that make them uncompetitive with the foreign car companies. It should be plain to see that the car companies can't succeed when they are paying thousands of dollars per car extra to cover union liabilities that their competitors don't. Giving the auto industry the money would be like buying a house in the fall of 2006 (Sorry Tim and Ross - at least you guys can afford it!)

So what to do? Let's them file for bankruptcy, reorganize, re-negotiate with the unions, fire the current managers, and take advantage of the large infrastructure that they have, but apply a feasible business model. It's not that simple, but anything will be better than prolonging their incompetence at the tax payer's expense. At some point you have to pull the band-aid off. Hopefully it can be done in a responsible way that will save most of the jobs. Here is a post on the Freakonomics blog about that issue.

Last point. The problem with the automakers also parallels the financial/housing crisis in one other area: greed. If the car companies want to succeed without going under they need to renegotiate with the unions. Of course, the unions will balk at this because they won't give up the sweet deals they already have. Instead, they'll decline to negotiate and both sides will lose when the company goes into bankruptcy. Then again, it's hard to fault the unions when you know the car companies would be selfish too, if they could. Just another reason I want to see someone else take over these companies and start fresh.

BONUS FUN FACT:
GM employees 123,000 people. If the gov't shut GM down and gave each worker $50,000 dollars to cover costs and find a new job it would cost about $6 billion. This would probably be money better spent than the $25 billion GM is asking for. Got the idea from here.

Here is Michael Lewis on The Colber Report:

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Michael Lewis

Colbert at Christmas
Colbert Christmas DVD

Green Screen
Bill O'Reilly Interview

The new #22

As a kid, "22" was the most important number to me. Whenever I played on a sports team I tried to get that number. Its importance may even explain my slight fetish for palindromic numbers. And yes, palindromic is a word, I looked it up.

What made "22" special? It was the number worn by my childhood hero Will Clark. The Thrill, as he was known, played my favorite position, first base and was the best player on the Giants during my formidable years. I would show you some videos, but baseball is stupid and has pulled all of them from YouTube. Anyway, for further proof of my infatuation, the combination to my bike lock was 1-2-2 and I always remembered it by saying #1 is #22.

So why is the #22 important to me again? Anthony Morrow.

He's the undrafted rookie on the Warriors who scored 37 points on Saturday to lead the Warriors over the Clippers in his first NBA start. He followed it up with any 25 tonight in a victory over the Blazers and he would have had more if Nellie would have played him in the 4th quarter. Oh, and he wears #22.

Morrow is a pure shooter, in the Ray Allen or Chris Mullin mold. Everytime he touches the ball I am excited and I rarely have been this impressed (kiddy, really) by a player I had never heard of before. In fact, Morrow didn't even make my Warriors Preview blog. But don't take my word for it, watch his highlights from Saturday's game.

To say my level of enthusiasm for Morrow is high would be an understatement. Between getting married, Obama being elected and now Morrow I'd have to say this is shaping up to be a great year. Some of my favorite Morrow-related comments on www.WarriorsWorld.net today were:

• "Where does Morrow rank among NBA greats?"
• "Can Morrow be elected into the hall of fame yet?"
• "He will make 22 of 20 shots tonight" (in response to a question for predictions)
• "Morrow woke up and three Blazers were guarding him, and when he went to the kitchen Greg Oden was there" (referring to the fact that the blazers would need to be guarding him tight)

Don't say I didn't warn you, it's going to be beautiful toMORROW.

Gear Heart

Got this from my friend Tim. One of the most amazing works of art I've ever seen. Nothing else to say about it, just watch the video.

George W. Bush Sewage Treatment Plant

With the election just a couple days away I would like to tell everyone about San Francisco's Prop R. If it passes, the sewage plant will be renamed in honor of George W. Bush.



For the record, I would actually vote against it. First, it's demeaning to the people who work there - and trust me, I appreciate their work. And secondly, it would cost $50,000 to redo the signs, letterhead, etc. However, just the fact that this is on the ballot of one of the biggest cities in the country is a telling anecdote to the end of a pathetic presidency.

UPDATE:
This may turn the tide for the Pro-R side: The San Francisco Peace and Freedom Party is is urging you to vote YES on R.

82 and 0

Basketball season is about to start and since I've spent the last two months boring you with political blogs, I'll now bore you for the next 6 months with Warriors blogs. Ask Erin, the season goes on forever. Actually, the start of the basketball season always comes at a convenient time. In 2004 the season started the day after the election. It was a good thing too, as it's probably the only reason I didn't fall into a deep depression. In honor of the new season here is a preview of the Warriors 08-09 team.

