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A Prayer For George Dubya / What might the universe have to say to Shrub right now? Hint: It ain’t exactly fan mail

Problem is, Jesus is a little piqued. He’s right here with me, right now, and he’s drumming his fingers on the table, eyes aflame. He has a question: “Just what in the heck do you think you’re doing in my dad’s name? Did you miss the part about ‘Thou shalt not kill?’ You dare invoke me and my father and call yourself a forgiving Christian and yet you stomp around the globe like you own it?” Christ, he is not happy.

Way to go Doug! Reports from Doug on his latest races:

Podium Time! – I am stoked to report I landed my first podium of my pro career last Friday at the Sea Otter Classic! It was the second stage of the race, the fatboy crit, and I sprinted to third. My other results were good as well, until the final stage, where I bonked worse than ever. I was also 6th at the Tour of the Canyonlands, after a crash set me back a bunch. So here’s the story…

Detailed reports on doug’s page… go have a look!

Continuing on my friends and roommates thread from yesterday two days ago, I got an email from my friend Justin Modroo yesterday saying I should tune in to Fox Sports Net May 7th, he was going to be on TV!

Justin finished up the competition in second place, after taking the top spot on the first day:

MT. CRESTED BUTTE, CO (March 28, 2003) Freeskiing “part-timer” Justin Modroo and top World Tour star Ingrid Backstrom took the top positions today at the 12th Annual SAAB U.S. Extreme Freeskiing Championships. They both impressed judges with near-perfect form, aggression, speed and control on the challenging Staircase run in Crested Butte’s Extreme Limits area. Staircase is a narrow, technical gladed run with rocks, cliff bands, 600 feet of vertical and an average 40 degree pitch. The venue required precision technique through thick trees and difficult springtime snow pack and powder conditions. Heated competition shaved the field to thirty men, fifteen women and ten juniors including two girls.

Congratulations Justin! I’ll be watching!

A topic that just blows my mind: Parallel Universes

Observers living in Level I parallel universes experience the same laws of physics as we do but with different initial conditions. According to current theories, processes early in the big bang spread matter around with a degree of randomness, generating all possible arrangements with nonzero probability. Cosmologists assume that our universe, with an almost uniform distribution of matter and initial density fluctuations of one part in 100,000, is a fairly typical one (at least among those that contain observers). That assumption underlies the estimate that your closest identical copy is 10 to the 10²⁸ meters away. About 10 to the 10⁹² meters away, there should be a sphere of radius 100 light-years identical to the one centered here, so all perceptions that we have during the next century will be identical to those of our counterparts over there. About 10 to the 10¹¹⁸ meters away should be an entire Hubble volume identical to ours.

Way too long to read at work, I’m going to print it out tonight, and pretend I understand it.

My buddy Doug Swanson has been racing all over the western USA the past couple weeks, and here’s a little news about him from the Sea Otter Classic 2003

His brother Dan has also been keeping tabs on him over at his website.

58% of Dixie Chicks fans are ignorant sheep

75% of Texans are idiots

Don’t believe me?

(And Vince Gill apparently won’t stand by his words)

If you had to agree with the politics and morals of all your favorite entertainers and athletes, there wouldn’t be many you’d agree with. The Dixie Chicks are entitled to their opinion, just as Texans are allowed to wear mullets.

I also don’t see why people can’t disagree with the President and be supportive of the troops as well. Those things aren’t mutually exclusive.

Well, the one or two people that actually read this site probably received my email about the “Best of Rochester” a couple years ago. I noticed at Noodles the other day that they had been voted the Best New Restaurant, obviously I had to investigate. Luckily the Rochester Magazine (division of the Rochester Post-Bulletin) is a free site. The Roch P-B is not free (far from it, $60 a year just for online access!). Another rant for another day.

Anyhoo, I’ve got the list. I present some of my “favorite” picks. I swear I am not making any of these up. I don’t necessarily disagree with the picks, they may very well be the “Best of Rochester”. However:

A: It’s a sad commentary on the current state of restaurants in the supposed “best small city to live in”.

B: I just have to disagree on principal with picks such as Red Lobster as Best Seafood.

My snarky little comments are in italics.

Rochester Magazine Readers’ Choice:
Best of Restaurants

Best Appetizers: Applebee’s

Runner-up: TGI Friday’s

Two chains start off the list. Tons of originality there.

Best Bar: Brothers Bar & Grill

Here’s how the little description reads:

There’s no pool tables or jukebox and only five televisions,

Wow, sweet can I go?

and the bar is tucked into a nondescript strip mall and sandwiched between the Consignment Closet and Electrolux Vacuum Sales.

The atmosphere just oozes out of this place.

So it must be the friendly, know-your-name atmosphere that makes Brothers Rochester’s favorite bar.

Sounds like a great idea for a TV show…. oh wait…

And it continues on from there…

Coming this year: live music. Get out those dancing shoes.

Stop it! It’s too much! Live Music? I might go into meltdown.

Best Beer Selection: Whistle Binkies

This one I agree with… Whistle Binkies has been a great addition. Over 100 beers, pretty cheap prices. But I don’t drink beer… Next!

I’m not even going to comment on these next few…

Best Breakfast: Perkins

Best Buffet: Golden Corral Grill & Buffet

Best Coffee: Caribou (Runner Up: Starbucks)

Best Deli: Panera

Best Desserts: Bakers Square Restaurant & Pies

Best Health Food: Subway

Best Ice Cream: Dairy Queen

Make it stop!

Best Late Night Dining: Perkins

One of two places open past 10. The other? Denny’s

Best Restaurant For Kids: McDonald’s

Apparently the play-balls are washed once a week.

Best Soup: Panera

Best Steak: Outback

And my all time favorite…

Best Seafood:Red Lobster (Runner-up: Canadian Honker, not even close to a seafood restaurant)

Most absurd category: (The pick one chain restaurant we don’t have category)#xdThe One Restaurant Rochester Needs Immediately: Chili’s Grill & Bar

With Olive Garden out of the way, Rochesterites have a new restaurant in their sights! Order more baby back ribs!

The result that makes me think everyone that voted is slightly confused…
Best Indian Restaurant:India Garden (at the time of the writing, the only Indian restaurant in town) The runner up is: Cheng Mai Thailand Yep, not finding another Indian restaurant to vote for, we’ll just vote for a Thai restaurant… same side of the globe I guess…

Well, I’m afraid the madness will never end. At least Minneapolis is only an hour and fifteen minutes away…