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Tue, 19 Jul 2011 16:12:00 -0500

David Foster Wallace - Commencement Speech at Kenyon University

Tue, 05 Jul 2011 00:46:21 -0500

David Foster Wallace - Commencement Speech at Kenyon University:

Best graduation speech ever!

Why the crime decline?

Tue, 31 May 2011 14:24:57 -0500

Why the crime decline?:

There may also be a medical reason for the decline in crime. For decades, doctors have known that children with lots of lead in their blood are much more likely to be aggressive, violent and delinquent. In 1974, the Environmental Protection Agency required oil companies to stop putting lead in gasoline. At the same time, lead in paint was banned for any new home (though old buildings still have lead paint, which children can absorb).

Next and Aviary

Tue, 24 May 2011 03:17:00 -0500

Was in Chicago last week and had an unbelievable time at Next/Aviary, Grant Achatz’s (chef at Alinea) new restaurant and bar, respectively.

Next changes their menu every 3 months and does a new theme based on a different time and place each time. This menu was Paris 1906 and they copied exact recipes from that period, which made the 8 course meal extremely authentic.

The restaurant also works with tickets instead of reservations. Each ticket is inclusive of taxes and tip and must be purchased online through their elusive ordering system. At the time I got our table, they sold over 100 tables in under 1 minute. Thousands of people wait on the website frantically refreshing the page.

We also got non-alcoholic pairings, reasoning that (a) we don’t know what we’re doing with wine and (b) not many good restaurants serve non-alcoholic pairings, so it’d be a unique experience. They were all really good (and almost definitely more preferable than wine), except for the carrot juice, which we hypothesized was simply the watery remains you find at the bottom of a 1 lb bag of carrots poured into a wine glass.

The highlight course was the duck, which was served family style:

Photo via Dan D.’s Facebook

Afterwards we got drinks at The Aviary, which is a sort of molecular gastronomy for drinks. The menu has about 15 drinks in order from least to most crazy and offers about 10 small bites as snacks. The drinks got good, but not great reviews, but the “coolness” factor was very high on all of them.

We also randomly were seated next to Nick Kokonos, the co-owner of Alinea, Next, and The Aviary. Chef Achatz talked to him briefly and after we said hi to Achatz, Nick talked to us a bit and told us about his background (trading!) and how he transitioned into this business. He seemed like a really nice guy and is a part of now 3 of the best and most influential spots in Chicago eating/drinking, though he still gets a hard time from all the people who can’t manage to refresh the Next website fast enough to score their tickets!

FT.com / House & Home - Liveable v lovable

Mon, 09 May 2011 02:22:32 -0500

FT.com / House & Home - Liveable v lovable:

Best city analysis I’ve read via FT. Top 5: NYC, Rio, Istanbul, London, Rome.

Passover in Boca

Sun, 01 May 2011 11:59:14 -0500

Went to a Passover program at the Boca Raton Resort with a few friends and their family. Need to do relaxing/good weather trips like these more often. Great way to refresh.

Passover thing was fantastic. I was gorging myself on food every day, frequently ordering 2-3 entrees for dinner and eating some sort of meal or snack every couple hours.

Next year hope to stay longer and get in a golf round!

Great day: 1st poker’s back now chicken’s back

Wed, 27 Apr 2011 16:55:24 -0500

Great day: 1st poker’s back now chicken’s back

Rodrigo Rosenberg’s Murder in Guatemala : The New Yorker

Fri, 15 Apr 2011 12:53:36 -0500

Rodrigo Rosenberg’s Murder in Guatemala : The New Yorker:

Took a week to read but great story about Guatemala politics/corruption

Big carrot day at the supermarket

Sun, 10 Apr 2011 14:08:15 -0500

Big carrot day at the supermarket

Menchies TO

Sun, 03 Apr 2011 17:26:29 -0500

Menchies TO

Color Looks To Reinvent Social Interaction With Its Mobile Photo App (And $41 Million In Funding)

Wed, 23 Mar 2011 19:13:25 -0500

Color Looks To Reinvent Social Interaction With Its Mobile Photo App (And $41 Million In Funding):

Shares photos publicly within 100 feet, called the “Twitter of photo apps.” This will be really awesome in big cities.

Nguyen has visions of fundamentally changing some aspects of social interaction and local discovery with the app, which he considers part of the so-called Post-PC movement. Using all of the data being collected (remember, the app is taking advantage of all of your phone’s sensors), Color hopes to eventually start recommending nearby points of interest, and maybe even interesting people. The future is unclear, but promising. And for now, it’s a very interesting experiment.

future beerpong champ, very sick

Tue, 22 Mar 2011 01:24:34 -0500

future beerpong champ, very sick

Sick #winning graffiti

Mon, 21 Mar 2011 16:07:52 -0500

Sick #winning graffiti

Man vs matzo balls

Wed, 16 Mar 2011 20:09:06 -0500

Man vs matzo balls

Never try to save money by getting an olive oil bottle of this...

Mon, 14 Mar 2011 16:48:42 -0500

Never try to save money by getting an olive oil bottle of this nature. Impossible to hold and oil everywhere!

Universal wrapping paper | David Airey, graphic designer

Thu, 10 Mar 2011 19:01:23 -0600

Universal wrapping paper | David Airey, graphic designer:

Sick idea