A few years ago when the Warriors won their season opener against the Spurs I called my friends to celebrate. What I remember most is my buddy Scott Eanes' famous prediction for the rest of the season, 82-0. (For those of you new to the NBA, there are 82 games in a season).

This season, I honestly don't know what to expect. My gut tells me not to be too optimistic though. Don't get me wrong, I'll watch all 82 games, but my expectations aren't high - which is a good thing for Warriors fans. There are a lot of new faces this season (and some notable missing ones) so I thought I'd introduce you to a few of them.

No longer with the team:
Baron Davis, Matt Barnes, Patrick O'Bryant (and probably some others that aren't important enough to remember). It's going to hurt not having Baron. I'm pissed that he opted out of his contract one year early. I would have liked one more year, but I'm glad from a financial stand point that we didn't sign him to a long term contract. Too injury prone, too three point shooting prone. With that said, Baron did a ton for the team and I'll miss him. When he's motivated he's a top player in the league, and it's going to suck watching him dominate the Warriors four times a year (assuming he's healthy).

Kelenna Azubuike

I'm excited to have 'Buke back on the team. He's a poor man's Jason Richardson at 1/3 the price. He can take it strong to the basket and has decent range. Plus he's not such a super star that he skips out on defense. A team of 5 Bukes wouldn't be very good, but you need at least one. Plus, here's an interesting fact, his nickname is "London Gentlemen" from the fragarence in Anchorman (because he's from the UK).

Andris Biedrins (Beans)

If I were to buy a Warriors jersey (which I won't do, because that means the player will get injured or traded) I would probably buy a Beans jersey. I try to model my basketball game after him. On the team I play with I'm the tall one, I'm not asked to shoot and as long as I play good defense, rebound, and get shots for the little guys on the team everyone is happy. And it doesn't hurt when I get some points cleaning up boards and on the fastbreak. The good news for the Warriors is that I expect Bean's offensive game to open up even more now that Baron Davis's 20 shots per game are missing. I'm excited to watch the big Latvian play.

Corey Maggette

When the Clippers signed our best player (Baron Davis) we panicked and signed their best remaining player, Corey Maggette. I'm a little conflicted about Mags. On the plus side, he is a very efficient scorer, makes his free throws, and looks like Xzibit. On the negative side, he's never played for a good team, is injury prone, and I'm not sold on him sacrificing in any way to make the team better. I hope I am wrong, but I just don't see the Warriors being succesful if he's our first or second best player. I bet he scores a ton, doesn't do anything bad off the court, and yet leads us nowhere near the playoffs. (Optimism, it's what a new season is all about). At least between him and Buke we'll have the most ripped players.

DeMarcus Nelson

Let me introduce you to our starting point guard. We've gone from Baron to someone I have barely heard of. I know just a little more about him than I did about Sarah Palin when she was named VP. At least she's second string, this guy starts. DeMarcus is a rookie and he went to Duke, that's all I know. I'm not even sure the picture I posted is really him. However, from the preseason reports, it sounds like he's a monster on defense and that would be a first for a Warriors gaurd. Also, I don't think he shoots a lot of threes which is a nice change. It's possible the Warriors will have great ball movement and a smooth offense with this guy. It's also possible that the complete lack a point gaurd will doom us and we win 18 games. I'm praying it's option 1.

Anthony Randolph

AR is part of the reason I have hope for the future. We picked him at #14 in the draft this year, and I don't know how he fell so low. He's tall, athletic and seems to have the mindset to a be a superstar. I guarantee at least 10 teams will be kicking themselves that they didn't pick him. There are two reasons to be cautious in his rookie year. First, he's almost 7' tall and barely weighs 200 pounds. He's going to get pushed around a lot. The saving grace is that because he's so athletic he can play smaller players instead of banging around with the power forwards and centers. The other problem is that coach Don Nelson never plays rookies. Let's hope Nellie gives him time to develop because let's be honest, we aren't winning the championship this year. If he does get time to play, he'll be exciting to watch.

Ronny Turiaf

In a surprise move, the Warriors have signed The Predator to be their backup center/power forward. Oh just kidding, it's Ronny Turiaf (who played for the Lakers last year). I actaully love the signing. Turiaf is one of those players that you hated when he was on the other team (especially when that team is the Lakers), but he's gonna be a fan favorite in Oakland. He brings a ton of energy and the size/strength to match up with the other big players who usually dominate us. He's not a superstar, but he's a great guy to have on your team.

