How can I begin this? I had an awesome time this weekend. I finally took time off and took a weekend trip to Las Vegas. I was skeptical at first. It’s been 2 years since I took any time off from work so I was pretty used to being a stick in the mud. I didn’t expect to have any fun at all. Oh I was so wrong.

I did so much walking there. Over the years I’ve come to expect that monumental things turn out to be much smaller when I see them in real life. So I expected the Strip to be just a small thing that was over hyped. Wrong again! My feet are still in pain now from all the walking I did, and I didn’t even get to visit every casino around.

I stayed at the Flamingo, a casino with a lot of history. Before going I didn’t realize the casino had been renovated, so I was expecting a really early 60′s looking place. I was pleased to see how modern most of the building looked. The public spaces – lobby, casino, surrounding grounds – look great. The rooms could use a renovation though. The living space was good, but I thought the carpeting looking dated. My bathroom needed some serious work. The vent wasn’t working. The cabinets were definitely weathered. The tiling was broken in parts. Fixing the bathrooms would make the rooms look world-class.

As I said I did lots of walking on this trip. I got to visit the Bellagio, Venetian, Caesar’s Palace, Harrah’s, MGM Grand, the Wynn, Rio, Paris and Aladdin. The Wynn was without a doubt the swankiest casino. The decoration looks so rich and posh. It would be a pleasure to gamble there. I was seriously tempted to sit down at the $25 blackjack table there.

Pricing is something I noticed about this trip. I’ve been to Reno before and Reno provides more $10 tables. The few $10 tables I did see in Las Vegas were always packed. I did want to play at the tables but felt a little guilty about going to the pricier, but open, tables. Maybe next time I’ll cave though.

The Rio wins for best buffet. I’m not a buffet person. I fill up pretty quickly and typically get bored with the selections. I was so blown away at the selection and quality of food at this place. I stuffed myself till I felt nauseous. They had the BEST baked beans I ever tasted. I would love to get the recipe. I must eat at this place every time I visit the city. I also tried the world famous “Kobe beef” at Fix. It was like no steak I had ever had. I ate it without adulterating it with any sauces. Even so the meat tasted so rich and succulent it was as if it was soaked in some sort of sauce. I’m still having trouble putting it into words.

Just so you know, Fix has the hottest hostesses of any restaurant. Skimpy clothes and sexy girls make for a great dining experience.

The Bellagio and the Venetian live up to their lavish reputations. They have lots of shopping to do there. Caesar’s does too. They’re like casinos with malls inside. That really surprised me too. A person could go on a full vacation there without gambling. There’s so much to do and see. By the way, I think the Bellagio wins in the posh contest, and before going I expected the Venetian to take that title.

Caesar’s has held up very well over the years. I think the place was built in the late 60s but you would never know it from looking at it. The management there has done a great job of keeping the building clean, neat and up-to-date. Magnificent and impressive!

I did see one show this weekend: Ka by Cirque du Soleil. I was again pleasently surprised. I knew nothing of Cirque du Soleil besides general stereotypes of it. Ya know, that it’s all weird, gay acrobatics. It’s certainly weird, but it’s also a lot of fun to watch. The performers also check tickets and act as ushers, all the while still being weird with the bemused audience.

Before the actual show start, a few performers put on a skit to announce the usual no cameras, no cell phones, no smoking rules. If I hadn’t seen the Simpsons I think I could have been fooled. The stage performer pats an audience member on his bald head and drags him up on stage. There he throws his camera and cell phone over the stage with much smoke and fire in the background for dramatic effect. Then when they get to the cigarettes, the bald guy gets thrown over. All the time I kept thinking of that Simpsons episode when Cirque du Puree comes to town. The performer asks, “Who will open my jar of rainbows?” and selects an audience member. The audience member replies in a thick French accent, ” How can I? I am just a local businessman from this town.” Homer, exasperated, yells from across the stage, “Just smash it open!” I was grinning the whole time.

Ka is actually a pretty simple story. Royal twins are separated by a Coup d’état. They both struggle to survive, while hoping to be reunited. It’s a great show. There were some very impressive acrobatics and the costumes were well done. I was most impressed by the music. It added so much to the show. If you do get to see it, get a seat in the middle of the theater, not close to the stage. A lot of the action goes on all around the theater. If you’re sitting up front, you’ll miss a lot that goes on behind and to the side of you.

