Steve Fischer's Random Blog

Author: fish1964

  • Food

    Living in NYC I should be more of a food guy. I appreciate great food, but I don’t watch the Food Network and I don’t know famous chefs. I have simple tastes. So I had no idea who Mario Batali is. Apparently he’s famous (and apparently not so nice to his waiters).

    Good friends of ours got reservations for four here. Batali owns it. Italian creations to the max. Apparently they start taking reservations a month in advance, so that’s basically what you have to do if you want a table. Exactly one month prior to the day you want to go, you call.

    Oh my, yum.

    I’ll be paying off this meal for the next few months, but damn it was good. We went with the pasta tasting menu and the wine pairings (similarly, not a wine guy, but they were yummy). I’m thinking around 5,000 calories.

    I’ll diet next week…

  • Wild Ride

    Not like anyone reads my blog in real time, but the InTrade market on Romney winning Ohio went under 20% but as of 10:45ET is back up to 88%.

    So like I said, it’s a lock…

  • And going down

    10:15 ET and InTrade has Romney at 40% to win Ohio. An interesting night…

  • Or maybe not…

    This may show InTrade’s fallibility. It’s now 9:44 ET and in the past hour Romney winning Ohio has dropped to 63%. As they say in sports, “this is why they play the game…”

  • Broken Record

    It’s 8:30 ET. The major networks have Ohio too close to call. InTrade has Romney at 94%. Let’s see how it turns out…

  • The Best of Basketball

    I’m not sure what is better than Bird and Magic in the same room. One of my favorite quotes, Magic talking about an NBA finals:

    I was watching a tape of one of our Finals together and I counted eight straight plays — on both sides — where the ball never touched the ground. Never once touched the ground!

    NBA royalty…

  • The Lorax is Environmentalist? Shocked I am

    Review from the Washington Times:

    Movie Review: ‘The Lorax,’ cuddly cartoon agitprop the Unabomber would’ve loved

    OK, it’s the Washington Times, but seriously, have they read the book? I’m reminded of Casablanca:

    I am shocked —shocked— to find that gambling is going on in here!

  • The Lorax

    OK, Danny DeVito as The Lorax? Is that perfect casting or what? I just hope the movie isn’t lame…

  • Apple Doesn’t Like “Stop Stealing Dreams”

    An interesting discussion. I don’t think Apple has to sell any book in their bookstore if they don’t want to.

    But I also think that we can all recommend that people not buy things from their bookstore because they are being ridiculous. Put the Kindle app on your iPad/iPhone and order from Amazon.

    I strongly recommend that everyone read Stop Stealing Dreams. It is highly thought provoking and it’s free. Seth Godin isn’t making any money here (I’m sure he hopes you buy other books of his), he’s trying to improve the world.

  • InTrade

    For political junkies, InTrade is fascinating. And it’s predictive value, while imperfect, has proven very good.

    Tonight the polls in Michigan closed at 9ET. All the major news networks are calling the Republican primary too close to call.

    But the InTrade market on Romney winning the Michigan primary, which had been hovering around 60% all day, shot up above 90% right at 9ET. It was at 98% by 10ET. Major news networks are still calling it too close to call.

    So which is it? A lock or too close to call?

    We’ll see tomorrow. I’d go with InTrade, but I’m also going to bed…