Monta Ellis

Have you noticed that I haven't written about a superstar on the Warriors yet. Well, the closest thing we have to one is Monta. Unfortunately, that was before his tragic moped acident this summer that destroyed his leg. I can't get over this, it's not possible. I genuinely think I could have talked myself into the Warriors have a good season if Monta had been healthy. It's much more difficult now. He's out for at least three months, and possibly the whole season. All we can do is hope that next year he comes back with the same explosiveness that made him one of my favorite players to watch.

Al Harrington

I'd write something about Al, but he's going to be traded so why bother. I will say that he looks like a ninja turtle, though.

Don Nelson

As long as the Warriors have Nellie at the helm I'll be excited. When the Warriors signed him a couple of years ago I remember thinking that there wasn't another player they could have signed that would have made me more excited. Nellie is best when he has to experiment and tinker with a squad that on paper won't cut it. Well, he has that squad and if anyone can make them exciting to watch, and maybe even a playoff team it's him. Another reason I like Nellie, he once owned a pig as a pet - I've always wanted a pet pig.


Well, I'm not going to promise that team will win a championship, or even make the playoffs. However, I hope I've helped you find someone on the team you can take an interest in. When you watch the team for 82 games you get to know them pretty well and I looked forward to having an addition 15 guys in my extended family for the next 6 months. Erin on the other, not quite as excited.

Throwing Darts

I want to blog but I have no specific subject to write about. Instead, as I've been catching up on stuff tonight I've been writing down random thoughts with the intention of just throwing it all on the page at once. My sports writing hero, Bill Simmons, would call this the "Ramblings". I think I'll call it "Throwing Darts".

I'm listening to a band called The Silent Comedy right now. I heard them for the first time on 94.9's local band show on Sunday night. At least check out their songs Gasoline and '49. They are another great local SD band, following in the footsteps of Reeve Oliver, Sayvinyl and Grand Ole Party. I can't recommend all of them enough - listen to them now!

Keeping with the music theme, Won't Get Fooled Again by The Who is definitely my 2008 election theme song right now. Here are the lyrics. I'd like to give a special shot out to Rock Band for introducing me to this song.

So I got married last weekend (go me and Erin!). If you are friends with me on Facebook you can check out the pics I posted. If you aren't friends with me, how did you find yourself reading this blog. You must be a glutton for punishment if you've made it this far

Our neighbors downstairs are really nice and have the two cutest bull dogs. They also burn some serious incense. I actually like it because it reminds me of Telegraph Ave in Berkeley. Smells are funny like that. I heard once that smell is the only scent that can recall memories, or something like that. It's one of my favorite things in life.

I'm always amused by the ads on Facebook - and usually annoyed too. A few months ago I changed my status to "Engaged". From then on all the ads were related to buying weddings rings and hiring wedding photographers. That got old really quickly. Now that I've changed my status to "Married" I'm seeing a bunch of ads for shaving my face. I'm not sure where that connection was made, but the truth is that I haven't shaved since the wedding. Weird.

Speaking of Facebook, I haven't used it that much. I might go on once or twice a week. However, as a software developer I am very jealous of their photo sharing system. It's pretty clean and easy to use and the facial recognition and tagging of people in the pictures are pretty phenomenal. I wish InstantEncore was worth 20 billion dollars and hired an army of programmers. Actually, I just want it to be worth 20 billion dollars, I can do without the bloat of too many programmers. I will say though, I'm sure facebook doesn't know jack about classical music.

"The hot lady and the Tiger Woods guy."
- Will Ferrel as G.W. Bush on SNL describing the election. Watch for yourself:


I lied earlier, Bill Simmons isn't my sports writing hero. Ray Yocke is. However, Ray needs to actually write something. Perhaps about the upcoming Warriors season? C'mon Ray, the world needs you now more than ever.

Want to know more about the Candidates?

I learned a lot about both candidates from watching the Frontline show on them a couple of nights ago. Lo and behold, thanks to the power of the internet, if you missed it you can still watch it.

Frontline: The Choice 2008

It doesn't take a stance either way. It's more of a documentary on who the candidates are and how they got to this point. There is some fascinating footage of a young Obama (his mannerisms are the same today) and of McCain being interviewed while a POW.

A great way to learn more if you care. Maybe we should send it to Joe the Plumber too. Here is the original video of Joe the Plumber meeting Obama. Like the answer or not, I was impressed that a candidate took five minutes to answer a question in a handshaking line.