To get the hotel room for free I went to a timeshare sales meeting. I have to say I was strongly tempted. I loved the idea of being able to travel to all these resorts around the world. I was flipping through one of their property books and saw a resort in Greece I fell in love with. I wish I could remember the name. They gave me a tour of one of their Vegas properties so I could see the quality of their work, and it was the most lavish residence I’ve been in. Simply stunning. I can’t tell you how close I was to buying the property available in San Diego. I resisted though since I didn’t know if I was that much of a vacation person. I could have afforded it though.

That was my weekend. I’m sure I’m forgetting stuff so I’ll have to comeback and edit this. It was such an awesome time, it’s all jumbled in my head. I can’t wait to go back!

As I mentioned, I went on my trip to Vegas this weekend. I took off on Sunday and had someone at work pick up most of my shift. However, this person completely forgot to cover me so when I returned Sunday night I had a whole day’s worth of leads waiting for me. That was a serious pain to do, especially when I just wanted to relax after flying. I was quite angry last night, and I had the typical (at least I think it’s typical) chewing her ass out and firing her fantasies.

I went to sleep and went to work the next day. Right now I’m calmer, maybe too much so. My boss had me call her up to find out what happened. I think he wanted to watch me yell at her but I just didn’t have it in me anymore. She apologized for forgetting and I just didn’t see the need to drill into her that she dumped a boatload of work on me. If my boss wasn’t watching, I probably would have made nice with her. I even caught myself from saying “oh it’s okay,” a few times.

Am I just being a pushover now? Should I still be angry? Frankly, I’m not even upset anymore. All I can think now is next time I go on vacation call to remind people they have my shift.

A few days ago I finished my latest book The Cold War: A New History. Yeah, you’re probably thinking why would someone need to write yet another book about the Cold War? Well this time around the author, John Lewis Gaddis, was able to use records from the various Warsaw Pact militaries and intelligence agencies. So instead of reading the history through US-eyes, we get to peer into what the Communists motivations were.

Gaddis took an interesting tack in organizing the book. Instead of a straight chronology, the chapters each cover a different aspect of the superpower relationship. There are chapters for fear (the start of it all), control vs. spontaneity (how our societies were run), autonomy (how the little nations manipulated the superpowers) and hope (how it came to an end). The state of international relations is explored through the chapter’s subject.

This was a facinating read. Gaddis starts each chapter with a general proposition and then follows up with historical incidents to show his point. This book is not a textbook that goes from event to event. It’s more like a chat Gaddis is having with a younger generation that has no memory of the Cold War. It really helps to explain the mindset of people in the mid-20th century. Today we accept the efficiency of a market economy as a no-brainer. That wasn’t always the case. Think back to the world of 1945. Tell me what success were market economies having back then?

I grew up in the 80s, at the end of the Cold War. I missed out on most of the worry of being vaporized. Most of my generation probably didn’t even watch the news when they were kids and don’t remember anything about the Soviet Union. If you read this book, you’ll gain an understanding of how nations cope with a crisis. Reading this, I was so surprised at the parallels you can draw from the start of the Cold War with today’s anti-terrorism crisis. Chapter four, where Gaddis explains how other nations would manipulate the US and USSR, exposes the limits of military power. The US and USSR had militaries that could crush anyone, but time and again the smaller nations played them off each other and got what they wanted. It’s just like today where the US can easily defeat any nation on the battlefield, but is stymied by little countries like Iran and North Korea, or stateless groups like al Qaeda.

The book is simply excellent. I recommend it to everyone, especially the kids who missed out on the whole Cold War experience. You will look at the world differently.

Is New York City aware of the ugliness planned for its skyline? I’m not usually one to complain about construction, but this idea is just stupid. For the last 3 years, NY state and city have dithered over plans to develop Governor’s Island. GI had been federal land until 2003 when the feds finally let it go. In exchange for a $1, the island was handed over with the condition that it not be used for permanent housing or industrial use. I really wish I knew the reasons for that. Why would the federal government care what the city does with it?

Anyway, in order to spark some development interest, the city announced how it plans to connect the island to the rest of the city. They will build an aerial gondola costing $125 million. Oh it gets better. Each gondola will be shaped like crystal apples. Yes, crystal apples. Can they make this tackier? Perhaps they need to bejewel the cables and posts that hold the gondolas in the air. This isn’t going to be some tiny, discreet system either. It will cross the entire East River and be taller than the Brooklyn Bridge.

Thankfully the system is not set in stone. It’s contingent on the development plan selected. So hopefully no development plans will get picked and this dumb idea will die, only to be resurrected with laughter in 50 years time by historians.

