Dan Gilbert: Why are we happy? Why aren't we happy?

Watch this, and get happy.

"Psychologist Dan Gilbert challenges the idea that we'll be miserable if we don't get what we want. Our "psychological immune system" lets us feel real, enduring happiness, he says, even when things don't go as planned. He calls this kind of happiness "synthetic happiness," and he says it's "every bit as real and enduring as the kind of happiness you stumble upon when you get exactly what you were aiming for.""

Is this man really the best chef in the word?

Here is a review of Thomas Keller's Per Se in located in the Time Warner Centre in NYC.

I must experience dining in one of his restaurants.

"He has even written a declaration of intent for his staff describing the philosophy behind the myriad tasting menus. 'With each course we want to strike quick, mean and leave without getting caught,'"

Exclusive video of my new girlfriend

She's a delicate flower.

One thing PC users can do that Mac users can't:

This little rant is hilarious!

Fashion tips for women

Fashion tips for women. This guy Maddox kills me! Don't visit his site.... I mean please visit his site if you are easily offended.

"When I see people wearing Crocs, I know immediately that we have nothing in common, and that we could never be friends or have any meaningful kind of relationship. They come in every color imaginable yet look bad with every other article of clothing ever created. The only thing that goes with Crocs is social ostracism."

8 gigapixel artworks

Website has 8-gigapixel resolution pictures of famous works of art- including "The Last Supper".

25 Things You Don't Know About Sex

"Lips are the sex organs on your face." Hee Hee

"There are approximately 100 million acts of intercourse each day."

And I can't have one? Poor me.

Read them all here.

My dreams have been realized.....Bacon Salt!

That's right kids...... two of my favorite food things have joined forces to create Bacon Salt! It's the greatest thing since sliced bacon. I've got to get some.

I found this on iheartbacon.com

“Why would you have fries if you could have BACON fries??"
- Chuck H.

"Wow. Ummm... wow. Timmy like."
- Tim S.

What's That You're Wearing? Roast Beef?

"Those of you who don’t already reek of booze should take note: CB I Hate Perfume in Williamsburg will unveil, this week, a new fragrance inspired by one of perfumer Christopher Brosius’s favorite drinks — whiskey and ginger ale with a slice of cucumber. It joins CB’s “food series,” which also includes roast beef, bruschetta, pesto, boiled rice, a California roll, cucumber sandwiches, French bread, and tortilla chips."

In Defense of Food Blogging

I found this nice article on food blogging.

"I'd like to think that food bloggers like me, who write about food and cooking and the occasional meal out, are allies of good, honest, hard-working chefs who have quality food to share and, perhaps, very few outlets in which to promote that food."

Here is why Mario Batali hates food bloggers.

Also read how Batali and Boudain argue about Adam Platt, the Egg Theif and much more.

Restruants vs. Bloggers read abou it here.

I agree with Bourdain's take on the subject. "It’s inevitable, it’s the tide, there’ s no fighting it."

I you live in KC, go here to express your thoughts on local grub.

Time for the "Favorite Chef of the Moment".....Ming Tsai. This guy is awesome

I really miss Ming Tsai. His show, "East Meets West" on food network was the best. The next time I am in Boston I want to eat at his restaurant Blue Ginger.

Check out the ceramic knives he uses. Please send a set to me.

"The strength and density of advanced ceramic allow grinding to microscopic precision by diamond wheels. This hardness translates into a rock-like edge that will not roll like steel blades. Edge retention is the most significant benefit of using blades, which stays razor-sharp 10 times longer than conventional steel blades, including high carbon steels."

You were on the couch... I had fun.

It was a great weekend. A group of us played Friday Night Fun League (FNFL), down-under at Rosedale Disc Golf Park. Skins doubles.... I witnessed some incredible golf shots. A skip birdie and a chain-crashing, near hole in one. Then most of us went over to the Tavern for some drinks.

Saturday I worked a lame wedding in the Bottoms. It was only lame because I didn't make many tips, $9 total. I was first-off and in bed fairly early.... I was exhausted. Got texted a few times around 2:30am. It sucked because it wasn't a booty text. So I didn't reply. Damn.

