Well that was a scary couple of days. I still don’t know why this blog went down. Clearing out my htaccess file seems to have solved it, but I can’t explain why. I have not modified that file since last October.

What I did learn is that my webhost is useless. I entered a trouble ticket on Friday and still after four days I have not received a reply. I didn’t really suspect a solution. They aren’t there to support WordPress, but still I wanted some reassurance the server was running fine. I heard nothing from them!

I hope my mysterious solution lasts. I’d hate to have more downtime, or have to reset that file over and over.

It’s refreshing to see sexy design come from a company besides Apple. This beautiful piece of technology comes from a Inventec, an anonymous Taiwanese company you’ve almost certainly never heard of.

It recently won a 2008 iF Product Design Award. That award is about more than just good looks. That curvature in the UMPC’s body makes it easier for the user to see the screen while using the keyboard. On most UMPC’s (I’m looking at you OQO) when you open the keyboard you lose the proper alignment between your eyes and the screen. If you move the UMPC to fix the alignment then holding the keyboard becomes uncomfortable. The curvature in the UMPC-7-A solves this dilemma.

At first glance it seems Inventec has hit a home run with this, although the final judgment can only come after performing some real world tests. I do notice some flaws with Inventec’s marketing. To start with I really wish companies would spend more time thinking up some product names. I don’t want to tell people, “I want an Inventec UMPC7A!” Give it a name! Give the device an identity. Would the iPod still have its cult status if it was called the Apple V1-20?

The other thing that bothers me is the giant Inventec logo emblazoned across the bottom. Maybe I’m nitpicking but that logo is annoying. If you’re going to throw a logo in my face at least make it nice looking.

Now I wish I could give you a proper review of this but I can’t. For one it doesn’t exist. Okay, don’t spit in disgust yet. Since it won an award from iF there’s every reason to believe it will exist. Just wait a few months and it should hit stores. However, there’s also every reason to believe I won’t be able to afford it. Sucks to be poor.

What I am going to show you, may disturb you. Brace yourself for the McDonald’s pizza!

Someone out there decided to make a pizza using McDonald’s food as toppings. We have some cheeseburgers, McNuggets and fries on top. It doesn’t seem like a very practical pizza, and I mean that from a food engineering perspective, not a health one. The cheeseburgers are certainly too heavy for a slice. Those McNuggets look too thick to be a proper topping. Overly thick toppings overwhelm your tastebuds. The fries are the only thing that would be balanced.

Balanced or not I have no idea what this pizza, or even just a french fry pizza, would taste like. I would definitely try it though. I expect it would taste a little nasty but I want to do it on a daredevil level. I just want the experience and to be able to say I survived something so horrendous to my health.

Well maybe it won’t be so bad. Once I ordered a cheeseburger pizza from Dominoes. The toppings were ground beef and American cheese. Frankly, it was the best Dominoes pizza EVER. I know since it was Dominoes that doesn’t say much, but seriously it was tasty.

 

Uh, did that actually happen? I watched that on Sportscenter late Sunday night and I was just stunned. Isn’t this the same guy who spit on another player? How the hell did he fall so in love with Tony Romo?

Owens is right though. It is pretty unfair to blame Romo completely for that loss. It wasn’t Tony Romo vs. the NY Giants. It was the Cowboys vs. the Giants. I watched that game and I wouldn’t say all of the Cowboys played so stellar.

Even so I do enjoy seeing Jessica Simpson get blamed for Romo’s performance and subsequently the Cowboys’ losses. It’s like America is one big high school. We’re all sitting around gossiping about how the head cheerleader is distracting the star quarterback and ruining his chances for a college football scholarship. 

I find it ridiculous people are actually bitching that Simpson and Romo took a vacation in Mexico. It was his frickin’ time off. Should we expect him to work and train when he’s off? That makes a lot of sense.

Bah whatever. The Cowboys are done, and I’m sure Romo and Simpson will break up next month. Go Giants!

