Finnegan sentence of the day: CHRISTMAS EDITION

Merrry Christmas blog-fans! In honor of this special day, I've got for you kiddies a special treat-- a Finnegan sentence taken completely out of context. Enjoy!

What I'm interested in is D'Souza's insouciance in bandying Pascal's Wager about without really understanding the math involved in game-theoretic decision making (if he does understand it, his argument is just totally dishonest), so that he's incapable of making discriminations among different cases which are qualitatively alike, but which, on quantitative grounds, lead to divergent conclusions.

Guest Post: King Cong

OK guys and gals, this is BIG!

So it turns out that Than Merrill, a regular Mitt Romney if I've ever seen one, was not simply content with creating the first fresh-mex restaurant in New Haven- Mexicali Grille. Of course I am not going to rehash the debate as to whether Mexicali was really fresh-mex or if J Cong's corporate raider-style takeover conversion into the Double B represented the true introduction of fresh-mex. Either way, everyone agrees that the Bulldog Cantina just kicked it up a whole notch and showed Cong-Dawg to be a veritable Lee Iacocca. Now Merrill, having been shown up by his successor, has decided to go back to the drawing board and enter the real estate world. Merrill has been so successful as a real estate magnate that he was featured on A&E's Flip This House. Well now King Cong is mad! So I gave him a forum to vent his anger and speak to the public right here on this blog:

With Beneficent Allah in Vienna, this is a perfect time to make some opera analogies. You see I am Mozart to Than Merrill's Salieri. He came first. He's got a certain workmanlike ability about him. He gets the job done. But what does he lack? Inspiration! Creativity! GENIUS!

Did Than Merrill think of adding a FOURTH type of salsa to complement Mild, Medium and Hot? No, sadly the patrons of Mexicali Grille went pico de gallo-less for months, just as the patrons of Vienna's Opera House went without the light, airy, ethereal touch of The Magic Flute for so long. The list of my innovations goes on- the Cantina, the exposed kitchen, the CNN Headline News with closed captions.

And like Salieri, Than Merrill has been trying to take me down. It seems Merrill was whispering scurrilous lies about me and my restaurant into the ear of extremely influential Play Magazine food critic Joe Scarpano just as Salieri poisoned the ear of Emperor Joseph II with lies about Mozart.

But now Merrill, having been vanquished in the art of restauranteurage, has decided to move on to Real Estate. I hesitate to stoop to the level of such a coward, but to show my range of abilities, I will try to get on Flip This House as well. Let me tell you something, for a guy whose living is basically "Flip This Quesadilla," I don't imagine expanding on the concept will be too hard.

Here is the bold strategy I am thinking of for this project:
1. Buy a dilapidated house on Dixwell
2. Fill the refrigerator with some premium GUAC from the Double B. I'm talking guac in every crevice of that thing- veggie crisper, shelves, butter drawer, you name it
3. Matter of fact, put some guac in the freezer too.
4. BOOM- Flip that house for twice the purchase price

De l'eau nouveau

Haven't blogged about the bottled water scene lately, but I have to report on a huge new development-- San Benedetto, or SAN BENEDETZZZ as I call it familiarly -- has taken the Danosphere by storm!

I had it in Italy several years ago but then I totally forgot about it until a couple recent pleasant reminders. First I had it at the D.E. Shaw Christmas party. (Tom and I snuck a bottle for ourselves and chugged it like I did back in High School- ahhh, those were the days...) Then I had it at the 'Bucks in Puerto Rico, and it sealed the deal.

San Benedetz tastes minerally like Ev-ee-yawwwn, but it doesn't have that cummy aftertaste. In fact that would make a great slogan:

"San Benedetto - Tastes great, Less Cummy!"

Mingling at the DE Shaw Party

Tom and Kingspawn invited me to the DE Shaw Holiday Party again this year. It was a classy affair at Cipriani filled with some of the financial industry's elites, and I wanted to make sure I made a good impression, so my M.O. for the night was this kind of scene:

(Music blaring in background)
WORK IT HARDER MAKE IT BETTER
DO IT FASTER, MAKES US STRONGER
MORE THAN EVER HOUR AFTER
OUR WORK IS NEVER OVER,
WORK IT MAKE IT...

(I approach a group of randoms dancing together in a group)
Me (moving unrhythmically, yelling to be heard): HOW ABOUT THAT CREDIT CRUNCH! HUH! NEXT YEAR THEY'LL PROBABLY HAVE THE CHRISTMAS PARTY AT QUIZNO'S!
(No response)
Me: SUBPRIME LOANS!
(No response)
Me: FREDDIE MAC!
(No response)
Me: FRED THOMPSON

Me (muttering to myself): That reminds me, can't believe I missed the GOP debate- even after AG reminded me....

RNC Joke Contest

With all of these Presidential Debates aimed at adults, it's easy to miss some of the more kid-friendly events going on during this election season. Fortunately, my parents' donation to the Dole '96 Campaign got me on a mailing list, and I found out about this wonderful new event- the Republican National Committee's Children's Joke Contest! It was held in Independence, Missouri, meaning I couldn't go, but some kind soul taped part of it for me and put it on the Web- who said Republicans weren't nice folks? Enjoy:





NOTE: DON'T TRY TO LISTEN TO THIS IN FIREFOX- USE SAFARI OR INTERNET EXPLORER (sorry!) AND THIS WILL TAKE A LITTLE WHILE TO LOAD

Direct Quote

from my High School's alumni newsletter, in which most people write things like "Hey guys, I'm in law school at Cornell," or "Just had a beautiful baby boy":

T.T. Nhu Miller: "Hello from Hanoi, I moved to Viet Nam following the 2004 election disaster, vowing not to live in the US as long as Bush/Cheney are in power. The Democrats might win back the White House, but I'm not holding my breath. Remember when we were growing up, we didn't even know a Republican, except the Javits family! Later when I lived in Berkeley for 36 years