ITIJTUIMM - 10/18/2008

In case you are wondering, ITIJTUIMM is the acronym for I Think I Just Threw Up In My Mouth. I will use this acronym anytime I see something online that makes me do this. Today's cause of my need for some toothpaste:

Some guy named his daughter Sarah McCain Palin

He's just trying to get the word out - in case no one knew that they were running for prez and vp. hey, buddy, everyone knows they're running, they just aren't voting for them.

What can a fan do?

I find myself watching Chargers games. I don't know what to make of this. Clearly I'm not a Chargers fan. My definition of fan is that you get one team per sport. My team is the 49ers. I may root for the Chargers, I may watch the Chargers, but they are not my team. For instance, I was actually rooting for the Patriots to score during the game so that it would be closer (and I hate Boston teams).

But, the fact that I watch Chargers games is giving me a bit of fan identity crisis. How is it that I've watched parts of all the Chargers games and not one 49ers game? The obvious reason is that they aren't on TV. The NFL has an exclusive contract with DirectTV so I can't pay to watch games like I do with the NBA. And, the local stations aren't going to waste the few NFL games they can show with a pathetic team like the 49ers. The funny thing is, I don't even know how pathetic they are - again, I can't watch them.

However, I do know know a thing or two about crappy teams (remember, I love the Warriors). And there is a distinct similarity. The owners of both teams are turrible (as Charles Barkley would say). One of the things that I've noticed in both business and sports is that the best teams have smart people running the organizations.

If you are a fan of team, what you may not realize is that it's not best to have the greatest player of all time on your team (the niners had that with Montana, Rice, Young). It's not best to have the greatest coach (again, the niners had Bill Walsh). And it's not best to have the top General manager. No, the best thing is to have a great owner. Everything will flow from him/her. The owner doesn't have to know how to play the game or coach the game - but he does have to have a vision for his team, hire people who understand that vision and set the tone for the whole organization. If you have a great owner who can do that they you're team can have success for decades. With the best player your success is only temporary.

Getting back to my point - the Niners and Warriors owners have been horendous. Starting with the Niners, ever since John York took over the team has floundered. It's gone through many coaches and GM's and at no point has demonstrated any type of consistency that would make me confident in them year in and year out.

As for the Warriors - despite the good feelings of their playoff victory over the Mavericks they just can't figure it out. A great anecdote of their feebleness in the front office can be seen in how they treat their season ticket holders. Every year before the season starts the Warriors send their Season Ticket Holders (STH) a gift. For instance, when I was a STH I received a nice jewlery-type box that was made out of basketball leather. There might have been something nice inside of it too. I don't remember exactly, but I was excited when it came. So what have Warriors done this year. They gave all their STH's a gift certificate to a time share... where they get to be pitched to buy some crappy timeshare property. That's not a gift, that's advertising. And to add insult to injury, they also gave the time share all your personal info so that they can continue to pester you. Only a team so incompetent that it misses the playoffs for over a decade straight could piss off their most important investors this way.

So for all those niners and warriors fans who are reading this. Don't hope that we get the first pick in the draft or sign a great free agent. Hope that John York and Chris Cohan sell the team. If only it was a democarcy - we could just vote them out. Well, at least we can do that with the president.

The VP Debate

My original plan was to blog live about the debates. However, instead I went running and had a nice dinner with Erin in Hillcrest, with the intention of coming home to dvr/live blog about the debate. However, I found writing while watching to be distracting, and to be honest, there isn't that much to say about the debate. If you watched it yourself and read or watched some commentary afterward then you probably know everything I would have to say.

However, I feel a responsibility to satisfy the Left Schu fan's insatiable need for more commentary from pro-Obama bloggers. So, I've decided to open a Coke Zero, get the caffeine flowing and do some writing. Instead of a complete recap and thoughtful analysis, I'll share my general thoughts and then a few interesting notes that I jotted down while watching.

Overall, the debate didn't change my opinion at all. I have to admit that I was disappointed that Palin didn't do something so stupid that it would immediately end the McCain/Palin ticket. With that said, just because she managed to stick to her talking points isn't going to turn the tide of this election. I think the Obama campaign has effectively shown that they have better plans for the economy, foreign affairs and energy and that will win the voters over (and it already has).

As for Biden, I like him. In fact, I can't think of anyone right now I'd rather have be the VP. He seems smart (I thought he handily won the debate if you judged on substance), I agree with his policies, and he doesn't outwardly show the sleazy side of most politicians. Want an amazing Joe Biden fact? His net worth is only $150,000 (link). That is tiny compared to most senators. Considering I know he's smart and he probably has had chances to cash out, I find something refreshing about this. In some ways I think it shows he walks the walk when it comes to trying to keep his pulse on America - or he's done a great job fooling me.

