My No Meat Week

Do you like people who make pointless life altering decisions and write and or talk about them all the time? You know, the “I Got Rid Of My TV” guy, the “I Only Eat What I Kill” guy (aka Mark Zuckerberg), the “I Quit My Job And Became a Farmer” guy, the “I Rode My Bike Across America” guy, or the “I Went And Lived In The Woods In A Shack Near Some Stupid Pond And Wrote About It And Now Everybody Has To Read My Diary In English Class And Pretend It’s Beautiful And Thought Provoking While Trying Not To Kill Themselves” guy.

Nobody likes them. It’s OK to stop pretending–even about Thoreau. Walden is super boring, there is no “getting it”, and if you if you still think it’s good or like to talk about it, you’re lying to yourself. Also, people probably don’t really like talking to you very much.

To those of you who disagree with me, have participated in or have admired anyone who has participated in any of the aforementioned stunts, I and my good friend Christian Bale have this to say to you (turn up your speakers, please, and my apologies in advance to those of you without flash player who will not see or hear anything below):

Moving on to the subject of this post, Sunday a week ago, I was bored and decided to see what it would be like not to eat meat for a week.

Just to make sure we’re all on the same page, there was absolutely no point to this exercise. I made no important discoveries, and I didn’t really feel any different than I normally do aside from the predictable and uncomfortable consequences of choosing beans as one’s primary source of protein.

I’m pretty sure I could have done this for a day or a year and come to all the same conclusions. If I’d done it for a year though, I’d have a whole blog to bore you with and a whole following of people who feel better about themselves for being interested in this sort of thing. Instead, I’m fast tracking this, leaving you with a short blog post, and with any luck, a laugh or two.

Here’s what I learned about being a vegetarian:
1. If you regularly eat beans in great quantities, you’ll probably be capable of flying under your own power.

2. Trying to simulate meat-like things without meat is stupid. Stop it. Just be a vegetarian if that kind of thing floats your boat.

3. If it were left up to the fast food industry, vegetarians would starve or die from malnutrition. Of course, if it were left up to the fast food industry, everyone would die from malnutrition, so I don’t think I really learned anything new on this point.

4. Mexican, Asian, and Italian food are a vegetarian’s best friend.

5. EVERYTHING tastes good when you hose it down in one or several of the following: guacamole, sour cream, cheese, marinara, alfredo, hot sauce, butter, soy sauce, and most other condiments.

6. Because of my what I said in the previous point, being a full time vegetarian would most likely have no tangible health benefits for me. (My favorite vegetarian meal of the week was a burrito from Moe’s Southwestern Grill that substituted tofu for meat. It was delicious and I was really proud of myself until I looked it up on their website and realized that my “customizations” had thrown it well above the 1,000 calorie mark.)

7. Basically, dairy products of all types made my no meat week possible. No animals were harmed in this production, but DOZENS of cows were milked.

8. I have NO idea how vegans do it, and I’m not really sure I want to find out. Maybe i’ll follow up with a blog post titled “my vegan day”, but I might have to limit it to “my vegan lunch”. That sounds it would be less interesting than this whole last week’s adventure if that’s even possible.

9. Portobello mushrooms are really good.

10. I really missed bacon.

So that’s it. I’m back to eating meat.

Vegetarians, enjoy your vegetarian things. I’ll partake from time to time.

Vegans, good luck with that.

What did we all learn here today? Nothing.

Well, almost nothing. Here’s a chart to help you with some of your meat eating decisions in the future. Don’t say I never taught you anything:

Why We Can’t Give Up On Space

If all goes according to plan, on July 8, 2011, almost 42 years to the day after man first set foot on the moon, NASA will launch its final shuttle mission before permanently retiring the program. After STS-135 returns to Earth, the plan is for American astronauts to hitch rides to the international space station with the Russians for $60-$80 million per seat.

The decision to scrap the shuttle program comes along as part of sweeping spending cuts that will ultimately redefine NASA’s mission as an organization. Where it was once the leader, NASA will become one of many among other international space agencies and private enterprises.

Viewed on its own, this might not seem like a bad thing. After all, NASA is a taxpayer funded organization that has, at times, proven to be wasteful, bureaucratic, and lacking the bold sense of purpose that defined the agency in its early years. Maybe it is time to pass the torch to the private sector.

The problem is this: Private companies alone will never have the scale or the motivation to fund exploration for exploration’s sake–to audaciously push the boundaries of what’s possible not for profit, but for the sake of curiosity.

Why does this matter to you and me? Isn’t space exploration a colossal waste of our tax dollars given all of the other needs and economic realities here at home?

The answer is that space exploration is worth it, and it has already had more of an impact on many of the technologies and modern conveniences that we take for granted than we will ever know. This is not the time to give up. It’s time to reorganize, refocus, and recapture the spirit that pushed mankind to achieve incredible feats the like of which have not been equaled in many of our lifetimes.

