A Tale of Two Real Estate Appraisals

Before we moved into our first home last May, the house was independently appraised on behalf of our mortgage lender.  Last month, we were given a "Godfather offer" to refinance by the same lender - no closing costs, with an interest rate under four percent.  Once we realized the offer was not too good to be true, we said yes in a heartbeat.  As part of the refinancing process, a different local appraiser assessed the value of the house - for the second time in fifteen months.

This strikes me as a unique opportunity for an analysis and a case study, as not much has changed in the house (or the local market) over the past fifteen months, and because in theory, two appraisers should independently assess the value of the same house in the same way.  Superficially, this was the case, as both appraisals came in at the exact same value.  However, upon further review, it seems that each individual took a completely different approach to reaching that same number.  It may be useful for prospective home buyers to read this analysis, as a low appraisal can sidetrack a closing, and some of the findings below (in my opinion at least) imply individual variability across appraisers.

(Of course, it remains to be seen whether our refinance will close on time, as our loan processor this time around may be the dumbest idiot alive, but that's a complaint for a different audience at a different time.)

***********************************

First and foremost, both appraisers used the same method to assess the value of our home - the Marshall and Swift Residential Cost Handbook.  (It's possible they used different editions, as the website does not indicate how frequently the book is updated, and it's not the type of thing a person can purchase on Amazon.)

Using this guide, presumably the appraiser takes the following steps in determining the value of a home - I should mention here that I am not an appraiser, nor am I a real estate professional, so this is what I assume from reading both appraisals in detail:

1. Determining the "statistics" of the home itself (size, number of rooms, number of finished rooms, etc.) as well as the quality of the structure
2. Determining the size of the property itself
3. Analyzing the "context" of the home (neighborhood, trends in the local real estate market, etc.)
4. With items 1-3 in hand, they then look at comparable properties that recently sold in town or locally, weighting each of these homes' sales prices upwards or downwards, respectively, based on improvements or detriments with respect to the property being appraised
5. Finally, taking a weighted average (sometimes overweighting a house that may be especially similar to the house being appraised) of the recent comps in order to hit an actual value for the property being appraised.

Because the appraisals took place fifteen months apart, each of the houses used in the comparison analysis were different in each appraisal.  Here's what else changed between the two appraisals:

• We added a new, energy efficient central air conditioning system.  The unit we had when we bought the house was 25 years old and our energy bill last July was $400.  Plus, we suspected the unit was about to break.
• Based on our naivete as homeowners, we (probably) do a more amateurish job of general upkeep on the property than the previous owners.  It hasn't been enough for the neighbors to complain, but I think it's the case.
• The housing market in our area went sideways.  An identical home on our block sold for the exact same amount we paid, back in the spring - the house had a finished basement (our basement is unfinished) but our kitchen is much nicer (we think).  So that's more or less a wash.

So far, nothing interesting.  But here is what I mean when I say that the approaches that each appraiser took were completely different:

• The 2011 appraisal listed our home as about sixteen hundred square feet, while the 2012 appraisal listed it as over nineteen hundred (!!) square feet.  That's a huge difference - basically half the size of our basement.
• The 2011 appraisal listed our garage as a one-car garage, while the 2012 appraisal listed it as a two-car garage.  Our garage could not fit two Mini Coopers, even if one were parked on top of the other.  I am not sure how this mistake was made.
• The 2011 appraisal listed the house as being 54 years old; the 2012 appraisal listed the house as being 42 (??).  We should all be so lucky.
• The 2011 appraisal gave us $55 per square foot for our basement, but $0 for improvements.  The 2012 appraisal only gave us about half as much for the basement, but twenty grand for improvements (such as our fireplace, new central air unit, and patio).
• In assessing comparable houses, the 2011 appraiser docked each home a ridiculous $10,000 for not having a fireplace.  (Our fireplace is so small that our realtor warned us that burning more than one Duraflame log at a time would surely burn our house down.)  The 2012 appraiser was more realistic, assessing a fireplace as being worth only $3,000.

*******************************************

In our instance, it is impossible to say which appraiser was "more correct."  After all, they came to the same conclusion.  However, it is clear that the 2011 appraiser was both more accurate and conservative with the size of the home.  On the other hand, last year's appraisal was far more generous regarding the value of the structure itself, allowing twice as much money per square foot for a part of the house (our basement) that is mostly unfinished and currently uninhabitable (unless you are an earwig).

This year's appraiser had the benefit of a house down the street that was identical and had recently sold for an amount just under the agreed, appraised value of our house.  It is possible that having a bad-ass kitchen (if I do say so myself) is slightly more valuable for a home than having a finished basement with no bathroom, as is the case for the house down the street.  More likely, though, the appraisers had different aesthetic tastes (as evidenced by the 2011 appraiser believing ludicrously that our teeny fireplace was worth ten grand), and these tastes impacted their assessments at a pretty fundamental level.

Given the variance mentioned above, I do believe we were fortunate that both appraisals came in at the same amount.  Had the second appraiser not asked me about recent improvements to the house - such as the new central air unit - it is possible that this year's appraisal could have been significantly lower than last year's.   For other people, a low appraisal could mean the difference between a relatively easy transaction and the whole damned deal going down the drain.

So, what would my amateur advice be for someone who is staring at an appraisal they disagree with?

1. Read the details of the appraisal and make sure you agree with them.  An appraisal should have a "Uniform Residential Appraisal Report" which lists all the pertinent statistics regarding the home, neighborhood, and market.  For instance, did the appraiser correctly estimate the size of the house?  Did they accurately state the age of the home?  In one of our appraisals, both of these pieces of information were off.  If you have evidence to suggest that the appraisal low-balled the house's size, or operated under the assumption that house was older than it actually is, it may be either correctable with the first appraiser, or worth springing the money for another appraisal.
2. Also in the "Uniform Residential Appraisal Report," there is detailed information regarding the comps, or recent local sales that the appraiser used to generate data for their analysis.  Take a close look at this information and try to understand the appraiser's underlying assumptions for the value of certain improvements (e.g., a larger garage, major appliances, finished basement, fireplaces and patio/decks).  You might catch the appraiser either undervaluing something that you have, or overvaluing something a bigger house has.  Don't think for a second that my fireplace is worth ten grand, and be skeptical about the assumptions that the appraisers make as well. 
3. Later in the "Uniform Residental Appraisal Report," there is a breakdown of how the value of your home is derived.  I've spent an hour trying to understand the formula, and it still doesn't make a ton of sense, to be honest.  But I can tell that liveable sections of the home, basements and garages are assigned different dollar values (on a per square foot basis, in my basis).  The 2011 appraiser felt that the livable spaces of the house were worth more per square foot than the 2012 appraiser; but the 2012 appraiser saw more value in my mostly-unfinished basement, assigning it almost double the value per square foot of the 2011 appraiser.  My point is, you may notice a systematic under- or overvaluation of these numbers, as well.

It strikes me that real estate appraisal is a highly inexact science, and there is great room for individual interpretation of a home's value.  As homeowners, we are all probably biased about the value of our home, especially if we have been living there for a while and have built lots of memories there.  Our lenders trust these independent appraisers to confirm whether they should give you a mortgage, so in my opinion it is our duty as consumers to hold appraisers accountable for the accuracy of their data.  As with every transaction, the devil is in the details, and hopefully my over-detailed analysis of our two recent home appraisals is helpful to someone out there.

DISCLAIMER: I am not a real estate professional, nor do I appraise anything professionally.  There is some chance that anything I have stated above may be fundamentally incorrect.  I have tried to be diligent to let you know when I am making an assumption in the above post - you should assume that everything I've written is an assumption, as a matter of fact.  Finally, I am sorry if this post bored you.  It is different from what I typically write about, I must confess.

Why Don't We See Each Other More Often?

(Author's Note: This entire post, including the very strange but completely honest 4 AM time stamp, is brought to you courtesy of double espresso.  Double espresso, keeping insomniacs awake since virtually the dawn of time.)

Last night, we ventured to New York for an event in the honor of a close relative on my mother's side of the family.  (My parents are divorced, so I naturally delineate my family into two "sides", as if they were Hatfields and McCoy's.)  The event was attended by many distant relatives, second and third cousins, mostly, and I had no frickin' clue who most of these people were.  My mother and aunt, who have the benefits of closer ties as well as memories of a time when our extended Italian-American family was closer knit, did know more of the guests and at one point my aunt uttered the classic line, "We only see these people at funerals any more."

(Observing other families, I've heard the related phrase "...weddings or funerals", but not in our family.  It's only funerals for us; weddings aren't that crazy huge in our family anymore.)

