8/3     A week into my trip to Oregon and having a fairly good time, but
        tonight is my first night in Portland. What a shithole. I don't
        feel safe here in downtown. It's like Berkeley, but without the
        crowds of people to make you feel safe. There are meth addicts
        everywhere and the news was full of reports of stabbings and a
        homicide just tonight. Can anyone familiar with Portland tell me
	...

4/7     Where can you get good food for $10? I went to an Italian restaurant
        last night. Pizza/pasta was only $13 or so, but with an appetizer and
        dessert the meal was over $50 (no drinks, 17% tip). And it was ok food,
        with homemade gnocchi but didn't taste like anything that you couldn't
        make at home with a little effort. No comparison to actual good Italian
        restaurants (e.g. Bar Bambino, Delfina, SPQR) that are in the $30-50/pp
	...

4/3     A few days back someone was advocating going to good restaurants over
        saving money.  I'm curious, I've never been to a really expensive
        restaurant. (Over $30 per person.)  In general I've found that once I
        get beyond about $10 the food doesn't get any better, instead I start
        paying for stuff I don't care about, like "atmosphere."  Which
        basically means I've rarely been to a restaurant where the food
	...

12/11   Can we get some insightful thoughts on Chu's nomination? Plenty of
    people here work(ed) at LBNL at some point.
        \_ he's clearly smart, and seems pretty well-respected as an
           administrator.  Only question I'd have is whether he's
           too enamored of technology, i.e., the BP grant is basically
           genetic engineering to make biofuel more feasible, which has
	...