The False Promise of Beauty

I've been thinking, and it seems to me that beautiful people would tend to have an evolutionary advantage. They attract the opposite sex at a far greater rate than "average" looking individuals attract others. With such a high level of attraction, doesn't it follow that they would spawn sooner and more frequently? After a while, their ilk would overtake the rest of us, as we mere mortals are left to fend for ourselves as a dying remnant of an aesthetically challenged branch of the homo sapien tree.

And yet, looking at the people on the Metro, it is clear that most people are not beautiful. Most people really aren't even all that "cute" -- and even that seems to be a verrry pliable sort of word, applicable in even the most specious cases. Everyone is cute if you only focus selectively.

No, most people on the Metro -- and, by proxy, in society -- are slightly cute, to average, to downright ugly. I would guess that maybe one out of 10 people could be honestly characterized as beautiful, hot, extremely handsome, what have you. The nines in our society. The tens.*

So what gives? Why doesn't my evolutionary idea hold up? Well, it could be a couple things. First of all, there's no guarantee that beautiful couples will create beautiful babies. Perfect proportions on both him and her could combine to create a Picassoesque mess of noses and eyes. Not pretty.

Second, and I think more importantly, is that while hotties are virtually guaranteed to propogate themselves in perpetuity, that doesn't mean the same cannot hold true for non-hotties. It isn't a zero-sum game -- there isn't a limited amount of sex to go around. Looks are not a procreative prerequisite; everyone can mate, regardless of hotness. They just won't get their first choice.

Okay, that's enough theorizing for tonight. Does anyone have any thoughts?


* [Note that in my exponential one to ten scale of looks, a nine is quite rare, and a ten is almost impossible. This ran me into some trouble with my ex-girlfriend, a very attractive girl who was rather offended when I told her she was an eight. She was still mad even after I explained that on an exponential scale, an 8 is very good! I have since learned my lesson: Never tell the truth.]

Recreating the Starbucks Ambiance

Those who know me closely (or those who listened to my recent audio post) realize that I love working in Starbucks. There's just something about the atmosphere that makes it a wonderful place to work.

When I lived in Cleveland Heights, I had a great Starbucks just a mile down the road, with tons of comfy seating. I studied there almost every day. Here in Washington, there are many Starbucks' within a few mile proximity, but since I don't have a car, it takes a long time to get there. Also, most of them lack the comfy seating I have come to love.

So, I am embarking on a project to recreate the Starbucks ambiance in my own room. So far all I have been able to recreate is the music. Starbucks uses XM channel 75 in all their stores, so I have just tuned my XM to 75. That has gotten me partway there, but I am still lacking the energetic background noise of other cafe-goers. I need that white noise. Without it, all I have is music.

I've searched the Web high and low for a long audio stream of coffee house background noise, but the only thing I can find is a few files from a random coffee house in Japan. That might be okay, but the file is no more than a few minutes long. I want a few HOURS.

Time for a checklist.

Things I Have
* Starbucks music

Things I Need
* Starbucks background noise. If I really wanted to be enterprising, I could take my old minidisc recorder to one of the college Starbucks and record about five hours worth of ambiance. But it would be nice if such an audio stream were available somewhere on the Web. God knows I don't like to recreate the wheel.

* Comfy velour chair. A company called Zoe Design actually sells this chair for -- get this -- $1,396!!! Of course, there is no way I am paying that much for a Starbucks chair. But I sure would like to find a less expensive knockoff somewhere. There's only so much lounging I can do in my $70 fake leather desk chair from Staples with the uncomfortable oversized lumbar support.

* Coffee. Unfortunately for me, I have proven myself completely unqualified to make good tasting coffee at home. I don't know what it is about me, or the coffee I use, or my technique, but my coffee always tastes far inferior to any coffee I can purchase at any retail establishment. Anyway, I don't even like coffee that much. What I really like is the Starbucks grande iced toffeenut lattee (with light ice and three pumps of toffeenut), and the only place I can get that is -- well, yeah.