This led me to think, why is this the case?  And taking it one step further, assuming that it is true that extended families are breaking apart, does it even matter?

********************************

I'll keep my discussion of the obvious reason for extended families to diverge over time fairly brief.  This is the simple fact that - for immigrant families in particular - geographic shifts occur over generations.  This is what happened on my mother's side of the family, for example: my mother was born in the early 1950's in the Bronx, New York.  At that time, her entire extended family lived in a small enclave in the Bronx.  (Her mother and father were both born in the United States as well, but their parents were steerage-class immigrants from Italy/Sicily who made it to the States around 1910.)  My grandfather on my mother's side was both handy and intelligent, and wanted an ostensibly better life for his family, so he purchased a home in "the sticks" - Middletown, New Jersey, specifically the same home where I grew up and my mother and sister still reside.

This story is uninteresting except for that it is extremely common.  Some other relatives on that side of my family joined my grandmother and grandfather in New Jersey; many others moved to the northern suburbs of New York City; some others stayed in New York City for their entire lives.  Measured in miles, the distance between these factions of my mother's side of the family was not that great, but philosophically I think it was fairly significant.  The New Jersey side of the family has its problems, but as a whole, I think it's a pretty smart group of people.  And even half a century later, we've always felt obligated to defend our forefather's decision to move out of the city - for some inexplicable reason, even though New Jersey is an underrated and awesome place to live, we've always had an inferiority complex, compared to the New York side.

ANYWAY, that's my theory for my family.  This is getting way too specific, so let's move on.

****************************************

My mom's side of the family has clearly diverged over time, but some readers might argue that their extended family has stayed close, perhaps through the benefit of extended family reunions.  These reunions are nice, when they occur, but my opinion is they occur at considerable time and expense - and require people who have a great deal of money, as well as the desires to both organize and fund the events.  Some families attempt it once or twice, but like most traditions, they burn out and fizzle over time.  Many others simply cannot afford the financial and emotional investments of reunions, so they settle for the next best thing: weddings and funerals. 

Personally, being cynical by nature, I love the idea that people actually don't want to see their extended families more often - the "weddings and funerals" line that composes the key thesis of this post is just another white lie that people tell themselves because they want to feel what they think is the correct way to feel.  Here's why I like the idea:

• It's fairly established that many people can only keep a fixed number of acquaintances in their memories (there is disagreement on the maximum number, though popular psychology likes to state that it's in the ballpark of 150 friends and acquaintances).  For me, the number is probably more like thirty, but that is because I am a robot with a heart made of silicon - let's say 150 people at most.
• Relatedly, each additional social connection or friendship that a person undertakes carries with it a significant time and emotional investment.  Family ties carry baggage, and grudges with relatives can last generations.  It's certainly possible to remember the good times in a superficial manner (and over a fixed period of time) with distant relatives - at weddings or funerals, for instance - but maintaining relationships with large numbers of relatives over months or years can be incredibly taxing.
• Social media can maintain a desired level of closeness with distant relatives, without so much of the in-person emotional baggage.  Speaking from personal experience, it's way easier to manage the annoying aspects of someone's personality when you have the ability to limit or completely hide their appearances on your Facebook News Feed.

*********************************************

To the extent that maintaining deeper social connections with extended family is emotionally healthy, it is probably a wonderful idea to reconnect with extended members of one's family.  But I really don't think, for most people, that the above statement is true. 

In general, I am currently far closer with my father's side of my family than with my mother's side, but I am ten times closer with my close friends than I am with either side of my family.  That is because, for the most part, spending hours with my close friends is mentally stimulating, engaging, and fun, while spending hours with my extended family is exhausting. 

Why is it exhausting?  Trying to remember dozens of names, trying to remember where you met so-and-so fifteen years ago (at a funeral, most likely), and keeping small talk chit-chat while leaving aside matters of differing philosophy - the extended family on my mother's side is mostly conservative and deeply religious, and I am neither - are not things that come naturally to me, to say the very least.  My extended family mostly seem to be good people, and they mostly seem to be genuine when they ask me about how my life has been - but that's really all.  Given this, there should be absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to keep these relationships at arm's length.

I think at its core, this post is about the value of close friends.  (And also explaining why only older people care about genealogy.)  Arguably, the main reason anyone has a relationship with anybody is because it "helps that individual out".  (I'm speaking really colloquially here on purpose, to leave it to your interpretation of what "helping" might mean.)  To that end, it might make some utilitarian sense for families to break up as they establish themselves in some country over generations and diverge from a socioeconomic standpoint.  People (mostly) want to be friends with people who have similar viewpoints and philosophies and intelligence levels, and I think that as families diverge, those close family bonds change to relationships with close friends.  There's no reason why that change shouldn't be a healthy one.

For my life, certainly, that is a good thing to have happen, and it makes me happy that my grandfather moved to New Jersey almost sixty years ago.  For others, it makes them lament times when their family was closer - but lamenting this is, in my opinion, as silly as lamenting evolution.  Both are inevitable, and both should be recognized for their benefits.  Until the next relative dies, extended family!  (I don't want anyone to die any time soon.)

Restaurant Review: Sushi Palace, Somerville, NJ

Readers of this blogspace know that my wife and I are willing to drive long distances for good sushi.  We both consider ourselves sushi connoisseurs, having dined at most of the casual (and some of the legitimately upscale) sushi establishments in the area.  And why not: sushi, at its best, is an incredibly awesome and ridiculously healthy food, served in a unique style that allows for a considerable amount of culinary creativity.  It also can involve sitting at a bar, which is an activity that I endorse at every available opportunity.

Because we are both trying to eat conscientiously these days, sushi has become a once-weekly menu item for my wife and I for the past several months.  Lately, we've been faithfully driving to U-Yee Sushi in Iselin (forty minutes, round trip) for especially delicious but increasingly time-consuming "utility" sushi.  Earlier tonight, we decided to drive about five minutes to Sushi Palace in downtown Somerville, at the long-unheeded suggestion of one of April's coworkers, for a change of pace in the sushi department.

********************************

The short story is: Sushi Palace, though slightly austere with regard to "specialty" rolls, is a remarkably delicious and reasonable budget sushi choice.  It is a BYOB establishment with a $19.95 per person weekday "all you can eat" option that actually pleases the palate and offers a multitude of choices (from sushi and sashimi to teriyaki and tempura; including soup, salad, diverse appetizers and five ice cream options).

But before I get there, I need to gush a little bit about the awesome plethora of dining options that are generally available in Somerville, New Jersey.  The second biggest positive surprise of where we now live (second only to the front-row seats we receive to country club fireworks each Independence Day) is how fun and delicious it is to eat in Somerville.  Compared to more hoity-toity and gentrified New Jersey towns of the same size (think of Red Bank, New Brunswick, or Morristown), Somerville is not given anywhere near its proper due with respect to culinary quality.

These are just a few mentions off the top of my head, but Somerville has great standard family Italian (the original Alfonso's), great Cuban food (the wonderful Martino's), great Irish pub fare (Mannion's), about seventeen different Asian food places, as well as a multitude of hole in the wall Mexican places, all within a twenty square block, walkable stretch of Main Street proper.  Somerville is way more blue-collar and not as "pretty" as the aforementioned New Jersey towns, but dollar for dollar and inch by inch, it out-noshes all of them.  With the exception of Ethiopian food, I cannot think of a type of food that (a) can be found elsewhere in New Jersey but not in Somerville, and (b) that Somerville does not represent at least adequately well.

Look at the below subset of only the Japanese options in Somerville, and consider this in the context of a town that has only about 12,000 residents as of the 2010 census:

• Shumi Sushi on South Doughty: If you asked a hundred sushi fanatics in the area where the best sushi in Somerville is, 82 of them would say Shumi.  (This is a fact; I did a study.)  I think Shumi is slightly overrated and slightly overpriced, but it is delicious.  Tucked into the back of an inside mini-mall with no outdoor sign, you feel a bit like you are dining in an illicit speakeasy at Shumi.  The fish is extremely fresh but best served as sashimi because the preparation is somewhat dry and lacking in sake and rice wine vinegar. According to the reviews, you can dine there omakase (chef's choice), which I may actually try one day.
• Wasabi on Main Street: an Asian fusion place that also has a sushi bar, it is slightly less well received overall but apparently they have a slamming sea bass crunchy roll.  I've never tried it, but probably will in the future.
• Yutaka, also on Main Street: Mainly a hibachi place; I've only been there for hibachi, on a double date that turned ridiculous when I decided, in a fairly severe misinterpretation of proper social conduct, to chug sake for 90 seconds in response to one of those corny "sake-bomb" gags that hibachi chefs sometimes do.  Anyway, I can attest that the food was fantastic that night (though I became quite drunk on sake).
• And finally (keeping in mind I've definitely overlooked a few places), the aforementioned Sushi Palace, on South Division.