Anyway.... Sunday was cool. We were supposed to go to our favorite new town, Atchison, to play disc golf. It didn't happen. Instead my neighbor invited my friend Burns and me out to the Trouser Mouse in Blue Springs. They were having an all day blues jam. We met her out there and had a blast. There were some really good musicians in the place.

Funny ebay buyer feedback

Read the feedback here.
"Simply the GREATEST OBJECT I've ever recieved. Will burn all my other possesions"

The weekend is near... go do something will you?

Here is what is going on this weekend. For me....... it is a trip to the laundromat tonight. A fun night of wedding bartending on Saturday. Sunday we are off to our favorite new town Atchison, Kansas to play that disc golf course again. Yippee!

Ten Dollars for Tony's City Hall Credibility?

This is pretty funny. Our friend over at gonemild.com is exposing Tony from tonyskansascity.com for the whining, negative fraud that he really is (not to mention he's an anti-white racist). Funny stuff. Here's the article.

"Back in mid-July, when Tony became "One Trick Tony" with his "Bash-a-Day" obsession over Kansas City's Mayor, he started a "Cauthen Countdown", because he was convinced that Funkhouser was going to fire City Manager Wayne Cauthen.

While I had never discussed Cauthen with Funkhouser or anyone on his staff at the time, I knew that Tony knew as little about City Hall politics as he does about Sprint Center parking, so I offered a little wager - I'd donate $10 to a charity of his choice if Cauthen was gone by 10/26, and he would do the same to a charity of my choice if Cauthen was still in place.

It's now looking like I was right, though the date hasn't yet passed. Is Tony still confident that he was correct in his "Cauthen Countdown"? Or was it all just a shout for attention - one that he would rather forget now that events have undercut his credibility on the issue?

Kind of places his talk of Funkhouser's lack of popular support into a different perspective, doesn't it? It certainly sets the credibility bar for Tony's talk of recall . . ."

KC's last Jazz radio show is gone

That's right, Lee Ingalls is off to Chicago. Read the scoop here.

Buck’s really in the Hall now

Buck will be in the Hall of Fame after all. It's a shame they couldn't honor him while he was alive. The folks here in KC will never forgive the Baseball Hall of Fame for this untimely induction.

Kansas City Isn't Good Enough for La Raza?

I stole this from gonemild.com

"It's disappointing that the national convention of La Raza is rejecting Kansas City because it disagrees with the politics of a member of the Parks Board, but, really, I'm glad it's all over. The drama and headlines were getting awfully tedious - especially when you realize that they were all over a convention that will take a few phone calls to replace. Yawn.

One of the amusing sidenotes to this controversy is the "economic impact" argument. People with no regard for the truth (and joke bloggers) will claim that La Raza just took $5-7 million away from Kansas City. Those numbers are made-up, porous nonsense. We do, however, get a free $75,000 because La Raza breached its contract. Love it.

Another amusing sidenote is that La Raza is having its next convention in San Diego! No, really, they are going to take their convention to a place where the STATE REPRESENTATIVE (that's a slightly more important office than Parks commissioner) is a huge, vocal supporter of the Minutemen, and much of the population is active with the organization. When asked about the hypocrisy inherent in the discrepancy, Janet Murguia claimed that it was somehow better that the state representative had been elected by the citizens!

WHAT?! Does that make any sense in any universe? La Raza would rather go someplace where racism has been embraced by the populace, rather than Kansas City, where there's an insignificant parks board member who supports the Minutemen?? Really?!

Maybe, just maybe, there's something else going on here. Maybe somebody talked a bit too much, and tried to spin this into a bigger power play than he could handle. Maybe vocal parts of the local Hispanic community got behind the loudest and most strident voice, instead of the most responsible and smartest voice. Maybe the local Hispanic community is going to be seeing a little shake-up in its leadership.

Or, maybe not.

La Raza thought it could bully our mayor around. In fact, they could have. Who doubts that he would have gone pretty far with concessions and compromises? But La Raza made the mistake of drawing their line in the sand, and pushing for the right to control every single appointment in this city, down to the Parks Board. And nobody in his or her right mind wants that.

