Great reading for flight to/from SEA

(I'm totally stealing Huan's idea, so please don't credit me if you follow my advice.)

(Also, it would work for any cross country flight.)

As I was waiting for my flight out of RDU on Sunday I happened across a used bookstore. I think this is just a fantastic business to have in an airport... I really like the idea of having a cheap, diverse set of books available when you are a captive audience. There's no way this place lasts very long, but it's a great idea while it lasts.

Anyways, I bought a copy of The Great Gatsby ($2, steal of the century), which I haven't read since junior year in high school. I really disliked my English teacher that year, and so I largely wrote off most of the books that we read as crappy and unworthy of my time. Obviously only an idiot would think that, and hopefully I'm becoming less of an idiot with time. Anyways, I agree with the critics: The Great Gatsby is one of if not the greatest American novel. It's easily short enough to read on a cross-country flight, and I think it makes you look smart when compared to all the dopes reading DaVinci Code. Pick it up when you come visit, or take my copy when you head back East.

Tinged with homesickness

Good trip to and from the East Coast this past weekend. Bullets:

• Flights on Delta were mediocre. I actually got some sleep on the red eye on Thursday night, despite sitting next to a guy who generated heat all night. Got stuck in a middle seat from RDU-ATL, which is luckily a 45 minute flight. Note to airlines: make the investment in personal video screens. For the second time in a month I had to watch "The Holiday" because Lufthansa and Delta make everyone watch the same entertainment. Just a brutally bad movie.
• I miss nice people. Everyone in NC smiles and talks to you and is generally pleasant.
  
• I miss tan people, including myself. Now, as any responsible person I'm freaked about skin cancer, but I didn't realize how pasty I had become until I put on my new black golf shoes on Friday. I thought something was wrong with the lighting. Nope. I was just brutally pale, like everyone else in Seattle. People in NC had color. The girls all looked great.
• I miss the warmth. Obviously I won't be complaining in July when it is gorgeous here and awful back East, but high 70s, low 80s, sun, pleasant breezes... it couldn't have been better. Tough to get back on the plane.

Not much else to report from the weekend. Played great tee-to-green golf but couldn't buy a putt. Wedding was very nice, but I was sad I didn't have my wedding betting group because the combo of the Duke Chapel (long aisle) and a Greek ceremony would have led to some interesting bets. Also, a bridesmaid fainted (she recovered enough to get drunk at the reception), and I'm not putting that as a prop bet for all future weddings.

Likely blog silence

Unlike going to Germany I'm about to take a trip to where the InterWeb has a much lower penetration: North Carolina. So gird yourselves for several days without postings on this here blog. Hopefully between seeing the family, breathing in tons of pollen I'm unaccustomed to while playing golf, a Greek wedding in Duke chapel, temperatures above 65 degrees causing me to overheat, and completely full cross-country flights on an airline I have no status on there should be some good stories to share upon my return.

During my absence, my favorite YouTube video of 2006:

I'm not saying

Former company stock performance since my departure: -4.4%
Present company stock performance since my arrival: +51.8%

I'm just saying.

The sad thing is I actually own a lot more of the former than of the latter.

The elusive morel

So we went mushroom hunting on Saturday. Huan, Tyler H, Tyler's friend Cory, and I woke up quite early and we started driving west* in search of morels. Huan and Cory have both been morel hunting elsewhere and were excited at the prospects of finding tasty mushrooms that are $50+ per pound in grocery stores. Tyler and I were kind of excited about finding mushrooms, but also just happy to walk around in the woods on a nice day.

Huan did some research and we decided to look start our search in Cle Elum, WA, which is about 80 miles east of Seattle. What we didn't do a lot of research on is the climate of Cle Elum at this time of year. When we got there around 10:00 it was cold. As in just barely above freezing. We didn't even need our ground thermometer/meat thermometer to tell us that we wouldn't find any mushrooms there.

Anyways, we drove back through Snoqualmie Pass and found a forest service road that led us to some promising spots. The ground was damp, it wasn't cold... one would think perfect conditions for mushrooms. We spent about an hour looking around and found... nothing. While we were packing up an old Scandanavian dude stopped by and asked what we were doing. Huan explained that we were mushroom hunting (not those sorts of mushrooms), and he started laughing. A lot. He claims that while our instincts were good we wouldn't find morels in that area until July. Three months later. We were dismayed, but not cowed.

