Fear not my fellow loyal blog readers . . .what? I don't have any of those? OK, well then fear not my fellow occasional drop-by-when-you're-really-bored-and-there's-nothing-left-to-view-on-youtube readers. I have not abandoned you! I have, however, vacationed from you. And for that I apologize. I promise to do better.

Well my poker streak finally ended, but not before I cashed out $1400. Of course, I've since lost the remaining $200 I had in my account and have dumped another $50 in, but I'm currently up to $108 so maybe it's the start of a new streak! See how the mind of a degenerate gambler works?

I also finally got around to updating the movies and books I've seen and read recently, so there's that. Definitely was a big fan of Inception, although I could tell as I was watching it that it was the kind of movie that some people would praise for being absolutely genius and other people would claim was completely incoherent drivel. I'm somewhere in the middle, although more towards the side of genius.

If you're bored (and I assume you are since you came here) I'd highly advise you to read this article on the MARS turbine. It's an awesome prototype of a wind generator that floats in the atmosphere rather than being anchored to the ground. Once they get the price down (like way, way down) it might be possible someday soon for consumers to own their own wind generators.

OK, that's it for the moment but I promise that I'll be back in less than 3 weeks with things that are more interesting and or stimulating.

Poker? I Don't Even Know Her . . .

Would you believe that I stared blankly at the title bar for 10 minutes trying to think of a way to NOT use that as the title of this poker-themed entry?

In any event, before I go into this story I want to make one thing very clear: I lose money at poker (as I do at all my gambling). Not a ton (that's relative of course) and I don't have the detailed records for it but I am quite confident in the fact that in my gambling life, which stretches back more than 20 years now, I am in the red overall. Non-gamblers hear that and think "oh, so you're admitting that it's stupid" and nothing could be further from the truth. I view it as entertainment and view it in the similar vein of spending money to see a movie, or buy a video game, or having a night out. The key difference is that when I pay money to see a movie I know exactly what I'm purchasing (roughly 2 hours of entertainment) but when I put money in my poker account I don't know how much I'm getting. I might be gone in the first hand or I might be able to play for 30 hours over the next month. But in the end, my expectation for both is the same. When I put down money, I'm not expecting to get it back. That doesn't mean that I'm not trying to win or don't get upset when I lose, it just means that I'm a realist about it.

I use all this as a preface so you will understand why I choose to play the types of games that I do. Since I expect to lose most of the time, I want the few times that I win to be memorable. As such, I tend to play in really large tournaments where the odds of cashing are small but the payouts are large. I also like to play in "Satelite" tournaments - these are tournaments where the buy-in is pretty low and the "prize" is an entry into a much bigger tournament with a much bigger payout.

Every week at Full-Tilt (I swear I'm not doing a commercial for them) they have a $220 buy-in tournament that has a total of $750,000 in prize money. The winner gets $130k. Not bad. Well I don't exactly often have a spare $220 lying around, so every once in a while I like to play in $22 Satelite tournaments where the top finishers get entry into the big tournament. Over the last year or so I've managed to get into it 5 or 6 times but until a couple weeks ago had never cashed. Well I finally ended that streak early last month, finishing in 180th place (out of 3600) and cashing $375. I cashed $250 out and then lost the rest over the next week(naturally).

Since that time I've put back in roughly another $125 and lost it (again, naturally). But every time you play in one of those tournaments you earn "Full Tilt Points" which (like carnival tickets) you can use to buy useless crap or to play in special tournaments. So on Tuesday night, not wanting to put anymore money into my account, I used all of my poker points to play in a tournament where the top 5 got entry into a big $22 tournament on Sunday and I finished in the top-5. This one only has a $200,000 total prize pool but it's still cool. I'll let you all know how I do in that one. In any case, that proved to be unsatisfying because even though I'd "won" I didn't have any money to show for it and now I didn't have any more poker points so I'd have to wait till Sunday to play again. So I put in $15 and played in a tournament where the top-20 finishers earn a token to play in any $75 tournament. Again, I finished in the top-20 and "won". So I went to bed on Tuesday night having "won" two tournaments but with a total cashflow of -$15.

So last night I used my $75 token to play in a 45-person game and ended up winning it. Actually, when it got down to two of us we just decided to split it. Total payout: $984! Although in practical terms I really won $750 because that's the amount I cashed out and I have no doubt that I will flitter the rest away in the next couple of days.

Now what's particularly crazy about the whole thing is that at one point in the $15 Satelite I thought that I had been eliminated. I got beaten but it turned out that I had 25 chips more than the guy that beat me so I was still alive. At that point the blinds were 200/400 with a 50 chip ante: I didn't even have enough to cover the ante! I was literally down to "a chip and a chair." But I won the next hand to get to 225 (still below the big blind) and then I won the next hand to get to over 1000 and then I had a tiny bit of breathing room and got a good run of cards after that to climb back into it and eventually get the $75 token which ultimately led to winning almost $1000. That means that if, at the pivotal moment early on, I had just 25 less chips or if that guy had had 25 more, I'd be $1000 poorer right now.

Furthermore, in the $75 tournament only 6 people get paid. I had been doing well for most of it but had hit a bad run of cards and by the time it was down to 12 players I was in last place. Needing to make a move, I pushed all-in with pocket 4s pretty much hoping that no one would call me and I could steal the blinds. Unfortunately, the player behind me had pocket Queens and called me instantly. For those of you not totally into poker (who for some reason are still reading this) that makes me about a 4.5 to 1 underdog, definitely not where you want to be with your tournament life on the line. But lo and behold I hit a 4 on the flop for three of a kind and go on to win the hand and I'm still alive! A little while later we're down to 7 people and since the top-6 get paid the next person eliminated will be the final person who doesn't cash (the aptly-named "bubble boy"). I'm not involved in the hand but for the two people who are all-in it's pocket Kings versus pocket Aces. Again, the lower pair hits for trips as a King comes on the flop and the Aces are eliminated. I can't think of a more agonizing way to have your bubble burst.

One final little tale from the tourney. When we got to heads-up (i.e. the last two people) I had the chip lead and was an eyelash away from winning it outright. I got dealt pocket Jacks and he went all-in with what turned out to be Ace-5. No Ace comes out but 5 spades do and, since neither of us has a spade, we both have flushes and split the pot. A couple hands later we had roughly equal stacks so I offered to split and he took it.

I take from all of this 2 things:

1. No matter how good or bad you are, luck is always going to play a role and you're always going to need to get insanely lucky at least once to win a big tournament;

2) The next time you're on the small blind with crap cards and think "it's only another 25 to call, why not?" realize that you might be making a bigger decision than you think.

Blog? What Blog?

