My friend Carrie and I had drinks in Wrigleyville. After a couple of drinks we part and I get in a cab. As I get in I notice the Eastern European look on the young man’s face. A fairly handsome look at that. I get a random thought in my head that this might be the same Romanian cab driver I had met about a year ago. I decide to wait it out.
I give the address and he asks me,
“Do you mind if I talk on the phone?”
I say “no,” and he gets back on the phone:
<romanian> Dude, I have this hot lady in my car.
As the idea that he might be Romanian had already popped in my head, I don’t miss a beat, I lean over and say:
<romanian> and the lady speaks Romanian…
The driver turns over in complete disbelief. In all honesty, I don’t think I have ever seen a look like that, as he was weighing the possibility that he imagined me speaking Romanian, and actually trying to decide if I had said something. And then he turns right back without a reply and speaks into the phone in Romanian:
<romanian>”dude, I have to go”
<muffled sounds from the phone>
“no I really have to go, my biceps is cramping”
Then he turns for a moment, looks at me, turns back to watch the road and starts a conversation with me in Romanian while I’m laughing my ass off… Seriously I could not help it…. I think he said something about “that doesn’t happen very often…” but I can’t remember. Maybe I should have said “thank you for the compliment” because it could have only been honest being that he had no clue I was Romanian. But I didn’t, I just laughed.
I just returned from my first trip to Vegas, where I got my first taste of the #1 tourist city in the US, a place with low taxes, and high consumption. In fact if I had to choose a motto for Vegas is would not be Sin City but “the land of free and unlimited consumption.” Here are some observations related to freedom and consumption:
You can walk down the strip with a drink in hand (down the strip only), but you can’t enter a bar with a drink from the outside. Consumption for all outside, consumption from the inside while inside.
Shrimp and lobster are advertised everywhere. Penn Jillette even made reference in an interview on how Vegas has become all about the “shrimp,” which can be interpreted as a hint to how Vegas was transformed into a city for the masses, and tries to give the masses the illusion that they’re participating in the high-life. You don’t have to own a cocktail dress, but you can go to a show in jeans and eat 99 cent shrimp. Since 1959 when Italo Ghelfi started importing shrimp to his Golden Gate Casino the 99 cent shrimp cocktails have become a staple of Vegas. So when in Vegas, should we have some shrimp?
Mega Buffets. It’s very interesting to note that one could have a bagel, cheese, a piece of fruit and a cup of coffee for about $6-7 for breakfast, but people will pay $10 for an all you can eat buffet. Not only is Vegas the city of over-eating but also, Vegas businesses know how to make a buck on our over-eating. Do not be fooled into thinking that all that extra buffet food comes for free. It will cost you an extra $3 for a breakfast and a few extra pounds by the end of the trip. All in all, buffet eating is not necessarily profitable to the one doing the eating.
I know you thought I was going to say drug companies spend too much on marketing. Oh and they do spend in the billions of dollars range. But at the same time I am a financial libertarian and am against government intervention so I will not address this topic at this time (plus I failed to get any good data for either argument so I need more time…).
But I was fascinated, just like the Wired editors by the new marketing techniques the drug companies are using–tissue boxes reminding you to “break the cycle of depression,” zip drives labeled with the Alzheimers drug Namenda, and the Provigil wireless mouse (which came with batteries as the Wired writers noted) . Check out the “loot”.
The May/June 2007 Skeptical Inquirer has a number of great articles. Two of them were outstanding and as they can’t be found online yet, I’d like to give a brief review.
1. Alan Scott’s (Physics professor at University of Wisconsin-Stout) “Danger! Scientific Inquiry Hazard” presents the idea that just as we have hazard symbols for radioactive, biological and chemical materials, the world needs a hazard symbol for scientific affronts–”these things that impede progress toward a true understanding and appreciation of the physical world.”
Common affronts to science include pseudoscience, relativism, romanticism, antiscience, secrecy, deceptive consumer marketing and religion. These categories are not mutually exclusive, nor are they completely devoid of being beneficial to humanity.
2. Todd C. Riniolo (teaches Psychology and a special course in Skepticism at Medaille College, Buffalo, NY) and Lee Nisbet (teaches Philosophy at Medaille College, Buffalo, NY) co-author “The Myth of Consistent Skepticism; The Cautionary Case of Albert Einstein,” in which they discuss the concepts of “selective skepticism” and “consistent skepticism.”
…we all have limitations and built-in biases that hinder our ability to apply the methods of skepticism objectively and consistently. Nonskeptics and professed skeptics alike are equally vulnerable to developing beliefs that have not been subjected to rigorous skeptical inquiry.
The other night, while watching the Latin Divas of Comedy 2007 I was highly impressed by a not so well known comedian, Monique Marvez. So, to spread the comedic bug, here is the first part of her stand-up bit. You can see the rest of the video on my vlog. Keep your eyes on this comedian, because she has incredible potential to become a big star.
I haven’t posted in a while due to my work/travel schedule but I kept an eye on Blog Stats. Aside from the usual searches for “illegal immigrants shouldn’t” and “Ceausescu” which my blog gets in good supply, I noticed a few new and interesting searches:
2. Religiosity in Macbeth, which I have no idea what post it resolved to.
2. “Abit KN8 northbridge fan” which probably resolved to the post on my AMD system and my complaint that the mobo northbridge fan died within a few months of my buying the motherboard.
Much has been discussed recently in the news about TB. One of the things that hasn’t been mentioned much is the difference between TB infection and TB disease.
What is the difference between latent tuberculosis infection and tuberculosis disease?
Latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI) means the person has the TB germ in their body (usually lungs), but has yet to develop obvious symptoms. In latent TB, the person has a significant reaction to the Mantoux skin test with no symptoms of tuberculosis, and no TB organisms found in the sputum. Tuberculosis disease indicates the person has symptoms, a significant reaction to a Mantoux skin test and organisms found in the sputum. In order to spread the TB germs, a person must have TB disease. Having latent TB infection is not enough to spread the germ. Tuberculosis may last for a lifetime as an infection, never developing into disease. Source: New York State Department of Health.
My friend Carrie and I had drinks in Wrigleyville. After a couple of drinks we part and I get in a cab. As I get in I notice the Eastern European look on the young man’s face. A fairly handsome look at that. I get a random thought in my head that this might be the same Romanian cab driver I had met about a year ago. I decide to wait it out.