We continued west towards lower elevations. We stopped at a state park and looked around, again for naught. We decided to bag the mushroom hunt and take a hike, as we were close to some water falls. On our way back, less than 100 yards from the parking lot, we passed an Asian family carrying baskets. The two parents had a bunch of weird greens, but the daughter had something else. Something brown and wrinkly and beautiful.

She had morels.

When Cory pointed them out the mother clearly thought that her daughter was going to be attacked by a bunch of 30 year old dudes. Huan asked where she found them, and the mom said "Not here", which we translated as "Go to hell white devils, the mushrooms are ours!"

To seal the deal that we'd be frustrated about our trip Tyler H stepped in dog poo in the parking lot, and actually threw away his shoes rather than trying to clean it up. A disaster all around.

Here are pictures.

* When I saw "west" I really mean "east". To me the mountains are "west", but in fact, in Seattle, water is "west" and mountains are "east".

The dumb American

The one downside of my Saturday of Fun in Munich was this American kid who, frankly, was just awful. So bad that I started keeping a list of things he said that annoyed me. Amongst them:

1. I was talking with the Scottish family and I brought up my dream of playing golf at St. Andrews. Dorkboy hears me talking about golf and says "Ever played Pebble? That's the only course to play. That and Olympic Club. You know, where the '98 US Open was played?" I said I was familiar with both, and while I would love to play them, St. Andrews is where the game of golf was, you know, was invented. He continued to press the relative greatness of American courses while poo-pooing the history of the sport. Kind of like arguing that Safeco Field is better than Wrigley Field in baseball. I mean, it's newer and fancier, but it lacks, um, history. He then made sure to point out that he was a 4 handicap.
2. He mentioned no fewer than 5 times that he was traveling through Europe using the $5,000 signing bonus he got from PwC to be an accountant. This fact and figure amazed a couple folks on the tour, but it was pretentious and lame.
3. He bragged about helping his dad lie on his taxes for the past couple of years.
4. He mentioned no fewer than 3 times that he stayed at his hostel on Friday night rather than going out because he was out in Prague the night before until 5am. With a girl. He actually said it that way, with a period in between the "I was out until 5 in the morning. With a girl." This managed to impress exactly no one.
5. He got into an argument with a Kiwi about how many people lived in New Zealand. This was their exact argument: Kiwi: "There are less than 5 million people in New Zealand."
   American: "No, there are barely more than 3 million." Kiwi: "Yeah, like I said, less than 5 million people." They went at it for a few more minutes, but I was busy trying to poke my eyes out.
6. A couple of us were talking about Jaegermeister when Dorkboy announced: "Are you talking about Jaeger bombs? That was our drink in college." The emphasis was on "our", as in "We created that drink, how did you know about it?
7. Some of the folks on the tour were from Rio, and after they left I said "Man, I really need to go visit Rio." Dorkboy turned to me and said "What would anyone want to go to Rio?" I thought about finding a cellphone and calling Todd at that exact moment. Who can't think of a good reason to go to Rio? Um, the beach? Carnival? Did I mentioned Carnival? The party that makes Mardi Gras look quaint?

That's all I wrote down, but you can see how proud this guy made me of my country. He wasn't quite as bad as the kids who played drinking games at the beer garden in Salzburg, but he was close. Oh well...

Discover hates single people

For some reason Discover has decided to stop sending e-bills, so I have to log on and make sure I haven't accidentally used my card and owe them money. Apparently they've changed their security process, and I had to answer a bunch of security questions in addition to putting in a new password.

Most of the questions were typical: favorite hobby, name of pet, etc. But there was one set of questions that I found particularly offensive: nearly all of them asked something about a significant other. Specifically, the choices were:

• The name of your boyfriend/girlfriend?
• The name of the best man at your wedding?
• The city where you were married?
• Something else that I chose.

Seriously... why does my credit card company have to be putting the pressure on me to get married? I've got my parents for that. Plus, two of those questions are generally part of the public record, which make them really bad security questions.

The rest of Munich

Here's the (not so brief) summary of the rest of my Saturday:

First, some remainders from the morning. I was pretty pleased with myself in terms of looking young when the tour guide offered to give me the student rate. I was talking with the college girls on the tour, and was kind of hoping to tag along with them for the day... they seemed fun, interested in drinking beer, and they spoke English. At some point during the tour I mentioned that the last time I had been in Munich they were still using Deutsch marks. The girls asked what marks were. When I had to explain it was the currency in use in 1999 they told me they were 12 years old in 1999.