I happened upon this picture and found it both interesting and slightly disturbing:


It's a Zedonk (a donkey and zebra hybrid). This brings up a couple questions. First, who came up with that name? It sounds like something Phil Hellmuth would call somebody at the poker table ("That frickin' Zedonk called me with nothing but an inside straight draw and hit it!"). I guess Donkbra isn't any better (sounds like a retarded cobra), but how about Zebkey? Second, why is it only the legs that are striped? I know that it's different because we're dealing with two different species here, but can you imagine if this is what happened when people of different races had kids?

In another amusing but equally trivial matter, I was browsing on Amazon the other day and thinking of picking up the DVD of the Hawks season that just came out. I was scrolling down to look at reviews of it and noticed the section where Amazon lists what people who viewed this page ultimately buy. This is what it said:

"Hmm, I want to see dudes in suits fighting but I'm not sure if I feel like watching it on ice or not". Or maybe this is person who is both a huge Hawks and Robert Downey Jr. fan but is on a very limited budget. This is kind of like shopping for a new car and having it narrowed down to a Honda Fit or a Nissan Murano.

Lastly John Delaney, Financial Advisor to the Stars, is recommending that if you are just interested in making money (and don't really have a lot of moral qualms about it) you should buy BP stock. As of this morning it's trading at just under $38/share. It's not quite as good of a deal as it was last month when it was trading at its low of $26, but back then there were serious questions about whether or not it would even be able to survive. But now that the leak has stopped (presumably) and the relief well is nearing completion, combined with the fact that BP is very profitable in just about every other aspect of their business it makes them a good buy. I think within 6 months they'll be trading at least at $45/share and within 2 years they'll be up at $60 (where Exxon is right now). That's about a 25% annual return, not including any dividends that get paid in the interim. The world is certainly not going to need any less oil between now and then, and even if the U.S. market is able to hold a grudge for that long (which I doubt) our market is no longer the giant it once was in the global oil market.

And one final point, which I'll just touch on briefly. The thing that has bothered me the most about this spill is the fact that it has only resulted in finger-pointing and just general BP, Halliburton, and Federal Government bashing. I hoped that this event would become a catalyst for the U.S. to finally take the development of a comprehensive energy policy seriously. We put a moratorium on off-shore drilling but don't even pay lip-service to the fact that we still need the same amount (actually, an increasing amount) of oil, so where are we going to get it from? All the foreign sources that we supposedly want to get away from relying on. Somewhere along the way we need to have an honest discussion about this where we lay out exactly what our energy needs are projected to be for the next 25 years and where we plan to get the resources for it. But the left is too busy with their own fights on immigration and financial reform and the right is trying to distance themselves from "drill baby drill" and want to concentrate instead on the incompetence of the Federal Government. So instead of a good debate we get silence, which (apart from individual politicians giving blustery speeches) has pretty much been our official energy policy for the last 50 years.

It's been a fairly exhausting couple of weeks and (as perhaps evidenced by my last post) I've gone a bit nutty. I now start every morning with a 1.25 mile walk to the Naperville train station and then have another 1.25 mile walk to work once I get into Chicago. Then I get to do it all in reverse at 5:00. I like that I now have some level of forced exercise but my body is not yet used to walking 5 miles a day. Also doesn't make it any easier that it's been 90 the last couple days. There are some bus options both in Naperville and (obviously) in the Loop, but I'm going to try and save those for when it's -20 with a foot of snow on the ground.

So the move happened and everything went pretty well, all things considered. We got the place in pretty decent shape fairly quickly and now Christy is busy doing all the little decorating touches to make it feel like home again. Already there are things I really like and things I really miss. I miss our automatic ice maker, our garbage disposal, and the fact that our garage is not attached. But I love having a yard, all the extra space, and (most importantly) I love how when we aren't making noise - it's actually quiet! No clomp clomp clomp from the upstairs neighbors' high heels or giggling and/or thumping bass music at 2:00 A.M. from the girls downstairs. I'd actually like to know if there is something chemical that happens in your brain as you get older that just makes you completely intolerant of ambient noise. 5 years ago hearing my neighbors wouldn't (and didn't) bother me at all, but the last 2 years or so it became intolerable. It's really scary that I can already see myself in 10 years going up to Anabelle's room and telling her to "turn down that racket!" You know, I don't think it's the actually growing older that is disturbing; it's the acting older (and in particular, acting more like your parents).

In any case, Anabelle seems to be enjoying the new place. That's important because if baby isn't happy then nobody's happy. I am constantly amazed at the level of energy she has, but then again she sleeps 16 hours a day. If I did that maybe I'd have a lot of energy the other 8 hours too (probably not). She can really cruise now with the crawling, but she's at the point where she really really wants to walk. She can pull herself up on things but she doesn't really like doing that; she just keeps trying to stand up in the middle of the room but still doesn't have the balance for it and if you try and help her she gets mad. On Saturday she'll officially be 10 months old and I'm predicting that she'll take her first steps on her own sometime in the next 4-6 weeks and be toddling around pretty good by her first birthday.

Think that's all I got for now. I'll try to get back to some weightier subjects now that the moving chaos is done and my vacation has come and gone.

Screw you Dippin' Dots!

I saw my first Dippin' Dots stand in a mall in 1994 and was somewhat intrigued by "The Ice Cream of the Future" slogan (although not enough to try it). According to their website, they've been around since 1988. I just saw a Dippin' Dots stand at Ribfest last night and they are still advertising themselves at "The Ice Cream of the Future". You can't advertise the exact same product as being "of the Future" for 22 straight years. That's bullshit.

Don't ever let it be said of me that I'm afraid to tackle the tough issues.

Lots of Celebrating

So since my last post I've aged a year. Actually, I guess technically I've only aged by 12 days but my year count has increased by 1. You know how you know you're getting old? When people hear it's your birthday and don't instantly ask how old you are for fear of possibly offending you.

So my birthday was last Thursday and 2 hours before I officially turned 31 I got undoubtedly the best birthday present I could have ever asked for when the Hawks won the Cup! Of course, with all the celebrating that went on that night it made me feel . . . less than optimal on my actual birthday. That's in fact the 2nd time I've done that to myself, where I've partied so much on my birthday eve (and, naturally, when it became my birthday at midnight) that I've had to somewhat suffer through my actual birthday. The other one was my 20th, so it's good to see I'm progressing. Take that maturity!

This weekend was pretty action-packed. Went to the Cubs/Sox game on Friday, which was weird because of what a complete after-thought it was in light of the Hawks parade and rally. Usually the whole city gets baseball fever for the Crosstown Classic (regardless of the teams' records) but this year it was much more of a "baseball? they're still playing that?" kind of feel. Still was a lot of fun even though the Cubs were roundly trounced. Right after the game I hitched a ride (being in no driving shape myself) out to Davis, IL for my friend Chicken's bachelor party. Having been drinking for the better part of 9 hours by the time I arrived, my memory is a bit on the hazy side (to put it mildly) but what I remember was a good time. It is funny how full circle things come. You party and drink with all your friends in college and for a really long time it's just an unbelievable amount of fun. But inevitably you get into your mid-to-late 20s and you're still doing the same thing. And it's still fun, but it's just no longer the unbelievably awesome time it once was (particularly because the hangovers start getting way worse). Then you get older still and you and your friends don't get together nearly that often anymore, and so now when you do you start to appreciate how rare it is. And in that way this thing that was really fun and then kinda old becomes really fun again.