 *******************************

Sushi Palace is exceedingly pleasant, and from the outside, it does not look at all like a place where a group of four could conceivably dine on a four-course meal (and down two bottles of wine in the process) for only $80 + whatever you paid for the wine at the liquor store + tax.  Mostly hidden at the less traveled end of a pedestrian mall, with small side entrance doors, it feels a little badass entering the restaurant - like you're on a secret mission to hunt down sushi.

You may be offered a menu, or the hostess may immediately assume that you want the all you can eat paperwork (it's not a "menu" per se, it is two sheets of paper; you can order anything you want - as much as you want - from both sheets for $20 per person on weekdays).  All you can eat is a good deal, even if you're not feeling particularly gluttonous, as each category on the menu is not limited to the cheapest few options (like many sushi places).  There is even a section devoted to "Special Rolls," which clearly include more pricey ingredients - amazingly, even these are included in the "all you can eat" price. 

The ambiance is more steakhouse than sushi place - you sit in dark leather booths amid mood lighting.  Wine glass racks exist alongside the dark and sleek sushi bar.  Service is fast, polite, and unassuming, and the green tea is delicious and flavorful (unlike many sushi places in this price range, where it is way too weak).  Even on the Fourth of July and while enduring 100 degree temperatures, the restaurant was half-full with families and friends enjoying delicious sushi, which suggests the place becomes decently packed on weekends.

We chose eel and salmon sushi, salmon and tuna rolls, as well as dragon and summer rolls off the "specialty" list, with fresh edamame to begin.  The eel sushi was the fairest and sweetest we've tasted - though it was provided with a small portion of the "typical eel sushi accompaniment sweet sauce" on the side, we did not really need it.  It was also served at the correct temperature (eel served too cold gets too rubbery).

Further, I always consider the simplest rolls (salmon and tuna) a barometer of a sushi restaurant's success, because they are deceptively challenging to make.  Not only must the fish be impeccably fresh (there is no Japanese mayo or avocado to conceal flaws in these rolls) but the preparation must be nearly perfect to match the texture of the fish.  So many "budget" sushi places get this wrong, either by messing up the preparation (less frequently) or simply not having high enough quality fish on hand (more frequently).  Sushi Palace, at least tonight, nailed the balance perfectly - we noshed on the salmon and tuna like it was a bad habit, and these rolls disappeared the quickest.  I then enjoyed a pleasant but fairly generic green tea ice cream (one scoop was enough) for dessert.

Almost by default, the "specialty" rolls were the weak point of the meal (though they were not weak).  The summer roll was deliciously understated, with no mayonnaise aftertaste (I hate mayonnaise in almost every form), and the dragon roll was also decent (but with too much cucumber presence for my taste - I don't like it when something as preternaturally bland as cucumber is the dominant flavor in a sushi roll).  I understand the restaurant needs to make money, but I was also a little surprised to see the "Specialty Rolls" were the same size as the regular rolls. Most people would be satisfied to spend an extra $1 per "specialty" roll if they knew that the chefs would not skimp on the ingredients or the size of the roll itself.

That criticism aside, Sushi Palace was a delicious and unexpected delight.  I definitely recommend it to those in the area who want to eat a lot (or even a moderate amount) of sushi and not waste their entire wallet in the process.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars (ratings take into account food quality, drink quality, service, ambience/atmosphere, and last but not least, value).

Best for: Sushi when you want to drink wine or Japanese beer (the restaurant is BYO); Sushi when you want to gorge yourself on sushi; a pleasant and quiet couple's meal

Average price: Don't go to Sushi Palace if you're not going to use the all you can eat menu - $20 per person on weekdays, $25 per person on weekends, cannot, to the best of my knowledge, be beaten for sushi of this quality, in this part of the country.

Grading Recent Ads, Volume #5: DirecTV, VW, and Meditation and Chakra Balancing

It's been a long time (about 15 months) since I've written one of these blog posts; I think I have some decent material today, however.  As always, the grades reflect an overall opinion of the advertisement's clarity and quality.  Let's get right to it:

*****************************

Advertisement #1: Don't Get Stuck in a Roadside Ditch

Readers of this series know that I've long enjoyed DirecTV commercials.  This year's campaign is a series of commercials centered around logical-yet-absurd chains of thought ("When X, you Y... when Y, you Z...") that start with the premise of poor cable customer service and end with a ridiculously implausible outcome (in the above advertisement, which is one of four I've seen on the air this year, our protagonist ends up in a roadside ditch).

I can see these commercials being somewhat controversial - they require the viewer to pay attention and wait for the hook, which is almost at the end of the spot.  I can't argue this; some viewers may not pay attention, but I love these commercials nonetheless.  I love most that they're based on the fundamental premise that people want to make good decisions - a completely different idea than other over-saturated ad campaigns (like AT&T Wireless, and did I mention yet in this post that AT&T Wireless has the worst ad campaign on TV right now?) which tend to emphasize the shallow, nastier recesses of our personalities.

By sending the commercial's main character through a series of less and less fortunate outcomes, DirecTV sends home the message that, though picking the wrong TV provider won't get you killed, it'll probably make your life suck for a while.  Of course, DirecTV cannot be literal in describing how picking the incorrect TV provider sucks (commercials showing people on hold with customer service are always infuriating).  So humor has to serve as an analogy for this suckitude, and it also helps solve another problem that I'm betting DirecTV (and every other company that sells these services) has to deal with. 

Allow me to explain:

If your household is anything like mine, you average about two years with a TV provider before switching to a different one.  For instance, once our 24 month Verizon FiOS triple play promo ends in the middle of next year, we'll probably switch back to Cablevision (under my wife's name, not mine, because we had an account under my name with Cablevision from 2009 until 2011) for two more years.  Then in 2015, we'll switch back to FiOS but use my name for a couple of years, until that promotional rate runs out as well.  In 2017, we'll opt to have microchips implanted in the visual cortices of our brains by North Central Positronics, Inc., which will allow us to watch TV in our minds.  I look forward to 2017.

My point here is that, unless a TV service user is so lazy that they don't mind paying exorbitant fees once their promotional rate runs out, or unless they are such talented negotiators that they end up sticking around at the discounted rate for years and years, they're not going to be very loyal to the service.  As a result, staying in the public consciousness and offering a low teaser rate for a couple of years are probably the only ways to get people to switch to a TV service.  You'd better have good commercials if you're going to try to pull this off, and here DirecTV certainly fits the bill.

Grade: B+

******************************

Advertisement #2: Simplicity in a Car Commercial

I feel the issue with car commercials (and forgive me if I'm repeating myself here) is that car companies often have a difficult time not pigeon-holing themselves into a specific demographic.  Great car commercials are rare because the types of messages that are simple enough and distinct enough to appeal across ages, genders, and other demographics are also rare.  (They are also rare because regional and local car dealerships seem to intentionally create some of the worst commercials on the air, but this is an entirely different story.)

The elements of the above commercial, for the Volkswagen Passat, that work across demographics are twofold.  First, everyone remembers the emotions associated with crashing (or almost crashing) their first car - you're scared to death, you're convinced the car is in worse shape than it actually is (like the car in the ad above), and you're convinced that your parents are going to kill you.  None of these things are actually true, but they're how you feel at the time.  The teenaged actors set the scene within the first six seconds of the commercial; you know what's going on, and you can immediately relate.

But there's a second layer of meaning here that I think works best for parents (but also works pretty well for anyone who's ever had parents); the idea that the car doesn't matter to a parent, what matters is that the child is safe.  Cars can be fixed, children are irreplaceable.  The tagline "He can only kill you if you're OK" is perfect for the overall tenor of the ad - simple and stark. 


Volkswagen is absolutely killing it these days with a recent series of commercials devoted to safety in automobiles.  It's a brilliant campaign in general, because almost every driver cares about safety (and those who don't care about safety are unlikely to buy a VW in the first place).  This commercial achieves the near-impossible - an emotionally strong message packaged in a simple and non-confusing ad.