Other interesting things from the debate...

• Watched on PBS. I've heard that CNN has some gimmicks with meters of undecided voters giving you constant feedback. Is that really necessary? Shouldn't the point of a debate be to watch for yourself and decide. It's fine to look at it later when you analyze, but what a distraction during the debate.
  
• On the other hand, I do have an incredible idea for PBS. Since the candidates never answer the question immediately I always forget what was asked in the first place. How about having a graphic with the actual question at the bottom of the screen. I think this would do for debate watching what the First Down Line did for football.
• When Palin came on Erin said "She must be nervous." I replied, "C'mon, she was mayor of Wasilla, I'm sure she'll be fine."
• Everytime Palin would say something that I disagreed with I would say outloud why she was wrong. And then Biden would respond to her with the same thing I said. I'm not sure if this means that great minds think alike, or if I've been brainwashed with Democratic talking points. I pray it's the first option.
• The format sucked. I wish the candidates could have engaged each other more like in the first presidential debate. And this totally favored Palin. So far she has not had a press conference with the media. This is PATHETIC. If you can't see through that then you need to open your eyes.
  
• I kept track, it was 7 minutes into the debate when I first flipped out at how much Palin drove me crazy. One other person does that to me - George W Bush. Not a good sign.
• The best example of why Palin drives me nuts is her answer on whether global warming is a problem. She said it was, but it doesn't matter why it's happening (i.e. she doesn't want to blame humans for it). First this is ignorant. Secondly, how can the cause of global warning not matter! How can the problem be solved if we don't know what is wrong!!!! OK, I'm too fired up, I need to pause for a minute.
• Whenever one of the candidates attacks the other voting X times for issue Y, I never know what to make of it. There are too many weird voting rules in the house and senate to put much stake in it. It's hard to accurately define someone's voting history in one sentence like that.
• I wish Obama/Biden supported gay marriage. In 50 years people will look back on America as being wrong about that issue.
• The debates should probably only be an hour long (not 90 minutes). In fact, I just came up with a new theory. Everything that is longer that one hour would probably be better if it was cut down to fit in 60 minutes. We'll call it the "Evan hates long meetings" theory. I'm totally serious about this.
  
• I'm pretty sure Sarah Palin winked at me during the debate. If I was twenty years older or she was twenty years younger I'd still never date her.
• One of the best parts of the debates was the question about the powers of the VP. I totally agree with Biden that how Cheney has defined the Vice Presidency is an abomination. And of course, Palin supported Cheney's view.

Well, that is way more than I thought I'd write. And I only had half a Coke!

To summarize my night, it was definitely a good idea to go running and have dinner out with Erin rather than just watch the debate and blog.

Sarah Palin should read my blog

If Sarah Palin read my last blog, then she would have been able to answer this very difficult posed by Katie Couric.

Also, I'm thinking about blogging on the Vice-Presidential debate tomorrow night (maybe even a live blog) so keep your eye out for that.

How I follow the election

As you may know, I love the internet. Its greatest gift to mankind is the ability to share information and that makes it one of the most useful instruments in democracy's toolbox. The problem is how to sort through and filter out the crap. If you only read fringe-lunatic blogs or Faux New's website then you'd probably be better off living in a dictatorship. So today, I'm writing about a few of the websites I check out to stay on top of the election.

Real Clear Politics - www.realclearpolitics.com
I use this site mainly for its "poll of polls". Polls have their flaws (and issues are more important), but if you are trying to gauge how the election is going a poll is very effective. Because polls can be variable, Real Clear Politics averages out all the polls to create their RCP Average poll. And they do this not just at the national level but the state level, too. This allows them to make a prediction on the electoral college too, which is really what matters. Here is their cool Electoral College Map. You can choose to view it with or without the "toss-up" states.

Intrade Prediction Markets - www.intrade.com
Intrade is a prediction market website. Basically, people can buy stock in the likely hood of an event happening. If it does happen, then you receive the full value of the stock you have and if it doesn't happen you get $0. The price of the stock fluctuates depending on how likely people believe the event will happen. As the demand for an outcome increases, the price to buy that stock increases too.

So take the current presidential election. If you predict the winner correctly you will get $10. To buy a share in Barack Obama it will cost you about $5.70 right now. To buy a share in John McCain costs about $4.10. Other candidates, like Hillary, make up the other $0.20.

