Yelp Me

I'm not so sure about that categorization...

Anyway, Yelp has reunited me with a restaurant that I used to frequent. It used to be a medium-sized establishment on a street corner and it closed probably about five years ago. I re-discovered it today, tucked in the corner of a food court inside a tiny shopping plaza about twelve miles away from the original location.

Your Tax Dollars At Work

The same government that is responsible for this nonsense is going to be responsible for overseeing healthcare. Oh dear.

A National Monument That No One Knows

It's been a long time since I went on a road trip. Which is why I decided to go to the Carrizo Plain National Monument the other day. Sure, it's only a four-hour drive to get there and it was a one-day deal so it hardly counts as a road trip, but nonetheless.

The drive through the Grapevine to the San Joaquin Valley is not a particularly exciting one. However, the season happens to be just right for wildflowers, and we were greeted by a carpet of them as we got to the other side of the mountains.

Eventually we left the interstate for State Highway 58. This passes through the town of Buttonwillow, which has a racetrack but otherwise looks like a small pueblo in rural Mexico.

The highway then passes through some lovely green hills, although I suspect they are brown and boring for most of the year. On the north coast of California, for instance, the hills are green year-round because it rains. Here, they're probably green between January and April.

As the road climbs into the hills, it just gets better and better. Excellent scenery combined with fun, tight corners mixed with fast sweepers.

Past the summit, the scenery opens up to reveal huge blankets of flowers on the hills. It's amazing to see that there is more yellow than green here. It's probably like this for two weeks to a month, tops.

Descend from the hills and arrive at the edge of the Carrizo Plain, the largest single native grassland remaining in California. Perhaps people from Kansas would think nothing of this. However, I am not from Kansas.
Here, the road is mostly straight and driving slightly too fast over some of the steeper crests results in, well, fun.

Soda Lake Road is the main road that bisects the park. It is paved part of the way, but then turns into gravel. However, it is one of the smoothest gravel roads I've ever driven on; there are few ruts and the gravel is mostly firm. This means it is very easy to navigate, even at speeds close to tarmac. This may or may not have resulted in me going sideways on a bit of a chicane.

Throughout the park, there are huge expanses of wildflowers but I'm not sure about the point of visiting during any other time of the year. Sadly, there were no animals to be seen. There were very few people to be seen as well, which was quite pleasant given the roads.

Past the park, the road climbs into subalpine forests and then out to US-101 in Ventura. The remainder of the trip is not much to talk about.

The American Way

It seems that lately, I've been running short on things to write about. In this case, it pretty much means I'm out of things worth complaining about, which I guess is a good thing.

We have news today of a case of "unintended acceleration" in a Toyota Prius in New York that was proven to be caused by driver error. Toyota ought to start suing people that don't know how to drive; this is getting out of hand. While they're at it, they should probably sue certain members of Congress as well. We're talking billions of dollars lost here.

On the other hand, Toyota shareholders in America are suing the company for being negligent and deceptive, resulting in lower stock prices. I wasn't aware that a shareholder could sue the company for, say, poor business management. Isn't that just a risk associated with stock trading? I mean, if this is allowed, why can't someone sue Apple for releasing a product that doesn't live up to the hype?

What the shareholders don't realize is that if they sue a company whose stock they own, such an action itself is likely to further bring down the stock price. Shareholders not involved in the lawsuit ought to sue the shareholders that are involved, for causing a drop in share prices.

The Official

Anyone that has ever watched a sporting event has probably complained about officiating. As spectators, we often point out the wrong calls and the non-calls and yell obscenities at the television. We then wonder if the referee has been bribed or if he is truly an incompetent buffoon.

But what if you are an athlete? Those that are actually participating in the sport undoubtedly as just as, if not much more, frustrated when a referee screws something up in the opponent's favor. However, athletes are not at liberty to yell obscenities at the referees, because they will be ignored or, at worst, tossed.

If you think about it, though, it's a pointless exercise anyway, because typically, a referee will never overturn a call even if he realizes that he is wrong. This usually only happens when the other officials don't agree with a call that has been made.

Sometimes, though, the "other officials" can be wrong. Like when the Detroit Red Wings "lost" in a shootout to the Dallas Stars earlier this year.

When an athlete publicly lashes out at an official, this usually is followed by some sort of disciplinary action against the player and none against the official, even if the call in question was utterly egregious to anyone's eye. Other times, it is swept under the rug as if it never happened.

An official's actions are sometimes the difference maker in the outcome, and sometimes they aren't. Sometimes it's difficult to quantify whether it would have made a difference. But in all of these cases, they are wrong nonetheless. Still, they seldom face disciplinary action.

But what about the cases where the official's judgement is the outcome? I'm talking about sports that rely solely on judges to determine the result.

Figure skating, for instance, is in the midst of controversy yet again. In both the men's and women's events, it was shown that safe and easy are rated higher than ambitious highlights.

Evgeni Plushenko has been labeled as a sore loser by the American media who are perhaps subconsciously feeling guilty. Korean media have claimed Mao Asada's scores were too high, which is rather odd given the rest of the world seems to think Kim's score was conspicuously high. Is it really necessary to put down the runner-up?

What are Plushenko's options anyway? The alternative to expressing discontent is to stay quiet, in which case problems would never be unearthed. As is the case with anything, if no one points out the problems then they will never be fixed. Most venues encourage people to speak up about potential issues that can be improved. In sports, such an attempt is lambasted.

Of course, complaining only is not enough. One must also come up with a way to fix the problems. However, this is not a task for Plushenko alone to undertake. If whatever governing body that oversees figure skating is not going to acknowledge that there might be a problem, then there is no hope for the sport. In fact, it can hardly be considered a sport, according to some.

Ironically, the fact that the head of the IOC had to come out and say that there was "nothing wrong" with the way in which both figure skating events were judged shows that there was indeed a problem. The truth is, while there may not have technically been a problem in accordance with the current rules, the problems lie within the rules themselves. If there had been no fundamental problem, no one would have complained and no such statement would have to be made.