October 2003 - Posts
Where I grew up in New York, pizzas came in small,
medium, and large and were usually $5.00, $6.50, and $8.00, respectively. You
could order a large pizza and a two-liter of soda for $10, and it
would arrive cut four ways, resulting in eight relatively equal
slices that comfortably fed four people.
Now, I live in Washington, which seems to have a different take on pizza. The
pizza sizes are physically the same, but the size names are adjusted
such that a "small" is called "medium", "medium" is called "large", and "large"
is called "extra large". These fabulous new names come with a hefty 100% markup,
with prices usually reaching upwards of $10.00, $13.00, and $16.00,
respectively.
I love good pizza, so I wouldn't really mind these inflated prices if the
pizza was really good. Unfortunately, it usually isn't, which may be a
combination of my New York pride and my New York egotism. I don't have high
expectations for the template pizzas you find from chains like Dominos or
Pizza Hut, nor do I expect much from the chain restaurants that offer "personal"
pizzas such as the California Pizza Kitchen, but I do expect a lot of quality
from the small corner pizzerias. Instead, I find a variety of tactics employed
to justify the high cost:
- They put "New York" in their name or description, such as "New York-style
pizza"
- They cut the pizza fifty extra times, resulting in a hundred pizza
shards
- They stuff the box with three pounds of red pepper, parmesan, salt,
and other assorted packets
- They practice any of the other devious tricks of the Washington pizza
trade
The worst part is that I know there's nothing I can do. I've found a few
places with pretty good pizza, but they're across the pond (Lake Washington) in
Seattle, whereas I live in Redmond.
If you can recommend a place for good pizza, please let me know. I do travel
a bit, so feel free to post places worldwide. If I'm in town, I may just buy you
a slice :-)
I'm going to see Lewis Black and Dave Attell tonight in
Seattle tonight!!! It's part of the Comedy Central Live tour at http://www.comedycentral.com/cclive/.
But it gets better--Mitch Hedberg is opening! Heck, I'd pay double just to see
him. This show is going to be awesome.
I'm going to try a little experiment through my blog. I
figured there's some catchy community name for this sort of thing, such as
"blogxperiment", "experiblog", or whatever, but I haven't had any luck finding
that term. Anyway, let's get to experiment.
I've long been a proponent of the notion that blogging is somewhat
overhyped. Here's how I'm going to gather evidence...
Microsoft has an online service that lets people to try Visual Studio before
they buy it. Basically, you go to http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/tryit/,
sign up for a free account, then remote desktop into a machine where you can
play around with VS for a few hours.
Sure, this doesn't sound like an experiment. Now here's for the
experimenticity part...
Some of you agree with me that blogging is overhyped. If
you'd like to further the cause, add a blog entry that says "I agree with Ed
Kaim that blogging is overhyped, and I am going to support his cause by
linking to Visual Studio's Hosted Experience at
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/tryit/."
Others of you disagree (and you will be dealt with
accordingly). In the meantime, you can share your contempt by posting a blog
entry that says "I disagree with Ed Kaim that blogging is overhyped, and I
am going to show how powerful the blogging network effect can be by
linking to Visual Studio's Hosted Experience at
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/tryit/."
Finally, some of you have no opinion on blogging, and
therefore aren't likely to do anything based on what I propose. For you, the
answer is to post a blog entry that says "I neither agree nor disagree with
Ed Kaim that blogging is overhyped, but I still want to fit in and will
therefore link to Visual Studio's Hosted Experience at
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/tryit/."
What am I trying to prove?
Well, I'm not really sure. Basically, I figure that the Hosted Experience is something a
lot of people might like if they knew more about it, so if this whole blogging
thing can help get the word out, then so be it. Who knows? I think the blogging
community may actually have an outside shot of causing more referrals than all advertising
efforts, combined.
I've been so messed up since I got back from China (weddings #1 & #2 out of a total
of 4, worldwide). I find myself operating on weird times, getting up either really early
in the morning, or else really later in the afternoon (on weekends, of course).
Something had to give--and it's been the blog.
Anyway, I have a bunch of videos from China, shot on my little camcorder, but I want
to play around with MovieMaker 2 to see if I can make them a little more
interesting before posting.
It was fun.
More to come.
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