I remember just a few weeks ago Congress passed a spending bill stuffed with almost 9000 earmarks. The TV news pundits performed their customary pooh-poohing and life went on. President Bush condemned the pork but signed the bill anyway. He did take one tiny step towards protesting this. He asked the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Jim Nussle, to search for legal ways the executive branch could do away with earmarks.

I thought that sounded like a positive step, but it turns out it’s unnecessary thanks to Senator Jim DeMint getting the Congressional Research Service involved. The CRS produced a memo on December 18 that says a presidential executive order to ignore the earmarks would be legal.

Did anyone know there was a caucus between Iowa and New Hampshire? I sure didn’t until last Friday when my Economist arrived in the mail. In an article about John McCain’s resurgence, it’s blithely mentioned that Mitt Romney won the caucus in Wyoming. Shouldn’t that be a bigger deal?

I know Wyoming is a little state, population-wise, and has few delegates but it’s still a victory. Romney actually won something. I’m just amazed this hasn’t been mentioned at all on TV. As far as I knew Iowa was first to have a primary, then New Hampshire was second. Wyoming was in between the two but I would never have known that. There wasn’t even a nod to this little contested caucus.

Maybe this sounds paranoid but I have to wonder if the mainstream media is intentionally ignoring it because they don’t want to upset their Iowa/New Hampshire tradition. That has been their pattern for decades so it’s not hard to imagine they would be loathe to abandon it because some uppity states want to get media attention.

I know you might want to tell me that Wyoming doesn’t matter at all especially since its delegates have been cut in half by the RNC. Plus Huckabee and McCain didn’t even bother campaigning there. Those are all good points but I still don’t feel they justify the news vacuum around this. With this victory Romney currently has the most delegates in the race which makes him, believe it or not, the front runner. Right now Romney has 30, Huckabee has 21 and McCain has 10.

This brings me to another thing that’s been bothering me. I keep hearing about how rough Romney has it with his “crushing” loss in Iowa and New Hampshire. I’m sorry but I just don’t see how losing by 9% in Iowa is crushing. A 20% loss would be crushing but 9% just seems like an ordinary loss to me especially when the vote gets sliced between five serious candidates. Then there was New Hampshire where Romney lost by 5%. He still won a third of the electorate. McCain just took a little more than another third.

My point is that Romney doesn’t have this hopeless campaign that pundits have been describing. They make it sound like he’s on the verge of collapse but these primaries suggest otherwise to me. The guy has a legitimate chance. If he could become a little more likeable when he’s campaigning he could push over the edge into victory. McCain excites voters because he is the angry, old man who tells it like it is. People respect that. Huckabee was a preacher so he knows how to whip a crowd into a frenzy. Romney’s problem is that his public speaking experience is in the business world. He’s too formal and precise in his stump speeches.

I would suggest Romney might make a good VP running mate. I think he would be helpful in the west where anti-government feelings favor those who did well in the private sector. Republicans tend to do well in the west anyway though, but I think Colorado and Nevada could be worries for them. The population growth in Las Vegas and Denver are making them more Democratic. I think Romney on the ticket could lock those down. However I get the impression that McCain personally dislikes him. Huckabee wouldn’t have anything to do with Romney because he’s a Mormon. Since those two are the likely candidates I don’t think VP Romney has much of a chance of happening.

If he loses this race, which is likely because I don’t see him improving his rapport with the masses, what could he do? I’m assuming of course that he wants to stay in politics. Well I think he could have a comfortable career as a Senator. He wouldn’t have to campaign that often and people don’t seem to have problems electing an egghead to the Senate.

But why rush things? Let’s see how Michigan turns out.

I despise California’s liberal use of ballot propositions. It masquerades as “people’s democracy” but the reality is so much worse. With a ballot stuffed with obscure initiatives you end up with an even less informed voter.

Which brings us to this year’s California primary. Primaries are the ugly stepchildren of real elections so few really care about them, but this one will have seven propositions in it. In fairness four of them are the same thing regarding Indian casinos, just for different tribes. So that means there are four issues of state that will get debated according to how many commercials get aired on TV. Marvelous.

