James Beard Nominees are in

List of nominees...

How many have you been to?

How many do you want to try?

Looking back for a second

Just a quick second... Referencing my last Cal post, I resigned myself to a crappy NIT run and a boring summer until football started. Well...

1. Cal barely beat New Mexico in the first round (at home) and then got demolished by OSU.
2. Cal then fired Braun.

As much as I respect Braun, I have to say that I am in favor of the decision. I think we need a new leader on the team and while he was a great recruiter, the teams just didn't perform up to the level they should have.

Here's hoping we bring in someone that can take us to the next level and have us in the NCAAs and at the top of the heap in the PAC-10 year over year.

Holy Crap - less than 30 days left

Before I have to tell Uncle Sam how much Nina and I paid them for funding a war, looking like idiots, and generally mis-using my money more than I would all by myself.

On that note, one of Obama's economic advisors has been pushing an idea I thought of all by myself like five years ago.  If TurboTax tells me they can connect to all these online databases and get a lot of my W-2 info, etc., then why the hell can't the IRS?

Why can't the IRS send me my bill, all itemized like AT&T Wireless, and then I can review, confirm or not, and then send a check or tell them where to send the cabbage?  I bet that for most people with either no money, one job and a house, or something relatively easy, this would be doable, right?

Anyhow, it makes me heart Obama even more. 

O'Hare is an inspiration

Well, not really.  But you are going to get a rather rambling post from me.  Consider yourself warned...

Let me tell you a story about how I came to write this post sitting on O'Hare's lovely floor waiting for my super lovely wife to arrive on American Airlines.  This is what happens when you and your wife fly two different airlines at two different times (me at 7 PM and her at 8 PM), during a snowstorm (so I leave at 9:30 PM and she leaves at 11 PM from LGA).  But at least it left me time this weekend to put up a few blog posts and get a bit of work done!

Now, for a commercial interruption.

Noise-canceling headphones are the best traveler's invention.  Ever.

The iPhone is a close second.  So far I have seen a Pixar short, a "How I Met Your Mother" episode, and listened to a lot of great music, checked Nina's flight, my email, and the latest NCAA games.

Springtime in Chicago...

Is a fallacy.  Really, a snowstorm on March 21 doesn't meet my expectations of a great start to spring in Chicago.  Of course, I truly believe that the season of Spring actually just waves at Chicago as it flies overhead and settles down on the East Coast.

So Nina and I are in Chicago for one of Nina's friend's wedding.  Rebecca gets to have a white wedding like some people have a white XMas.  We are also here to see Nina's dad who just had his knee replaced.  I also get to try out my new nickname for him, the "Six-Million Dollar Man" and see if I can make it stick!  (full disclosure, when I called him that before the surgery, it seemed to go over well - so I am diving in full force).

Here is to better weather in Chi-town the rest of the weekend.  Happy Spring everyone!

Economics Pop Quiz

If you had to guess how much money we (as Americans) spend trying to "beat" the stock market, what would you come up with?

$100B sound about right? (and yes, that is a "B").

More striking, the number is 1980 was $7B. So in 27 years, the number has grown by over 14x.

Since I am a nerd, I did the math - that is basically a 10.4% CAGR in money spent to beat the market, and from 1980 to the end of 2007, the market went up 14.9x (or about 10.8% CAGR).

So I am not an economist by any means, but basically as a whole, the market went up by 10.8% every year and American's increased spend at 10.4% each year to try to beat it. So good money chasing a bad idea.

Still don't believe me? Well maybe Warren Buffet can convince you better:

Everyone expects to be above average. And those helpers - bless their hearts - will certainly encourage their clients in this belief. But, as a class, the helper-aided group must be below average. The reason is simple: 1) Investors, overall, will necessarily earn an average return, minus costs they incur; 2) Passive and index investors, through their very inactivity, will earn that average minus costs that are very low; 3) With that group earning average returns, so must the remaining group - the active investors. But this group will incur high transaction, management, and advisory costs. Therefore, the active investors will have their returns diminished by a far greater percentage than will their inactive brethren. That means that the passive group - the "know-nothings" - must win.

Again, the best way (if you are a long term investor) is to keep a large portion of your money in an broad-based equity fund and let it work for you over the long haul.

So ends my Econ class of the week.

One thing I learned at Cal was to always look forward

Now that the Cal Basketball season is heading towards yet another end steeped in mediocrity (imagine a college team with two first-round NBA picks at .500?!?). By the way, it was great having you Ryan and don't let the door hit you on the way out Devon.

I figured the only thing I have left is to look forward to next season's Cal Football season.

"Coach Tedford's on us harder than he's ever been," Follett said. "He's reinforcing the 'Tedford Law' around here. When I first got here, I saw how it was. Then two years went by, and I saw how much lenience was being allowed.

"He kind of recognized that. That's the No. 1 change that he's been making. That's helping our team."

Follett said he welcomed the return of a tougher, more demanding Tedford. After what happened last season, it's not surprising that Tedford's players are receptive to anything that will help them avoid a repeat.

Here's hoping that Cal gets back to the top of the heap next season with Riley at QB and not reading their own press clippings. Please (for the love of all things holy), let us get to the Rose Bowl.

Being the dutiful husband...

I am posting this for my wife - who can't get enough of Top Chef. Especially now that it is in Chicago and they shop at the Whole Foods near where we used to live.

A list of where all the Chefs from this season used to cook for in NYC.

Next place to check out on the UWS?

I always wondered about the Empire Hotel as Nina and I went to the Opera and gazed out during the intermissions... now maybe we will have to check it out one day before we see a production or anytime the night is warm.

Best reponse to a Press Release. Ever.

I gotta admit - when a co-worker sent me this link, other than the fact that it was posted on Time.com, as I started to read, I keep thinking "really?!?, this has got to be a spoof or something from Comedy Central". But then I found out it was actually a real Press Release from the Obama campaign as a counter-point to a Clinton release.

A mere snippet (you have to check out the entire release - especially the "Huh?" moment)

If Barack Obama cannot reverse his downward spiral with a big win in Pennsylvania, he cannot possibly be competitive against John McCain in November.

[If they are defining downward spiral as a series of events in which the Clinton campaign has lost more votes, lost more contests and lost more delegates to us – I guess we will have to suffer this horribly painful slide all the way to the nomination and then on to the White House.]

[Thanks for the laughs guys. This was great.]

As they used to say - "Three snaps in Z formation!"

Michigan and Florida politicans are idiots

Ok, maybe that isn't the biggest news of the week. But really, complaining how your delegates are not going to be seated when you knew the rules, broke the rules, and crowed about it? Now that it is politically expedient to have your delegates seated because apparently you are important states - you go around saying that you should get private donors to fund re-votes so we can end up having basically 50% of the delegates go to Obama and 50% go to Clinton (and on the other side 70% go to the already-decided nominee McCain).

Here's a plan - instead have the states give ME all the money, and I will go back into a secret vault (aka my bedroom), and award delegates based on a complicated formula (a coin), and then everyone will be happy with the charade, and I will be $20M richer. Win-win, if you ask me.

Another reason the UWS rules

Gray's Papaya and Barack - together at last.

Cool mash-up of Kayne song