I’m curious to know what sort of development is even possible on GI? Industrial use has been nixed. That’s kind of a shame because there’s plenty of industrial things we need to do but would like to shunt away somewhere people don’t live. Housing isn’t allowed either. That’s less disappointing because travel to and from the island would be a pain. Frankly though, would it be so bad if it was turned into a rich people preserve? The land sales would generate many millions for city government, plus the property taxes would be a yearly bonanza. I guess all that’s left is some sort of recreational park. This place has no history though, so you can’t turn it into a tourist attraction like Ellis Island. Does the city want this to be a second Coney Island? How about developing the first Coney Island! That place slid into such a depressing slum. It’s supposed to be coming back recently, but I haven’t visited. The city doesn’t need another place like that in a less convenient area, meanwhile the original still needs work.

Crap, I actually don’t have any ideas. It’s at the mouth of the East River and Atlantic Ocean. Maybe something with sailing could be done. It could be a new port for cruise ships, but no cruise ships travel the North Atlantic anymore. That hasn’t been cool since World War I.

For the last few days, I have been obsessed with finding blue corn. You’ve probably never heard of this before. I certainly never have. I was watching Modern Marvels on the History Channel and the show was all about snack food technology. When they got to popcorn, they showed the cliche images of happy Indians with ears of the all important maize. In one image though, I noticed ears of blue corn mixed in. Not until that moment had I considered edible corn came in any other color than yellow. So I quickly got online to check it out, and sure enough, blue corn is edible! Plus, there’s a bunch of other varieties of corn.

However, there is a catch. There always seems to be one of those. I’m not sure if you can eat blue corn, or even the other varieties of corn, on the cob. The Indians typically dried their blue corn, then crushed the kernels into a powder to use for cooking. I have been looking online for days and I can’t see anything that says you can eat this on the cob. I hope that’s the case. These different varieties look so tasty.

There are several varieties of blue corn, along with black, red, white and mixed. It isn’t even all shaped the same. While looking online I came across a few seed stores. The images and information below all came from Harvest Moon Farms & Seed Co.

“Bloody Butcher” is the name of this deep red variety. It’s a gruesome name, but look at that color! It’s beautiful! Finding this is more exciting than finding the blue corn. Definitely my favorite and I would love to actually try eating this.

Here we have “Navajo Blue”. This absolutely facinates me. There looks to be some variation between ears. Some are basic blue, while others are so dark they’re almost black and others even lean towards purple. If I were growing corn, I would probably start with this. The stalks are comparatively short (7 feet vs. a maximum of 12 feet for others). This isn’t the only type of blue corn, just the shortest I’ve found. There’s also Hopi Blue, which looks darker to me. Black Aztec is also available if you want something totally dark. This was the variety of choice for the ancient Aztecs.

Those other blues I mentioned are natural strains. This one, called Shaman’s Blue, is a hybrid. The kernels here almost look like blueberries don’t they? The ears are shorter than the natural varieties though.

This last one here is the weirdest one. Yes that is corn you’re seeing. This Strawberry Corn resembles a strawberry because the ears are especially fat and short. You can put the whole ear in the microwave and watch as it explodes into popcorn. That is a lot more fun to watch than a store-bought microwaveable bag!

This great diversity of corn, and the fact that it’s impossible to get outside of the southwest, makes me want to try growing it in the back patio. Unfortunately, corn stalks don’t produce much. All these awesome varieties only produce 2 ears per stalk. Before reading about it, I would have guessed you would get maybe 8 ears off a single plant. I didn’t even know they get this high. All the cornfields I’ve seen were in movies and they always seemed to be just a little higher than a man’s head. I can’t grow a 12 foot plant in the patio just to get 2 ears of corn. Who even knows if the ears will grow?! I’ve never grown anything before. Maybe I’ll end up with some sickly plant because I don’t know what I’m doing.

It’s a frickin shame is what it is! How is it that no one will mass produce these? This is a market that those dirty, hippie organic farms can create. At least if these things turn out to be edible. There has got to be plenty of people who would want a little variety on the dinner table. Plus vegetarians are always thankful for having more selection. This would sell well at those organic food markets or upscale supermarkets such as Whole Foods. I wouldn’t start selling these in major chain supermarkets at first though. I think it will get ignored there. Your average family probably isn’t that interested in trying something exotic.