So basically, people who are betting their own money think there is a 57% chance Obama will be prez, and a 41% chance McCain will win. Here is a chart of Obama's prices.

The cool thing about intrade is that they have markets for all sorts of events, such as:

• will the US fall into a depression
• will a movie gross over $100 million dollars
• will Virgin Galatic send paying customers into space orbit by 2011

The Economist www.economist.com
While I do get the print edition as well, the website has the same content. The Economist is one of my three most trusted media news sources (with The News Hour w/ Jim Lehrer and NPR). A lot of the content on the web is free, and a full online subscription is a lot cheaper than the print version so I'd highly recommend you check it out. The only problem with the online version is you can't take it in with you to the bathroom - I do NOT take my laptop in there!

WarriorsWorld Politics Forum - www.forums.warriorsworld.net/politics
I actually don't recommend you visit it. It takes some getting used to and you have to have thick skin. It definitely has a liberal bias (it's the bay area!) but I find a lot of great links to other info and a healthy amount of debate. If you prefer not to venture into its cold, dangerous waters then just keep coming back to this blog, I post lots of interesting things that I find on WarriorsWorld. For instance, here is a fascnating article from the Washington Post about McCain's trip back to DC after he suspended his campaign and what went down when all the leaders met.

That's all I've got for now. If anything else interesting pops up I'll let you know. If you have any sites you'd recommend please post a comment about it.

Obama Biker-Sticker

I was going to suspend my blog writing so that I could go to Washington to help work out the financial deal. But let's be honest, they don't need me there (and they could probably do without two presidential campaigns, too). If it was a foreign affairs problem though I'd be right there - after all I can see Mexico from San Diego.

But instead of marching to DC, I've decided to show my support for Obama (and the country) in a totally hippie way - by sporting the Obama Biker-Sticker.

It's just a normal bumper sticker that I've adopted for my favorite mode of transportation. Now, I'll be the first to admit that I could do more to save the world, but for me getting on the bike at least shows I'm willing to put in a little leg work (literally) for the cause. Whether I bike to work a couple of days a week or not doesn't affect the global supply of oil and amount of pollution from cars. However, in the end the only thing I can control is myself and I don't want anyone to say I wasn't trying.

And why an Obama sticker and not a McCain one? Well, you'll have to wait for a future blog post on that one.

My blog version of the Daily Show

The Daily Show is a comedy show that at it's heart preaches liberal politics by showing videos that make fun of conservatives. I thought I'd do my blog version of that.

Here are of some of the YouTube political videos I've seen in the past 6 months. Conservatives, beware of heavy Obama footage. Actually, just get used it, there's about 8 more years of this.

NOTE: some of the videos have objectionable language. I don't condone it, but I might have laughed (these are the warnings you need when you know you mom might be reading this).

Without further ado, let's get started (in order of when I saw them, oldest to newest)...

The Empire Strikes Barak
This one is back from the primary and shows how Obama defeated the forces of evil.


Obama Brushes the Dirt off his Shoulders
This one starts from a campaign speech he was giving where he brushes off the attacks on him. It's an allusion to the Jay-Z song, and the end of the video is a montage with that and another Jay-Z song "99 Problems".

This one has bad language and sexist remarks.



Obama responds to Tire Inflation Attacks
In this clip Obama responds to republican idiots (Limbaugh, etc) who made fun of him for suggesting that inflating tires would reduce our need for oil. He ends it with the classic line, "It's like they take pride in being ignorant".



John McCain gets Barack Roll'd
If you don't know what getting Rick Roll'd is, click here and then click here for an explanation. This video does some amazing video editing to show McCain getting Barack Roll'd at the Republican National Convention.



The First Dude
This might be the funniest of them all. It's an "interview" by Greta Van Susteren with Todd Palin. It might be the worst interview ever. You might be asking yourself, "in what respect, Evan?". Well, watch the video and find out.



Soulja Boy Responds to the Worst Presidential Debate Ever
Do you remember the Democratic primary debate between Clinton and Obama where ABC News spent half the time on stupid questions. Well, Soulja Boy (or someone pretending to be him) watched it and this is his response.

You have NO new mail

I did the impossible - I cleaned out my inbox. I even have a picture for proof:



Truth be told, I actaully have a pretty clean inbox most of the time. I use my inbox as a todo list. I keep stuff in there until I've completed whatever task is in the email - either personal or business. Once I've finished what the email requires I tag it and archive it (Gmail users know what I mean). It's a pretty good system for me. And what you can learn is that if you need me to do something, send me an email. Until I've done what you've asked it will sit in the inbox and I HATE the clutter that creates.