Anyway, Saturday was my brother's college graduation (Congrats Zac!) and then that night we went up to Ravinia to see Steve Martin play some bluegrass. That was a ton of fun and Ravinia is definitely the best type of environment to see that in. He's a great banjo player and of course was quite entertaining between songs too. I remember listening to Steve Martin records as a kid (I know that makes me sound like I'm 50 but it's true) and always wanting to see him live so to finally get a chance was really something special. And the fact that he wasn't doing stand-up actually makes it better in a way. While I still love those records (now, of course, updated to MP3s) that comedy is definitely a product of its time and to see him up there now doing the "wild and crazy guy" routine would have just seemed really stale and dated. So I'm glad I got to see him doing something that you can tell he loves and is still challenged by. The one real piece of nostalgia he allowed himself (and his audience) was closing with a bluegrass version of King Tut, and that was awesome!

This weekend I am running in this. Climbing up cargo nets, scrambling over cars, leaping through fire, and crawling in mud under barbed wire! Woo hoo! Gonna be 85 degrees too! At least it's only a 5k. Too bad I've run a total of 3 times in the last month. Happy first father's day to me!

Getting excited for the move, yet dreading all the packing that still needs to be done between now and next Friday. And with a wedding to go to this Friday, a Cubs game and Patton Oswalt show on Saturday, and then the race Sunday this weekend doesn't appear to offer much in the way of free time either. I foresee a lot of frantic packing next week and a very late night next Thursday. We hope to have everybody over for a housewarming/poker/grilling/karaoke party sometime this summer if we can ever find a free weekend to do it.

Back again after a long hiatus. I'll spare you the excuses.

First of all (and sorry for those not interested in sports) I have to weigh in on the perfect game that was but wasn't. I definitely think the call should have been overturned. I've read a lot of arguments online about why it shouldn't be reversed and it all basically boils down to the fact that blown calls happen all the time and you can't just cherry-pick one time to reverse it no matter how big the moment was. In other words, outs 1-26 should be treated the same as out #27. And I couldn't disagree more. Out #27 is different because it ends the game. If you blow a call at any other point in the game, it changes the circumstances from that point forward so you can't reverse it later because there's no way to know conclusively what would have happened. But that's not the case here. At the moment that Galarraga had the ball in his mitt and his foot on the bag the game was over. End of story.

All Bud Selig would have been doing by reversing the call is acknowledging that fact. And a fact is exactly what it is; this is not the Music City Miracle here, which some people still dispute. There is not one person in the world (including the umpire who made the call) that is making the argument that the guy was actually safe. So all this nonsense about it being a slippery slope and opening Pandora's Box to reverse this call is just that - nonsense. Every week scorekeepers retroactively change hits to errors and vice versa, and in 1991 an MLB panel got together and retroactively decided to throw out over 50 no-hitters for various reasons. So it's just completely preposterous to say we can't change something "once it's in the books". I don't understand how you can make the argument that what's best for the game and the right thing to do is to have the official record acknowledge something that everyone on the planet is in complete agreement on as being incorrect.

Now believe me, if we were talking about matters from a legal standpoint I would have completely the opposite opinion. In fact, that's the position I do have now when people want to retroactively change the law to make BP pay more than what they're legally required to for the spill. But this is not a criminal proceeding. I'm just about the biggest sports fan in the world, but it's just sports. Bud should have done the right thing. It's the right thing for Galarraga, it's the right thing for the Tigers, it's the right thing for the fans, it's the right thing for the game, and (possibly most importantly) it's the right thing for the umpire. All Bud's done is prove himself to be completely gutless. I have always, well, if not quite defended him then at least held the opinion that he wasn't deserving of the disdain that most fans have for him. But this was it. I will gladly sign any "fire Bud Selig" petition that comes my way.

One final note on this. A man in Ohio with the same name as the umpire has had to shut off his phone service because he's being harassed. God, people are idiots.

Speaking of BP, I do find it hilarious that starting this year the Cubs/Sox series is now for the right to hoist - the BP Cup. Who the hell wants to win that? I hope that whoever wins the season series this year refuses to take it.

Finally, and again on the oil spill, I do think that Obama has screwed this up pretty bad. Not in any specific action that he's taken with regards to the cleanup, but in his other actions. Bush was (rightfully) criticized for waiting too long to visit Louisiana after Katrina and going on vacation before the situation was resolved. Obama, to starkly contrast himself with the actions of his predecessor, decided to wait a while before visiting Louisiana after the spill and to go on vacation before the situation was resolved. And I'd also suggest that in the middle of two wars, the worst oil spill in US history, and a potentially explosive situation in the Koreas, that now is not the ideal time to give an interview to Marv Albert and talk about Lebron James and the Bulls. Two days after the spill, the right-wingers were already screaming about it being "Obama's Katrina" - which was totally ridiculous at the time. But it should have served as a strict warning that they needed to do everything in their power to not even appear anything like Bush with regards to this incident. In that they failed miserably. With all that being said, however, I would be remiss if I didn't point out that a huge difference in the situations is that the cleanup of New Orleans was always the domain of the federal government once it was declared a federal disaster area, while the spill was caused by corporations and they are the ones responsible for the cleanup. All Obama can do is hold their feet to the fire.

What's wrong with Rand Paul?

(Another guest blog from our buddy Joe Mays)

So I find myself in the unusual position of defending a Republican, as I'm going to give what some may consider a defense of Rand Paul's controversial stance on the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

As many of you may know, I'm a long-time supporter of most social legislation promoting racial equality in both the public and private sectors. I think that such legislation is necessary in order to counteract the long-standing institutionalized racism that exists in our country.

For those of you that don't know, Dr. Paul is under fire because he has questioned the legitimacy of legislation forcing *private* institutions to provide equal service to all citizens, which includes parts of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and parts of the Americans with Disabilities Act. It should be noted that Dr. Paul has consistently supported legislation enforcing equal rights in the *public* sector, and has stated that he would never give personal support to businesses that discriminate in any way.

I think Dr. Paul has a right to his beliefs about the role of government in business, and he has demonstrated a willingness to logically discuss the subject. The center-left owes him a civil debate. While I do not agree with Dr. Paul's conclusions, it is unfair to paint him as a racist - which I firmly believe he is not. The case for equality - even with government intervention in the private sector - is sufficiently strong to stand on its own. The country is tired of political bullshit. Let's listen to Dr. Paul and discuss the issue on its merits, please.