If new corn varieties started really selling, a few years later it would slip into mainstream stores. Sadly, blue corn remains hidden away from most people. Its biggest market is as an ingredient in blue corn tortillas. That is only a few years old. I can’t even remember seeing them in stores. Even if I did, I would just assume it was just a dye used to liven up the product. Actually, now that I’m thinking about it, about a year ago on a trip I ate Mexican food with some friends. The nacho appetizer we shared had yellow, red and black tortillas. I had just assumed the red and black were colored to jazz up the dish visually.

This is a task though for small farmers serving a local market. Large commercial farms avoid this crop because it is low yield and problematic for farm equipment. Your typical commercial corn yields 8,000-10,000 pounds of grain per acre. Blue corn will only yield 1,000-4,000 pounds. Plus the stalks have a tendency to fall over causing problems with industrial farm equipment. Small growers serving local markets are needed to popularize this crop. When demand is aroused, then large companies will get involved.

All this reminds me of last year when I discovered that carrots also come in a variety of colors. From what I read our orange carrot dates back only to the 1600s. Before then carrots came in several colors – black, red, purple, white, a pale yellow and green. When the Netherlands became independent, patriotic farmers bred an orange carrot to honor William of Orange, the man who led their revolt. Thanks to their creation of the orange carrot, Holland became a leading producer of carrots, and the orange variety swept Europe. Well it also helped that it tasted better than the older varieties. Hard to believe huh; that one carrot could taste better than other.

I’d like to see some of these other carrots. I know recently a biologist bred a new strain of purple carrots. Unlike the original ones, these are purple on the outside and orange on the inside. I came really close to ordering seeds and trying to grow these. Crap, who knew a backyard would be useful!

I did something last night that seems a bit low brow. Did you ever find food somewhere, and just eat it? Yesterday night I was at work. I was walking through the office to get a soda from the refridgerator. As I was walking I looked to the side and saw a sandwich from Togo’s sitting on the conference table. There it lay, still wrapped, no one around to see.

There were some papers next to it so I knew who’s sandwich it was. The office was empty though so he must have left. I don’t get how you can forget a brand new sandwich. Apparently he did. I waited a few minutes to make sure he wasn’t hiding somewhere else in the office. No one ever came back to the table, so I gleefully snatched the sandwich away and hurried to my desk.

What started as a snack turned into a surprise meal. I had my company soda and a bag of cheetos from the snack machine. Now I had a mystery sandwich. Still at this point I did not know what sandwich this was. It was written on the wrapper, but I couldn’t read that scribble. I was worried it would be one of those vegetarian sandwiches or maybe something soaked in vinegar. That would be highly disappointing. I opened the wrapper slowly, looking around to see if any angry person was storming to my desk to inquire about a missing sandwich.

The wrapper was open and I was shocked to find a tuna sandwich in my hands. I make an effort to avoid tuna from everywhere except tuna made by me or my mom. So I thought about putting the sandwich back, but then I would probably be leaving a tuna sandwich out all night. That would be smelly and a waste. The bread’s texture was quite inviting. I sniffed the sandwich and wasn’t repelled. Maybe I should eat this? I took a hesitant bite. The tuna was softer than what I prepare but the flavor was remarkably similar. So I took a bigger bite. I was shocked to be enjoying this. I tore open my cheetos and popped the tab on my soda. I had a meal thanks to someone’s forgetfulness.

