Oh yes, it’s definitely D.C., now the richest metropolitan area in the U.S. And in case you were wondering, here’s the cause:
D.C.’s prosperity reflects a parasite economy that battens on wealth created by others. We live in a vast, metastasizing tick of a city, swollen on the lifeblood it drains from the body politic.
Why did I move to the D.C. area again? Oh yeah, I’m supposed to help keep this from happening. I feel so productive…
SI’s Tom Verducci on Tony LaRussa’s management of World Series Game 5:
Marie Curie died of anemia caused by her exposure to the radioactive elements she discovered. Jim Fixx wrote The Complete Book of Running to promote its health benefits, and dropped dead at 52 from a heart attack after a daily run. Now here is La Russa desperate for two wins to keep the monster he invented from turning against his reputation.
One more reason to love sports: commenters can make ridiculously outlandish comparisons that politicians could never get away with. (Rush Limbaugh and Hank Williams Jr. exceptions noted.)
Don’t like the way a particular sector of your economy is evolving… say taxicabs in DC, for example? No problem:
What could go wrong?
If this works, I say we ban all food, then just lift the ban one government-approved cuisine at a time.
Apparently calling the U.S. tax code “byzantine” is an insult to Byzantium:
Was Byzantium’s tax code Byzantine? Not at all. Byzantium’s two-pronged system would have made Steve Forbes proud. There was a flat tax on all citizens. Farmers paid an additional tax based on the size and quality of their land and their annual production. While the equation was straightforward, putting it to work was not. The Byzantines used alphabetic, rather than Arabic, numerals that were notoriously difficult to crunch.
Read Matt’s post about mandating the number of parking spots at a barber shop, then read the comments. According to the commenters, apparently the logical way to think about regulation is as follows: if a regulation exists, then there must be a conceivable acceptable justification for said regulation — that if not apparently obvious, only remains unearthed because of shoddy journalism. Therefore, stop picking on the government.
I’ve rarely agreed with Matt over the years, but I do believe he’s a serious thinker. One of the things I’ve found really disheartening about reading his blog over the last few months is how much crap he takes from his commenters whenever he suggests any one little thing that might not be an appropriate use of government regulation.
Of course, serious thinkers also tend to have a contrarian streak, so perhaps the disagreements will push him more libertarian :)
Here’s one last Kansas City post before I head back to DC. My favorite restaurant in KC is… you guessed it, a taco joint called In-A-Tub Tacos, home to the best greasy-spoon tacos I’ve ever had.
What does this have to do with the New York Giants? Well, you may recall a certain snowstorm grounding the Giants in Kansas City on December 11 and forcing a delay in the Vikings-Giants game. (This was the same snowstorm that knocked out the Metrodome roof, but in fact the Giants being unable to get to the game was the main factor in postponing.) Now, check out this ESPN.com post from that evening:
Giants defensive end Justin Tuck just told me via cell phone that the team will likely stay in Kansas City tonight and then try to get out early Sunday morning. He also wanted to plug a Kansas City-based restaurant called In-A-Tub that specializes in tacos. He and several defensive players bypassed the barbecue sandwiches in favor of tacos.
This was followed shortly by a post on the In-A-Tub Facebook page:
Sent a carry out order of tacos to the airport today for some of the NY Giants players. The team was delayed at KCI for several hours. Their flight ended up getting cancelled. No doubt they enjoyed the tacos from earlier in the day, since we ended up making a bunch more for them to scarf down at the hotel that evening. Thanks Dave Tollefson #71 for the order and Justin Tuck #91 for the plug on espn.com.
Well played, Giants. Well played.
In contrast to my subpar Starbucks experience yesterday, today I visited two pretty decent coffeehouses in Kansas City.
-Lattéland. This place is much better than its name suggests. Their espresso isn’t fantastic, but it’s decent, and more importantly they’re clearly attempting to make thoughtful drinks (designs and everything). Their seating area, wi-fi, and outlets are great for laptop work. I visited their North Kansas City location, which is on top of a hill with a scenic view of the Kansas City skyline. The only thing I would knock them for is not having ceramic cups.