So, La Raza is off to sunny San Diego, where they can see Minutemen supporters on every corner of every street. I wish them a safe and happy journey. Whichever convention takes their place here in Kansas City will see a far more tolerant community that can only be pushed so far.

Thank you, Mayor Funkhouser, for your good-faith efforts to bring the La Raza National Convention to Kansas City. Thanks, also, for not caving into La Raza's ridiculous demands. The vast majority of Kansas City appreciates your handling of this manufactured showdown."

Kansas City to La Raza....... Suck it!

I found the text below on the La Raza website.

"In recent months, however, an increasing number of states and localities are seeking to drive unwanted (they mean illegal) immigrants out of their communities and make it less attractive for new ( illegal) immigrants to arrive. Over the last several years, record numbers of legislation have been introduced at the state and city level. These measures included language that would cut benefits to immigrants, penalize persons who employ or provide assistance and services to undocumented (they mean illegal) immigrants, and require the police to enforce immigration laws. As the states and localities implement these measures, the U.S. is becoming a country with a patchwork of laws and regulations that are often unconstitutional, costly, and misguided. The implications for Latinos are vast and these measures create mistrust, fear, discrimination, and intolerance in communities.

On the other hand, there are states, counties, and cities that continue to welcome newcomers (those who have criminally immigrated) to their communities in ways that help those individuals integrate into the fabric of society."

If you don't criminally sneak into a country, you don't have to worry about all of these terrible injustices you could face.

The Ten Best Kansas City Jazz Recordings

From our friends over at Plastic Sax blog. Check out the list here.

Yay Lilly!

This girl is really amazing.

Tons of crazy

This website is full of crazy stuff. I like the road-rail vehicles.

Top 10 Boredom-busting Websites

These sites are alright. I have been going to stumbleupon.com for quite a while. "Stumbleupon is a social site with a difference - instead of picking the sites you want to see, you tell stumbleupon what your interests are and click a button which takes you to a random site". Waiterrant.net is kind of informative.... it's for those of you who don't know how to act when eating out. Deserving the #1 spot is the Best of Craigslist.... be careful you may spend the rest of the day reading the entries here.

Time for some food quotes

"A significant part of the pleasure of eating is in one's accurate consciousness of the lives and the world from which the food comes."
Wendell Berry

"The chef, or cook, proportions, assembles, and prepares various products of the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms, creating food for the epicure. The aesthetic pleasure induced by food can be so closely related to that produced by certain music and other arts, as to defy separation or separate identification."
Merle Armitage, 'Fit For A King' (1937)

"When we no longer have good cooking in the world, we will have no literature, nor high and sharp intelligence, nor friendly gatherings, no social harmony."
Marie-Antoine Carême

"She did not so much cook as assassinate food."
Storm Jameson (Margaret)

"Cooking is like love, it should be entered into with abandon or not at all"
Harriet van Horne

"Those who have a profound indifference to the pleasures of the table are generally gloomy, charmless and unamiable."
Lucien Tendret (1825-1896) French lawyer and gastronome; great-nephew of Brillat-Savarin.

"You ought to have seen Frédéric with his monocle, his greying whiskers, his calm demeanour, carving his plump quack-quack, trussed and already flamed, throwing it into the pan, preparing the sauce, salting and peppering like Claude Monet's paintings, with the seriousness of a judge and the precision of a mathematician, and opening up, with a sure hand, in advance, every perspective of taste."
Leon Daudet describing the preparation of pressed duck at the restaurant, La Tour d'Argent.

“Anybody can make you enjoy the first bite of a dish, but only a real chef can make you enjoy the last.”
Francois Minot

"Once, during Prohibition, I was forced to live for days on nothing but food and water."
W.C. Fields

Food timeline

I found this food timeline interesting. 1876 - Lobster Newburg You don't see this dish served much anymore. In the 70's and 80's it appeared on a lot of menus. I can't remember the last time I saw it offered.

La Raza withdraws ’09 convention from KC

Looks like the Minutemen inadvertently did their job keeping out a small number of Mexicans. Now they can work on the other 50 million that infest this country. You would think Semler would be smiling. We already have more Mexicans then Mexico. Do we really need more in this town? I don't think so.