Grade: A

************************

Advertisement #3: Lisa Rossland, Meditation and Chakra Balancing in Love-Relationships-Health and Business, Hates You and Hates the Environment

I know, this is a print advertisement and not a commercial.  I still think it's worth a review.  Allow me to explain:

I work in an office which happens to be located inside a shopping center (kind of like a strip mall, but without the shady massage parlor).  Once every month, I walk out of my office and inevitably I will find one of the above advertisements taped to my car (or sometimes attached to my windshield, where I can drive away with it still attached). 

This annoys me deeply, so in the interest of venting, here are a bunch of reasons why this is a terrible advertisement.

The first reason why these advertisements are terrible is because they lack a "hook" or interesting aspect entirely.  People never read them; they always crumple them up and throw them on the parking lot asphalt.  This leads to an incredible mess which lasts for days. 

The second reason is because it's written in pretty God-awful English (sorry the picture is a little blurry, I took it with my cell phone).  The third reason is because every advertisement is terrible when you see it plastered to your car once a month, every month, for at least a year.  The fourth reason is because the services being offered are complete bullshit and fake hackery.  The fifth reason is because I would assign a 104 percent probability to this woman owning at least five cats and a Saab that is at least ten years old.  The sixth is because I bet she doesn't shave her armpits.  And seventh, finally, when these ads get plastered to your car and then it starts pouring rain, like this afternoon, it's damned near impossible to scrape the residue off your windshield and/or the body of your car.

But hey: at least I'm convinced that it is not true that Lisa Rossland raped and killed a girl in 1990.  Certainly it is impossible that Lisa Rossland raped and killed a girl in 1990.  If anyone out there can prove that Lisa Rossland raped and killed a girl in 1990, please, stop gossiping about it and go straight to the police with it.

(If you don't get the reference, the video is right below.)

Grade: F (the Gilbert Gottfried video gets an A+, however)

How our dog is no longer with us: a Very Sad Story

This is your one warning: maybe you shouldn't read the below story.  It's the type of sad story where the dog dies at the end (or, really, closer to the beginning).  It's the type of story I needed to put on paper because telling people face-to-face is a nearly impossible burden right now.  If you decide to read, read the whole thing before you come to any conclusions.

*****************************

The short story is: my wife and I rescued a terrier mix puppy from a shelter in Philadelphia last October, as a joint wedding gift for ourselves.  We named him Indiana, we fed him Blue Buffalo dog food because we felt it was the best food, we dressed him up for different holidays, and we gave him lots of love and training and play.  My wife took approximately 1,495 pictures of him, because he was adorable.  Sometimes, before things went south with Indiana, I brought him to my office, and (at least as a puppy, before his issues started) he seemed to like that.  And now, he is gone.

After months of socialization and obedience classes, in-home training sessions, hours upon hours of research and study, and multiple doctor's appointments, including our final visit with what we feel is our state's foremost veterinary behaviorist, we made the decision to put our dog down.  The decision was made with much thought, many tears, and a ton of agony.  He was 11 months old, which is an incredibly tragic age for any dog's life to end.

Our veterinary behaviorist was an angel of mercy for us; she helped us greatly in making our decision.  Based on her opinion of the severity of Indiana's aggression, combined with his very bleak prognosis for improvement, we felt we owed the responsibility to the children of our neighbors and our friends (not to mention our own future children) to keep them safe.

I'm writing this in an emotional shell, so it's possible that my words seem robotic and vacant right now.  I can't process in my head, at this point, what all of this means - these were feelings we were supposed to have around age 40, or 45, given our ages when we purchased the puppy.  Dogs are supposed to live about a dozen years, or more.  Our future children were supposed to be old enough to be sad by this dog dying; they were never supposed to have been saved by this dog dying.

****************************

Here's what happened (if you've been to our house or spoken to us over the past few months, you know part of this story already):

We knew Indiana was slightly "off" from the time we met him, but it was impossible at that time for anyone to determine the severity of his adult behavioral issues.  At the time, he presented simply as a nervous puppy, which made sense given what we knew of his early life (he was found malnourished and chained to a pole outside the shelter in a heat wave last August).  He certainly had difficulty warming up to, or trusting, other people, even though we tried to introduce him to as many of our friends and family as possible.

Throughout the time he spent with us, Indy was a smart and obedient dog, as long as he was in his increasingly-smaller "comfort zone."  With only April and me in the house, he was quiet and would obey dozens of commands.  He could name and fetch each of his toys on command.  Further, as long as we were the only people in the house, he was easy to manage, too.  He would mostly sleep through the night (even until 7:30 AM), wouldn't bark at the lawn mower, and even managed the vacuum cleaner pretty well.  In the car, he would immediately sleep and behave the entire time.

But when almost anyone else (save my mother) entered the home, Mr. Hyde would leave and Dr. Jekyll would emerge.  His fear and defensiveness were extreme and, according to our behaviorist, extremely abnormal.  As Indy grew older and stronger, he began to direct severe aggressive behavior toward strangers.  Managing Indy became a long and winding ritual in and of itself - we would introduce strangers to him in a way that (in theory) should have counter-conditioned him to associate strangers with treats (not fear).  This was largely unsuccessful, though, and our lives became more sequestered, as friends and family shirked away from visiting our home in fear of Indiana.

By the time of this writing, he had nipped three people strongly enough to draw blood (one bite, on my father, was almost enough for stitches - thankfully it was my father, who would never press charges against us), and tried to attack/would have attacked countless others, if not for the leash and our intervention.  At the vet behaviorist's consultation, the behaviorist at one point brought out a doll the size of a three year old girl and started dancing it around Indiana.  He sat quietly and then within a millisecond's time, jumped up and attacked the doll.  Had that been an actual child...

We live on a street with dozens of small children.  Many of our friends and family have children, and one day we plan to have children, most likely.  (The silver lining in all of this bullshit is that I finally realized that one day I want to be a parent.)  After the doll incident - and about six other severe aggressive moves Indiana made in the vet's office, while on leash, thankfully - the behaviorist started to mention our options.  She said there could be several, but in our case, there were only two.

The first was to keep Indiana, try to manage his behavior with the addition of Prozac, which we would start with an aggressive mid-range dose given the severity of his problems.  The behaviorist said that some dogs react very well to Prozac, and in the very-best-case scenario, he might be able to be introduced to children, starting at a park from a large distance, and wearing a muzzle.  In this very-best-case scenario, Indiana would need to wear a muzzle around children for the rest of his life.  Additionally, we would need to monitor his behavior around strangers vigilantly for the rest of his life, rewarding him with treats when he ever managed to relax around friends and family.  This was the very-best-case scenario.  She felt it much more likely that even with Prozac, Indiana would continue to be a dangerous dog that displayed abnormal and unpredictable aggression toward people.

To us, this option posed several serious issues.  Is it morally right to put a known aggressive dog around anyone's children, let alone our own?  What does it mean for the dog's quality of life that he would have to be muzzled all the time?  Could we ever have a child while having this dog around?

"You could almost certainly never have a child with this dog around," the behaviorist told us. 

Nor was sheltering Indiana an option; we mentioned a no-kill shelter as an option we'd been thinking about, and the behaviorist dismissed this, again for a number of reasons.  She felt that if relinquished to a shelter, even a shelter that refused to kill dogs, Indiana would probably stay there for a very long time, and she cryptically mentioned that anyone who would take him from this shelter "may not be as nice as you two."  (I took that comment to mean that any future adopters would be fairly likely to abuse and/or fight Indiana.)  That aside, she told us - and we agreed - that shelter life is terrible life for a dog.  Combine this with the large number of non-vicious dogs that currently cannot be placed into homes, and sheltering Indiana would be the equivalent of passing off his death sentence to someone else.

So, the second option was euthanasia.  I had anticipated this might come up during our meeting, though April had been more optimistic.  Still, when we saw the direction she was going, we both immediately broke down crying.  The behaviorist said that, with cases of aggression as severe as Indy's, and given the undesirability of our remaining options, "it would not be wrong to put him down and simply say, this is not the dog for us, for our lifestyle."

She insisted that we not make a decision the day of the meeting, so we didn't.  We agreed that starting Prozac while we made a decision would be a good idea, in case we decided to keep him.  I asked the behaviorist what people tend to decide when dealing with this type of aggression in their dogs, and she replied, "It depends a lot on whether children are in the picture.  When a couple has no children in the house, or no plans for children, many of these people would give Prozac a chance before euthanizing the dog.  But when a couple has children, or plans to have children, often euthanasia is the decision."

