Hollinger's Playoff Oddities

With less than twenty games left in this shortened NBA season, it's not at all too early to keep an eye on the conference standings.  And how 'bout those Knicks?!  More thoughts to come on what's been going on at the Garden...  In the meantime, they may be just barely in the playoff picture at the moment, but based on talent and recent form, their spot seems more secure.  How secure?  Let's see what number John Hollinger can put to that.

Taming Tilapia

Our ancestors have done battle for generations with the noble beasts of the sea.  These brave fisher-folk have risked all in the pursuit of swordfish, salmon, crab, even whale to feed their families on the ocean's bounty.

What would they think of tilapia?  They may never have heard of that freshwater runt.  As one point of reference, the strictest forms of the paleo diet seem to frown on its fish farms' grain feed and possible mercury content(?).

Whatever.  It's cheap and easy to cook.  I've tried different versions of in recent months, and finally decided to commit some of the key permutations to the record.

A Tale of the Wood Elves

On mountain slope, 'neath forest bough and beside tumbling stream lies the realm of the frolicsome wood elves.  Even as the world shivers ere the turning of the year, their gambols continue undisturbed by cold and frost.

MediumBrow's 2011 Reading List

I may think it's silly to dwell on arbitrary markers of the passage of time, but everyone's doing it, and that's a good enough reason to get me back on the blog (with a vengeance - this post turned out long) with a look back at 2011. 

Alright.

The most popular new years' resolutions have to be exercise/weight loss, travel or reading.  (Hmmm, it appears I missed saving money and spending time with family.)  For the bibliophiles, now is the time to assess how much of their ambitious goals were met in 2011.  Based on my own lists and notes, my tally worked out to more than one book a month, which came as a pleasant surprise.  Sure, there were a couple page-turners and even some that were mostly pictures...  But some weighty stuff too.  To wit:

Breaking the ice on mobile payments

Somewhat ironically for CI's mobile payments expert, I'm pretty conservative, even bearish, about the technology.  P2P seems needlessly complicated, designed just to show off your fancy gadgets for your friends.  And point-of-sale purchases?  Are that many shops going to buy into an entirely new payment network?  I don't see smartphones, much less payment apps, becoming more ubiquitous than cash or plastic.  And aside from that skepticism, I'm naturally reluctant to link my own cards or accounts to a mobile device to actually start using any of the pilot programs.

So what would it take to get me to just try out mobile payments?  Yeah, $10 of free food sounds about right.

This guy better not cost us the NBA season

This guy:

Sons of Rock

In the immortal crooning of Neil Young, "Rock and roll will never die."  Yes, in one sense, the groups that have carried the torch may linger past their primes, like the Red Hot Chili Peppers or U2.  The next generation has been disappointingly sparse, as I've noted in earlier attempts at reviews.  Friends of rock keep the tradition alive in the underground world, but there are bands that show that rock can still be at least somewhat mainstream.  One such group to check out: Rival Sons.