Why?

Space Exploration is Inspiration
On September 12, 1962, before a crowd at Rice University in Texas, President Kennedy declared his intention to land a man on the moon by the end of the decade. I have mentioned audacity in this post, but no speech better defines the word than the President’s when you consider the facts.

Little more than a year before the Rice University speech, Yuri Gargarin, a Russian cosmonaut, became the first human being in space. Humanity had scarcely figured out how to escape Earth’s atmosphere and return a passenger alive when our President declared our commitment to create a vehicle capable of leaving Earth’s orbit, carrying a human crew hundreds of thousands of miles through space, landing in an unknown place, and retuning safely.

When Kennedy set this goal, not one person had any idea how we would possibly make it happen, but failure was not an option. The world’s best and brightest came together, dreamed bigger than anyone has dreamed before or since, and on July 20, 1969 Americans and people all over the world gathered around their TVs and watched in awe as Neil Armstrong climbed out of a tiny spacecraft and stepped on to the surface of the moon.

The space race inspired Americans, created a groundswell of national pride, created thousands of new jobs and new industries in a way that had previously been achievable only through war. Make no mistake, the space race was part of the Cold War, but it also is one of the big reasons that this war ended without a shot.

Space Exploration Breeds Innovation
There have been dozens of articles, books, and scholarly papers dedicated to this subject, so there is no reason to go in to great depth here.

The bottom line is this: We had no idea how to get to the moon, so the only solution was to dream the way and make it a reality as quickly as possible.

Thanks to the incredible challenges posed by the moon mission, technology that may have taken decades to develop and implement was brought to life instead in the span of just a few years. The discoveries were then passed on to private enterprise, and we benefit today in almost every facet of our lives.

Do you use cell phones or computers? Do you benefit from modern medicine or safe air travel? Thank the space program. The list could go on and on, but the point is to abandon space exploration is to abandon progress.

In many ways, we already have. We haven’t returned to the moon since 1972. The shuttle program was incredible in its own right, but now we have chosen to walk away from that too.

Imagine what the world might be like today had our leaders followed in Kennedy’s steps and continued challenge our best minds to push the boundaries of what was possible farther and faster.

We can’t give up on space, but it’s also clear that we can’t move forward with NASA as it stands today. We need leaders that believe in the power of human curiosity and ones with the vision to harness that energy and push forward to inspire a new generation of dreamers.

Everybody Calm Down About The Jeopardy Robot

This week every news outlet along with millions of individuals on Facebook, Twitter, and all other forms of media have been covering the incredible man vs. machine drama on Jeopardy. Everyone seems genuinely shocked and amazed that a warehouse sized computer with instantaneous access to every fact and figure from the history of the entire world and programmed specifically to deal with the sometimes odd syntax of Jeopardy questions is beating Ken and that other dude.

“Can you believe this? A MACHINE is winning Jeopardy?”

“Wow. I thought I’d never see the day where a computer was smarter than people.”

“OMG!!!! This computer is DESTROYING at Jeopardy. What’s happening?”

Everybody calm down.

Don’t accuse me of being too ignorant to understand the significance of Watson. I get it. It’s an incredibly powerful computer, and it’s doing things that computers haven’t been good at in the past. The advances they have made in creating a machine capable of beating people at Jeopardy will impact computers in ways that we can’t fully comprehend today, blah, blah, blah.

You know what computer can already answer almost all of my questions instantly? Google. I hope they buy Watson so instead of just typing what I want in a very straightforward way, I can waste my time making very tricky, roundabout inquiries. I can picture it now:

Me: “Ok, Google, the American institution famous for its “golden arches” is open until what time tonight?”

Google: “What is 11pm?”

Me: “Wow, Google, you did it again. Thanks!”

If you’re missing my point, here it is. Watson is, unsurprisingly, really good at one thing: playing Jeopardy.

Here are a few other non-human things that are way better at one thing than people but somehow haven’t caused everyone to freak out: pencil sharpeners, coffee makers, watches, socket wrenches, walkie talkies, microwaves, cars, pulleys, can openers, megaphones, tape recorders, and grilled cheese sandwich machines.

Yes, I said grilled cheese sandwich machines. Those things are WAAAAAAY better than people at making grilled cheese sandwiches. I can get out the bread, get out the cheese, put the cheese between the bread, and I can press it between my hands for hours and come up with nothing except a room temperature mess of bread and cheese. Take those same ingredients and pop them in a grilled cheese sandwich machine, and 3 minutes later, you have perfectly toasted bread and melted cheese. Why aren’t you freaking out yet?! The machines are taking over, and they’re starting with our sandwiches!