This made it a judgment call for us; we didn't yet have a child, but knew we wanted one in the future.  Keeping Indy until we had a child seemed like postponing the inevitable, and sheltering him was a death sentence.  His chances for improvement, even with the most significant intervention, were slim.  I knew immediately that every possible decision was a terrible one to comprehend.  But only one decision gave us the freedom from our constant fear of our dog hurting a friend, family member, or child.  Having witnessed Indiana's attack on my father firsthand, what we saw was a chemically imbalanced and unpredictable dog with the strength to inflict serious injury.  I could never see that happening again to anyone else.  April needed more time to process our options, but eventually she told me on Sunday afternoon that she agreed with the decision.  We had agreed that Indiana needed to be euthanized.

*******************************

In advance of our vet behaviorist meeting, we filled out a thirty-five item questionnaire describing past attempts to control Indiana's behavior.  At the close of our meeting, after the Kleenex box had emptied, I asked the vet whether anything we had done could have caused this.  "If you had done anything wrong, I would have told you.  You did everything you could - this behavior has a huge genetic predisposition."

We still blame ourselves, even though we probably shouldn't.

We know nothing of Indiana's life before he was found at the shelter in Philadelphia.  Given his relatively smaller size and the fact that he wasn't a pure "pit bull" type dog, I do not think he was bred to fight, but I could be wrong about this.  He might have been inbred and his owners, knowing what happened and also being the type of assholes who would leave a malnourished four month old dog chained to a pole in a heat wave, simply gave him up to the next owner. 

Regardless of his breeding, there's no doubt he was under-socialized and there is no doubt he was severely chemically imbalanced.  The puppy socialization window closes at three months - it's very important to introduce a puppy to at least 100 unique people before he or she is three months old.  Indiana may have met fewer than five people (maybe only one, and if so, not a nice one?) during that window. Our vet behaviorist also suggested that something akin to human schizophrenia was at play with Indiana, as well.  "Think of Indiana as a special-needs dog.  If he were a human," the vet behaviorist said last Saturday, "there would be institutions for humans like him.  These institutions don't exist for dogs."

I like to think that we gave Indiana as much love and training and care as we could, and that this was a gift for a dog that never really had a fair chance in the world.  However, there are people who might disagree fundamentally with what we did.  (Just look at PETA to see what level of insane, blinders-on zealotry exists in this world with regard to animals.)  Disagreeing with us is fine, but know that we exhausted every option and spent literally thousands of dollars over the past seven months trying to solve this problem.  Eventually, a reasonable minded person needs to reach their wit's end.  If you still disagree, I'm actually going to ask you to disagree in the most polite way, namely by keeping your opinion to yourself.  This is such a sensitive issue that your opinion will only serve to piss us off.

*****************************

I don't blame the shelter at all for giving us Indiana, nor do I blame the very kind people who worked with Indiana before we purchased him.  I know, however, that we are personally very unlikely to consider rescuing a dog again.  This is not a value judgment on rescuing dogs - there are many wonderful adult dogs out there that need a home, and people who are emotionally and financially fit to rescue, and want to rescue, absolutely should rescue.  But our experience with rescuing was so terrible that it's unlikely we'd ever do it again.  We are too shell shocked.

Certainly, in our opinion, rescuing puppies has greater risk than rescuing an adult dog.  And certainly, given our experience, I would never recommend that a friend ever rescue a puppy from a shelter.  With an adult dog, what you see is what you get, for the most part.  Predicting a puppy's future adult behavior is extremely challenging, and many shelters are not well enough equipped (assuming that anyone outside of a breeder is well enough equipped) to make these judgments.  We understand now that issues related to under-socialization, as well as chemical imbalances, are hidden in puppies and pop up in adolescence or early adulthood.  There is no "cure" or "magic pill" to make them better. 

******************************

At some point, once the pain and tears wear off and we can get back to being newlyweds, we'll consider another dog.  It may be a long wait - dogs often bite toddlers, so that would be something we'd need to think about - but a smaller, calmer and purebred dog could definitely be in our future.  We love dogs, we love the love they give, and we love the work that goes into training a dog.  We don't think we were the problem with Indiana, and the best way to prove that to ourselves would be another dog.

********************************

I debated whether to write this but decided that my friends needed to see this argument for why we had to make our decision.  (I think argument is the proper term here.)  Please know it was a terrible, horrible decision to make, easily one of the toughest of our lives.  That being said, it was the least awful of any number of awful decisions.  Hopefully you can see why; hopefully, you don't blame us.

19 Random Notes on our European Vacation

First and foremost, we had an absolute blast on our honeymoon.  Every day we saw at least one breathtaking historical sight, and every day we had at least one fantastic culinary experience, which was exactly what we wanted.  There will eventually be pictures of what we saw - the very best of them may end up on Facebook, but we're both sensitive to the fact that most people care very little about what photos other people post on Facebook, so we'll be careful about that.

In case you're curious about how the trip to Europe went, though, you can read the following:

1. We chose a Mediterranean cruise because we thought of the trip as a scouting expedition for further vacations.  It's impossible to spend only one day in Rome, or in Barcelona, and do much more than scratch the surface of what there is to see.  Future trips to both of these cities, at some point in our lives, are definitely in order.  We also wanted to explore the ports where we knew much less (such as Tuscany or Marseilles, France) to give them a taste, as well.  Tuscany turned out to be awesome - I'll get to that later - but Marseilles was a little boring (I won't say much about France on this post).
2. Our cruise ship, the Norwegian Epic, was indeed Epic.  It carries about 4,000 passengers and 1,700 crew members on board, and stretched a quarter of a mile forward to aft.  It included so many restaurants that, had our cruise been two weeks instead of one, we would have still not exhausted our meal options.  There were many activities, as well - a ridiculous number of bars and shows (we hit up Howl at the Moon three straight nights, and also saw the Blue Man Group, but skipped on Cirque du Soleil because April and I both find that stuff weird), in addition to a rock climbing wall, outside pool, and a casino.
3. They call the casino on the Epic the Epic Casino, and this was fair.  As soon as the ship hit international waters (about thirty minutes after leaving port), the hundreds of slot machines and dozens of table games opened.  All of the blackjack tables with minimum bets of less than $25 had automatic reshuffling machines, so it was impossible to count cards.  The dealers varied in their level of competency (on one memorable night, I might have called a blackjack dealer an asshole - this would have had me kicked out of Atlantic City, but on a cruise ship as a paying passenger they couldn't throw me overboard.  So I had that going for me, which was nice).  In general, April and I played a little bit every night and ended up even, but that was thanks to...
4. ...Let It Ride.  My God, how did I live 29 years of my life without playing Let It Ride?  It's a really fun game, and really social, as well.  Perhaps a bit more luck oriented (vs. skill oriented) than I'd prefer, but still, April and I both had much honeymooning luck playing the game.  I had a natural straight flush and natural trip-nines during the trip, and April (I think) had the same - my memory of this is slightly fuzzy, all I know is I left the table to smoke a Cuban cigar and came back to see my wife holding a bunch of $100 chips in her hand.  This is always a fun sight.
5. We made friends with fellow honeymooners on our cruise, a really awesome couple from Ohio with whom we did some fairly serious partying and who generously let me borrow 50 Euro for a few hours when my credit card wouldn't swipe for the tour bus in Barcelona.