We didn't hang out much after that.

Anyways, the rest of the day was beer: a quiet beer in the English Gardens, and then a beer tour (same guide as the morning). The tour was pretty good... the guide took us to 4 places, offered up advice on the better beers at each place, talking about the history of beer in Germany (did you know wheat beers exist because barley prices got to high?), etc. The tour group was a bunch of Brazilians who didn't actually seem to enjoy beer, an Australian who spent the winter as a ski instructor in Austria, two Scottish kids and their mom, a couple of old American dudes from Albany (they didn't know Pat), and the worst American in Europe (more on him in another post).

Sadly, there aren't a lot of great stories from the evening that don't involve the awful American. By the time we got to Hofbrauhaus (the most famous beer hall in Europe) it was 11:00 and I was staring a 6am wakeup call in the fact, so after 1 liter of the lager I called it quits. Turns out that Hofbrau closes at midnight, which I didn't know before.

Wow. This blog post kind of turned into nothing. I realized that I put most of the stories on Flickr.

Jet lag

So this is roughly the timeline of yesterday:

• Midnight, Germany: get home from beer gardens, confuse girl at front desk by requesting two wake up calls, go to sleep
• 6am Germany, receive wake up call #1
• 6:15am: receive wake up call #2. This means that I get up at 9:15pm Seattle time on Saturday night, after having gone to sleep at midnight Germany time. I got up before I went to sleep.

Obviously, this blew my mind when I could finally do that math (somewhere over Greenland). As my picture below indicates, I'm toast right now, so you'll have to wait another day for my final thoughts on Germany.

Here are the photos... explanations and stories to come:

Sober blogging

It's a little past 1:00 here in Munich... no beers as of yet, and given the paucity of internet cafes near beer gardens, I can't promise a post-beer blog post. You never know, but that's the way it looks now.

I went on a walking tour this morning, and have signed up for a beer tour this evening (they claim it's not a tour to get drunk, although it may happen... we'll see). Anyways, I'm not convinced that I've never been in Munich before. Some of the buildings are familiar, but most of them aren't. I spent 3 days here in 1999, and none of the city looks familiar. It's entirely possible that the city has changed in 8 years, but the other, more plausible, explanation is that I was way drunker than I thought in 1999. The tour I took then was on bikes, and it stopped at two beer gardens, and it was just a mess. If I learned anything it was to not be surprised by naked dudes in the English Gardens. But Munich history? Nothing.

Hopefully what I learned today will stick, as the city actually has a pretty interesting past.

Other thoughts:

1. The Mike's Bike Tour for this morning was cancelled because the tour guide didn't show up. I've got to believe this happens all the time... those guys are drunks.
2. There were four American college students studying in Vienna on my tour. It just kills me that I didn't study abroad... they pretty much spend every weekend in another cool city in Europe. Occasionally they study, but not really. Mainly they go to cool cities, party, and try to meet a scruffy multilingual tourguide to bring home to the midwest (that's what the four girls were doing today).
3. Coolest thing I've seen today: Porsche Carerra GT. Me and another guy on the tour nearly lost the group because we saw it and spent 10 minutes staring and taking pictures. Didn't recognize the guy driving it, but he was almost certainly famous.
4. I'm going to get a sunburn today. I'm kind of upset by that, but then again, I'm going to the palest city on the west coast, so it'll be nice to have the color.

Lack of paranoia

Day 5: cold shower. My wake up call actually ocurred today, but that doesn't make up for cold water. Brutal. Germany, fix this.

Last night my coworker and I went downtown to have dinner and walk around Marienplatz and see the city at night. I have some great photos (I actually figured out that not using the flash and holding very still allows good night shots to be taken) that will be uploaded some time after I get back to Seattle. My coworker hasn't traveled in many European cities and was awestruck at the Rathaus and other buildings, which, while definitely neat looking, pale in comparison to some of the cathedrals and castles I've seen elsewhere.

Anyways, we meandered along for about an hour and I realized how much more relaxed I was relative to my trip to Europe post-college. When I was traveling back then I remember consciously avoiding groups of people or street performers, as I was confident they would steal my passport and potentially my kidneys. I was maniacal about keeping my passport on me at all times, even maybe when showering. Getting cash out of an ATM was a three man operation, one getting cash, one bodyguard, and one remote lookout. But last night when I needed cash I just walked up to an ATM, put in my card, go the cash... easy as pie. No peering over the shoulder.

