Kanida is hot, muggy, smelly, and expensive. It was really humid the entire weekend and the only thing that made it acceptable was a strong breeze off of Lake Huron. Lake Huron gets a 9/10 btw since it was smooth the whole time and cool and not smelly and practically free.

We saw a really run down indian reservation. That got a 2/10. The restaurant in the shopping center near there though had “traditional native fried bread” which gets 8/10.

So Canatuna must have like 99% sales tax. A hamburger and fries was $13. Fish and chips was like $15. For perch. Not even for pufferfish or anything. Around where I live it’s usually like $7. Drinks at a bar were $5-8 a piece which is a bit steep but when you factor in that they didn’t appear to even have any alcohol (and tasted just like mixer) a shot of liquor must be like $20 there.

We stopped at a liquor store and a beer store. The Beer Store actually. You see, Soberada is a socialist nation. The best way to control a populace in a tyrannical nation is to control the alcohol supply. Hence The Beer Store. It’s the only place (seemingly) you can buy beer. A 6 pack of beer is roughly twice the cost of what people in the States pay. This probably explains the people with hand carts and 20 18-packs of bud light coming back over to Canadia on the ferry. Oh, and about the liquor stores. In Corndidia the only liquor stores are LCBO stores. They are pretty nice as far as stores go, more like a Macy’s than a Walmart. A 750mL bottle of Jose Cuervo runs about $35 Eh’dian. Right now greenbacks and loonies are about even so we can say that’s roughly $35 USD. Three blocks away from my house I can buy the same bottle of Cuervo (or at least a close cousin) for around $16.

If it wasn’t for a minimum wage of $8 and up and healthcare/retirement/etc that the people with jobs have to pay for in their probably 200% income tax I don’t know how anyone can get drunk in Nadcania. There must be a bum booze subsidy program or something for the stinky part of the population.

Overall, Candidia gets a 6/10. It’s fun to visit but expensive, hot and smelly. You don’t think Candacia is hot? I can say honestly that 100% of the times I have been to Candardia in the last year it has been hot and muggy. Proof enough.

So that parts good. But then I had to buy a laptop case. You see, my laptop bag that I held my 12″ PowerBook in was not nearly big enough for the beast that is this lappy (it has a full numeric keypad!). While shopping for lappy bags, I thought to myself, “Self, this lappy is so big that if you carry it in a soft bag you will bash it into everything. Maybe you should look into a hard sided lappy case.”

Thus I purchased a Solo Attachè on Newegg. (God typing the grave mark over a vowel is way more of a pain in Windows). It’s sweet. It’s big. It’s heavy. It’s sweet.

Closed case on my stove.
Case with lappy and accessories
Case with objects to give relative size

Now, before you say “Wait sloth, that looks really bulky for a lappy. Why did you buy that?” let me point out that there is nothing light or easily portable about a 17″ laptop. I bought it for three reasons: 1) my desktop sucks by modern standards, 2) I wanted a new machine to game on, and 3) I wanted a new machine to code on. A big portable desktop that happens to have a battery included was the perfect solution. This case is basically an armored shell to make sure it survives from point A to point B. If point B happens to be on the other side of point IRAQ it had better well make it unscathed.

Also, if you ever need a large amount of money carried somewhere I have the perfect case for it. I only charge 5%.

• Garbage pickup (like BFI or Waste Management)
• Removing pet hair from practically everything
• Strip mining
• Fishing
• Farming (replace harvesters)
• Really awesome snowballs
• Mowing the lawn (after rolling up a bunch of razor blades)

I really want a katamari. Maybe if I get one I can roll up some presents too. Maybe even cousins.

Now I say ‘nearly improbable’, since being a physicist, among other things I’ve learned it is possible to throw a ball throw a solid wall. It just would take near elevenity-million-billion tries (on average) to get one through. We later discovered the wall would crumble and the earth would die before we’d have time to make that many tosses at a given wall.

So besides the past, I think about the future, terraformed Mars (unterraformed is useless, I’d just die - end of exercise),  an alien space ship, and just about anywhere else outside of here and now.

Bonsai Kitten

Turns out the woman is good for something, pointing me here.

I couldn’t get this damn thing out of my head. You get to enjoy it now too.

If we can’t come up with the $9.99 we may have to sell the logo. Er. Damn.

It’s Pecorino Sardo cheese that someone thought to add cheese fly larvae too. The larvae chew it up and crap it out and then you get to eat it. Some people don’t even pick the larvae out before they eat it. It’s so hardcore that Wikipedia even has a section about the dangers of eating this cheese.

Thanks (or not) to The Consumerist for this.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup warm water
• 3 tbsp white sugar
• 2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• season to taste (I like oregano and basil)

Stir the water, sugar and yeast until dissolved. Add olive oil and salt. Stir in flour until well blended. Knead the crap out of it to make it nicely mixed. Cut in half. Lightly flour the outside of each dough ball and let sit 10 mins. Preheat oven as hot as it will go (like 500-600 fahrenheit is great). Pat half into pan and spread out pizza style. Brush crust with melted butter mixed with salt and garlic powder. Top with all the stuffs you want on the pizza. Bake at 500 for 6 mins or so.

Your mileage may vary on baking. My new oven doesn’t get hot enough so I pre-cook the crust like 5 minutes then top and then cook for 6 more or so.

This is stupid.

A pint of Guinness Drought (the more caloric one) has 210 calories. That’s .370 calories per gram.

A bottle of Michelob Ultra has 73 calories. That’s .265 calories per gram.

A slice of Wonder Bread contains 79 calories. That’s 2.565 calories per gram.

So beer might very well be runny bread but it’s diet runny bread. Bitches.

P.S. - Sorry for the boring post. The video is good though.

Economists can study pirates though. Peter T. Leson from George Mason University has published two papers and is working on a third legitimately studying pirates from an Austrian Economists perspective. (Actually read this link on Austrian Economists if you want a more concise explanation.)

An-arrgh-chy: The Law and Economics of Pirate Organization (which I haven’t had a chance to read yet)

Pirational Choice: The Economics of Infamous Pirate Practices. (which I am in the process of reading and which is very good)

and the work in progress:
The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates, History’s Most Notorious Criminals - Abstract (this abstract makes this paper look to be the best of the three…and it’s short for your poor attention spans)

And before you say it’s apples to oranges, that’s your work connection, this is mine

I go from a 1 or 2 meg connection to 12. Booyah. My porn loads supa-fast.

a) it’s been out for so long games are cheap
b) it has a real gamepad which I prefer to the wiimote
c) theoretically I’ll be able to get free demos and games and stuff from the live thinga

I say theoretically because I have to get it on the tubes first. My wireless router is downstairs so I either have to a) shell out $100 for the xbox wireless, b) finagle a wire up there somehow or c) rig up some other wireless setup. Last night I played with the connection sharing in leopard and all it did was make my internet not work at all. I’m pondering putting my router in the living room and putting a wireless card in a pc in the basement.

The wii came with wireless. That’s one thing in its favor. That and Zack and Wiki. I mean, you shake your friggin monkey to beat monsters. And you are a pirate.

A monkey shaking pirate!

#1 with 14 comments
Vote Theoretical Ideal Candidate in 2008!

#2 with 13 comments
Kirby Dance 2.0

#3 with 10 comments
Women love Women

#4 with 10 comments
Knots are to be Tied

#5 with 9 comments
Choke a wha?

I’m amused but not surprised that women loving women beat out man loving woman. I am also surprised that politics > sex.