6. Speaking of malicious incidents in Barcelona, their city buses need more warning signs.  The sliding glass door of the bus almost took off the fingers of my right hand, which was stuck between the door and the bar I was holding onto for dear life while standing.  I was able to escape this bus version of a lobstrosity (really random nerd reference here, but this happened less than a day after I finished reading The Dark Tower series and I needed to make the reference) only by relaxing and letting what was sure to be a bleeding cut on my knuckles happen.
7. After these two unfortunate events happened, I managed to have a wonderful day in Barcelona - one of my favorite cities on the trip.  What a beautiful city, and everyone should see the Sagrada Familia if they're interested in architecture.  What a Gaudi-ish structure.
8. The Tuscan countryside - and our visit to a Tuscan winery for lunch and wine - was another of my favorite days.  After exploring Pisa for a few hours (yes, we both took corny photos of us "pushing" the Leaning Tower), we went to a vineyard on the outskirts of Lucca.  Here, we went on a winery tour and had a traditional Italian lunch - this started with a small Caprese salad and cold antipasto plate, followed by bread and homemade olive oil, which was itself followed by a light homemade pasta dish.  If you're reading this in the United States and are wondering what one change you can make to your pasta to make the end product more authentic in nature, consider this - use less sauce.  For Italians, the harmony of flavors is between the homemade pasta, the olive oil, and whatever cheese you decide to include.  The amount of sauce is very minimal.  If all of the ingredients you use are tasty, you don't need mountains of tomato sauce to cover anything up.   Anyway, after the pasta we had more cheeses and meats, followed by homemade garlic bread, which was followed by dessert.
9. Each of these courses was paired with unlimited quantities of the vineyard's homemade wine.  And when I say unlimited, I mean everyone at our table got pretty drunk and rowdy with lunch.  We were sitting with our honeymooner friends (together, we were maybe the only ones under age 40 on the excursion) and about six older folks who I assume really wanted to party with us.  We made very good wine-fueled friends with everyone at the table over lunch.  At one point, of the older folks, upon learning about our honeymooning status, got up and announced our honeymoon to the entire vineyard (about four tour buses' worth).  Getting that applause was pretty cool.
10. Europe moves to the beat of a different drum than America.  You know some of this already; Europeans care less about timeliness (we were almost never on time for anything we did in Europe, and nobody cared) and European men love to wear form-fitting bathing suits.  I can't decide whether this is because Europe appreciates the male genitalia more than America does, or whether European men simply lack shame.  All I know is that I never want to know, when looking at a dude by the pool, what his junk looks like.
11. Barcelona and Rome are, respectively, the numbers one and two cities worldwide with regard to petty theft (e.g., pickpocketing).  We were both nervous about this in both cities, and made sure to distribute our funds and passports across multiple pockets.  But I think the key to not getting your pocket picked is staying vigilant.  The men and women who pickpocket are very cautious and they want to make sure their mark is both oblivious and vulnerable.  I tried to look like an asshole from New Jersey who would be fast/bold enough to chase a pickpocket down and tackle them free safety-style.  April held onto her pocketbook for dear life.  Whatever it was, it worked.
12. In addition to some generally amazing ruins, our walk through Pompeii included both an ancient whorehouse and casts of skeletons that died in the aftermath of the Vesuvian eruption.  We found both aspects of the tour fascinating (and took many pictures of each, including one piece of ancient pornographic graffiti so profound and disgusting that decorum prevents describing it here).  But many others found them controversial, perhaps because of their values or some shit.  People need to get a grip, take it easy, and enjoy the ride like Europeans enjoy the ride.
13. We were on Floor 13 of our cruise ship.  Many American hotels skip Floor 13 because they think it's bad luck.  I don't get this.
14. Speaking of enjoying the ride, Europeans allegedly drive like crazy people.  I don't know.  What I saw was a different set of social customs that included comparatively little speeding, compared to New Jersey, and driving was done at very low speeds compared to America.  The roads were, obviously, much older than American roads, but much safer and better maintained.  I was almost never worried while being driven around in Europe.
15. ...but that may be because I am not a stoopid Ameri-CAN (read that in your best French accent).  The most annoying aspect of riding on tour buses in Europe was hearing some old man or old lady from the South complain loudly about how European people drive.  Okay, okay, I get it.  European drivers don't care about stop signs, they don't yield, and traffic circles at least superficially seem to involve a modicum of taking your life into your own hands.  But the system works for Europeans - they were raised in it, they know it, and they'd have no clue how to handle driving in America just like you'd have no clue how to drive in Europe, so leave them the hell alone.  
16. I feel like the point I'm trying to make here is hidden between the lines, and it strikes me at this point that it may actually be a political point (though I'm not trying to be political here at all).  It certainly supports people shutting the fuck up and not imposing their culture on the culture that they're visiting.
17. My favorite meals on the trip were, in order: (1) the aforementioned Tuscan vineyard lunch; (2) incredible homemade mozzarella at a farm outside of Sorrento, which was much harder (but in a good way) than the mozzarella served in America; (3) a simple ham and cheese sandwich, combined with a traditional Spanish lager, at a food truck in Barcelona (the lager was served in a brewery glass, even though it came from a food truck); (4) a medium-rare ribeye and lobster bisque at the cruise's steakhouse.
18. Even though our we delayed our honeymoon for seven months after we were married, I didn't regret waiting for this trip at all.  I think we waited in order to do this the "right way" for us.  This has a little to do with me getting a throat infection right after the wedding (it would have made an immediate trip less fun) and very much to do with our state of mind.  The work's not finished right after you get married; you have lots of stuff to organize, gifts to put away (or, sometimes, return), thank you notes to write and many other tasks that I've probably forgotten.  I feel like by waiting a few months, we were able to do all the post-wedding stuff beforehand and just enjoy the trip.
19. Finally, two quick recommendations: when researching your cruise ship, go to one of those websites beforehand that lists people's minor complaints with the ship.  Had we done this, we wouldn't have been surprised to learn that, on the Norwegian Epic, cabins do not really have a private bathroom.  There is simply a frosted glass door that only serves to amplify the sounds inside (let's just say the wife and I made very strict bathroom rules for our trip).  Second, never use a travel agent unless you're absolutely clueless about your destination, and even then, do not use a travel agent.  Travel agents add about as much value in the year 2012 as soothsayers.

That's all, folks.

Welcome to New Jersey, Tim Tebow!

Dear Timmy Timmy-Tim-Tim:

First and foremost, welcome to the next stage of your NFL career, where you'll be playing for the New York Jets. I personally look forward to watching you run 4-5 option plays a game as part of the Jets' new Wildcat formation. Over the next couple months you'll probably find that, because the Jets actually play their games on the left side of the Hudson River at MetLife Stadium, and because their training camp facilities are also in New Jersey, it probably makes the most sense to live in New Jersey while you play for the Jets.

Now, you and I are from the same home town (in God's country; St. John's County, Florida, in particular), and - as I've been living in New Jersey for 19 out of the last 21 years - I thought it might be helpful to explain a few tricks I've learned about living around here. Hopefully you'll refer to these in the event you fall into an awkward situation or three while living in New Jersey.

We should probably start with the whole religion thing, eh, Timmy Boy? I know you're into that shit. The good news, for you at least, is that New Jersey is a reasonably religious place (only 15% of the population self-identifies as atheist; compare this with other states such as Vermont, where over a third are atheists). The bad news is that only 8% of New Jersey residents are Baptists, and less than 0.5% consider themselves "evangelical" in any way, shape or form. We don't have many mega-churches here, it's considered impolite to put anything religious on your car, it's considered even more impolite to talk to someone you're not close with about religion, and - to be honest - you're probably better off just leaving the whole "Son of God" thing within the confines of your own home during your stay here.  (That genuflecting-like substance in the image to the right needs to go away, as well.)

Also, we need to have a quick chat regarding your conversational style. In an excellent article for Grantland.com, Chuck Klosterman opined that you are highly sensitive and have a strong emotional intelligence. Assuming he's right, and he probably is, you're going to need to modify that tone if you want to stick around New Jersey. Don't get me wrong - the whole "rude New Jerseyan" thing is totally overblown. We actually do look out for our neighbors here (assuming our neighbors earn the kindness). But what we aren't, really, is what people in other parts of the country mistakenly call "polite."

We're brutally honest people, we don't waste time on small talk, and if we're going to talk to you, it's going to be a lively conversation. I recently overheard two people converse inside a Publix (we both know what a Publix is, right, Timmy?) in North Florida for three minutes without saying anything important about people, places, or things. It was an incredible conversation to hear, because it wasn't a conversation at all - it was two complete strangers, each simply too polite to end a series of short ramblings about absolutely nothing. Neither conversant could bother saying something nice like "Y'all have a great day now!" while walking away. This will never ever happen in New Jersey. We simply won't engage you in conversation unless we have something to say to you.

All of this being said, you're probably wishing you were traded to Jacksonville, instead. Having spent considerable amounts of time in Jacksonville, I can't blame you. It's a beautiful city, the weather's warm, the girls are pretty and the Force is strong with Jeebus. I think most football fans in that city had Tim Tebow Jaguars jerseys custom-made before the 2010 NFL Draft. They were convinced they'd get you the first time around, and even more convinced they'd get you the second time around, once the Broncos signed Peyton Manning. You would have been, dare I say, deified as a football player in Jacksonville, given your standing there. (Right now, I don't think there are many NFL fans left in Jacksonville.  The team might move to Los Angeles, and that right soon.)

Conversely, I'm not sure that Jets fans are going to welcome you with open arms. I'm not personally a Jets fan, but I know many of them, and they don't exactly have a ton of patience. In fact, you being a Jet is going to be an awesome group psychology experiment - combine the most irrationally optimistic player in the NFL with perhaps the most irrationally pessimistic fan base in sports, and see what happens. Good luck and Godspeed, kid. Stay away from Rex Ryan when he's in an upset mood; I hear he doesn't mince words. Also stay away from him when he's feeling a little... frisky.