Some Oddities in the World

Well, as injustices in the world go this one is pretty near the bottom of the list but while randomly surfing the net the other day I discovered that Gene Wilder does not have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. George Lopez has a star, but not Gene Wilder. Winona Ryder has a star, but not Gene Wilder. Ricky Martin, Kenny Loggins, Erik Estrada, and Ryan f'n Seacrest all have stars, but not Gene Wilder! Even the fictional characters Godzilla and Pee-Wee Herman have stars! Yes, that's right; Paul Reubens' fictional creation that was popular for about 4 years in the late 80s and hasn't been heard from since is enshrined for all posterity in the Walk of Fame. There's about 100 reasons why Wilder deserves one, but I think I only need to list 4: Willy Wonka, The Producers, Blazing Saddles, and Young Frankenstein. End of discussion. Well, Mel Brooks just got his 3 weeks ago, so maybe now some people will think "yeah, I remember all those funny movies Mel Brooks did. Who was that one guy that was in most of them that made them so good?"

So this morning while on my way to work I was offered a sample box of Oatmeal Squares by a sales rep on the corner of Michigan and Randolph. As she handed it to me and others she cheerfully informed us that it was "a healthy and crunchy way to start your day." Hmmm; yes there have been some days where I've woken up and thought "I want to start the day healthy; I think I'll go for a run." But I can't recall a day where I've thought "Gee, I'd sure love to start my day in a crunchy way!" In fact, the only times I can remember where I DID start my day in a crunchy way was back in college when I hadn't done laundry in about 3 weeks and had to put on well-used socks. Speaking of unusual places for descriptions, it reminds me of walking around the farmer's market in Madison and seeing cheese curds advertised as "Guaranteed to squeak!" Now usually when something is advertised as "guaranteed" it's something that is undeniably good, but up until that moment it had never occurred to me to judge food, in any form, by squeakiness. But of course once you see it advertised in that way a couple times, it quickly becomes "well hell yeah my curds better squeak! In fact I am gonna search this whole market till I find the squeakiest damn curds here!" Ah, the power of advertising. And for the uninitiated, yes good cheese curds really do squeak when you eat them and yes you do actually want that.

Something that makes me feel old: I just saw a headline that Survivor has now been on the air for 10 years. I'd still been thinking of it as "one of those new, annoying reality shows."

Something that makes me feel young: Jamie Moyer, who broke in with the Cubs in 1986 and who I remember watching pitch while growing up, is still pitching today. And actually pitching pretty well (he just pitched a complete game shutout two weeks ago). Seeing so many of the players I watched as a kid now become coaches and announcers, it's nice to know that there's still at least one out there who's still doing the same thing he's done for pretty much my whole life.

Something that I'm not sure if it makes me feel old or young: Vin Scully has been the announcer for the Dodgers since 1950. That's 60 years. In other words, he's been doing the same job since not only before I was born but before my parents were born.

And Back to Trivial Matters . . .

So as some of you may know, Anabelle was originally going to be "Isabella". Back in about 2004, before we were even married we (i.e. Christy) started thinking about names for our eventual kids. And we happened upon "Isabella" pretty quickly. It was kind of amazing. I don't remember exactly who said it first but once we came up with it we both were like "yep, that's a really good girl's name." And had we been ready for our little bundle of joy back then we would have been ahead of the curve. But slowly as time passed we were getting birth announcements from various friends and families and, although I know it wasn't, it seemed like every girl was being named "Isabella". I think that the final straw was 2 years ago when Christy had 3 Isabellas in her pre-school class at the same time. It was like "hmm; not so original anymore." So we kept a variation of the "Bella" and added an "Ana" and, presto chango, we have Anabelle.

I bring this up because today I saw a real good reason why it seemed like every girl was being named Isabella: every girl was! Well not really, but it did overtake "Emma" as the most popular name for girls in 2009. While I'm not one of those people that needs to have their child have a name that no one in the history of the world has ever had (e.g. Apple, Pilot Inspektor), I'm glad that she will not have to go through school with likely 5 or 6 other people in her grade having the same name. FYI, Anabelle is the 46th most popular girl's name while its components (Ana and Bella) are respectively 44th and 18th. Although it certainly seems to be the case that "Bella" has shot up in popularity due to the Twilight series, it's going to annoy me to no end if 10 years from now people just assume that she got the "Belle" part from that.

The big news of the week is that it is now 95% certain that 7 weeks from today we will be full-fledged suburbanites again! I liked to fool myself into believing that we were still quasi-urban up in Evanston, but now there will be nothing ambiguous about it at all anymore as we are moving into a house in Naperville. It's not without more than a little bit of irony seeing as how Christy and I have been quoted on many occasions as saying "well, we might move back out into the suburbs again at some point, but we are NEVER moving to Naperville." But we basically had a checklist of 8 things (house, 3-bedrooms, AC, dishwasher, yard, garage, within a mile of the Metra, and less than $1600/month) and this one met them all so it seemed pretty stupid to turn it down just because we didn't like the idea of "being Napervillians" (actually I think I might start referring to myself as a Napervillain, that sounds way cooler).

And just so I comment on something with a little bit of weight, today saw another bad news is good headline as the unemployment rate went up. Why is this good news? Because in April the private sector added the most jobs (231,000) in any one month since March 2006. However, as a result of the labor market looking better people who had previously given up on looking for jobs have now crowded back into the job search and as a result the unemployment levels have gone up. Seems like there should be a better statistic given to track the unemployment rate so that you wouldn't have two (those unemployed and actively seeking work and those just unemployed) and you wouldn't have counterintuitive effects like these. It's important because this weekend a Republican can go out and say "the economy is horrible; the labor numbers came out on Friday and unemployment is up again" while a Democrat can say "the economy is much improved; the labor numbers came out on Friday and in April we added the most jobs in any one month in 4 years" and both statements would be absolutely correct.

Finally, anybody else see the fun little roller-coaster the Dow decided to do yesterday (plunging 1000 points before getting about 2/3 of it back by day's end). Apparently the culprit is that some specific set of circumstances hit which triggered a massive selloff by computerized programs. I swear, computers are going to destroy the world but it's not going to be in some cool "Skynet launching nukes" or "machines turning us into batteries" way. No, I think that one day a computer network is going to decide to sell all the world's assets to a dead guy in Iceland for $1.95 and everybody's going to be wiped out in one fell swoop.

Define Free Speech

I think that the time has come where we need to establish a clear and unambiguous line on what constitutes protected free speech. And yes I'm sure that it exists in some legal jargon already but we need something that every layperson can easily understand.

I've been thinking a lot about this because it seems like just about every week someone is getting into trouble or being warned that they will get in trouble for something they've said. Whether it's the infamous Imus "nappy-headed hoes" comment on the air or an Oregon football player losing his scholarship due to comments on Facebook or Ozzie Guillen's son "resigning" in the wake of a Twitter controversy.

Here's my question, is the only pre-requisite for considering something to be free speech that you don't get thrown in jail for it? It seems to me that if you're losing (or being threatened with) your job and/or other tangible things of value as a direct result of something you've said, then your speech is not "free".