Proposition 91: Something About Transportation Funds

Yes on prop 91 would restrict the ability of the state government to divert money from the Transportation Investment Fund into the General Fund. Today money can be transferred by the Governor with a proclamation or with a 2/3 passing vote in the Legislature. There is a repayment requirement for transferred funds, but I don’t really understand it. Currently the General Fund can borrow from the TIF for up to three years if the money is used for cash flow purposes. Prop 91 would slash that to 30 days. However prop 91 would also require all funds borrowed before 2007 be repaid by June 30, 2017. I don’t understand what mechanism allows such a long borrowing period, but whatever because that would be ended if this proposition passes.

My Opinion – No: The only benefit, if you can call it that, is to make the transportation budget more stable. What problem does this solve? If changing the transportation budget damages the state then the legislators should be held responsible, by which I mean tossed out of office. We shouldn’t be forcing these restrictions on to future legislators because of past bad behavior. After all, we elect these people to decide on how to manage the budget. This sort of proposition diminishes their ability to do that.

Proposition 92: A Community College Amendment

Prop 92 would overhaul the community college system with an amendment to the state constitution. Community college districts would be established along with a Board of Governors, I assume to administer the entire system. The level of funding for these districts would be calculated separately, and with different criteria, from K-12 schools. However 10.46% of funds collected under proposition 98 (from 1988) would be permanently earmarked for the community college system. The college fees would be lowered from the current $20 to $15 per credit and the legislature would have only specialized circumstances to raise fees.

My Opinion – No: This proposition scares the hell out of me because it sounds like a plan that will spiral into ever greater cost. Already the state is estimating if this passes it would cost an extra $300 million in the 2009-2010 school year. Another issue that bothers me is how the earmark for prop 98 is referenced. If that is written into this proposition, would that automatically enshrine prop 98 in the state constitution? That doesn’t sit right with me. Changes to the state constitution should not be snuck in. And speaking of sneaky, the circumstances for raising fees are even sneakier! Prop 92 would only permit fee increases limited to the lower of 10% or the percentage change in per capita personal income in California. Here comes the sneaky part. The fee must be rounded down to the nearest dollar. That means the change in per capita income must be a minimum of 6.7% for the fee change to be a dollar or greater and not get rounded back down to $15. A change as big as 6.7% has only happened once in the last 20 years. This is a backdoor cap on school fees.

Proposition 93: The Term Limit One

As it stands now a legislator is permitted a total of 14 years of service in the state capitol. This is further restricted a maximum of 6 years in the State Assembly and eight years in the State Senate. Prop 93 would scrap that secondary restriction. The total years of service would be lowered to 12 years but it would not matter how much time was spent in either the Assembly or Senate.

My Opinion – I dunno: This seems like pointless reform. The pro-93 people say this will allow legislators to accumulate more experience, and therefore produce better laws. Well, why isn’t that the case under the current system? After six years in the Assembly, can’t a politician just run for the Senate and still be considered experienced? On the other hand I don’t really see any harm in letting a politician stay in office longer. I frown on term limits. I think it’s just another tool to entrench a political party. If a politician stays in the same office for 30 years, it’s the fault of the voters in that district. Nothing is stopping them from voting for someone else. Instead with term limits you’re removing a reason for a legislative seat to change hands. No longer can an opponent say Representative John Q. Politician has been in office too long, and that it’s time for a change of perspective. His party will simply replace him at the end of the term limit with another pliant representative and the lazy electorate can keep that seat Democratic or Republican for decades. So in this case, just flip a coin and pick yes or no from that.

Propositions 94, 95, 96 and 97: The Indian Casino Ones

These four are pretty much the same deal but applied to four different Indian tribes. These are referendums on an existing law the state negotiated. Voting yes approves the law.

The particulars vary by the four tribes but essentially this law would allow these tribes to operate thousands more slot machines. Certain construction on tribal land would be exempted from California environmental oversight and instead the environmental impact would be policed by the tribe. Additional revenues paid into the state’s General Fund would vary by tribe but would consist of a flat fee of tens of millions of dollars plus a percentage of revenue from the additional slot machines. Taken together the four tribes would pay $122.6 million in fees each year on top of a slice of their new slots revenue. The pro-side is estimating this deal will give California a total of $9 billion over 20 years. That averages out to $450 million a year.