Obviously Munich isn't as crowded now as the cities I saw in the summer, but I'm wondering why I'm so much more comfortable. I'm somewhat shameless about my inability to speak or read German (I just spent 7 hours hosting a business meeting between two sets of Germans who spoke only in English, so I guess it isn't a big deal). Maybe its because I'm not traveling siege style.

I'll probably have one more German post, and I'll try and make it tomorrow after I've spent some time at the beer gardens (the forecast for Munich is just unbelievable).

The beauty of an open window

One of the commonalities between the two office buildings I've worked in Germany this week is that both had windows that opened. Neither building is especially different from office buildings in the US, but it's amazing how much more pleasant the atmosphere is when there is background noise and fresh air circulating. I know that part of the reason for this is the lack of air conditioning, but it's a great feature that should be used more often.

Other German things that I like: cheap beer, small cars, motion sensor lights in hotels, self-adjusting flush duration on toilets, pretzels as a bread
Other German things I don't like: showers that discourage being in the shower, no alarm clock in hotel rooms, carbonated water

Germany update

My body is completely wigged out by the time change. I was in great shape on Tuesday, but then had a restless night's sleep on Wednesday and spent most of yesterday in a haze. Luckily it was my turn to drive, so I got to drive through this haze to Munich from Regensburg. The trip went fine, but it's scary how fast closing speeds are on the Autobahn. I was averaging 140-150 kph (84-90 mph), which seemed pretty quick. Still, every now and then I'd be passing someone and I'd look up and there would be a Mercedes sedan just filling my rear view mirror, obviously annoyed that he had to slow down from 200 kph.

I have some stories that will be good to share, but probably off the blog, as they involve my traveling companion/co-worker and how annoying he is.

That said, the "pork/beer/dumpling/sauerkraut" diet is working out fantastically. I couldn't be happier about what I'm eating.

100mph on the Autobahn on 2 hours sleep? You guys play hoops for money?

So the trip is over. I'm in my hotel room in Regensburg, which looks like an amazingly pleasant place in the Bavarian countryside. Some old churches (this is home to Benedict XVI, or something like that). A nice university. Lots of people on bikes. I'm sure it would be even better if I knew where I was. My travelling companion forgot the map, so we cruised around for 30 minutes before finding the hotel. I had to translate a bus map into directions. In German. I'm a genius.

Anyways, if you rent a car in Munich, don't choose Dollar, as the cars aren't onsite. As far as I can tell, they may not actually be in Germany either. After figuring that out we got the car and roared off to Regensburg. Paul kept saying how he wasn't a fast driver, and then would say something like "Wow, I'm going 100". He wasn't (he's not good with the mph/kph deal), but we were still going fast, and he's only had slightly more sleep than me. He also drove a decent way down a one way road (the wrong way), but we're all good now. I was supposedly navigating and missed the first two turns, which were actually highways. My readership should know that I don't get lost on the road. Unless it is in Venice after 8 bottles of wine.

There really aren't going to be any more stories, at least now. I'm going to sleep (it's 8pm), will work tomorrow, hopefully see Regensburg tomorrow evening. That said, German radio is fascinating. As is the "GPS" system in our car. It won't let you program destination, but it will tell you what street you are on and your lat/long coordinates. Which, when you are lost in a German city is incredibly useless information.

In Munich, not sure what's going on

First, the kezboards in Germanz are reallz screwed up, so apologies in advance.

I've now been hanging out in the Munich airport for 3 hours, pushing me past the 24 hours without sleep mark. I'm kind of starting to hallucinate, or at least I was an hour ago. I attempted to fix that situation by walking outside (the Munich airport has a reallz nice glass roof covered courtyard inbetween terminals) and getting some fresh air. However, I may have countered any benefit from the fresh air by sitting and having a late lunch, with a half liter of weissbrau, at Airbrau, the Munich airports own brewpub. And brewery. Iäm not kidding. They play a lot of Phil Collins.

)Seriouslz, this keyboard is a joke. It onlz makes my current state of mind all the harder to deal with).

Anywho, not too much else to report. I thought there was a really trippy Burger King statue, but it turns out to be some sort of Bavarian mascot. I have a picture of myself crossing the 24 hour mark (it happens to be in the bathroom), which isnät as bad as it could be.