Now of course there are some exceptions that I agree with. Obviously you're not (and shouldn't be) allowed free reign to make slanderous and libelous claims against a person or a company. And you shouldn't be permitted to use company time and resources to put out a personal message that's not in the company's interests (that's what your free time is for) and you're also not allowed to say something that can be interpreted as you speaking for a company or organization when you aren't authorized to do so.

But (setting aside the Imus example) what we're talking about here are people using their own personal accounts (whether Twitter, Facebook, or blog) to express something that's clearly just their opinion and being disciplined for it. How is that permitted?

In this age, people have almost unlimited outlets for expressing themselves and a lot of people are choosing to do just that. Things that used to be said to your close friends and/or behind closed doors are now available to a much wider audience. But why should the rules be any different? If you have the right to say something verbally to someone, you should have the right to express it in any medium you wish.

I think this is only going to become a bigger and bigger issue as this happens to more and more people. And I think the only reason it's not huge already is that you have a perfect storm of both organizations and media having their interests aligned. An organization wants to control what gets said about it, so they're not happy with any member being able to spout out to the world. And the media doesn't like the idea that people no longer need to go through them to get the word out. It's hard to get the scoop on a story when it breaks on Twitter.

So, first, can we get a list of the words that no one is allowed to say on the public air? And, most importantly, it has to be the same list for everyone. Either everyone can use "nappy-headed hoes" or no one can. Then, I want it defined when and where I can issue my opinion on any subject. Can I use this post to blast Blue Cross for doing something I don't agree with it? Can I not do it right now because I'm on my work computer? Is it ok if I do it from home on my own time? Or can I never do it as long as I'm an employee?

Now if you'll excuse me, I've just been informed that I have a meeting with HR in 10 minutes . . .

Lying Down on the Job Again

Yeah, so 3 weeks have gone by. It's easier to do than you might think. And what's worse is that I still don't have a heck of a lot to write about.

Finally got around to watching Precious last night. Definitely the feel-good, laugh-out-loud, uproarious comedy of 2009! I can't believe that was Tyler Perry playing Precious! Seriously though, you can put that one squarely in the category of "really good movie that I never want to watch again." Still to this day I don't know when a good time to watch a movie like that is. You don't wanna watch it when you're in a great mood 'cause it'll certainly put a stop to that and I'm not sure you wanna watch it if you're already feeling crappy 'cause then you'll really feel awful. Still, probably better off with the latter as opposed to the former. Then again, if you're a big fan of schadenfreude, then this is definetely the movie for you! In any case, very good performances all around and I believe this marks the first appearance of Mariah Carey in a non-terrible movie. Funny side story; her role was originally to be played by Halle Berry, but she had to cancel at the last minute due to a scheduling conflict. I would have loved to have sat in on that casting session:

"Guys, bad news. Halle Berry's out."
"Great; who are we gonna get to replace an Oscar-winning actress on short notice?"
"I've got it: Mariah Carey!"
"Perfect!"

In other news, if you've got even a tinge of sci-fi nerdish tendencies I recommend that you head over to http://www.redlettermedia.com/ and check out the 70-minute Phantom Menace or 90-minute Attack of the Clones reviews. Both are pretty hilarious and are easily more watchable (and rewatchable) than the films themselves. I can't really explain them in any way that actually will mean anything to the uninitiated; it's one of those things that has to be experienced. Most people watch the first one (they're divided into 10-minute chunks on Youtube) and are like "huh?!?" but you develop this weird compulsion to keep going. By the end of about the 3rd or 4th, though, you'll "get it" and be able to decide if it's your cup of tea or not. He's also done some Star Trek reviews too, and they're really good too but since I'm not as big of a Trekkie I like the Star Wars ones better.

That's it for now. I'll try not to make it another 3 weeks again.

In Celebration of Pedestrian Accomplishments

So on Tuesday I broke my previous record for beating the original Legend of Zelda on the NES: the new record is 54 minutes. I was on the el when I did it and yelled out in celebration. Somehow the other passengers weren't quite as enthused as me and edged slowly away from me. Oh well; more seat room for me. I had initially set a goal of beating it in 45 minutes, but now I don't think it very likely. This new time was only 3 minutes faster than my old best and I don't really see a whole lot of places where I can get that much faster. Probably time to turn my attention to another pointless activity.

Anyone else sick to death of hearing about Tiger Woods? Am I missing something that makes this a big story that needs to be reported on daily? And I would have no problem if it was just the tabloid shows, late night TV, and E! talking about it - that's what they're for. But I have a real problem when CNN starts reporting this as actual news. Let me recap the story from my perspective: it turns out that an extremely wealthy and successful athlete was repeatedly unfaithful to his wife, who was not at all pleased with him when she found out and assaulted him, and as a result he took 4 months off of golf. Which part of this even qualifies as mildly surprising? I know that not all athletes cheat on their wives but the perception is that most do so, again, it shouldn't be very surprising. Exempting Tiger Woods from this was as foolish as exempting Michael Jordan from it.

Of course, I guess I'm the one who shouldn't be surprised. I've never agreed with the media's obsession with Tiger. I have no problem when they focus on him when he's atop the leaderboard, but I can't tell you the number of times I've seen the highlight recap or a golf tournament where all they do is show shots of Tiger and then say something like "Tiger finished in 6th, 5 shots behind the winner." And then maybe they show one 2-second shot of the winner getting his trophy and then move on. That's disrespectful to the winner and to the game.

All that being said, Augusta is easily the most beautiful course in the country and looks fantastic in HD, so I'll definitely be adding golf into the hockey-and-Cubs sports repertoire this weekend.

I'm Back!

You may have noticed a slightly new look to the blog. I got a few complaints that the white font on black background was such a stark contrast to the rest of the web's black-on-white that it was hard on the eyes so I decided to change it. After having a few days to get used to it I think I like it better, even if it now looks more like almost every other blog on the net.

So after a week of R&R down in Houston I'm back and . . . well, pretty damn tired actually. But no matter. Today is Opening Day so all is right with the world! It will also hopefully be the day that we get to witness Duke go down in humiliating fashion to big underdog Butler. And if we can add in a Cubs victory the day will be complete! I'll try to put together a Cubs preview (which I skipped last year) sometime this week but overall I'm actually a lot more optimistic than most Cubs fans are. I'm predicting 89 wins and a wild-card berth.

Didn't do a whole lot down in Houston, which is exactly how we planned it. Got out to play golf once and grandma and grandpa were nice enough to babysit one night so Christy and I could go out to dinner and see Hot Tub Time Machine. The movie was meh but it was very nice to be able to get out and have a date night. Other than that we just did a lot of visiting with family and chilling out as best we could and as baby would allow. There are some flight horror stories but I think I'll let my wife handle those tales over on her blog. Overall Anabelle was a real trooper and was happy to just go along with whatever we were doing on any particular day. We're very lucky that we've got such an easygoing baby. Hopefully she doesn't realize that she's going easy on us and decide to ramp it up.