Because the grilled cheese sandwich machine is weak in a few other areas. That’s why. It really comes up short compared the human race in the area of EVERYTHING ELSE EVER.

Also, I’m not a doctor, but I’m pretty sure some humans got together, conceived of, and created the grilled cheese sandwich machine because they decided we’re too good to waste our time making grilled cheese sandwiches the old fashioned way.

Watson is a similar case. It’s really good at the following:
1. Winning at Jeopardy
2. Being the size of a small house
3. Costing tens of millions of dollars and sucking down tons of electricity

To Ken, the other dude that won at Jeopardy, that pompous, card-reading jerk Trebek, and the rest of the human race, relax and go back about your business. Nothing to see here. A couple of nerds at IBM (human ones) made Watson, after all.

Also, here are some key areas where all humans presumably would wipe the floor with Watson: breathing, walking, having a conversation, watching sports, reading a magazine, playing literally any other game, telling jokes, eating, sleeping, going to work, listening to music, fitting comfortably in the passenger seat, meeting people, having a good time, and, of course, making grilled cheese sandwiches (with or without the machine).

Things That Are Good: Amazon Kindle 3

After my first 2 posts, several people asked me if my blog is going to be all about things that I don’t like. My answer to those people is, “Mostly.” Why? Negativity is funnier. Also, complaining is way easier.

I have, however, decided to occasionally post about things that are good, and I can’t think of a better place to start than the Amazon Kindle 3. It is one of the few gadgets that I have picked up that I would actually go so far as to call life changing.

The Kindle 3 is thin, light, and makes reading an absolute pleasure. If you’re really into books, I know what you’re thinking: “But I like the feel of real books. It just won’t be the same.” I have 2 things to say to you:
1. Once you realize that you can carry around 3,000+ books with you everywhere you go in something that’s lighter and altogether better than a paperback, you’ll get over it.
2. Why do you hate trees so much?

Here are a few other huge benefits of the Kindle:
1. Quick and easy access to millions of books from Amazon.com
2. Thousands of free books available (Think classics. They’re the best anyway)
3. An absolutely ridiculous battery. I read for an hour or two almost every night, and I charge it once a month. Once. A. Month.
4. There is a Kindle app for EVERYTHING. If for some reason, you find yourself without your Kindle, you can pick up right where you left off on your iPhone, iPad, Android, Blackberry, Mac, PC, Web Browser, etc.
5. You will never lose a book you buy ever again. Everything you buy from Amazon is backed up for you on Amazon. Forever.

What about the iPad? It’s really awesome for lots of things, but not for reading books. Trust me.

What about other e-readers? The only one that’s even close to the same class as the Kindle is the Barnes & Noble Nook, and unless you’re really in to Barnes & Noble, I don’t see the point. Someone convince me otherwise, and I’ll revise this post.

I have always loved reading, but I’ve never had more fun than I have in the last few months with my Kindle 3. It goes everywhere I go, and I actually find myself not buying books until they’re available on Kindle. It just doesn’t make sense anymore.

If you can swing $139, you should get a Kindle 3. Period. It’s that good.

Find out more at Amazon

The Worst Things Of All Time: Panera Bread

Abandon hope, ye who enter here.

If I died and went to hell, I’m pretty sure it would be something like being stuck in a booth in an everlasting weekday afternoon at a suburban Panera Bread. I’d just have to sit there and look at the other customers, watch them agonize over what two items to get for their “pick two”, and listen to their awful conversations.

Let’s be honest. Panera Bread has very few redeeming qualities. In fact, I’m trying to think of one and coming up completely blank.

Fair warning, I’m going to have quite a bit to say about middle aged women in this post. Middle aged women, this isn’t because I don’t like you in general. I just really can’t stand you when you love, talk about how much you love, or are physically in a Panera Bread with other middle aged women. When you combine middle aged women and Panera Bread you create one of the single most obnoxious things in the history of life.

I would definitely be the only man in my Panera hell. The rest of the crowd would be comprised 100% of middle aged women in packs of 3 or more who would be in a state of pure bliss.

If you’re reading this, and you have ever been to Panera, don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about. I’m so upset just thinking about it, I’m just going to get this over with by listing some of the main reasons Panera Bread is one of the worst things in life:

The Customers
I’m not going to spend much more time on this one. The place is full of obnoxious middle aged women plowing through weird panini sandwiches, bread bowls full of soup, and baked goods like it’s their last meal. All the while, they’re having the worst conversations imaginable. There’s no getting away from it. Here are just a few excerpts of what you’re forced to deal with at any given time:

“Can you believe how they all ganged up on Whoopi on this morning? Those girls can be soooo mean! She was right. Mel Gibson is NOT a racist. Wouldn’t she know?”

“Well, I’m glad I got the pick two. There’s no way I could eat a whole sandwich.”