Oh, and one more thing about living in New Jersey. I hear your contract is "reasonable" by NFL standards. Combine that with New Jersey real estate prices and you'll probably end up renting an apartment down the street from me. (My wife will bring you a welcome basket, along with a few of her favorite Bible verses. There aren't many.) Anyway, combine that with the lack of state income tax in Florida and the $450,000 mansions for sale in Jacksonville and... yeah, you should have been traded to Jacksonville.

But hey, good luck in New Jersey! Now get the fuck outta here.

Flying is Scary and Annoying

There is an extremely small, but still very slightly greater than zero, mathematical probability that this will be my incredibly ironic epitaph, so I should try to get this right.

I know, I know. Today, thousands of domestic passenger aircraft took off and landed without any incident. The same thing happened yesterday. (But not the day before yesterday.) The statistical evidence also rings true: air travel, per mile traveled, is somewhere between one and two orders of magnitude safer than travelling as a passenger in an automobile.

Even when a plane crashes, the passengers inside the aircraft are about 95% to survive the incident. To board a plane that crashes is highly unlikely, and to perish in an air crash makes a person extremely unlucky. Like, being stricken by a falling brick while walking down the street-level unlucky.

***************************

There's a common type of sports journalism hackery that proceeds as follows: the journalist/hack begins the print article (it's almost always a print article) by making an argument toward some phenomenon that is, for all intents and purposes, objectively true. For instance, Tiger Woods is one of the greatest golfers of all time, or baseball teams that walk more frequently are more likely to be good baseball teams, or anything else you wish. Regardless of the person, team, or sport described, you can assume that there are literally reams of data supporting the argument, and that most intelligent fans of the sport agree them to be true.

Then, at around paragraph five or six, the journalist/hack completely deconstructs the valid argument presented earlier in the article by talking about what their eyes, or their "gut", or their godforsaken spleen, tells them must be true. Here, you can expect to read some language like "I'm fully aware that what I just wrote about is what the data tells us, or what science tells us, or what most fans believe to be true through taking time and research to explore the objective 'facts,' but there's glory and fantasy and wonder in sports that you must be a journalist to understand."

And then the article turns to complete shit, because glory, fantasy, and wonder are not the reasons why most intelligent adults watch (or care about) sports. The above are nothing but straw men; excuse words for idiots who don't take the time to back up their claims with facts (or are lazy or are rushed to make deadline).

When I read what I wrote above about air travel, and think about what I am about to write below, I think of sports journalism hackery, and I hope against all hope that I am not being a hack (though truthfully, I probably am).

***************************

It seems, though I have no facts to back this up, that (until, strangely enough, about ten years ago) air travel was an extremely risky proposition. Perhaps it was the news cycle sensationalizing extremely rare incidents when they happened, or perhaps it was the uncommon frequency with which musicians decided to fly under poor weather conditions, in wintertime in the North, before sufficient air technology existed to handle the problems which later occurred. (Since 1990, I think Wisconsin has forbidden by law all live music concerts except in instances where the artists agreed to travel to the Cheese-state venue via Madden cruiser.)

Over the past ten years or so, though, I can't think of a major domestic aircraft that spontaneously combusted over the Atlantic Ocean (or worse). It seems - and again, I can't prove this - that flying in the United States has become demonstrably safer while the act of flying in the United States has become incredibly more annoying. This is probably intentional; when an air carrier's 747 spontaneously combusts over the Atlantic (or worse), the air carrier tends to file bankruptcy soon thereafter. Killing paying passengers is not an effective marketing campaign. People are significantly more willing to sit in 17" wide seats and pay $6 for cheese plates; safety is paramount to individual comfort.

The lack of comfort inherent in flying economy class these days, though, is one reason why I'm a nervous flier. I don't like feeling cramped, and I especially don't like feeling cramped while surrounded by 128 coughing strangers (many of whom also happen to be under three years old and are screaming).

The Gambler's Fallacy, which I alluded to above, is another reason. Just because the past ten years of domestic passenger air travel in the United States have been relatively error-free doesn't mean that the next ten will be equally as safe. I fly somewhat more than average (I expect to take 13 - shit - flights in the current year) and, over the course of my lifetime, at least one emergency landing is likely in the cards for me.

(NOTE: If/when I am ever involved in an emergency landing, I fully intend to overreact to approximately the nth degree. I will call everyone in my family to say goodbye to them while in flight, and it'll seem really weird when I live another 30-40 years after my plane lands without injury. I could see this definitely leading to family conflict in the future, with me adamant that I survived against long odds.)

But I have to say, the people flying the airplane make me less (vs. more) nervous about flying. Have you seen an airplane pilot lately? These people are badass; they have ice water in their veins. The Miracle on the Hudson was not a miracle; most pilots would have done the same thing. And if you're flying on anything better than Podunk Airlines, you can be reasonably certain that both of your pilots are at least 40 years old, have been flying for at least twenty of these years, and are constantly monitored for health issues. Further, they probably have high job satisfaction - for 80% of the time they're doing their job, they're out of contact with the outside world and just enjoy the flight.

*************************

I'm less nervous as an airplane passenger than I used to be (I used to spend the entire flight on the verge of massive anxiety attack), but I'll never be calm while traveling in a passenger aircraft. I've been thinking lately about possibly taking flight lessons to counteract my anxiety; I'm the type of person who likes to know how things work, and having the experience of flying a small airplane might (to some extent) help me understand more about "typical" flight behavior (e.g., that uncomfortable feeling three-quarters of the way through the flight when the plane starts descending and it seems, for a brief second, like the engines might be stalling).

Plus, I might find that I actually enjoy the friendly skies. Who knows.

Restaurant Review: Harvest Moon, New Brunswick, NJ

In October 2010, in celebration of my birthday, some friends and I went to the microbrewery/restaurant Harvest Moon in New Brunswick, New Jersey, for dinner.  I'd called earlier that day to make a reservation for 7:30 - it was a Saturday and the Phillies were playing a NLCS playoff game, so I assumed the restaurant would be busy.  Most of us arrived there early for beers, but two of my friends were running a little late as it was difficult to find parking in New Brunswick that evening.  At 7:30, we were told we could sit (our table, for eight, was vacant at the time), but unfortunately only six of us were present.

In this case, as we were already drinking at the bar, most restaurants would let us sit and order more drinks and appetizers in anticipation of our party to become complete.  This was not Harvest Moon's seating policy, however; we were told that our friends had five minutes to arrive, or else our table would be given to the next waiting party.  We protested quite loudly about this, as it seemed to make no sense - after all, most of our party had arrived and we were planning to continue spending our money at the establishment.  (In fact, we even tried blackmail - a larger group of approximately 15-20 was planning to "pub crawl" back to Harvest Moon later that night.  This fell on the deaf ears of Harvest Moon's management.)

Long story made somewhat shorter, our friends were more than five minutes late, I became very upset at Harvest Moon and our group of six left in a huff.  (We eventually had a wonderful meal at the always-accommodating Old Bay, perhaps New Brunswick's best dollar-for-dollar restaurant, and yes, the "pub crawl" never made it to Harvest Moon later that night.)  In fact, I swore I'd never go back to the restaurant. 

But, time has a way of fading old grudges, and more or less the same group of friends ended up at Harvest Moon last night for dinner.  I now intend to review Harvest Moon - I tell the story above because I want to leave it aside completely for the rest of the review and focus on the recent past (in order to be fair).

************************

Harvest Moon has interesting ambiance - in a reasonably small space, it somehow combines a working microbrewery, bar, first-floor bistro, and second-floor dining room.  The building is very old, and vestiges of its residential past are clear to the discerning eye - there are stanchions separating two parts of the upstairs dining room, for instance, that clearly separate a living area from what may have been bedrooms, or sitting rooms, in the late 19th century. 

The restaurant occupies what was once a fairly unique niche in New Brunswick cuisine - it is on the low-priced end of casual American dining, on a nice (if relatively quiet and buttoned-up) block of George Street.  The restaurant attracts a mix of younger and older individuals, though on Saturday nights, particularly before shows begin at State Theater, the crowd definitely skews older.  (There are often DJs on party nights that begin spinning at 10 pm, Harvest Moon does attract a younger crowd at that point).

When our group arrived, we were told the wait would be sixty minutes, but with a hint that the wait may end up being significantly shorter than that.  This fortunately ended up being the case, as the manager (the same who argued with us in October 2010) found the head of our table twenty minutes later to let him know that our table would soon be ready.  As we were hungry and a little cranky, this was very welcome news.

