Gifted Slacker

I read this over at Reg’s blog:

Good God, some of the new young actors say they don’t know whether they wanted to be actors or not! I cannot understand this. To me, it is like saying you can’t make up your mind whether or not you love a certain woman. If you don’t then take a walk.

In acting, as in love, there is no place for indifference.

—Trevor Howard

Bryan Caplan writes:

When women see how little housework men do, they interpret it as “shirking” - a willful violation of basic norms of decency. Men, in turn, feel unfairly maligned by the accusation (or, perhaps more often, by the stink eye).

Who is right? Let me just throw away any future career in couples counseling, and say: Usually, men.

The evidence: Look at the typical bachelor’s apartment. Even when a man pays the full cost of cleanliness and receives the full benefit, he doesn’t do much. Why not? Because the typical man doesn’t care very much about cleanliness. When the bachelor gets married, he almost certainly starts doing more housework than he did when he was single. How can you call that shirking?

This is the kind of thing that benefits humankind. Beware the power that economics can have on your daily life!

The best sentence I read all week was written by Alex in this post at Marignal Revolution:

It is time to restore freedom of contract to marriage, Laissez-faire for all capitalist acts between consenting adults!

Apparently, state officiation of marriage in America became common in the early 20th century. The reasons were racial, not any sort of economic or practical reason. How sick is that?

Robin and I are going to take a jaunt around central Europe over holiday break. We’re going to spend four days at the Boathouse Hostel in Prague. That’s where I stayed when I went there for a visit around New Years 05/06. Then we’re going to spend Christmas in Vienna, where we’ll see the Lipizzaner Stallions. We head to Brussels after that, with a potential one-night stop-off somewhere in Germany. We’ll celebrate New Years in Brussels and then head on home.

Since I’m under 26 I can ride the Eurostar back England for about £60 pounds. Robin would have to pay something like £250. So I’m not real sure if that will be our mode of return.

I’m really excited. Hopefully I can finish most of my work for the term before we head off. It’d be nice to relax for the entire trip.

This entry sponsored by Jennifer Feagans.

Old News from Tim Harford here:

But what might raise the odd eyebrow is the discovery that speed-daters systematically change their standards depending on who shows up for the speed date. Although women prefer tall men rather than short men, on evenings where nobody is over six feet, the short guys have a lot more luck. Most people prefer an educated partner, but they will propose to school drop-outs if the PhDs stay away.

I would like to think I’m more consistently descriminating than the folks described in the above article. But, of course, I’m biased.

Okay, I was reading this (Robin, you don’t want to follow that link. Stop it! Don’t even think about it.) post at one of my favorite blogs, Overcoming Bias.

Most of the time, when reading heavy blogs like OB or MR (or something they link to), I either understand it right away or it’s way out of my league. This one is on the border of my comprehension. I sort of get it. I understand the message, but the reasoning is a bit fuzzy to me.

Any help?

I either want to marry this woman, or steal her cooking skills. Seriously, this woman’s pictures of food are pornographic. If pictures could make you gain weight, these would do it best.

However, I think a carmel or straight-up butter cream frosting would be better on those rolls.

From Tim Bray:

Walking home in the fast-falling dusk, three grown-ups and five children, they whooped and ran, chattering emptily. We parents trudged, talking city politics and real-estate prices and child-care; then noticed we were alone. That block was lined with chestnut trees, and someone had swept a yard-high pile of fallen nuts, so the boys had stopped to hunt. Walking away, they had their shirts pulled up in front full of lustrous brown treasures, and they talked of selling them or saving them, and we talked of the excellence of the smell of roasting chestnuts on Paris streets in cold evenings, and the disappointment of their taste.

Idyllic. And something else I don’t have a word for.

The Barenaked Ladies, Johnny Cash, Dire Straits, Journey, Styx, The Moody Blues, George Carlin, Eddie Poe, Bill Shakespear, Bill Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Gene Roddenberry, Bill Cosby, Harold Ramis, Bill Murray, Harrison Ford, Sean Connery, Mark Hamil, Warwick Davis, Quentin Tarantino, Peter Mayhew, George Lucas, Neal Stephenson, Batman, Robin*, William Gibson, Neal Gaiman, Terry Goodkind, Michael Abrash, John Carmack, Richard ‘Levelord’ Gray, Dale Bryant, Boris Goldfarb, Mr. Holder, Mr. Swider, Anne Conway, Mom, Dad, little brother, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, and so many others. . .

Thank you for providing me with hours upon hours of entertainment, ideas, new perspectives, love, support, understanding, conversation, tolerance, and everything else in life that’s truly worth anything. Everything that I am, and every worthwhile thing I have comes from others.