My Opinion – No: I used to be in the yes-camp, but as I’ve thought harder about it, I had to switch sides. At maximum the state is getting 25% of the new slots revenue. Why should that be limited to the new slots? Why aren’t all casino profits on the table here? I wonder what the state would get if it simply copied Nevada’s gaming tax. In Nevada the gaming tax rate is 6.75%. That is a lot less than my original idea of having the tribes pay the same as the corporate tax rate of 35%. What I can’t find is info on how profitable these casinos are so I can’t estimate the result. What I do know is that $450 million a year isn’t so much when we’re short $14 billion this year.

On my trip I had the good fortune for someone to take me to Economy Candy. This place is a total throwback. The first thing I said when I got there was, “Wow I bet this place has been around since the 30s!” Sure enough, the sign says “since 1937″.

That year was a really ballsy time to start a business. The economy had crawled for seven years prior but that year was when any small gains made were washed away. I wonder how the founder handled this. Did they open the shop at the start of the year with high hopes for a business recovery? They would have had a very rough start in that situation. Maybe they were cannier than I give them credit. Perhaps they invested in this business later in the year after everyone saw the economy slip into a new mess. With panic anew it would have been a good time to pick up bargains in store rent and supplies. I assume Economy Candy was founded by a single person, or maybe a partnership, because a local candy store hardly sounds like an investment for any business tycoon.

Now today’s signage is faux-vintage, but the interior is exactly what a local candy store should look like. It’s crammed wall-to-wall with candy. It’s piled up the walls towering out of your reach. If there was an earthquake you would be buried by boxes of candy. There’s so much you’re hardly able to move around. I walked very slowly while I was there because it would have been so easy to knock over a pile. That’s the other great thing about this place. Not only was the store brimming, but it was arranged pretty haphazardly. It’s certainly not the most efficient way to retail, but it does make for a satisfying visit. That jumble makes you feel like you’re going to find a hidden gem.

This turned into a sentimental visit for me because certain candies played such a prominent part in my childhood. I saw a good selection of candy sticks which really tempted me. The first time I had ever seen such a thing was in the gift shop at the botanical garden. The wild color combinations had me hooked. They looked like candy canes, but they weren’t! My dad bought me a few and whenever I see them I’m brought back to that memory. I didn’t buy any sticks on this trip though. I know now candy isn’t the best snack.

That didn’t stop me from picking up others though. I bought two tins of La Vie de la Vosgienne drops; one cherry flavored, the other assorted. Those hard candies were the ones my dad carried around. I always found the round tin interesting because I don’t think any other products used that kind of packaging. I thought they would make a nice breath freshener. On the flight back I could tell my breath was rank so I tried the cherry flavor. It was god-awful! I was so unprepared for the flavor, two seconds after I put the drop in my mouth, I shook my head as if I had been kicked in the face.

I also bought a box of chocolate covered jelly rings. I remember these being a common treat at home when I was a kid. I bought the box thinking it would be a nice piece of nostalgia when I went home. I’d share some with my mom and brother, and have a lovely family moment. Except it turns out they don’t like jelly rings. I could have sworn everyone ate these things back in the 80s, but I guess my memory is rose-tinted. So I ended up bringing them back to California and eating them myself. That turned out to be quite fortunate. When I got back here I had a lot of difficulty getting to the supermarket, so I was eating the jelly rings to keep from feeling hungry. The box actually lasted about a week.

My only regret is not getting some candy from the foreign section. I really intended to but it was at the front of the store and after the sensory overload of shopping there I completely forgot to walk back.

There was one type of candy I did buy that had nothing to do with nostalgia. I had heard of these, but this was the first time in my life I had seen them in person. Have you ever had a candy cigarette? I guess when I was growing up these things were on their way to becoming candy pariahs. So I picked up a pack. I actually hid this in my luggage when I got home. I’m pretty sure this being candy would be lost in my mother’s anti-cigarette yelling. This trip really was like going back in time.

