Does anyone have any cool ideas for a tattoo I could get on my forehead to constantly remind myself of the dangers of analysis paralysis? Seriously, I am the absolute worst. I was just reading Nassim Nicholas Taleb's Fooled By Randomness and he talks a lot about the human drive to endlessly optimize, which forces us to use a lot of ground-rules & shortcuts (a.k.a heuristics) to make decisions. Sometimes these heuristics are good and useful and keep us from wasting large chunks of our lives worrying about which kind of toothpaste to buy, and other times we didn't think the shortcuts out very well in the first place and they lead us to make enormous mistakes (the "free markets" ...

I've been pretty quiet lately, but at least I have something to show for my efforts this time: seedlings!

Wow. 2008: what an epic year. I feel like I've been strung out on politics, personal and otherwise, since last January. After a longer-than-expected "drying out" period, I finally feel fit and able to interact with society at large again without constantly mentioning how a) Obama just has to win, b) how the neocons are destroying this country, and c) how we're all screwed anyway because of the economic crisis (which reminds me, you should be reading Calculated Risk - and yes, read the comments too, there's a great community there most of the time). And but so here I am, long after the campaign circus has closed down its tents, finding myself missing the noise and excitement even ...

My libation of choice:

Whee! Connecting the dots is fun. The rumor: John McCain had an affair with P.J. O'Rourke's wife Amy Lumet when she worked as some sort of aide for McCain. The whole thing is rather thinly sourced, of course (as you might be able to tell from the domain "unattributable.com"), but hey. I had fun trying to figure it out. And if it's true, I'm throwing a party, because this scandal is just too perfect to be believed.

In other news, I'm reading The Dark Side by Jane Mayer and let me tell you, it is just excruciating. I'm barely 50 pages in and it's already driven me to new heights of shame at what has been allowed to happen ...

I can't claim to know a ton about the financial industry, but I did work in title insurance for a couple years and have a pretty good idea about the state of the housing/mortgage market. I also have had the subsequent (and related!) advantage of hours and hours of unemployment in which to read article after article about the coming economic crisis. So, while I think I know a little more than your average Sarah Palin about this whole mess, I am by no means an expert, so take with as many grains of salt as you see fit... ... But I am NOT optimistic about the state of the US economy. Here's the short version of what is happening right ...

I'm speechless. I am going to miss him terribly. It truly feels like losing a great friend. DFW takes up a lot of room in my head, strange as that might sound. I remember when Sarah and I went to tour St. John's College (a Definitive Moment in a young Bridgie's life) and we were hanging out with Scott at some airport, and I was reading Brief Interviews with Hideous Men and Scott said to me "David Foster Wallace... Isn't he post-ironic?" And it was one of my favorite moments ever. I've forged entire friendships out of mutual DFW appreciation. I've spent entire months of my life reading Infinite Jest (I'm about to start my fifth time through), I've developed special ...

Yum, bread. Think making homemade bread is too much hassle to go through every few days? You should try No-Knead Bread. It's dead-easy, delicious, and makes a beautiful loaf:

This version from Cooks Illustrated takes it one step further, adding vinegar and beer for added taste (it's true, the recipe from the NY Times is a bit bland once you get past the delicious crust). The procedure listed on the Cooks Illustrated version is much easier to follow, too (i.e. you don't have to ruin a dish towel every time you make the damn bread).

Anyway, you should make some. It will make you happy. I am trying a whole ...

These last two weeks have been among the most depressing in American political history. The Fed & the taxpayers are absorbing upwards of $5 trillion, nearly half of our nat'l debt, in risky mortgages in order to bail out Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac, you say? Well look over there, it's Obama saying that the McCain ticket is like lipstick on a pig! That's gotta be sexist, right? He said lipstick! Is Obama a sexist? Or take the situation with Russia, where Russia is so pissed off about our proposed NATO missile installations and our military aid to Russia that they're actually threatening to nuke Poland if we build our proposed missile silos. But hey, look over there! ...

Sorry for the extended absences (except from Twitter, where I've been a veritable loudmouth esp. w/r/t Sarah Palin) - I have been on a weeklong rage bender/hangover cycle, for which I blame the Republicans generally (e.g. chanting "Drill baby drill!" at their convention), and Sarah "I shoot wolves from airplanes" Palin specifically. I'll have more on what a mean lying phony she is soon, but for now, enjoy the happy redesign.