We got back in yesterday and I had a package from Amazon waiting for me. It was the new blu-ray of Toy Story that just came out last week. So I popped it in last night and Wow! That is definitely a showcase disc for a blu-ray player and HDTV. And that's pretty amazing considering that the movie is almost 15 years old. Given the limitations of the projectors at the time I think it's quite probable that the movie has never looked as good as it does now. It's also the first time I've watched the movie in about 6 or 7 years and it's every bit as good as I remembered it. It's probably the quintessential example of a film with a story so simple that even 2 and 3-year-olds can understand it but with a ton of extra layers packed in for older kids and adults too. Highly recommended addition to your blu-ray collection. It's also made me excited to see Toy Story 3 this summer; although I think Anabelle will still be too young for it. That one may end up being a rental.

What the health?!?!? (Revisited)

Well, that was quite an exciting weekend to say the least! 48 NCAA tournament games and health care reform. What will this weekend bring? Forecast calls for a flurry of basketball activity ending by Sunday and continuing fronts of Republican anger. So either because I work in the healthcare industry or because I'm viewed as a super-being of awesome intellect (I'm sure it's the former but I like to pretend that it's the latter) people have been asking for my take on the newly enacted healthcare legislation. My take on it has pretty much been consistent and was well articulated by last week's Economist: it was worth passing, but only just barely.

The positives that the bill does are very real. An additional 32 million people getting insurance, an end to lifetime caps, and an end to denial due to pre-existing conditions. Now the negatives. It does pretty much nothing to bring down the skyrocketing costs of healthcare apart from the fact that providers shouldn't have to worry nearly as much about the uninsured not paying since, in theory, almost everyone will be insured. But offset that against a lot of these newly insured now consuming more health products than they did before and I'm not sure you have a gain. Then there's the suspect claim that it's going to be partially paid for by cuts in Medicare and to that I'll just say this: I'll believe it when I see it.

It also does nothing to address medical malpractice reform. In fact, probably the thing that sticks out most and the biggest overall negative are the things that this bill doesn't do. For all the fury and threats from the bill's opponents you'd think that we had just taken a bulldozer to the entire healthcare industry. But what's remarkable is that very very little has changed. The insurance industry basically just gained 32 million more members thanks to the new quasi-mandate that everyone has to buy health insurance. It's a bit of a double-edged sword though since insurers can't deny people and can no longer place lifetime caps. That makes pricing policies a great deal trickier. The hope is that the increased membership spreads the extra costs around enough to not drive up premiums. We'll see if that pans out.

And that's pretty much the extent of it. We've decided to spread out our health costs over a wider base in exchange for less people being without coverage. That's all well and good except that the health care costs, along with Social Security, are going to beyond bankrupt us and, while I don't believe that this bill hurts us in that regard, it really doesn't help us either. And given the shitstorm the country went through to get it passed it's extremely unlikely that this issue gets touched again for a long long time (with the exception that Republicans are certainly going to run on a platform to repeal it).

One long-term effect that I do see is that this in fact *could* be the beginning of the end for private insurance in this country and the first step towards single payer. Not that I think that's a bad thing, mind you (other than the unfortunate side effect of me losing gainful employment). Here's why. It has to do with the combination of insurers not being allowed to deny for a pre-existing condition and the penalty on consumers for not buying insurance. The key will be the dollar amount they put the penalty at, and the correct amount would be whatever the cheapest insurance policy is. Otherwise you've basically taken away any incentive for anyone to buy insurance. Think about it. You don't carry insurance and maybe pay out of pocket for seeing a doctor a couple times of year when you get sick (which is still much cheaper than insurance). Then something catastrophic like a heart attack happens to you. Well, you just have a family member fill out an insurance application on your way to the hospital: the insurer can't deny you for a pre-existing condition and can't charge you more for being higher risk. Then of course once you recover you instantly cancel your policy again, because why would you carry it when you can just get it again if/when you need it later? It doesn't take a whole of this happening before it quickly becomes an unprofitable model for the insurance industry. Now maybe there's something else in this bill that prevents the situation I've described from happening, but I haven't seen it. The strength of the mandate to buy insurance will be absolutely key.

Oh, and I was a bit amused when I got an e-mail from John McCain right after the legislation passed. He had this to say: "The fact remains that by a two-to-one margin, Americans do not want this bill to become law. " Boy, the Republicans and Fox News sure do love their polls lately. I remember when polls were nothing more than just, like, a puff of air. But apparently they're quite important now, since the Republicans agree with them. But probably not for long considering that now that the bill became law the opinion has changed again and is now favorable. Allow me to just state unequivocally that a poll should never be a reason to do or not do anything. It should only be used as an indicator to tell you how good of a job you're doing at getting your message out. The poll itself should not be the message. The tactic of endlessly repeating one poll that favors your position so that the next time it's taken it favors your position even more is a stupid human trick worthy of Letterman and should be treated as such.

A Brief Update and a Rant

Well, work is substantially complete on my various tax projects so I can start to relax just a little bit. Which is good timing since this weekend is the best sports weekend of the year! Even not having the Illini in it hasn't dampened my spirits (much) and at least now I don't have to worry about getting pissed off when they lose in the first round (and no, I'm not going to much care when they lose in the NIT).

Then a week from this Friday we are heading down to Houston for a week, so it's nice to have a lot of time off to look forward to and, with any luck, by the time we get back we'll have some decent weather here (wishful thinking probably).

I had the Oscars on in the background and I realized once and for all that "in the background" is the most attention I will ever pay to that bloated, self-important ego-thon. I think I'm just a little sick of people getting up on a stage and acting like they've just cured cancer. It's like the one lady I work with who sends every single e-mail with the little high priority flame/exclamation and has all her voicemails marked "urgent". Like, "look at me, I'm so important!" It's just obnoxious. And it wouldn't be so bad if it was just the Oscars. But not a single week goes by between January and March where you don't have a different one of these award shows (though mercifully most are not televised) where all the same people are nominated, win, and say essentially the same thing all for, when you boil it down, playing dress-up and make believe. Which is not to say that it doesn't take effort and isn't a skill - it is. But so is household electrical wiring or changing a carburator but they don't hand out awards for that. As a capitalist, I think that they get their recognition in the form of very large paychecks. I don't think it's necessary to give them lots of little gold statues as well. Of course, as a capitalist I also realize that by having it on my tv (even just in the background) I'm contributing to the problem. Maybe next year I'll host an Oscar party where we do something (anything) other than watch the Oscars and then at the end of the night I'll go online and read off the list of winners. Who's in?

Taxes, Taxes Everywhere

My, how time does get away from me!