The high point of any Harvest Moon experience is the up-close microbrewery experience.  As you enter the restaurant, you can look to the right to see a multi-platform brewing system.  On the top level (about eye level as you walk in) are the storage tanks, each seeming to hold (this is an approximation) about 200 gallons of fully fermented beer.  But any avid home brewer should kneel down and observe the live boiling of the wort on the basement level of the restaurant; on this night, there was an active boil happening in one of the four giant stainless steel tanks. Interestingly, you could even see the boiling effluent pour out into a steaming, 5-gallon fermenting bucket (the exact same kind of bucket that my friends and I use at home, to ferment our own beers).

And the beer at Harvest Moon almost never disappoints.  I started with the Double IPA, which had wonderful citrus hoppiness balanced perfectly with mildly sweet and floral aromas.  Later I had a Pale Ale to complement my Harvest Moon Burger, which was stronger than the name might suggest (6.4% ABV, I believe) and much more robust - it nearly matched the previous IPA in all aspects of the beer drinking experience (hops, malt, and finish).  They had a special Barley Wine on tap this weekend, which my friend purchased thinking she would not like, ended up really enjoying, and letting me have a sip in the process - it was not my cup of tea, as it was very thick and strong, but I agreed it was (at least in small doses) delicious. 

There were many other beers on tap, and a beer aficionado visiting Harvest Moon would be well-served to select the Beer Sampler; seven or eight 5-ounce tastes of each beer, provided in a wood harness that is labeled and presented alongside a tasting guide.

I haven't mentioned the food yet, and this is with reason.  There are few excellent dishes available at the restaurant, and it's never good news when the best dishes are the appetizers. The Moon Nachos, with grilled chicken added to the mix, are incredibly rich and possess just the correct amount of melted Mexican cheeses.  The buffalo wings are breaded (always how I prefer them) and served medium by default, with considerable spice balanced by the generous portion of sliced celery and blue cheese.  Both rank among the best I've ever had in their respective food category.

However, Harvest Moon recently seems to have reduced their portion sizes across the board, and does not handle special requests well.  Even my Moon Burger, requested medium rare, arrived almost well-done.  (By comparison, Tumulty's Pub, a few blocks south on George Street, not only cooks cheeseburgers rare, they basically recommend eating your cheeseburger rare in their menu.)

My dining companions had issues with virtually every main entree that we ordered.  The Pad Thai was overwhelmingly laden with peanuts.  The fish and chips were served without malt vinegar, and the request for the essential condiment of the fried dish was handled as if no one ever asked for malt vinegar before.  The shrimp salad was served with approximately 1.5 ounces of shrimp (they looked to be the factory-farmed, frozen kind you pick up at your local grocery store) and was not evenly dressed.

The service, too, did not meet our expectations.  Our waitress was clearly not enthused with her job; her service was brusque to the point of rudeness, and we often had to request items twice.  (To be fair, the bartenders downstairs were extremely helpful and polite - even going so far as pouring a draught Hard Cider for my non-beer-drinking wife, off the menu, when she asked.)  Our group of friends, whom I've never seen act stingily with gratuities, unanimously felt that the almost-insulting 15% tip was fair for the dining service that we received.

*********************************

Objectively speaking, I'm not sure there is a less pleasing dining experience in all of New Brunswick than Harvest Moon.  (In this calculus, I am excluding the shitty restaurants on Easton Avenue that predominantly cater to drunk Rutgers undergraduates.)  While the restaurant is pleasing in a superficial sense, it appears to be fundamentally mismanaged, from the seating policies, to server training, to the care put into crafting the food.  Beer is the strong point of the Harvest Moon experience, which would make the venue fantastic if it were only a bar.  Unfortunately, it is also a restaurant, and it is a restaurant that no longer stand apart in the American-fusion casual New Brunswick dining segment.

For your money, you're better off going to Tumulty's, Old Bay, or even Old Man Rafferty's.  Tumulty's is a wonderful restaurant with perhaps the coolest vibe (for under $30 a plate) in the city.  Old Bay's food is excellent and their service is so polite and friendly that you might actually think you were in the South.  And Old Man Rafferty's is seemingly more self-aware of its culinary weaknesses; when the desserts are first in the menu, you know that dessert is going to be the best part of the meal. 

Harvest Moon, unlike any of the above-mentioned restaurants, is at risk (in my opinion) of becoming irrelevant in New Brunswick.  There are now more choices than ever, and any restaurant that isn't improving in this environment is clearly fading away.

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars (ratings take into account food quality, drink quality, service, ambience/atmosphere, and last but not least, value).

Best for: A delicious beer or two with friends, perhaps accompanied by an appetizer.

Average price: Beers are between $5 and $7; appetizers $8-12, entrees $8-$30.  My Moon Burger was on the low end ($9, not bad for a burger).  There's a late night menu as well, but I've never ordered from it.

Fun With Facebook Numbers

Every so often, when I get bored, I like to analyze random things.  People who know me well know that I love data, and I especially love mining "hidden" data that perhaps exists somewhere south of where most people look.  For instance, this evening I ran a frequency analysis where each of my Facebook friends were a data point.

Behold the following chart:

Figure 1. Arbitrary grouping of Facebook friends, based on when/where we met.

My egomaniacal tendencies aside (I love turning people into data points, simply because it's so deliciously dehumanizing), there are some "interesting takeaways" (as us corporate types like to say) in the above chart.  For instance:

• Facebook's help page states that the average number of connections is 120.  (NOTE: Some of you will ask whether the 'average' is the mean or the median.  I have no idea, but I agree that it's a good argument to have.)  I have some Facebook friends who have under 50 connections; my younger sister currently has 1,658 (which I think is the most of any of my current Facebook friends, though I could be incorrect).  At present, I have 146 connections.  I started this Facebook account in 2007, so - on average, and not counting the people who've deleted me (or whom I've deleted) since then - I've added a net of about thirty Facebook friends per year.  I went into this analysis thinking that I had relatively few Facebook friends; I don't have a huge real-world network of acquaintances, and I'm also relatively stingy about who I choose to connect with via Facebook.  This is a ballpark estimate, but I only confirm about half of the friend requests that I receive (I also almost never send them to other people, which is due to my own approach-avoidance issues and doesn't help pad my stats).  That being said, I'm more pleased now than I was before I crunched these numbers at the girth of my social network.
• Life experiences build your social network.  Had I not gone to graduate school, I would have thirty fewer Facebook friends than I do at the present time.  Had I never attended college at Rutgers, you can cut another 32 friends from the total.  (Actually, even more than that, because it's unlikely that my wife would have married me had I never graduated from college.)  My point here is that, if you operate (as I do) under the assumption that bigger social networks belong to people who are generally more friendly and fun to be around, it makes sense to educate yourself and also to have several different series of life experiences under your belt.
• In my case, at least, a committed relationship also builds my social network.  Some may disagree with that point, and for all I know, my situation is different from what typically happens to people.  There's certainly anecdotal evidence that a previously highly social person will "settle down" into a committed relationship and soon thereafter lose a bunch of acquaintances.  In my case, though, my wife's introduced me to 35 people who've become my Facebook friends, people whom I likely wouldn't have otherwise met.  I think this is because she is far more sociable than I am, and she also has worked for a large company for the past nine years, so she knows a ton of people.  I've been able to get to know some of them, as well.
• I'm (probably) getting better at connecting with people.  I went to graduate school for only two years, but have almost as many Facebook connections through grad school than college (where I spent four years).  This has something to do with a recency effect, but I still think it's worth noting that most of my Facebook connections were built with people whom I did not even know when I started the account five years ago.
• I do an (intentionally) horrible job of being Facebook friends with members of my family.  This is related to something I mentioned above; I'm very stingy about who I confirm.  It actually pains me to have to hide someone from my News Feed, but when someone is that annoying, I know I have to hide them.  With many members of my family, I'm sure I'd have to hide them immediately after becoming their Facebook friend.

There are probably applications that analyze this data for you (they will also definitely hack your Facebook password, spam your profile and your friends' News Feeds, gain access to and sell all of your personal information, and probably give you Hepatitis C as well).  I chose to sit down for ten minutes and run down my Friends list, trying to create logical groups.  Some people were more difficult to put into a group than others (e.g., my sister's former boyfriend, whom I put in "Family" just because that's how I knew him in the first place).  But for the most part, I'm confident in the chart above.

It's interesting to take the time and figure out what your social network consists of - even if you keep Facebook, or Google+, or something else entirely running in the background for a few hours a day at work, it's still an essential part of your life, in my opinion.  If this kind of stuff interests you, perhaps give it a shot with your friends list, and see what you find out.