Hopefully this move will attract groups that oppose criminal immigration.

I commend Funkhouser for sticking to his guns.
Funkhouser =1 La Raza = 0

Atchison Ks. is cool

We made it up to Atchison this weekend to play some disc golf. They have 27 holes total. The course was awesome. After golfing we went into town and had some drinks.

If you haven't been up there, you should go. It's only an hour away and it's very picturesque. Nice little day trip.

Get out and do it this weekend

Here is what's going on around town this weekend.

I'm going to be at this thing all weekend---
Decorating Sugar Skulls, 2 p.m. Main Library, 625 Minnesota Ave. Kansas City, Kan. www.kckpl.lib.ks.us. Free Celebration of Day of the Dead.

Just kidding. I'll be working.

Red Alert!!! Stroud's south is back

Yippeee! Catch the story here. I know this location well. Nothing has lasted in this space. But come on..... it's Stroud's, it can't fail. If you fry it..... they will come.

Priceless....

FBI's top 11 deaths of the year

Some pretty radical deaths here.

Classic break-up letter

This is a very funny recording of a narrator reading a break-up letter some girl wrote for some guy.

Let's get it on!

You know you want to. These foods will help. Also check out the video toward the bottom of the page.

Note from the editor

I thought this post was rather interesting.

East siiiiiiiiiide! Woof.. Woof.. Woof! Be sure to turn your speakers down.

"There is nothing more dangerous than to build a society, with a large segment of people in that society, who feel that they have no stake in it; who feel that they have nothing to lose. People who have a stake in their society, protect that society, but when they don't have it, they unconsciously want to destroy it." - MLK Jr.

"The greatest sin of our time is not the few who have destroyed but the vast majority who sat idly by." - MLK Jr.

KC crime mapper

Cool little KC crime mapper using Google maps. Yikes.... that's a lot of crime!

Goodbye crown scoreboard.....

It appears the crown scoreboard at Kauffman will not be there next year. Bummer!

Ode to the perfect girl

This guy wrote a song for his girl. Try not to cry.

It is better to hide ignorance, but it is hard to do this when we relax over wine.
-Heraclitus (540 BC - 480 BC), On the Universe

Great take on food writing

Here is an insightful article about food writing from the New Yorker.

"There is too much food in most food writing now—too much food and too little that goes further. When Liebling and Fisher wrote, they gestured from plate and glass to something bigger, outside the dining room—to France, or to appetite itself—and the gesture carried instantly, because there was little else in the room to absorb it."

"Like so many other subjects, food writing is constricted within these ever-tighter circles of opinion, when what we want from it is ever-broadening metaphors of common life. Metaphor is social and shares the table with the objects it intertwines and the attitudes it reconciles. Opinion, like the Michelin inspector, dines alone"

This is why I enjoy the writing of Anthony Bourdain. He sees beyond the plate in front of him. The realization that culture, tradition and even necessity is why this food is in front of you. A chef is the last link in the long passionate chain that is dining.

New York on a Million a Day.... sign me up!

"Thought wretched excess went out with parachute pants in the 80s? Have we got a tour for you."

The magic that is...... MS Paint

Those of you who are artists already know the magic of MS paint. For the rest of you, here is a very funny video introduction to this wonderful tool.

Cooking tip time....... Dishwasher Lasagna Florentine

This picture kills me.... normal wash, light wash, lasagna!How To Cook A Delicious Spinach-and-Ricotta-Cheese Lasagna - In Your Dishwasher!

"what if your oven has decided to take an unexpected vacation and you have hungry mouths to feed expecting nothing less than a taste of Italy? Save the day by creating hot and delicious Spinach and Ricotta Cheese lasagna fresh from your dishwasher!"

Gathering firewood as winter approaches

It was a little chilly last night, so I went out to gather firewood.

Musicovery

This is pretty neat. Internet radio based on mood.

This is some funny stuff

You have to watch these funny David Blaine Spoofs. Here is one and here is another.

