Oregon State 48 Washington 21

Washington fans got a reminder of last year's 0-12 season as the Huskies fell to former Pac-10 doormat Oregon State 48-21, in a game that was not as close as the score suggests.

For the first time in a couple of years I had to listen to the game on the radio (over the internet) rather than watch because it did not make it onto any of my 300 (400?, 500?) cable channels, but that may be just as well given how poorly the Huskies played.

Listening allowed me to have the happier scene in the LA Coliseum on the TV with the sound off. Watching USC lose, and not just lose but give up more points at home than in their 100+ year history, helped salve the UW performance a little bit.

Ugh.

Jock tats

ESPN writer Rick Reilly disses on the tattoos of pro athletes.

I particularly like this sentence, because of the image at the end:

You need look only a foot farther to see something even more puzzling on K-Mart, whose skin is a kind of human bathroom stall.

Human bathroom stall. Ouch!

[For readers who do not follow such things - and, indeed, it was news to me - K-Mart here refers not to the financially challenged chain of discount stores but rather to NBA star Kenyon Martin.]

You know, if you want to share your thoughts, it is a lot cheaper, and a lot less painful, to buy a t-shirt or a bumper sticker rather than a tattoo.

Hat tip: Charlie Brown

My stylist

These days I have my hair cut at Salon Vox in Ann Arbor by the amazing Jenna.

Going to Salon Vox is sort of like going to Mongolia but by walking. The culture could not be more different than the one in which I spend the rest of my time. I think I disappoint Jenna by not buying any "product" but she does a nice job on my hair anyway. After my haircut I spend some time in the used bookstore next door to the salon as a way of transitioning back into my normal environment.

Gentleman's C

One of our ace gradual students recommends the Gentleman's C blog.

My sample was entertaining indeed, and I have added it to the blog list on the right.

Well done

This website plays off a pattern I had not noticed before, which is the similarity in names between steakhouses and gay bars.

Test your skill at distinguishing the two!

Bonus fun: one of the establishments in the test is "Charley Brown's"

GDR memories

The Guardian publishes misty memories from someone with a bad case of Ostalgie.

Nearly all treatments have heterogeneous treatment effects, even the totalitarian dictatorship treatment. No doubt the Guardian could find, if it cared to, folks who miss the good old days under Ceaucescu in Romania or Pol Pot in Cambodia. But why share them when it is so obvious that the great mass of people are far better off? Note too that the brave new world of capitalism that the author complains about is West Germany, where you get a never-ending stream of generous social assistance checks just for having a pulse, along with health care and other goodies paid for by your neighbors.

I should note too that my sense from my German economist friends who are familiar with departments in the former GDR is that the problem was not too many dismissals of socialist deadwood economics professors, but rather too few.

Home away from home

I decided at the start of 2009 to specialize in hotels as well as airlines. In particular, I decided to specialize in Marriott hotels.

One side effect of spending most of my hotel nights at Marriott and collecting frequent stayer points is that I get a close-to-accurate count of the number of nights I spent in hotels over the course of the year. My current total of Marriott nights is 36 for the year, or about five weeks. There is probably another week at other hotels.

Somehow it seems like more when you add it up this way.