I had a message from a friend that was probably two months old (pictures from his trip to China) that was the last thing I had to respond to.

Anyway, it's rare that all the messages get cleared out so I thought I'd share.

Who is that voice?

So I'm listening to a new recording on InstantEncore and a very recognizable voice is doing the intro... it's Dick Enberg, the famous sportscaster. Many people are listening to him this week as he calls a lot of the U.S. Open with John McEnroe.

Anyways, the concert is from La Jolla Music Society's Summerfest series. Check it out not just for Dick Enberg, but also the great music. Everyone should recognize "Appalachian Spring" by Aaron Copland. They should be posting music from more of their concerts soon.

Here's the link.

falling from 160 feet...

...if the German's were naming Bungee jumping that's what they would call it, except all the words would be stuck together. Anyway, this post is about the bungee jump that we did for Tim's bachelor party last week. I guess we figured, Tim's taking the plunge, so why shouldn't we all? I will not be writing about the rest of the weekend (ha!).

Luckily for everyone there is documentation of the event.



I've decided that I will provide a little commentary for everyone:

Opening
The setting: Whistler, Canada. Not sure who's jump this is, maybe it's not even one of us. The important thing is the music. Thank God "The Final Countdown" by Europe. It's without a doubt the greatest song of all time. I was watching MTV once (this must have been like 5 years ago at least) and they were doing a thing on one-hit-wonders and they started talking about Europe. I guess they relied on this song so much that they both opened and closed with it at their shows.

Now we have the run down of the participants looking at the site of their impending death (in order of appearance): Evan, Tim, Julian, Brian, Mike and Verwest. Ross didn't jump because he busted his knee playing lacrosse (surgery is tomorrow so think good thoughts for him). However that did allow him to be the Steven Spielberg of our jumps.

Quick montage of all the jumps
Maybe my favorite part of the video. What good use of foreshadowing!

Verwest's jump
Being that Eric is the only one of us to take the figurative plunge so far it made sense for him to take the literal plunge first. I'm actually impressed by his jump. It's smooth and clean. Definitely the Nastia Liukin of the group. The only bad thing is we don't get a Jersey Fist Pump out of it (here is some background). The Jersey Fist Pump makes many appearances in the video and definitely was the theme of our weekend.

Tim's jump
Now it's time for the bachelor to go. First off, his picture definitely shows an epic fist pump, well done. As for the jump, hopefully Tim isn't as nervous for the wedding as he was for this jump. I wish we could have tied a cat to his cord, he definitely would have lost it then. With that said, Sandra has nothing to worry about. When faced with the figurative plunge Tim stands tall and takes care of business. He also invented a new pose for the jump. I also love the timing with the music when Tim returns into the picture after going into the bridge, brilliant! Finally, excellent fist pumping on the rebound.

Mike
Don't worry everyone, that's apple juice Mike is drinking. For starters, we see another good fist pump. I'm glad everyone kept their wits about them when facing the jump and represented The Shore. Unfortunately for Mike, something got caught. He just barely averted disaster thanks to his cat like reflexes. Luckily, the second attempt is better. I gained a lot of appreciation for Mike's swimming abilities during the weekend. It turns out he swam and played water polo in high school. He was swimming circles around us when we went down to the lake. His experience shows in his jump. A perfect dive. Mike is the Greg Louganis of the group.

Evan
Well, that is a sexy picture. I was trying to do my best Jersey Shore Guy imitation in the picture. Erin saw it and said I looked creepy. I guess I accomplished my goal. Before my jump I pictured my self running off the plank and jumping out as far as I could. I was really trying to psych myself into that. However, when faced with the reality, I was happy that I made it off without any delay. It looks more like I just ran off the board. I'm not a fan of heights. I had never done anything like that before so I was trying to relate it to something beforehand. I though maybe it would be like the weightless feeling in a pool. Well, it's not. It's the exact opposite. Falling with nothing below you for an eternity is terrifying. I was very happy when the cord took my weight (my groin was not). I redeemed myself a bit with a good fist pump on the rebound.

Brian
I'm speechless after that montage. He really got into the whole Jersey Shore thing. Maybe a little too easily. I'll let it slide though because he did the most acrobatic jump. Brian is the Shawn Johnson of the group. He did have experience on his side though. I guess he did a bunch of jumps when he went to Auz for a semester. The flying squirrel jump is awesome. Even the workers liked it. Hats off to Brian, he was the champ.