The last time I was in Germany was 1999, and obviously much has changed since then. However, I distinctly remember being told not to bring or wear any denim for fear of looking like and American tourist (since the backpack never gave it away). Well, we (i.e. America) seem to have won that war. Everyone is wearing jeans. Old, young, it doesn't matter... they are all happily walking around in Levi Strauss. I feel out of place with khakis (don't worry... I brought two pairs of jeans).

Also, I think every American who has an issue with multilingual education needs to come to Europe alone and see how many people can and are willing to speak English. It's quite impressive... I bought a little German phrasebook, but no one has given me a problem when speaking English (except the girls trying to hawk me an Amex gold card). My lack of sleep has somehow activated the part of mz brain that remembers Spanish, and it's all I can do to not throw "La cuenta, por favor" out when asking for the check.

Lastly, the Munich airport is really quite nice, but it lacks the chaos of Heathrow (or, for that matter, any American airport), which makes it kind of creepy. Like the baggage claim area. At National Airport the baggage claim area is kind of like a rugby scrum. But here, people come in, get their bags, and leave. No big deal. Weird.

Well, hopefullz this is my last blog before sleep. My co-worker should arrive within the hour, then we get our car and head to Regensburg. Maybe more from there tomorrow.

Adios.

Live blog: terminal evacuation

I have no idea what's going on, but they are evacuating one level of Terminal 2 in Heathrow. It's a very proper British evacuation, everyone is politely moving around. No panic. The terminal here is more of a mall than anything else, and they're just pushing everyone up onto the top floor. I've got 13 minutes left on my internet session, will update as appropriate.

Starting to wig out in @ Heathrow

This post could prove to be a disaster for several reasons:

1. I have no clue what time my body thinks it is. It's 7:45am in London, and I've been in Heathrow for 2 hours now. With 90 minutes to go.#
2. For some reason teh UK keyboards are a complete disaster. I am hitting keys I didn't know existed.

There are probably more reasons, but they don't come to mind right now. Anyways, the trip so far hasn't been awful. The flights here were both pleasant, with the Chicago to London leg especially so because the plane was fantastically empty. I had an entire row (5 seats) to myself, so I could lie completely flat. Had my body not thought it was early evening I probably would have slept. I maybe slept for an hour.

Anyways, I love being in London, even if I'm really not. It's a deceptively cool place, Heathrow. Everyone is a million different shades of @flesh@ (Sorry, I don't know where the quotes are). They all speak with this amazing accent. It's just great. I even saw an ad for KFC. It's like being at home. Also, Heathrow is just the most intoxicating place because you have no idea where you are, and you just keep getting shuttled to and from different spots, occasionally taking a bus, sometimes a train. I took both of those and I didn't actually leave the airport. I even had to go through immigration in order to check my bag to Munich (1 carry-on bag in the UK... boo their version of TSA). I have picture of one of the moving pathways that gives the lonely feel of the airport at 6am on a holiday.

That said, I'm concerned about duty free. As in, I walk in thinking "duty free" (ah, shift-2 for quotes), that's got to be a good deal. And then I do the math, and it seems like a total shaft. Is it a good deal for anyone? I can't believe its a deal for Americans, even with the tax-freeness. I'm also loving the cigarette warnings here ("CAUSES DEATH"). Not very blunt. I'm also thankful that none of the fancy shirt stores have been smart enough to staff themselves on Easter Monday with an attractive girl with a British accent. I would have maxed out the old credit card. I'm a sucker.

That's all for now. Probably going to post again in Germany.

Guten tag

As I have complained to everyone within earshot in the past two weeks, I'm going to Germany tomorrow morning and I'm not very happy about it. In fact, I'm dreading it. Being in Germany won't be that bad, but the journey couldn't be worse. I've never been a believer in positive thinking, instead I feel if expectations are as low as possible it's hard to be disappointed (although domestic airlines continue to surpass the lowest expectations possible).