-Broadway Café. This is a great little shop in Westport (which appears to be Kansas City’s resurgent hipster neighborhood) with excellent espresso, a decent number of seats, and plenty of ambiance. I personally disapprove of any coffeehouse not offering free wi-fi, but from the look of the place I suspect it’s an artistic decision.
I don’t have any good leads on coffeehouses in Kansas City, so I did some scouting via the online reviews. Looks like for my next visit, I should try to hit up Westport Coffee House, Crave Cafe, Crossroads Coffeehouse, and The Roasterie. If anyone reading this actually has firsthand knowledge of the KC coffee scene, do let me know.
Related: what kind of person rates their local Starbucks on Yelp? It really clutters things up. Are there really people whose decision to risk a visit to the nearest Starbucks hinges on the Yelp reviews?
Someone recently told me that I’m pretty much only worth reading when I’m ranting about or mocking something. So, there are precisely five types of friends:
1. Ignorable. In many ways, these are the closest friends. You always want some friends with such a high mutual comfort level that you can watch TV together and not have to speak to each other with no love lost. Sometimes it’s nice to be social without being social at all. Downside: easy to get in a rut with these friends and forget about the others.
2. Available. It’s also nice to have great friends that are highly likely to accept your invitations. Sometimes they stay too long and require too much awkward conversation, but if you didn’t have them you would miss them in short order. Downside: unlikely to be the gateway to a unique social network; you probably are their social network.
3. Sociable. These can be some of the best friends to hang out with, and probably there for you when you need them, but their time always seems to be in high demand — perhaps they have many other friends who feel the same way about them? Downside: if you get an invite to hang solo with them, it probably means they’re out of options. Also most likely to arrive with three friends you’ve never met.
4. Unpersuadable. Definitely also fun to hang out with, there when you need them, etc., but mostly available only at times of their choosing. Hard to get them out on short notice. In other words, much like #3, except their better option is usually their routine. Downside: be prepared to tolerate excuses like tired after a long day at work, have to go to the grocery store — or, in the case of women, already put on pajamas.
5. Affable. The casual friend is an excellent subset of friend, provided you don’t assume it’s more than it is. You can show up at random to each other’s events and be welcomed into the mix, but invites are rarely accepted and no-shows rarely come with a passable excuse — but you’re in the Acquaintance Zone, so why would they? Downside: unless already out with a group you can join, they’re unlikely to be your no-plans-on-a-Saturday-night social crutch.
Okay, of course some friends are combinations of #1-5, but most people like lists and hate permutations. The people who prefer to read about the 5! types of friends are likely not my friends.
I trust no actual friends were harmed in the writing of this post.
This morning I went to a Starbucks north of Kansas City and ordered a tall vanilla latte. They gave me the drink, lid on, and I sat down to sip it while working on my laptop. After about half the drink it occurred to me that something was a bit off, so I opened the lid to discover they forgot to put the espresso in the drink — I’d been drinking vanilla-flavored steamed milk the entire time. Sigh.
Last night, I attended the last of nine sold-out concerts performed by Garth Brooks to generate money for Nashville’s flood relief efforts. If the figures announced on stage were accurate, the concerts raised $5 million for flood relief and additionally generated $10-15 million for the hospitality industry.
This was not an example of “a city coming together” or whatever — this was the familiar intersection of charity, opportunity, and enterprise. And I’m happy to report that in addition to feeling good about the money that went to flood relief, I got to see one hell of a show.
I want to see the new Tron sequel, but as none of my friends have seen the original and it would do me good to brush up as well, I want to rent a copy first. However, it’s not available at all on Netflix, and it’s not available via Amazon On Demand. If I don’t want to buy a copy outright, the only place it seems I can rent it is Blockbuster, which I’ve all but sworn off for a long history of fee-related disputes as well as their general business idiocy. (Like Sarah Michelle Gellar, I don’t #$%* losers.) So, I am irritated.
Yes, I know the original Tron was only appreciated by a narrow cult following, but Disney did nonetheless elect to create a sequel, and I thought it was standard practice when marketing a sequel to anticipate demand for the original in the weeks leading up to its theatrical release. Is this Disney’s fault? What gives?