Julian
The picture of Julian before his jump is from his failed attempt to tackle me the night before. Apparently being out of SD for a couple years caused him to forget how much taller than him we all are. On our way back to the cabin after the jump (before we saw the replay) Julian was telling us about his jump. He said his body just went limp and he had no control over it . You can really see it in the video too. He's just a falling mass. Fortunately he regained control of his body and pulls out a Fist Pump on the rebound.

All in all it was epic!

Congrats Ryan and Jill

It's gotten a little less fanfare than some other pregnancies lately, but this one is way more important to me. Ryan and Jill just had their baby, Kalea (Ka-lay-a) Faye Leighton. The baby is seven pounds fifteen ounces (not 17 as Ryan first reported!). Thanks to modern technology I have a picture that Ryan texted me. It might be the cutest baby ever. I look forward to seeing the new family.



Ryan and Jill are actually the first friends of mine to have a kid. Considering I'm 27 that seems fairly remarkable. I will leave it to the social commentators to tell us what that means. Of course, given my history (8 years of dating anyone?) it's no surprise that I think the patience and restraint shown by friends is impressive. Or perhaps that Christian Sexuality class at Bishop O'Dowd freshman year just really had an impact on us all. Leave it to my Catholic high school to teach sex ed the year before they taught their Christian Morality class. Whatever the case, perhaps the young Miss Palin would have been better off in a liberal religious school than abstinence only classes.

Anyways, I've digressed. The point of this post is great job Ryan and Jill. If the kid turns out half as good as you guys then the world will be a better place.

Quick Gmail tip

If I keep this up I might have to rename my blog after Google, but I thought this might be useful.

Do you ever click on an email link on a webpage and it opens Outlook? Well, this is pretty annoying, especially for someone like me who gave up on Outlook and uses Gmail. The good news is that there is a trick for Firefox users that will open a new Gmail email instead.

It's really easy to set up and here's a good example: http://lifehacker.com/392287/set-firefox-3-to-launch-gmail-for-mailto-links. I used it today to set it up on my new laptop.

Speaking of the laptop, I ordered a big battery so that I wouldn't have to recharge as much (especially when traveling). Unfortunately, the estimated ship date is Oct 24 (and I ordered it at the end of July). I have heard conflicting reasons. Ross blames it on Prius batteries driving up demand. However, I'm not sure if he's messing with me. I also read that it could be because two factories in China where they are made were destroyed in a fire and the big earthquake. Those must be some big factories if it effects supply that much. Oh well, maybe I can find some wind power option!

Wow, this blog is frighteningly boring. I'm guaranteed to have zero readers in no time. The only people who might read it are my co-workers, but they hear me talk about all this stuff already. Well, at least it gives everyone an insight into what I'm like at work!

BigDog

Zach sent me a link today and (as usual) I stopped working and spent 5 minutes checking it out. Since it was so cool and the point of this blog is to share my knowledge I figured I give it the honor of being my second blog.

And here it is, BigDog.



It's a quadruped robot built by Boston Dynamics and it does stuff I've never seen a robot do like walk over anything, resist being knocked down and recovering from a slip on the ice. For more info check out the Boston Dynamics site about BigDog

Lastly, here is a somewhat amusing parody of BigDog. We may be able to teach robots to walk, but no one has taught them humor.

Thank you for being the only one to read this

I don't think anyone will like my blog. If you like the Warriors, technology, bicycles, music and some politics you might find something of interest. However, most of the time you'll find randomness.

Things I might write about include:

• Bands I've just discovered
  
• Cool new websites and gadgets
  
• When I am mad at the Warriors
• Political rants (typically left leaning, but I might surprise you)
  

Think of this blog as my way to share all the (limited) wisdom I have - archived in one neat place.

By the way, I'm not going to worry about spelling or grammar (sorry, Mom). Also, the later at night that I write, the worse my posts will be. I'm writing this at 12:48am so I'm off to a bad start. However, I had to start somewhere.

With that said, my first post will be about how I would read this blog if I were you. Simple, add it to Google Reader and check that periodically. Put all your favorite blogs and news feeds in Google Reader and surely something interesting will pop up everyday. And this way you don't have to worry about checking a bunch of websites everyday for new posts.

Here's how to do it:
1. On the left of this page, near the top, is a section that says "Subscribe to"
2. Click the box that says "Posts"
3. Choose "Add to Google"
4. Follow instructions

I use Google Reader to track my mom's blog, my sister's blog, my favorite Warriors blogger and Bill Simmons (the Sports Guy).

Have a question? Email me. No one else is reading this anyway.