Amongst the many possible choices, here are the top reasons I'm dreading the next few days:

• Apparently the Sea-Tac airport has very little parking left because so many people have left town for Spring Break. I can't even make a reservation at off-site places (where, technically, I'm supposed to park based on corporate travel rules.)
• Corporate travel rules.
• Missing Masters Sunday. This is a very important day for me. Obviously it isn't important in the same sense that "family" and "health" are important, but I really, really enjoy spending the 2nd Sunday in April on a couch watching golf at Augusta. And, if I'm lucky, I'll see about 60 minutes of coverage tomorrow. My flight lands in Chicago at 2:30, and takes off again at 4:00 or so. And, since its United and not Jet Blue, there won't be live TV. Sweet.
• Roughly, here are the important time checks for my journey:
• Depart SEA 8:30am Seattle time (10:30am Chicago time, 11:30am Masters time, 5:30pm Munich time)
• Depart ORD 4:00pm Chicago time (1:00pm Seattle time, 6:00pm Masters time, 10:00pm Munich time)
• Arrive LHR 6:00am London time (10:00pm Seattle time, 1am Masters time, 7:00am Munich time)
• Depart LHR 9:35am London time (1:35am Seattle time, 4:35am Masters time, 10:35am Munich time)
• Arrive MUC 12:20pm Munich time (3:20am Seattle time, 6:20am Masters time)
• Wait in MUC until 3:50pm for co-workers flight to arrive (6:20am Seattle time)
• Drive to Regensburg in Germany.

Yup. At least I'll be flying business class the whole way.* And, at least I don't have to waste three weekend days on business travel, as rather than returning on Friday or Saturday when I'm done with work, I'll get to stay until the following Sunday because the plane fare is cheaper.** Wow. How lucky am I?

I'm sure things will be better than I expect, but I'm (obviously) not optimistic. Expect emails from me at strange times. Or, expect to see a BBC news blurb about an American going nuts in customs and getting arrested.

* Except for all of the segments on planes. I'll be in coach.
** Unless you count Sunday and Saturday as weekend days.

Ovens, surprisingly, can be a competitive advantage

A few years ago Quiznos started running ads that called out Subway for serving cold sandwiches. There were tons of TV ads interviewing people who, magically, all agreed that hot sandwiches were the only way to go. The ads implied that you were a fool for eating the cold, Jared-endorsed sandwiches at Subway. This always struck me as a strange tactic by Quiznos, because "heat" didn't seem like a big moat for Subway to cross. It's not like an oven is a piece of patented technology that can't be replicated.

Sure enough, Subway responded. With ovens.

That said, after several years of eating (toasted) sandwiches at both establishments I think the battle has been won by Quiznos. Granted, Subway has a better selection of sandwiches, but their toaster ovens are fancy microwaves rather than traditional ovens, thus making their toasted bread quiet chewy. And I'm not down with chewy.

The requisite post on The Bachelor

As a former Bachelor candidate myself I feel I need, no, must, comment on last night's premier of The Bachelor. The guy who is the Bachelor was my year at Duke; I knew of him but didn't know him personally.

Anyways, my thoughts on what is likely to be the only episode I'll actually watch:

1. It was amazingly uncomfortable to watch him greet the girls. I thought my 30th birthday was bad (moving across the country to a town with no friends), but being forced to meet 25 rabid and likely over-the-top aggressive girls would have much, much worse.
   
2. That said, 4 of the contestants are from Charleston (or Hilton Head), and that's pretty optimal.
3. This was my big takeaway: why the hell did they have him driving a Saleen S7? For the uninitiated, this is a custom supercar that sells for a touch over $500,000. Don't get me wrong, it is an amazing automobile (0-60 in under 3 seconds), but if you are going to pick out a super-car to improve the image of the Bachelor, why not pick something that is immediately recognizable by most people. What's wrong with a Ferrari F430? Or a Lambo? Or Bentley? Or, keeping it American, a Ford GT? You really need to be a car geek to know what a Saleen S7 is. And I don't think the Bachelor's audience is full of car geeks.
4. BTW, if he owns that car, I'm joining the Navy tomorrow. Or running an Ironman.
5. Seriously, budget is no constraint and you don't pick this? I wouldn't want to be on that show anyways.

I'm starting to hate Duke

In his professional blog Huan does a nice job explaining why this is the one of the worst pieces of sports-writing in 2007. Or ever.

I struggle to find words to describe how upset this makes me. Part of being a Duke fan is recognizing that people hate Duke. If you can't deal with that singular fact then you probably shouldn't be running a website dedicated to cheering on Duke basketball. And you certainly shouldn't write long essays explaining (incorrectly) why people hate Duke.

