Category Archive

You are currently browsing the category archive for the 'friends' category.

WFS Seal of Approval

May 28, 2008 in friends, seal of approval | Tags: hawaii, weddings | Leave a comment

I’m putting the seal on the freshly announced MC Dude (Nick McMurray) – Gretchen Marks nuptials. Going down in Hawaii next April. Great excuse to visit the Rainbow state and wear a tie.

Three Days = Too Many

May 27, 2008 in Drinking, friends | Tags: bff, extreme sausage croissant, Forgetting Sara Marshall, jesus bible money | Leave a comment

I made it through a super weekend without accomplishing anything besides thoroughly enjoying myself. My bff Erik Axelson rolled through town to check out the sunshine and Tijuana. I talked him out of Tijuana (apologies to TJ lovers, I admit I don’t know the town well enough to speak to it), and there wasn’t much sunshine.

After two days of showing Erik a few of the bars around town we made it to Petco to catch a Padres game, only to find the cheap seats gone. Nobody felt compelled to drop $45 on the game. Erik managed to pick up a free ticket from a stranger and went in for a bit while the roommate (freshly dubbed Extreme Sausage Croissant by our visitor) and I grabbed a beer at yet another bar. Sidenote: if you like Hooters, you might want to try the Tilted Kilt.

Monday morning E.S.C. confided in me that he wasn’t sure about his sobriety when he took Mr. Axelson to the airport. We failed at getting much talked about tatoo’s, but were successful in giving each other the worst nicknames ever. Jesus Bible Money? Doesn’t even make sense, thanks E-Rock.

I finished the weekend off by finally catching Forgetting Sara Marshall (WFS seal of approval) and going to bed early. I’ve got a 9:00 basketball game tonight that will extend my recovery time out to somewhere late in the week. Hopefully I’ll do something worth mentioning in this forum soon that doesn’t involve alcohol, but I’m not holding my breath.

I Read & Enjoyed…

Caplan on Education November 10, 2009
How much does increasing college-going rates matter to our economy and society? Caplan: College attendance, in my view, is usually a drain on our economy and society. Encouraging talented people to spend many years in wasteful status contests deprives the economy of millions of man-years of output. If this were really an "investment," of course, it […]
Alex Tabarrok
Dolphin markets in everything, Gresham's Law edition November 4, 2009
I enjoyed this story: Kelly has taken this task one step further. When people drop paper into the water she hides it under a rock at the bottom of the pool. The next time a trainer passes, she goes down to the rock and tears off a piece of paper to give to the trainer. After a fish reward, she goes back down, tears off another piece of paper, gets another fi […]
Tyler Cowen
How to improve basketball October 29, 2009
Tim Miano writes to me: I am a longtime MR reader. I have a hypothesis about how basketball could be much more exciting, and I can't for the life of me figure out why people who are into sports haven't widely considered it (as least as far as I know).Here is my simple thought: games should be played as best 4 out of 7 periods -- perhaps 7 minutes e […]
Tyler Cowen
The coin toss: not 50-50 after all October 25, 2009
Using a high-speed camera that photographed people flipping coins, the three researchers determined that a coin is more likely to land facing the same side on which it started. If tails is facing up when the coin is perched on your thumb, it is more likely to land tails up. How much more likely? At least 51 percent of the time, the researchers claim, and pos […]
Chris Blattman
Motorcycle helmet externality of the day October 13, 2009
Our estimates imply that every death of a helmetless motorcyclist prevents or delays as many as 0.33 deaths among individuals on organ transplant waiting lists. Here is the paper and I thank Brent Wheeler for the pointer. So should we mandate or tax the use of such helmets?
Tyler Cowen
Sobering Reality September 28, 2009
From Bill Easterly's, Can the West Save Africa.Hat tip to for the link and table to Hit and Run.
Alex Tabarrok
The McFarthest spot September 27, 2009
Strange Maps reports:Somewhere in South Dakota is the McFarthest Spot, the place in the US geographically most removed from the nearest McD’s...If you started out from this location, a few miles north of State Highway 20 (which runs latitudinally between Highways 73 in the west and 65 in the east), you’d have to drive 145 miles to get your Big Mac (if you co […]
Tyler Cowen
Teacher Absence in the United States September 24, 2009
Yesterday I looked at teacher absence in the developing world, highlighting India where a quarter of teachers may be absent on a given day. Teacher absence isn't that high in the United States but it is still shockingly high. On a typical school day, 5-6% of teachers are absent, i.e. equivalent to an absence once every 20 days!Bearing in mind that the […]
Alex Tabarrok