Anyway, I gotta go study now. But if anyone has any suggestions on how to recreate the Starbucks feel in my Own Home, pleeeease please please comment. Thanks!

Best Burrito Ever

Ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to say that I have found my new Favorite Burrito. It used to be a Chipotle steak burrito with pinto beans and various sauces. As of tonight, it is a Chipotle barbacoa burrito with pinto beans and various sauces. It is one of the most satisfying, delicious meals I have ever had the privilege of consuming. Nay -- devouring.

If you haven't been to Chipotle, I highly recommend you go to their web site and see if there is a store near you. If there is, go! today! If not, come visit me in Washington! and we will go! today! :-D

Current music: Rachmaninoff's Piano Sonata No. 2

The End of Days is Upon Us

My trusty G3 iBook is really starting to show its age. Oh, it still runs better than any Windows machine out there, but it's slow. I mean, it is three years old and today's software just requires a little more processing power than my little guy has.

A good rule of thumb for when to get a new computer: When you are waiting for the computer rather than the other way around. I have in my mind a series of tasks, and my computer should not just keep up with me, but be WAITING for me to tell it what to do. But when I have six or seven programs open, and I am quickly switching between them, sometimes it takes a few seconds to switch. It's acceptable but not respectable.

For instance, right now these programs are running: Safari, Firefox, MS Word, Mail, iTunes, TextEdit, iChat, Terminal, Skype and Quicktime. Do I need all those programs open? Not at the moment, but I don't want to have to go closing programs just because they are eating up processing cycles. I want cycles to spare.

I want a Dual 2.5GHz Power Mac G5.

Fighting Eagles

Wow! Mid-air battle between eagles for a fish. This is awesome -- click to make it larger. Once again, I didn't take this, but it is making me very excited for my new Canon 20D that is coming tomorrow. :-)

To Starbucks

Fourth Place

This picture, taken by Renée Jones of the Star Tribune*, won 3rd prize in the 2004 World Press Photo contest. I think it should have taken first. It is at once humorous, touching, sad, and precious. I love it.

This is why I spend countless hours and thousands of dollars on photography equipment. Most of the time, the images are nice, pretty, nothing spectacular... but when you capture The Moment... it is sooooo worth it! Kudos to Ms. Jones -- excellent work.*

---

*UPDATE: Bolded text has been added after the fact to help clarify the original post.

Et tu, Oliver?

Going over fundamental rights in my conlaw textbook, I came across a classic quote from everyone's favorite Holmes, "Oliver Wendell":

It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. [Three] generations of imbeciles are enough.

Saturday Night Fun

2L Hijinks

I heard a knock on my door. Upon opening it, I saw a couple other transfer students, holding a beer. They were excited and giggling, as though they had just decided to do something really sneaky.

"What up?" I said.

"Hey, do you wanna go to the Paul Hastings reception and get free beer?"

"What?"

"There's a reception and there's free beer. It's just a block away!"

To a student, two things trump everything else. First is anything that's free. Doesn't matter what it is. T-shirt, contraceptive, highlighter -- if it's free, it's gold. The second is beer. Doesn't matter what kind -- Miller Lite, Yuengling (I still don't know how to spell or pronounce that), whatever. Put the two together -- free beer -- and it's a little like Heaven on earth.

Well, to most people. "I already have a job," I said, "and so do you guys!"

"So? This is free beer!" They looked at my sneakers and jeans, which were remarkably similar to the ones they were wearing. "You can wear those. Just put on a jacket."

"Yeah but Paul Hastings already specifically told me No."

"But there's beer!! FREE beer!!!"

I think about it. Seriously think about it. I may be immune to free beer, but am I immune to the pleas of my fellow transfers? Only after a moment did I tell them no.

They looked dejected, but only for a second. The promise of free beer quickly brought them back to reality. "Okay man," one of them said. "Hey, want me to bitch them out for not hiring you?"

"Yeah, that'll be great."

"Awesome!"