An Important Resource

This evening I was struck by an important and time-sensitive question: "How long does it take to cook 1 pound of tilapia fillets?" Unfortunately, my mother's phone was busy, so I forced to turn to the internet.

Luckily for me, eattilapia.com exists for exactly this situation. So, next time you're presented with a few fillets of tilapia and no idea what to do with them, consider using the recipe for Quick and Easy Baked Tilapia Fillets. I didn't follow it too closely, I more or less followed the spirit of the recipe rather than the letter of the recipe. The spirit of putting butter and bread crumbs on some fillets and throwing t in the oven for 15-20 minutes at 400F. Either way, I'm sure that you'll find that eattilapia.com just the resource you need to do all that tilapia-related research you've been meaning to do, so get to it.

Degenerate Dirtbags Strike!

So here's another story of Baltimore ruining your best attempts to be an upbeat human:

This morning was starting off well, until I got to my car. I must have left a door unlocked, because someone had gotten into the car without breaking a window. They took many things of value (or seemingly of value), here's a quick rundown:

• XM Satellite Radio Receiver (worthless to them, it has a unique ID and can never be reactivated by anyone but me)
• Bluetooth Hands-Free Set (cost to me, ~$80)
  
• A bunch of CD's (I have all the music on my computer, so I can burn replacements)
• My backpack (annoying, but it's a few years old)
• 3 12-packs of soda, about 18 loose cans of soda, half a box of "Famous Amos" cookies, and a bunch of single serving potato chips
• A kitchen knife that I'd left in my car by accident

Paradoxically, they did not steal my car charger for my phone.

It's not really the kind of thing that actually hurts you financially. It's the kind of thing that pisses you off at humanity, or rather the trash that passes for humanity around here. Just some white trash kids from the neighborhood in a crime of opportunity I suspect.

I really feel like I have contributed something to this city by trying to live here as a professional and make it a better place and this is how its residents repay me. It's this sort of thing that makes me think that really, I don't care about improves this city. Sometimes, I just think that maybe these people deserve to live in the filth they've created for themselves.

Prosper.com Refinancing

This entry is to make up for a promise I made to a Prosper.com borrower a couple months ago. I loaned out some money at 28.00%, but I can't help but feel a little bad for anyone paying that interest. I advised them that they should try refinancing after a few months (perhaps if their credit improved, or they at least had created something of a reputation on Prosper.com), because it might save them some money. They asked how they could tell when to do that, so I said I'd put together a spreadsheet that would help.

So without further ado, here it is: Prosper Refinancing Decision Tool

That file is Microsoft Excel format, but you can always download Open Office (for free) to use it if necessary. If you want to share the file with anyone, all I ask is that you link to this blog post to do it rather than just sharing the file. It's possible that maybe someone will click on an ad and I'll get a little bit of revenue for the work.

City Crepes Cafe

I just wanted to post a quick shout-out to my favorite creperie in the neighborhood, City Crepes Cafe. I was in there today for brunch (although it's tough for me to order a real brunch crepe, I can never get past the Nutella/banana combination) and heard that they are under new management. Seems like they are going to change things up a little in hopes of increasing business a little, perhaps they'll open a little earlier on weekdays or stay open a little later on Sundays.

Anyway, if you haven't been there yet, you should stop by for a crepe and a cappuccino, it's a pretty nice way to start off your lazy Sunday. They're at 1107 Light St., right across from Cross Street Market.

PostSecret

Well, I'm a ways behind the curve in discovering this one, but here's a public art project that I really like:

http://postsecret.blogspot.com

It's an amazing concept, people (anonymously) mail this random guy in Germantown, MD their secrets on homemade postcards. Secrets that they've never been able to tell anyone. Some are mundane, some are funny, some are very creative postcards, some are very sad or very scary, and some are really inspiring. I may be a hopeless romantic, but I really think this is really neat. Perhaps it's because that's the kind of gesture I could have resorted to in high school when I had no idea to tell a girl that I had a crush on her.

I just bought his first anthology of secrets; apparently a third anthology is coming out within the next week (the second one was only published in October!).

The book is very well done, for every few terrible, sad secrets, there's one that will make even the most pessimistic person think "Maybe I do have a chance."

So I bought a book, because I thought it was great and some of the proceeds do go to The National Hopeline Network (a suicide prevention hotline). Sure, it seems like the guy may be cashing in a little on this whole thing (getting on Dateline, The Today Show, etc.) but then again, perhaps he deserves it for having a great idea.

Lord of the Rings Risk

This afternoon I was backing up my hard drive (my current hard drive has been developing a lot of unrecoverable bad areas near important Windows files) and I found an old file that I think is pretty interesting. A couple years ago I played a modified version of the game Risk that was themed after The Lord of the Rings Trilogy and I loved it. Normally I find Risk to be terminally boring. It's never really that fun, things slowly tilt back and forth until someone gets a bit of an edge and then rolls over everyone else. A good alliance will guarantee victory, but there's also plenty of backstabbing. Most importantly, every game lasts like 8 hours.

Lord of the Rings Risk solves a lot of these problems. First of all, the game has a finite length, so you can't just sit around and build massive armies and trade one territory back and forth in order to get a Risk Card (as in normal Risk). Secondly, the addition of "Leaders" and "Defensive Strongholds" that can give attackers or defenders an advantage against regular armies. The net result is that territories can change hands quickly but strong defensive positions do exist and (due to the scoring at the end of the game) can be worth the effort to conquer.

So, after I first played, I became convinced that LoTR Risk is far superior to original Risk. Given that I'm actually a huge nerd, my natural response was to prove that it was superior by calculating odds of losing armies in battle under different game situations in both regular Risk and LoTR Risk. Oddly enough, the conversations usually broke down as I tried to explain this:

"So I sat down and calculated the cost, in armies, of attacking in each game in every situation and it turns out..."
"Wait, you what?"
"I calculated the odds of a successful attack for every situation in each game; it shows how LoTR Risk is a more balanced, dynamic game."
"You're such a dork. Lord of the Rings Risk is for dorks."

Despite those early setbacks, I eventually acquired the game. I can say that everyone I've forced into playing it (ok, I think I've used it twice, maybe) begrudgingly agreed that it was a fun game. Either way, since I've got the information, I might as well share it. After all, according to Time magazine, it's this sort of sharing that makes me Person of the Year.

Download my results by clicking here: risk_odds.pdf

Enjoy!

How to be Polite to Foreigners

Well, next time someone accuses Americans of just being greedy, opportunistic capitalists that are willing to sweep human rights abuses under the rug, perhaps point them towards this French ministry guide. Basically it advises that you not attempt to discuss Tiananmen Square, Taiwan, or Tibet with Chinese nationals. Believe it or not, it was not authored by the Ministry of Very Obvious Things.