Sunday, November 26, 2006

Black Friday

I spent Black Friday in Maryland this year. Here are two photos from the day. This first one is from Circuit City around 4am, 1 hour before opening. The line was pretty long, and the green awning on the left isn't even the entrance to the store. The actual entrance was about 100 feet to the left. The scene got pretty bad once the doors opened, and people really ran around and formed a mob entering the store.

This second photo is from inside Staples, around 6:15am. Staples opened at 6am, but look how crowded it is!

November 20, 2006 - Houston Rockets at NY Knicks


I swore that this year I wouldn't give any money to the Dolans and Cablevision as far as the NY Knicks were concerned. But I couldn't help but notice that lately there was a lot more advertising for Knicks tickets, which meant that there were probably tickets available. So instead, I hit the streets, and got tickets to section 62, normally $100 each for only $60 each. In return, I got a great view of the Knicks and the Rockets. The game was actually fairly close, but the Rockets ended up winning behind strong efforts from Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady. Sadly for the home team, the best Knicks players at the game were Allan Houston, Patrick Ewing and Charlie Ward, all who were either watching the game from the sidelines (Houston, Ewing) or coaching (Ward). Amazingly, Steve Francis and Stephon Marbury hardly played any minutes at all, a fact that did not go unnoticed in the next day's tabloid papers.

Crabcakes


If you're ever in the Baltimore area, I highly recommend that you visit G&M, a restaurant that has some of the best crab cakes I've ever had. You can get a platter of two crab cakes that are 8oz each of lump crab meat. There's almost no filler and they are delicious. I took a photo of one that I brought home to heat up later but it doesn't really do justice to the cakes. You can order them and have them delivered anywhere.

Too Much Madden 2005


I should probably increase the difficulty to "All-Madden" level from "All-Pro." My team was the Jets, of course.

And yes, I'm still playing Madden 2005 (which came out two years ago).

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Remember?

Remember this? A George W. Bush interview on salon.com with David Horowitz, May 6, 1999. I've been thinking about this famous response lately.

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Q: In a year when Republicans lost ground or had trouble holding on to it, you won reelection with 69 percent of the total, 49 percent of the Hispanic vote, and the endorsement of every major Democratic politician in the state. How did you do it?

A: First, I did in office what I said I would do. I campaigned on school reform, accountability, charters and choice. And I signed bills to that effect. I campaigned on tort reform, juvenile justice reform and welfare reform, and on all I signed bills. And shared credit. I didn't try to take all the credit, I shared credit with the people, both Republicans and Democrats, who helped achieve these reforms.

Second, I showed the people of Texas that I'm a uniter, not a divider. I refuse to play the politics of putting people into groups and pitting one group against another.

Third, during the course of the campaign, I didn't talk about the past; I talked about the future. I laid out additional plans for tax cuts, for school reforms like ending social promotion, by initiatives that would say to kids that if you carry a gun illegally there will be a consequence, and I think the people of Texas listened, because I had credibility, and had done what I said I would do.