“I shouldn’t, but they have THE BEST oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. I’m getting one. I deserve it. Besides, I only had HALF a sandwich.”

The remaining customers are either really annoying people taking advantage of the free WiFi and talking loudly into their bluetooth headsets (also one of the worst things of all time), various clubs & committees having “meetings” (mostly middle aged women), and poor first timers who have no idea what a big mistake they just made.

The Food
1. It’s all pretend healthy. Not saying I am a fan of healthy food, but let’s not be fools.
2. They put onions on EVERYTHING.
3. It’s called Panera Bread, and the bread isn’t even good.

The Employees
A typical Panera Bread is staffed by one absent minded adult manager and half a dozen or so teens that I wouldn’t trust to take out my trash let alone make my lunch. What a joke.

When I started writing this, I felt like I had lots more to say, but it’s pretty simple: Panera Bread is one of The Worst Things Of All Time.

I’m pretty sure terrorists didn’t even exist until some dude accidentally stumbled in to a Panera Bread while visiting some family in America. It changes you.

The Worst Christmas Songs In The History Of Life

Well, it’s almost Christmas. All in all, it’s a great time of year with all the ingredients of a great time. You’ve got family, friends, lots of food, excessive drinking, and an hour or two here and there where you pretend to do actual work.

Also, Christmas is the only time of the year with its own soundtrack. Most of the time, that isn’t such a bad thing, but when people start to try to cash in or make their mark by putting a new twist on an old classic, the results can be tragic.

Let’s talk a bit about the music that tries its hardest to ruin the Christmas spirit. In no particular order, these are, without a doubt, The Worst Christmas Songs In The History Of Life:

Wonderful Christmastime
- The song is made up of approximately 5 notes played on a terrible synthesizer over and over again beneath some of the stupidest lyrics anyone has ever heard. It has no redeeming qualities, but it gets tons of radio play because it was written by a Beatle. I love Paul McCartney, but this is just a disgrace.

Jingle Bell Rock/Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree/Any Other Christmas Song Trying to “Rock”
- Christmas doesn’t rock. Come to think of it, nothing actually rocks. Stop it.

Santa Baby/I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus
- I dare anyone to find me a song with more annoying vocals than either one of these.

The Little Drummer Boy
- If I could only pick one song, this would probably be it. Just try and picture this scene. You’ve got this poor woman who has just gone through labor in a barn. Some shepherds show up to pay their respects. Then these weird astrology guys come out of nowhere with a bunch of gifts. There are animals making sounds and doing all the other great things animals do all over the place, everybody’s tired, the baby is crying, and out of nowhere this kid shows up and starts going to town on a snare drum. This sounds like a nightmare. How/why did anyone come up with this song, and why does everyone ever insist on covering it?
Note: Bing Crosby and David Bowie get a pass here. They realized it was awful and rewrote it.

Mariah Carey
- Sorry ladies. Just like you all have decided “Brown Eyed Girl” and “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” are somehow about you and your friends, every last one of you thinks Mariah Carey put together the best Christmas album of all time. You love to turn it up and sing her songs at each other. You love none of them more than you love “All I Want For Christmas Is You”, and for some mysterious reason, you all feel cute when you sing it. Mariah is awful and so is every Christmas song she sings.
2011 Update: As if things weren’t already bad enough, Mariah released a new version of this song for 2011 that incorporates Justin Bieber along with one of the creepiest music videos/Macy’s commercials that has ever been produced.

The Wassail Song
- Carolers LOVE this song. The satisfaction on their faces as they look at each other and belt out this nonsense makes me want to punch a baby panda right in the face.

The Twelve Days of Christmas
-Not a lot to say about this one. It is the Christmas version of “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall” or “The Song That Doesn’t End”.

New for 2011: Mannheim Steamroller
- How did this even happen, and how did I forget to talk about this last year? I realize this isn’t a Christmas Song, but Mannheim Steamroller has ruined so many classics that it’s impossible to call out just one. “Deck The Halls” may be the worst thing they’ve ever done to us, but it’s bigger than that. For those who don’t know or haven’t listened carefully, Mannheim Steamroller is basically a full orchestra that you can barely hear lead by a Casio keyboard/synthesizer straight out of the 80s and electronic drums turned WAY up. For some reason, everyone loves them, so it’s almost impossible to make it through the holidays without hearing one of their obnoxious songs. Somebody needs to stand up and recognize them for the talentless hacks they are, so I’ll be first.

There you have it. Those are the worst. Bottom line: eat, drink, be merry, and avoid these songs and the people who love them as much as possible.

One last thing. There’s plenty of good Christmas music. It’s ok to admit that you enjoy it. If you say you hate all of it, you’re either lying or a terrorist.

Merry Christmas.