Lately I have been buried in the wonderful world of taxation. This year I am charged with not only doing the taxes for my family's pizza operation in 2009, but also the sale of the business as well. Then thrown into the mix I'm getting my first taste of corporate taxes by doing those for my friend Dan's title company. Throw in a couple personal taxes into the mix (including my own) and . . . let's just say that I've become intimately familiar with the IRS website over the last couple of weeks. It's times like these that I wonder why I became a CPA. It's not that I particularly enjoy taxes. I think it's just that I hate and fear them just a little less than most people, so it makes me a prime candidate. Come to think of it, that probably explains why I'm an auditor too.

Quick update on my book quest. So far I have combed through all 3 of the Presidential debates from 1992 and just finished reading a book about the entire campaign (Mad as Hell: Revolt at the Ballot Box). Even though it was much more about the political spin involved in a campaign than it was about the actual platform of the candidates, it was very interesting and should serve as good background and at least give me a timeline for events. And I now know more about Paul Tsongas than I ever thought I would. Next up for me will be to start sorting through some primary sources from the campaign: I'd like to get a copy of Clinton's economic plan that he revealed in the summer of '92 and I also need to go through his nomination acceptance speech at the '92 convention. Then I think I need to start spending some quality time at the library going through old Time, Newsweek, and Economist magazines from '92. But of course, all that will be saved until after taxes.

Tangentally related, in reading the title "Mad as Hell" it reminded me that I still had not seen the movie Network and decided to rectify that. I've still been watching quite a bit of movies lately but that's the only one that I can label as a "must see". It fluctuates between being pretty dated and almost eerily prescient and at times it's a little unfocused, but it is always entertaining and there are some scenes, dialogues, and monologues in it that stand up to some of the best ones ever written for the screen. Definitely add it to your Netflix queue if you haven't seen it (since it seems like you aren't able to get any new releases from them anymore anyway).

Just a quick hit on some of the other movies I've seen lately. For those who charge that Al Pacino can't act, you should definitely check out Dog Day Afternoon. After the first two Godfather's, it's probably the last time where he really truly did some acting before he just started playing Al Pacino for the next 30 years. Unless, of course, you count his waaaaayyyy over the top and cartoony (but awesome) portrayal in Scarface a couple years later. Oh and I finally saw Hitchcock's Rebecca. I hesitate to give it such a mediocre review because I absolutely adore Hitchcock, but the movie just didn't do it for me. I think it's just too dated and the premise has been ripped off too many times. What was a "shocking twist" in 1940 is now an overplayed cliche. I realize I shouldn't hold that against Hitchcock (and I don't) but still it's what caused me to have a pretty ho-hum reaction to the movie and thus I can't really recommend it except to Hitchcock die-hards (who have probably already seen it).

Finally, I agree with Ebert that this year's Oscars are pretty easy to predict. The Hurt Locker for Best Picture, Bullock and Bridges in the leading categories, Waltz and Mo'Nique in the supporting categories, and Bigelow for Director. James Cameron will just have to console himself with a Scrooge McDuck-style swim in his vault.

Bayh Bayh Evan

Forgive the horrible pun, but I couldn't resist (and I'm also surprised I haven't seen that used anywhere else in print; the press is usually all over that).

In any case, the announcement this week that centrist Democratic Senator Evan Bayh would not seek reelection was another blow to Democratic control in Congress and, to a slightly lesser extent, the President. On the one hand, I applaud Senator Bayh for bringing some more attention to the bitter partisanship in Congress and not simply laying the blame for it on the Republicans. On the other hand, I wish that he (and other Senators) would do more of that as part of their ordinary discourse and not just a retirement speech.

Remember how so many of us Obama supporters hoped that he'd help usher in a new era of "post-partisanship"? How long ago that seems now. It's not that I'm disillusioned with Obama; I don't think he deserves much of the blame for this. His only real mistake in this regard was in ceding too much control of the domestic agenda to Congress. As it turned out, it was akin to giving a 6-year-old the keys to the family car. The results were fairly predictable. But I can't blame Obama for that because every strategist and pundit agreed that the thing he needed to avoid above all else was making the Clinton mistake of dictating a plan to Congress without their involvement and having them revolt (again, like a bunch of 6-year-olds).

So I guess the lesson is that you shouldn't trust Congress with anything you wouldn't trust a 6-year-old to do and, in general, it's about all you can do to keep them in matching shoes and from eating paste.

Anyway. so I don't blame Obama (much). But I can certainly blame Congress and there's a whole lot of blame to go around there. The Republicans established early on that they would take up the mantle of obstructionists. As has been repeatedly said by me and many others, that's good politics but bad governing. If you're the majority, the way to combat that is to project the image that you're acting conciliatory but the other side is spurning you at every turn. The olive branch that's being set on fire. But the Democrats did themselves no favors in this regard. Years of frustration from 12-years of a Republican ruled Congress still seethed below the surface, and the Democrats basically acted like the Republicans would be forced to go along with their agenda or would be rendered irrelevant. Well, if you're going to have that attitude, you'd better be sure you can hold your party together to pass your agenda. And of course they couldn't (didn't).

The other thing they couldn't do was sell any of their (limited) ideas to the American public. I challenge anyone to give me a good example of a Democratic Congressional member going on the offensive against a Republican. There are a couple, but they are nearly universally used as a response to a Republican attack. There's a good quote from Democratic strategist Paul Begala (in a variation of an old Patton quote), "The purpose of a campaign is not to respond to every one of your opponent's attacks, it's to make the other son-of-a-bitch respond to your attacks." And the Democratic Congress has just done an abysmal job at this. You can only deflect so much before some attacks get through, and if you're not able to get any in yourself, well, as one of my favorite comic strips once said (in lampooning sports commentators), "It's very hard to win if you score less points. Even with a good defense."

So to bring this back on topic, it's lamentable to be losing another centrist - regardless of party affiliation. It's yet another step in the continuing polarization of our government. Governing by ideology instead of practicality is just simply not going to allow us to meet the challenges we need to as a nation and as human beings. And the sounds you hear on CSPAN will sound more and more like Nero's fiddling.

Crazy Heart and Crazy Idea

Finally got a chance to see Crazy Heart yesterday. I don't think it's possible to talk about the movie without comparing it to The Wrestler. They certainly are similar. I enjoyed both films immensely, but I find myself taking the unusual position of saying that while I believe The Wrestler is a better film, I enjoyed Crazy Heart more. The Wrestler just has an overwhelming bleakness to it that, while it doesn't detract from the film's merit, makes it inherently more uncomfortable to watch. Crazy Heart hits a lot of the same notes (unintentional pun) but on the whole it's just a much more optimistic film. Whereas Jeff Bridges' character seems largely indifferent to the destructive effects his lifestyle has on his body, Rourke's seems to almost actively seek out his own self-destruction. A big part of that is the differene in the subjects: has-been musicians still usually fare quite a bit better than has-been wrestlers. Case in point, given the choice who would you rather be: Tom Cochrane or Jake the Snake Roberts? In any case, Crazy Heart certainly abounds with cliches, but Bridges' performance is fantastic and he deserves the Oscar (as Rourke did last year, but hopefully Bridges will actually get it).