So when I got back to California I tore open the pack to give them a try. I actually thought these things were supposed to be cigarette shaped gum that you chewed once you got sick of pretending they were real. These ones I bought were chocolate cylinders wrapped in white paper. The paper isn’t even edible. I tried chewing it with my first one and it tasted just like notebook paper. This is just crappy candy. The paper wrapper is even difficult to take off so getting to the chocolate is a nuisance. I don’t understand why anyone would bother with this. Candy cigarettes suck.

As I said before, sleeping in my old room at my mom’s house gave me a very weird schedule. Since I was up at 4-something almost every day, and there is basically nothing on that early except local morning shows, I became pretty well acquainted with New York’s news teams. What really stood out, between all the inane banter, is how much better the female reporters in New York look compared to those in the Bay Area. It’s not even a competition.

First prize goes to CW11′s morning traffic reporter Jill Nicolini. She’s ridiculously pretty, but what’s doubly nice is her smile. It’s quite disarming. One day I watched her sub for the entertainment reporter and I must compliment her. She was competent in the interview she conducted. That’s a definite skill. Better yet though, I found that she’s been in Playboy. Too perfect!

Of all the New York networks I think CW11 has most of the hot reporters. Tiffany McElroy and Emily Frances are quite pretty. Julie Chang is ridiculously cute! With that said, I didn’t give any of them second place. No, the runner up is Liz Cho. She has this stern, but elegant beauty to her. I imagine she is probably the boss in her relationships. She gives off this “in command” sort of vibe. Now, while Jill Nicolini seems like the type you can take to a Mets game on a date, I would expect Liz to be someone that requires a far more formal event; something with tuxedos and champagne.

As an aside, I think ABC’s morning team should get the award for most realistic banter. A lot of times when the anchors need to segway to another topic or just kill a few seconds, the conversation sounds so strained and phony. That was not the case on channel 7. I could believe those people are friendly with each other off camera.

At WABC I’d say Lauren Glassberg and Toni Yates are worth making a fuss over. Over at WNBC I would say Darlene Rodriguez and Linda Baquero are pretty sweet to look at. I saw some of Darlene on the early morning show. I bet she’s pretty sassy off camera.

I have no comment about the women of WCBS however. Channel 2 gets horrible reception at my mom’s house so I never watched it. Yes life without cable is like going back in time.

Anyway compare these women with those on the news in the Bay Area. Take a look at CBS5, KRON, KTVU or KGO. There’s just a lot of meh there as far as I’m concerned.

At the end here I want to give an honorable mention to Sara Gore. She’s not a reporter for any New York station. She’s a host for LX.TV’s shows 1STLOOK NY and OpenHouseNY, and she makes me go slackjawed. I can’t remember when I watched 1STLOOK NY, but I think it was after dinner with my mom some night. I know I saw OpenHouseNY early Saturday morning because it was the only thing that really hooked my attention. It’s a fun show where cameras follow a broker and client touring properties in New York (well just Manhattan I think). I guess it’s like a less dorky version of HouseHunters.

Anyway, I don’t really understand what it is about Sara Gore that has me so smitten. I’m just hypnotized when I see her on TV.

Here you can check out some episodes of OpenHouseNY and see Sara do the intros.

If it came down to a choice between Sara Gore and Jill Nicolini, I think Sara would just edge out Jill. Jill is hot and all, but I can’t help think there isn’t much substance there. I expect Sara would hold my interest in a conversation. At least that’s the fantasy. Of course if I was actually in a position to make this choice I would know I was inside the Matrix and would promptly wake up.

I know my posts have been few and far between in December, but there is a reason. Well there is a reason after my New York trip. A fuzzy bundle has entered my life.

That little pup is named Tyler and is a minature Alaskan Klee Kai. It’s entirely his fault that I’ve got next to no writing done. In a usual morning we’ll spend an hour or two playing, then nap in bed until it’s time for me to go to work. He is such a distraction! Hopefully I can rework my schedule this new year and get some more posting done. I still haven’t even finished talking about New York let alone write my comparison of Wendy’s and Carl’s Jr’s jalapeno burgers.