Lets start off with the hottest phone of the bunch. Actually, why this is so hot isn’t very obvious. It has some great specs – 4 GB memory, a 2/6 inch QVGA screen, touch screen, and of course bluetooth. Lookswise though, it’s pretty plain. Take a good look at that picture. Can’t you just feel that rough texture? Can’t you feel the plastic? Yet somehow I am drawn to it. I bet it’s heavy too. It looks like it. That phone should be named Big Chunk. Maybe it’s that big screen that has me lusting after it.
Samsung has announced it’s own “RAZRBerry”. You know what the RAZRBerry is don’t you? I’ll explain later. This phone here is supposed to compete with it.
It’s narrower and lighter than Moto’s offering. The keypad is innovative. I’m not so sure it will catch on, but at least Samsung’s engineers were thinking. Each letter gets an individual key, but you can press multiple keys to dial a phone number. The keys themselves are tiny but have a raised center, to make it easier to type.
The RAZRBerry is Motorola’s new PDA/phone. Technically named the “Q”, cell phone enthusiasts have dubbed it the RAZRBerry because it’s super thin like a RAZR but with a full keyboard like a Blackberry.
The CDMA version will debut with Verizon in the near future. A GSM version will be made eventually, probably sometime in the second half of the year.
Nokia is really embracing clamshell phones. Honestly I could care less. I hate clamshells. The only clamshells that have tempted me are the RAZR and the Nokia 6170. Otherwise, I find them to be too chunky.
The two clamshells in Nokia’s latest announcement seem to be European affairs. The 6136 will go to Orange first with no word on an American version. The 6131 will eventually make it to the US but much later this year.
The 6070 has got my attention. It’s not a very sexy phone. The few specs announced make me think it’s a 6230 with a bigger screen. There’s nothing wrong with that. The 6230 is a workhorse. A bigger screen would give it new life.
I am curious to know how the 6070 relates to the just released 6030. The 6030 is the bargain basement candybar phone, replacing the 6010. Is the 6070 supposed to be a 6230 replacement for the Americas? I rather doubt it because it wouldn’t quite fit in with their naming convention. On the other hand, it shouldn’t be a low end phone because the 6030 is brand new. So confusing.
Sony Ericsson is keeping their candybar line alive with two new handsets. The K610i is feature packed for a mid-level phone. It has a 2 Megapixel camera, a second VGA camera to use with video calls, a media player, a web browser with RSS support (I’ve never seen that in a phone), bluetooth (of course), USB storage and a Memory Stick Micro slot. Naturally, any phone this good is only available in Europe and Asia.
The J100 goes all out for cheapness. It has the tinest screen I’ve seen in years, and lacks a web browser and even a speakerphone. Basically, this is a phone to make calls and nothing else. Well okay, you can make text messages too. But nothing else!

New York’s Police Department is considering replacing their fleet of Crown Victorias and Impalas with the new Dodge Charger. The reason really amazed me. The Direct of Fleet Services for the police says, “The car that does 110 mph doesn’t do it anymore.” How often do these cars ever get to 110, let alone the 150 mph the Charger is said to reach. I would imagine acceleration is far more important. Maybe the Charger beats the old cars in that too, but I don’t think raw speed is a big factor in the real world.

I’ve seen a number of civilian Dodge Chargers on the road lately. It is a tough car. It really looks like it can take a beating. Tank-like.

Crap, as soon as I post here, I spot this story about Gateway on Slashdot. It’s sad but honestly it could have been said 5 years ago. Maybe longer. The PC business is pretty well fixed and has been for years.

I found this out last year when I was actually shopping for PCs to outfit the mortgage office. The first stop is, of course, Dell. That’s where you go to get a baseline reading of what you can buy and for how much. Everything else is comparison shopping. Sadly there is no longer much to compare. After Dell you can look at HP but those prices are either the same or worse, and the cases are uglier.

Some people might suggest Apple. The nicest thing I can think to say about those people are that they are blind to spending twice the price on a pretty case. Anything Apple makes can be bought cheaper somewhere else. It just won’t look candy-coated. Of course then these people will have to go on about their love for OS X. Whatever. I’m not buying a computer so that every component and every piece of software I use has to come from the same company. How these people live with the irrationality of hating Microsoft’s monopoly but evangelizing Apple’s tighter, albeit smaller, monopoly I’ll never know.

But I’m getting off topic… technically I could have used Mac Minis for the computer lab, but I still couldn’t for the processor’s computer. That needs Encompass and that won’t run on a Mac.

After looking at HPs, I remembered Gateway still existed. I checked out their site and damn was I disappointed to see they’re way overpriced with hideous cases. At the time, I think the cheapest desktop was $900? This was compared to a $400 desktop at Dell or HP. I was determined to find some alternatives to Dell and HP. Well, I pretty much failed. eMachines was bought by Gateway so they don’t exist. Alienware and Falcon Northwest only make premium (insanely expensive) computers so they were out. Sony Vaios are overpriced. Acer chiefly makes laptops and thin clients. The desktops aren’t worth mentioning.

No, the budget PC market is owned by Dell and HP. This is the market Gateway is trying to compete in, and frankly I don’t see how they’ll last much longer. Geez, remember when Gateway and Dell were pretty evenly matched? When they could actually be considered alternatives to one another? Where did Gateway go wrong?

Sorry I haven’t been posting in the last few days. I’ve had my hands full with some good news. It looks like I have finally figured out how edit that subway map PDF. I’ve had some luck converting it into a version 3 encapsulated postscript file. Once I did that, Illustrator stopped crashing when I tried to save my work. So hopefully in about a week or two I’ll be able to post my own subway map alterations.