In other news, I've decided to embark on a mission to write a book. Specifically a non-fiction book. Even more specifically, a political non-fiction book. As long as I've watched political debates, particularly the Presidential ones, I've always been struck by the fact that we ask our candidates to exhaustively state their positions and plans on every issue we can think of and then whoever is elected invariably only gets to even attempt, at most, about a fourth of what they wanted to. So I've always wanted to read a book that examined the main issues of each Presidential campaign and then follow them through the winner's Presidency to see what progress was made. Was the issue just completely forgotten? Did legislation get introduced but then defeated? Did some major event happened that drastically shifted the nation's priorities? Well, after doing some searching I don't see any such book out there so I've decided that I'll try to write it.

My plan is that I am just going to start with one particular election and the next Presidential term and try to write that portion along with my introduction sometime over the next year. If that goes well and I'm not completely demoralized and defeated, I'll try to use that to get a literary agent and then, hopefully, a publisher. The eventual plan would be to examine all the campaigns going back to Kennedy-Nixon in 1960 (I like that as a starting point since that's when debates were first televised), but we'll have to see how it goes. It's a long-shot I know but hey, the worst thing that can happen is that I spend a lot of time learning about historical politics and get some experience writing non-fiction, and that's not a horrible thing as worst possible outcomes go. I intend the book to be non-partisan, meaning that I will try to focus on just what the candidate said that he wanted to do and compare that to what the President did. I want to completely set aside the question of whether or not they "should" have done it. Unfortunately, that of and by itself is quite dry and academic. Where I think it can be made more interesting is in exploring the decisions that a President made which were not mentioned in the campaign. Were there things said during the campaign (maybe in response to a totally different question) that gave insight as to how this President would respond to this or was his response just completely out of the blue and at the whim of the political winds of the day? More importantly, are there things we should look and listen for from candidates other than their official positions that will actually tell us more about the kinds of decisions that they will make?

So in any case, it's certainly an ambitious project. The campaign I've decided to start with is 1992, followed then by the 92-96 Clinton presidency. I did this for a couple reasons. First of all, 92 was a really interesting campaign. It was the first time in 80 years where we had a "real" 3rd party candidate (in the sense that he garnered nearly 20% of the popular vote and participated in all of the televised debates). I also find H.W. Bush and Clinton to both be really interesting (I initially thought about doing the 1988 campaign but god help me I'm just not ready to devote tens of hours of my life to Michael Dukakis). Finally, I think that the 15-20 year timeframe is long enough ago that I can get some good historical perspective but recent enough that I should have no shortage of sources. I've got 5 books on the way just to give me some good base knowledge, and I'm currently in the process of going through transcripts of the 3 debates. So far it's every bit as interesting as I was hoping that it would be. So if anyone has any good book recommendations on the 92 campaign or early Clinton presidency I'd love to hear them.

Pay No Attention to the Fee Behind the Curtain

I think I've just invented a new cause that I want to take up. There is something about the idea of sales tax and tipping that has always bothered me. No, I'm not going to host my own Tea Party and no I don't have some kind of Mr. Pink philosophical objection. I've just always been uncomfortable with the whole idea of "this item or service costs X, but to actually obtain it will cost you X + Y". It seems to me that if I go to the Apple Store for a new iPod and my credit card gets charged $217.84, then $217.84 is its price. Yet it gets advertised for $199. Why?

And every time a fast food comes out with a 99 cent value menu, they always run a commercial with a guy walking in and pulling out one crumpled up dollar bill from his pants and leaving with a 99 cent item. And every time I see that I think "Bullsh*t!", but then again maybe I take my Taco Bell commercials a little too seriously. And speaking of Taco Bell, who knew 2 weeks ago that the "Bell" came from founder Glen Bell? I sure as hell didn't. But I digress . . .

In any case, it was always something that just generally annoyed me but over the last 5 years or so I think it's really been elevated to an actual problem worthy of significant attention.

Let's set aside the issue of sales tax for now. Apart from that, I don't think that you should be allowed to advertise a price for something when it's impossible to procure the item for that price. But that's exactly what cell phone companies do. They will advertise a phone for $199, contingent on you agreeing to a 2-year contract. I'm fine with that stipulation (relatively speaking). But the problem is that you go in to purchase it and right at the end of the process they tell you "oh, there's also a $30 connection fee to set the phone up on the network." Wait, so if I don't sign a 2-year contract the phone will cost me $399, and if I do sign the contract it will cost me $229, so who is it that can buy the phone and walk out with it for $199? No one! So why do they get to advertise that as the price?

Ticketmaster is even worse. If you buy 4 tickets to an event you end up paying at least one more ticket's worth of fees. Again, setting aside the truly asinine labels like "convenience fees" (wow, isn't it so convenient that I actually received the tickets I paid for?) they use to describe these blatant price gouges (I've always just lovingly referred to them collectively as "horseshit fees"), they are another example of complete dishonesty in pricing. I used to assume that all the money was going to Ticketmaster and thus there was some form of legitimacy in that they were acting as a middle man between the venue and the purchaser and thus were charging a fee (granted, a ridiculously high fee) for their service in much the same way that Fed Ex charges to get a product from producer to customer. Yet I recently discovered (thanks to an article in The Economist) that most of the money from these fees goes back to the promoters and the artists. But wait, I thought that was what the face value of the ticket was for? Basically it's just a big racket whereby an artist can claim that they are keeping ticket prices low for their fans while at the same time pocketing the extra money. True, there are some instances where you can go to the venue and purchase the tickets without paying the fee, and in that case I'm fine with it. But there's also plenty of situations where tickets are available online only and that's just another example of an item that has a "price" at which the item can't be purchased.

And I'm not even gonna get started on car dealers . . .

So now we get to my cause that I'm going to take up - total price transparency. All brick and mortar locations will be required to display (and advertise) the price at which the good or service can actually be procured for. Can't be done you say? Lots of places already do it! When you go to the movies, the price on the ticket and the price displayed for the popcorn and soda (exorbitant as they are) are the prices you actually pay. Same thing when I go to my barber, or to a bar. Why can't other businesses do this? It's not like they don't know the sales tax amounts and it's not like they change all that often.

Online pricing is a little trickier, since by their nature they serve many different geographic areas. Still, it's not an insurmountable problem. Just make it clear that what's being displayed is the "base price". And you know how practically every site makes you create a profile when you buy something? Well, when you're signed in they know where you live so they should be able to update the prices accordingly. But I'm flexible about that. The key is to eliminate those nasty little extra fees they are going to charge everyone at the end that has nothing to do with where you're located.

To me, this is really just an extension of the concept behind the Freedom of Information Act. I think we're entitled to know, before the absolute last second before purchase, exactly how much out of pocket a product is going to cost us. And businesses should not be allowed to advertise anything other than that amount. To do so is dishonest and does a tremendous disservice to all consumers.