May 23, 2006 - BJ's Brewhouse
|
Agenda
- BJ's Brewhouse
- Somebody's Gotta Do It
- Joke of the Week
- Eats, Shoots, and Leaves (Part 2)
- How Do You Get Them to Watch Commercials?
BJ's Brewhouse
George suggested we try the newest restaurant at Desert Ridge Marketlace: BJ's Brewhouse. I agreed, and upon entering I felt like I was really gonna like the place. It turns out that my instincts were correct-- it has a really fun decor, a few televisions sprinkled about (with a higher concentration in the bar area), and comfortable seating (in the booths, at least).
Service was prompt, the menu enormous, and they have lunch portions of many of their featured dinner items. I saw a section of the menu entitled "Awesome Burgers", but I steered clear (I saw one delivered to the next table, and it indeed looked awesome). George and I both settled on a salad, and we were not disappointed (see our review).
We are definitely adding BJ's to our list of regular lunch locations.
Somebody's Gotta Do It
George was carrying a thick booklet that was short on pretty graphics and long on small type. It's his first issue of Geoff Gannon's quarterly newsletter, Gannon on Investing. Gannon is "influenced by Benjamin Graham, Joel Greenblatt (The Little Book That Beats the Market), and Warren Buffett's value investing model."
It seems this Gannon fellow is like the Theo Epstein of investing-- he does an inhuman amount of research (he carries annual reports around in his briefcase so he always has one to read during a spare moment), and writes copious amounts of analysis and recommendations for those willing to brave his newsletter.
George looks at the graphs, and reads the summaries. Gannon has a blog on his website (which is just an volumnous and boring-looking as the newsletter), and also produces a podcast! If you use an RSS reader, here is his feed.
Joke of the Week
A blonde walks into her doctor's office...
BLONDE: "Doctor, I'm seeing spots before my eyes."
DOCTOR: Hmm. "Have you seen an opthamologist?"
BLONDE: "No, just spots."
Eats, Shoots, and Leaves (Part 2)
You may remember that George and I discussed the book by Lynne Truss titled Eats, Shoots, and Leaves, in which she sets the record straight on why punctuation can be pretty important if you want to get your ideas across.
At lunch George handed me a CD with the same title! I said something like "Aha! The Audio Book version!" But no... it only looked like it. It seems that Lynne Truss had a radio program on the subject of punctuation which was the inspiration for the book... and this CD is a compilation of all of the radio episodes. Oddly enough, Amazon seems to think is IS the adio version... but a close look at the cover art shows that it is indeed the radio show.
George had one more thing to offer on the CD: "It isn't funny."
How Do You Get Them to Watch Commercials?
I saw an article recently which talked about how TV Networks are taking a new approach to the problem of viewers using their TiVo to skip commercials (the old approach was to try and sue the manfacturers of the DVRs): Give viewers an incentive to watch the ads. AOL and CBS are teaming up to create an online contest (with a $2 million prize) for which clues will be found in both CBS programming AND in the commercials aired with them.
I was telling George last week about the fake TV commercials for the Hanso Foundation which were popping up on ABC in the commercial breaks during Lost. The Hanso Foundation is not real, but appears to be a yet-to-be revealed plot element of the television show. Each Hanso commercial ends with the display of either an 800 phone number or a web site, which provides the curious viewer with a mysterious set of clues relating to Lost.
It turns out it is all a part of The Lost Experience, a companion web-based game to the Lost TV show. If you are looking for more information on the clues surrounding Lost, checkout The Lost Experience Clues Blog.
