AOK's blog

Zimbabwe

This would be amusing if it weren't so tragic. I read this article from the BBC a few days back which said Zimbabwe recently started printing a 500 million Zimbabwe dollar note. At the time of the article's publication, one of these bills for Z$500,000,000 was worth US$2.

More graffiti

More from the alley with all the graffiti. This was up a while back.

Graffiti Alley

On my way to work every morning, I walk down a pedestrian alleyway that runs between two stores. The stores are nothing special; a Citibank and a restaurant called Central Kitchen. Over the past few months, the alleyway been painted over dozens of times by really amazing graffiti. I'm assuming it's sanctioned, as the graffiti is pretty professional-looking and stays up for weeks at a time. The art isn't limited to spray paint. There are posters as well. Here's a sampling from over the past few months:

First it's two images of rich Uncle Pennybags with fake "Community Chest" and "Chance" cards. The "Chance" card here reads "Your hedge fund is up 14%..." Nice.

Next, the boxer "Boom Boom" Mancini, who's somehow related to Pedro, I think...

More grains

I need to follow up on my last post regarding bread for two reasons.

First, a comment on the post asked if I could come up with 15 grains, possibly those included in 15 grain bread. I thought long and hard and came up with exactly five. Then I decided to go after the answer on the bread package only to discover we've finished the loaf. I looked online, but Pepperidge Farms' website didn't have the ingredients. Here were my thoughts on what grains might be in there: wheat, oats, barley, flax, rye. That's all I got. Five seems pretty pitiful to me...

The second reason I have to follow up on the last post about 7, 9, 12, and 15 grain bread is that I came up with the perfect thing to go with all these grains (all 43 of them). That would be "Forty Spices" hummus.

That's a picture of me with a thunderstruck look on my face trying to fathom the mind-bending implications of all those flavors together. I don't even know how to calculate all the combinations, but something tells me it involves either factorials, linear algebra, differential equations, or magic. I will attempt to make a sandwich with the 40 spices hummus as well as one slice of each bread I mentioned before (7, 9, 12, and 15 grain breads).

I pray that it doesn't upset the spacetime continuum.

Grains

I'm a fan of good, hearty bread for sandwiches. I don't just mean a solid loaf of wheat over white bread. I mean really serious loaves. Like when the bread makers (or bakers, if you will) get really into it and throw a bunch of seeds on top of the bread. That's good stuff. Included in this breed of grain-topped bread are the 7 grain and 9 grain varieties, which I feel are somewhat standard. Good hearty bread makes a good sandwich makes a good person.

On a recent shopping trip, however, I was blown away by the impressive choice of grain-topped breads. I had to take a picture:

Hopefully all the loaves there are identifiable. Basically, Pepperidge Farms has outdone themselves with 7 grain bread, 9 grain bread, 12 grain bread, and 15 grain bread. It's a really interesting progression when you study it closely. All but one are odd. All but one are divisible by three. There must be some secret code there. Like a Fibonacci sequence or something. And think about it, if you made a big ol' sandwich and used a slice of each, you'd have forty-three grains on your sandwich! Alas I just went with one loaf (the 15 grain, obviously.)

The Lottery

I really don't like the lottery. I read a quote that said the lottery is a tax on people who don't understand probability. I think this is true. But the big reason I don't like the lottery is that I think it's a tax on working class people who shouldn't be throwing money out like that. I'm not asserting that I know what's best for people. I also don't know what the numbers are, but I'm guessing the majority of people who are buying lottery tickets should really be holding on to that extra few bucks to spend on some necessity.

So here's the idea. What if you could turn the lottery system into a savings vehicle for those would-be ticket buyers. When someone buys a ticket, put some of it into savings for them rather than putting it towards the lottery. (Maybe for a $5 ticket, $4 dollars would go into a savings account and the other $1 would be gambled.) This way there's the gambling part but the buyer actually gets their money back at the end.... All this being said, I don't think that it'd ever work.

A little experiment

Pedro came up with this idea when his mom sent him a Barack Obama cut-out in the mail. He thought it'd be funny if we made some videos of us chilling with Barack -- watching TV, having a beer, etc. I took his idea and tried it out with photos only...

Check it out: barackmovesin.blogspot.com

Doing your part to reduce the deficit

I stumbled upon a link to a page on the website of the U.S. Treasury Department's Bureau of the Public Debt. Check it out here, (see the last question). It turns out that we, the American people can make a contribution to reduce the national debt! I'm mostly surprised that this is an option, and maybe a little glad that the government would make it so easy for it's citizens to take action, and I'm also hoping that nobody's actually sent a check in.

A few pics from Kyoto

The trip to Tokyo included a quick trip over to Kyoto. The city was the capital of Japan for a very long time and is full of history. There were countless shrines throughout the city. It was all very beautiful.

In addition, we had the good luck to be in Kyoto during a big snowstorm. Some would argue this was in fact bad luck. And at the time I might have been a bit cold/miserable. But the shrines we saw were amazing in the snow.

Here's a zen garden partly covered in snow:

Following our dinner in Kyoto, we immediately found an ice cream parlor that made nothing but HUGE ice cream sundaes. Mmmmm.

Our hotel room had no beds! Instead, we laid several futon mattresses out on the tatami-covered floor and all slept in a big pile. Here's Pedro and Kate trying to sleep in:

More Tokyo

More photos from the trip to Tokyo...

Our fearless navigators checking our coordinates on the map:

A fixture from the Meiji shrine, commemorating the emperor and empress who ruled until the turn of the 20th century:

Going shopping for a fortune at another shrine on the other side of Tokyo:

A really big drum heading our way in the Founders' Day Parade. I asked a couple Japanese what the Day celebrated (they all had Monday off of work) and they weren't quite sure.

Tokyo!

Tokyo was truly amazing. We ran all over the city for a week and only managed to scratch the surface of all the great things in that busy place. A couple cool pics:

Kate and I in front of a shrine near Asakusa and Ueno Park...