The weekend was fun

Friday I went north to Cascone's to meet up with Burns and the folks. All the food was very good. I was surprised. The calamari appetizer was one of the best in the city. Burn's had the panko crusted orange roughy (not on the menu but can be ordered). Mom had the prime rib, Dean and I both had the shrimp and lobster amogio special.

After dinner Mom went home since she had to work early. Dean, Burns and I went over to a little dive bar named Shooters. I don't like going into bars north of the river, everyone has an attitude. This time they didn't. We had fun. We dropped Dean at his house and Burns and I went down to the Tower Tavern for more drinks. I walked out on my tab. I never do that. It caught up with me Sunday.

Saturday I wanted to make some soup. Cabbage-beef soup sounded good, but I know better then to plan a meal before going to the Sun Fresh in Westport. I was right.... the cabbage looked horrible. How do you have bad cabbage? Ask Sun Fresh. So I used kale instead. It turned out great. I would post the recipe if I had followed one.

Ingredients:
Ground beef, chorizo, garlic, onion, diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, chicken stock, red pepper flakes, kale, corn and of course salt and pepper.

Sunday was game day at the Tavern..... (I know, I practically live there). Chiefs win.... Bears loose - there is no God.

Mmmm... Bacon Club!

We have to start one of these in KC.

"That's where Nicholson found the leaves for her bacon dolmas. She blanched the leaves and pickled them for a week before stuffing them to bursting with brown rice and bacon. Savory and tart, they are served in a deep bath of rich olive oil and fresh lemon juice."

Yummy.

“Well, I’ve always thought that heaven is going to smell like frying bacon.”- J.C. Hutchins, author

Check out Six Degrees of Bacon. It's a cool blog for all things bacon.

TAYLOR HICKS: I’d say bacon. When I think of smelling bacon, I think of not having anything to do. It’s one of those smells where it’s like, “Heck yeah. I don’t have anything going on.

If you want to give someone the best gift ever....The Bacon of the Month Club!

What to do this weekend

Here is a list of stuff going on this weekend.

Friday I'm having dinner with the folks. We are meeting a good friend of mine up at Cascone's. I haven't eaten there in almost 20 years. I didn't care for the food back then but my friend insists the food now is excellent. "Best strip steaks in town", he says. We'll see.

Saturday a group of us are heading up to Atchison, Kansas to play their new disc golf course. Should be a good time.

Sunday I will most likely be at the Tower Tavern watching a game.

When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading.

-Henny Youngman (1906 - 1998)

Give me all your money.... and your chicken

This is why there are no businesses on the east side of KC. You don't rob the one you love. You're doing it wrong man.

Wanna carjack? ........That's a stabbing

Wild twist of fortune here.

In Rainbows ... Ground-breaking album release

These guys are great.... always way ahead of the times.

The new album, titled In Rainbows, would be released on October, 10th 2007 as a digital download in MP3 format which could be purchased on the website. In a surprising move that shocked the music industry, the band decided that the price of the download would be chosen by the customer, from £0 to £100.

Check this. Out selling Prince?

"In Rainbows may be the cornerstone of change in an industry that may soon see the biggest recording artists eschew the renewal of their label contract."

Music downloaders to the RIAA....... suck it!

More about it here.

Robbery and shootout at Linwood grocery store

Blam! Blam! It's like the wild west here in the hood. Check this story. Linwood Super Foods robbed for the third time in 10 days.

I know the guy who owns this store. After being held up 2 days earlier, Dave was at home watching his security cameras over the interwebnets when he saw this robbery take place. He called the police himself. I used to live directly behind this place. Last year he was robbed twice in one day.

Those of us in the 4th district are increasingly becoming prey to the 3rd and the 5th. It's like a feeding ground for these thugs. The reason is there is nothing left to steal over there. Everything done been stolt.

These guys will probably sue the city for shooting at them. I hope none of them were pregnant.

Go downtown and get some food already

Man.... there is a lot to eat around the loop. Notice that there are few chain restaurants on this list. Most of these places are locally owned. These are the places you should be spending your money before and after events at the Sprint Center. Not here.

How did Anthony's not make the list?