Month: November 2013

Posted simply because I find this photo amusing.

I’m not here to attend a conference, nor am I here for a vacation. I’m here to hang out with a lovely young lady and get some work done during the day while she attends her conference, and then step out with her at night. This has left my schedule rather flexible, and since I refuse to pay $15/day just to use the hotel’s gym, I’ve been getting some of my exercise by wandering down Las Vegas Boulevard.

There’s something not quite rightabout the Strip on an off-season Tuesday at 9:00 a.m.. It’s got a quiet, almost eerie vibe that reminds me of the post-clean-up hush in one’s living room on Sunday morning after a big party took place there the night before, with a guest still passed out on the couch. It’s a Vegas I’ve never seen before, and it made for some great picture-taking.

Rule number one of eating in Vegas on the cheap: the hotel restaurants are expensive. Unless you’re at a conference that’s providing breakfast and lunch, it’s better by far to get some fresh air and exercise and hit one of the restaurants outside.

One of my go-to stops has been Panda Express, which has a couple of branches along Las Vegas Boulevard, including one across the street from Mandalay Bay, where I’m staying. If you replace the rice or noodles with mixed veggies and pick the “Wok Smart” items, you can get a pretty healthy high-protein, lower-carb meal and a bottomless small drink for just over 9 bucks, which in this town is a steal.

Better still, Panda Express are taking donations at their cash register for relief efforts for Super Typhoon Haiyan / Yolanda, and will match people’s donations dollar-for-dollar.

Here’s the meat of their press release:

ROSEMEAD, Calif. – Panda Restaurant Group Inc. (PRG), parent company of Panda Express, America’s favorite Chinese restaurant, today announced it will collect donations in each of its 1,650 Panda Express, Panda Inn and Hibachi-San locations to assist victims of Typhoon Haiyan, which recently devastated the Philippines.

Panda also will match 100 percent of in-store and corporate donations collected between Wednesday, November 13 and Wednesday, December 4. The funds will be distributed to the American Red Cross and the Tzu Chi Foundation, an international non-profit humanitarian organization, to support their direct efforts to help victims of the typhoon.

“The tragedy of Typhoon Haiyan has left us heavyhearted,” said Peggy Cheng, co-chairman of PRG. “The Panda family is standing with our guests and corporate partners to do what we can to help our global community when unimaginable disasters occur. Our thoughts and prayers continue to be with the victims and their families.”

Thanks, Panda Express! You’ll have my continued business.

…is how much we pay Rob Ford to do his job. Or not do it:

His 2012 salary was $167,770, not including $1,169.22 of taxable benefits. He’s making nearly 170 grand for a job that a former staffer says he showed up for at 11 a.m. and left at 3 or 4 p.m..

You can look it up in the Ontario government’s “sunshine list”, which lists the salaries of all public employees who make more than “a hundred large”. And yes, Rob Ford is a public employee: he works for us. And it’s time we fired him.

After this morning’s disastrous press conference in which he attempted to defend himself against allegations of announcing to a former staffer that he wanted to perform oral sex on her and ended up making the funniest gaffe in Toronto political history, Toronto Mayor and walking punchline Rob Ford held another press conference to explain himself. In that conference, he said:

Ladies and gentlemen, I want to apologize for my graphic remarks this morning.

Yesterday, I mentioned, was the second worst day of my life except for the death of my father. The past six months I have been under tremendous, tremendous stress. The stress is largely of my own making.

I have apologized and I have tried to move forward. This has proven to be almost impossible. The revelations yesterday of cocaine, escorts, and prostitution, has pushed me over the line, and I used unforgivable language—and again, I apologize.

These allegations are 100% lies.

When you attack my integrity as a father and as a husband, I see red. Today I acted on complete impulse in my remarks. I fully realize in the past I have drank alcohol in excess. I wish you to know I am receiving support from a team of health care professionals. I am taking accountability and receiving advice from people with expertise. I do not wish to comment on the particulars of the support.

I wish you to understand I am accepting responsibility for the challenges I face. I would ask you please, please respect my family’s privacy.

Thank you very much.

Afterwards, with the assistance of his staff, he pushed his way straight through the crowd of reporters who were gathered in the purposely-small room, even knocking over a camerman or two. As Torontoist’s Hamutal Dotan astutely notes:

When Rob Ford holds press conferences he generally does so in his protocol office—a sort of exterior lounge just outside that private office. It is small and cramped, and his appearances there—as opposed to the many larger spaces available in City Hall—are almost certainly designed to make reporters look like an angry hoard. (Previously, press conferences were most often held in the members’ lounge in the council chamber, a wide space with rows of chairs, and often mic stands where reporters could line up to ask questions.) The space is small enough that cameras and people are crammed more tightly than commuters on a rush hour subway, and the impression this creates is that the mayor is being held hostage by the press gallery.

Jimmy Kimmel had great fun last night with video clips from yesterday’s Toronto City Council meeting. He noted that the best we could do was vote on whether or not to ask Mayor Rob Ford to resign, which to him seemed “very Canadian”. All but one clip he showed were taken straight from the video of the meeting — the only change made was the lengthening of the already long pause that Ford took to answer the question “Have you purchased illegal drugs in the past two years?”, and the addition of the Jeopardy “final question” song.

I love the reaction from the reporters at the end.