Category Archives: Economics

Business, Economics, Popular Culture, Social Commentary

Why Go Out To Eat?

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Some thoughts.

Looking back, I used to go out primarily for entertainment value. I enjoyed being in a fancy space, developing a rapport with the wait staff, people watching, and dressing up for the occasion.

Me?

I hate that. It has a very low entertainment/annoyance ratio to me (I hate getting dressed up, for one thing).

I don’t go out to eat, generally, unless there is some compelling reason, because I don’t intrinsically enjoy it. I think that restaurants are intrinsically overpriced (not relative to their costs of doing business, but relative to their value to me compared to cooking at home), I don’t know for sure what’s in the food, and can’t get it exactly the way I like it, the portions are too large, particularly on the carbs (again, for economic reasons), and I really don’t enjoy other people serving or waiting on me, particularly when a tip is expected. I really prefer to do it myself (I have the same annoyance with luggage in hotels).

To me the only reasons to go out to eat are a) to eat something that I couldn’t make myself due to lack of time or ingredients (which is why I almost never go to a steak house), b) as a social occasion with others or c) I’m travelling away from home and have no other choice. But it’s not something about which I ever think, “Boy, I’d sure like to go out to eat in some fancy restaurant.”

[Update a few minutes later]

The very first commenter over at Al Dente has another big reason I don’t like going out:

Too many restaurant owners think that noise = fun, and they actively try to keep the noise level over 90 db. I hate big chain restaurants with concrete walls and floors that have conversations bouncing and echoing off them until they turn into a cacophonous din. I have gotten up with my wife and left restaurants before ordering because the noise was too oppressive. And just for the record, some music enhances the meal (Frank & Dino at an Italian place, etc.), and some music ruins it (I don’t want to have to shout to my dining companions to be heard over the latest blaring hip hop hit). The nadir had to be when I took my wife to a little bar/restaurant in Dallas for an after theater drink, and we were seated beneath a speaker that was blaring some rap song that sounded like a Tourette’s patient giving X-rated how-to instructions to an apprentice rapist.

Particularly when I’m out with friends, trying to have a conversation, I like to be able to hear them and talk to them without shouting. Planet Hollywood? Please. There is absolutely nothing about a place like that to appeal to me, and if I’m with other people who want to go, I do my best to dissuade.

I guess this gets into a broader issue. I am not a “party” person. Which is not to say that I’m not social, or that I don’t enjoy the company of others. I enjoy nothing better than getting together with a bunch of interesting people, but the point of getting together is to discuss interesting things, not to be pummelled with mindless noise shoulder-to-shoulder with a throng. This was true for me even in college. I’ve always hated that. But I have enough problems with going out to eat without having to be assaulted with noise. I don’t understand the attitude that “more volume” equals “more fun.” But apparently for many people, it is, or the places wouldn’t inflict on them what is to me a punishment.

Business, Economics, Political Commentary

Lessons In Health Care

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…from the Edinburgh zoo:

…it is a self-evident truth that all animals are created equal and endowed by their creator with unalienable rights, among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But it takes little thought to know that of these three rights, that to life must be primary, for without it the others are null and void. It is perfectly obvious that you can’t be free or pursue happiness if you’re dead.

This surely means that, if you are an animal lover, you should try to reduce any animal that you see in the wild at once to captivity, at least of the Edinburgh Zoo variety. Failure to do so is de facto condemning that animal to an early grave. The animal will be better fed, have fewer parasites, and be sheltered from the bad weather if you capture him. Above all, he, or it, will have much better health care than in the wild. Indeed, in the wild animals are even worse off than Americans without health insurance.

Dry humor is the best kind.

Business, Economics, Political Commentary, Science And Society

Manufactured Consensus

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The more we learn about the working of the IPCC, the more clear it is that it was not doubt that was being “manufactured,” but the consensus itself:

Alabama State Climatologist Dr. John Christy of the University of Alabama in Huntsville, served as a UN IPCC lead author in 2001 for the 3rd assessment report and detailed how he personally witnessed UN scientists attempting to distort the science for political purposes.

“I was at the table with three Europeans, and we were having lunch. And they were talking about their role as lead authors. And they were talking about how they were trying to make the report so dramatic that the United States would just have to sign that Kyoto Protocol,” Christy told CNN on May 2, 2007. – (For more on UN scientists turning on the UN years ago, see Climate Depot’s full report here. )

Christy has since proposed major reforms and changes to the way the UN IPCC report is produced. Christy has rejected the UN approach that produces “a document designed for uniformity and consensus.” Christy presented his views at a UN meeting in 2009. The IPCC needs “an alternative view section written by well-credentialed climate scientists is needed,” Christy said. “If not, why not? What is there to fear? In a scientific area as uncertain as climate, the opinions of all are required,” he added.

‘The reception to my comments was especially cold.’

No doubt. Time for some climate change at the UN.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Cui bono, when the IPCC lies?

Business, Economics, Political Commentary, Space

Sane, Affordable And Sustainable

30 Comments

“Ray” over at Vision Restoration has a development approach to expanding human spaceflight beyond LEO that would actually work, and work within NASA’s constrained budget. Paul Spudis likes it, and has further comments.

Of course, it makes far too much sense to be adopted in Washington. But this is the approach that will be taken privately, regardless of what NASA does.

Business, Economics, Humor, Political Commentary

The Half-Wit

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I don’t normally pass along emailed jokes, but I thought this one too good to pass up:

A man owned a small ranch in Montana. The Montana Work Force Department claimed he was not paying proper wages to his help and sent an agent out to interview him.

“I need a list of your employees and how much you pay them,” demanded the agent.

“Well,” replied he said, “there’s my ranch hand who’s been with me for 3 years.. I pay him $200 a week plus free room and board.

“The cook has been here for 18 months, and I pay her $150 per week plus free room and board.

“Then there’s the half-wit. He works about 18 hours every day and does about 90% of all the work around here. He makes about $10 per week, pays his own room and board, and I buy him a bottle of bourbon every Saturday night. He also sleeps with my wife occasionally.”

“That’s the guy I want to talk to … the half-wit,” says the agent.

“That would be me,” replied the rancher.

I think that Tuesday’s results show that the half-wits are coming to their senses.