My good friend Jacob Grier–ten years into his project to define what it means to be a 21st-century renaissance man–has published his first book: a handy set of cocktail recipes called The Cocktail Collective. In his words, it’s “a Small Book of Good Drinks That People Will Actually Like.” As I understand it, if you want to serve a few nice cocktails to your friends with ingredients you might plausibly have in your home bar, this book is for you.
Two weeks sooner and this would have been my Christmas present to about two dozen people, but nonetheless, I’ve just ordered my copy and I recommend that you do the same!
I don’t know about you, but I’ve never had any trouble wrapping my mind around the U.S. budget problem or the available solutions — I simply scale the national debt figures as if they were for an individual household, and all becomes clear.
Let’s assume the U.S. government is an average U.S. family — the Joneses — earning the median household income of $52,000. Last year, the Joneses spent $85,000. To make matters worse, the Joneses are currently holding $337,000 in debt, of which $80,000 is the interest alone.
The Joneses aren’t sure exactly how they’re going to balance the budget for next year. Mrs. Jones thinks they should cut back on lottery tickets, and Mr. Jones is thinking about asking his boss for a 30% raise. Probably they’ll compromise eventually by buying only half their normal number of lottery tickets and asking the boss for a 20% raise. If the boss is extremely generous, the economy improves, and advances in technology mean the HDTV they intend to buy will be $100 cheaper, they’ll probably end up earning $62,000 and spending $75,000 next year.
Note that, even if we assume that Mr. Jones can extort his boss for a raise at gunpoint (which he could if we keep the analogy consistent), his company only generates $350,000 or so in annual revenue, most of which has to go to normal business operations or the whole thing will fold.
Let’s say you were advising the Joneses on their financial situation. What would you tell them to do? Personally, I’d buy them a copy of Dave Ramsey’s book, black out the title with a magic marker, and tell them it’s a copy of the Bible.
I learned something in my Vanderbilt athletic (not an oxymoron) magazine this weekend: apparently there is a rating called the NCSA Collegiate Power Rankings, which averages three scores: the Learfield Sports Directors’ Cup ranking (which evaluates strength of athletic department), the NCAA athletic graduation rate, and the U.S. News ranking. And Vanderbilt is not only tied for 51st according to this rating system, but is the only school in the Southeastern Conference to break the top 100.
Two brief points I’d like to make here. First, most people who think of Vanderbilt athletics think of bad football, but in fact — if you are willing to overlook football — our sports program is actually pretty awesome. (I realize how difficult this caveat is to overcome in Tennessee, where most people choose their college based on its football program.) Second, chalk this up as just another example of how you can construct a statistic to help you arrive at whatever you want to convince yourself.
Last night, I had an hour to kill at BWI airport after arrival, waiting for luggage US Airways placed on the wrong flight, which put me in the unenviable position of being on the wrong side of the security perimeter from nearly all the bars and restaurants. After wandering for some time, I discovered the strangest airport bar — Varsity Grill & Sports Bar — tucked in the absolute farthest corner of the sparsely-populated international terminal and completely invisible to foot traffic.
It has 40 seats and roughly $30 worth of local college sports photos on the wall. It has eight beers, and its menu is garbage. It looks like it might have been converted from an old airline office, complete with fluorescent lights. I asked the bartender — the only employee on duty — how busy they usually get, and she said they pay her to read her book. (Incidentally, she also asked where I was headed, and when I said Virginia she asked “where’s that?”)
How does this bar make any money? Surely not just from people like me who have to wait for their delayed baggage. I learned only one fact that would shed any light on this mystery: apparently about once a week the airport has what the bartender calls “military day,” when the government transports large numbers of troops through the international terminal en route to foreign bases, and they get so backed up that for a few hours a week there are enough people still outside the security gates to keep the bar busy.
I’d say it’s safe to file this bar under “no economic right to exist” — and were it not for government, wouldn’t exist. But hey, at least I found a place to kill an hour and something to blog about.