In case you don't know, here is why people hate Duke:

1. The hating started in the early 90s after the back-to-back championships (think Yankees) and the Laettner stomp. While DBR would have you believe that the stomp wasn't that big of a deal, they miss the whole point. Perception is that Laettner did it on purpose (he probably did); it doesn't matter whether Timberlake was hurt or not. It was a jerk thing to do, and thence started Duke hating.
2. The hate grew in the mid-90s as Coach K started appearing in sanctimonious TV ads and Vitale/ESPN started to broadcast every Duke game. I mean every game. We've been overexposed for a decade. As a fan this doesn't bother me, as it saves me from buying ESPN's college channel. But if something annoys you, and then you see it all the time, well, it probably annoys you even more.
3. The past 10 years have seen Coach K appear in even preachier ads, a resurgence of talent that reinforced the Yankees image, and Battier the flopper. I don't mind K doing the ads... I'd eat glass and live in a barn for a year to get an Amex deal. But the fact that DBR completely ignores his polarizing effect when "analyzing" Duke-hating is just ignorant. Also, I have no beef with Battier... he's a great person, great basketball player, etc. But people didn't like him because they thought he got all the calls. Deal with it.

So DBR needs to understand that the downside of success is that people don't always love a winner. What's especially sad about the essay is that it papers over a very interesting point: why has the hatred toward Duke grown vitriolic? I would feel safe walking down Franklin Street in full Duke gear... there's always been some level of respect between UNC and Duke. But I'd be terrified to even mention that I was a Duke fan in College Park. When VCU knocked Duke out of this year's tournament the entire bar was cheering loudly against Duke (not really for VCU). In Seattle. There were reports of journalist at neutral sites cheering Duke's loss. This is a new, somewhat disturbing trend. One that would be interesting to explore. Unfortunately DBR just whined.

So, in the spirit of Stephen Colbert, I've decided that DBR is dead to me. I can find other sources of recruiting information, and if I really feel like I need to talk to a homer I'll call Jordan, who is still convinced that Duke will go undefeated last year.

Man dates

By the end of the week I will have been on two man-dates. Thanks to Bobby and Rita for introducing me to people. Please feel free to make jokes.

But, I do not have a cat.

[PS: Get better Franko.]

A topic that only interests me

Since I read a lot of Bill Simmons' column I have read countless mediocre jokes about NBA teams trying to tank games in order to improve their chances in the draft lottery. The obvious prize is a chance to pick Greg Oden or Kevin Durant, assuming they leave college this year. As a newly developed NBA fan and pseudo-statistician there are two things about this that bugs me:

• It bugs me the fan in me that professional athletes can give up and still earn huge contracts. I don't mean to be naive. I know that the players can't control their coaches trying to throw games; I understand that players earn their money to draw in crowds, not necessarily win games. But the idea that teams could throw games for the chance to maybe pick a player is a complete misalignment of incentives.
• It bugs the statistician in me that the draft lottery results in a fixed percentage chance to pick 1st, 2nd, or 3rd. Here is a description of the draft lottery. What annoys me is that the worst team may only be slightly worse than the next worse team, yet they have a 25% better chance of winning the lottery. It would seem that it would be a much better system to have the chances of winning the lottery proportional to how bad the teams are. This year Memphis is pretty clearly the worst team, but you can throw a rug over Boston, Milwaukee, Charlotte, and Atlanta.
  
• My proposal: make the odds of winning the lottery proportional to the number of losses each team has. You can weight this in various ways to make it more likely for the worst team to win (i.e. proportional to the square of the number of losses, etc). Simultaneously I would fix the standings at some date before the end of the season to make intentionally tanking harder to do. Maybe fix the lottery order on the same day that the first team clinches a playoff spot. That way if you tank, you have to tank the whole season.
  

What was so different in 1982

I'm a big fan of my apartment. It's really big (1200+ square feet), it has fantastic views, and it's convenient to buses and grocery stores. There are some things that aren't great... the washer and dryer are only slightly quieter than jet engines, the southwestern exposure causes the apartment to get really hot even on cool days, and the carpets need a good cleaning. I can deal with all of that, but the shallow sink is starting to drive me batty.



You can see that the sink isn't even as deep as a standard stadium cup. It's about 5 plates deep, which makes it impossible to actually clean anything without getting the counter or my pants wet. If there is anything in the sink (and since it's used by two dudes who hate cleaning, there always is) you can't even fill the Brita.

What I want to know is who would ever design such a poor solution to a problem that has existed since plumbing came inside. Seriously? My grandmother's sink is really deep, and I think it's been there since the 60s. There is no obstacle that would necessitate a shallow sink in my case.

If anyone has a solution to this (that doesn't include installing a new sink), let me know.