Eric F. Savage

I’ve lately been fortunate enough to eat at two amazing restaurants. The first was Gordon Ramsay at the London in New York City, the second was The White Barn Inn in Kennebunkport, ME.

Ramsay’s was quite simply the finest meal and dining experience I’ve ever had. Reeny is a big fan of his show, and I’ve watched it here and there, so I had some confidence he knew what he was talking about and that he had very high standards (important since he is not actually the chef there). The food was astonishingly good, from the artichoke soup to the Black Cod to the Kobe short rib, everything was A+. The highlight was either the soup or the scallop, both were so good it’s impossible to pick. The service was perfect too, we never felt like we were waiting nor did we feel rushed. If you’re even in NYC, make sure you visit this place, assuming you can make reservations two months ahead…

The White Barn Inn, a recommendation of Dina, was also memorable. While not quite as good as Ramsay, it’s easily the best place I’ve been to in New England. I opted for the lamb, Reeny for the beef, and both dishes were great as well as the other courses. The atmosphere is cozy, the service was very good, highly recommended when you’re down east.

Being a sports fan doesn’t end when the season does, you need to analyze, reflect, and debate things like awards, so let’s get started:

National League Cy Young: Jake Peavy. No real debate here. Led the league in strikeouts, strikouts per inning, wins, WHIP, and ERA, and came just short of the playoffs. Runner Up: Brandon Webb.

American League Cy Young: C. C. Sabathia. On the surface, it looks like a real close race here with Beckett and maybe even Lackey, and the press seems to think Beckett is a lock because he got 20 wins. However, Sabathia beats Beckett in WHIP, IP, K, GS, CG, SHO, K/BB ratio, which are all key ace/stopper stats. Runner Up: Josh Beckett.

Note: Expect a surge in baseball-related posts over the next couple of weeks

• This is just plain creepy, who would want that done to their kid’s picture?
• Lies that are true - Fiction blog, I really like Mr. Harrell’s style. I also love the design and tagline on his blog.
• The next time I’m in need of some prints, I’ll be hitting Plan 59
• I’m a pretty honest person, and while I haven’t gone this far, I think I’m headed in that direction.
• Groan My IP is hilarious, NSFW if you W with a bunch of prudes
• I was surprised by how many these programming quotations I hadn’t heard before.
• I’m familiar with Fibonacci, but I’d never heard of, or completely forgot about, the Golden Ratio. Turns out the columns widths I picked (before I found that page) for the new StyleFeeder design just happen to be 1.6:1.

Well, the Boston Red Sox are the American League Eastern Division champs for the first time since 1995. They’re tied with the Indians for top seed, and Boston holds the tie-breaker. As it stands now, the Red Sox will host the Angels and the Indians will host the Yankees. Unlike most years, all 4 of these teams could pull it off, so it should be exciting.

What’s interesting is that none of the National League teams have clinched, with only 2 or 3 games left. There are 7 teams in contention on the final weekend of the year. I don’t remember one league being clinched and almost done seeding while the other league has nothing.

Baseball Prospectus, one of the more popular sabermetric, websites, has a Red Sox/Cubs World Series in this prediction, based on power pitching, defense, and closer stature. This doesn’t have the apocalyptic feeling that such a series would have had before 2004, but I think that would be a fantastic series. Both teams have a huge national fanbase, and could drive the highest World Series ratings in recent memory.

Every group of friends develops a very localized parlance, usually drawn from movies they’ve all enjoyed or memorable events. My group of college friends was lucky enough to include someone who had inherited a dominant curator gene, Keith Tyler. This is well-evidenced by his contributions to Wikipedia, but also by his entering into the historical record a fairly exhaustive list of rubbonics, complete with phonetics, that would be useful in deciphering our conversations of the day.

Sometimes, a term or phrase has the potential to break out of the group and escape to the community and beyond, and I’m going to nominate one to do just that, or at least get it into Google. This term was apparently born after the rubbonics were codified, and I can’t remember the date, but I do remember the circumstances.

We went to the Cheri Theater (now the site of the Summer Shack and King’s bowling), one chilly Boston night. On the way back, Kilby proclaimed “this way’s faster” and promptly crossed the street. We declined to follow and proceed on our way as Kilby marched down the other side of the street. At the next intersection, he crossed back to our side of the street, but was there before us. “How?,” you ask. The answer is simple, he walked faster. This was not the first time he had performed such a feat, but it was then that the phrase “Kilby shortcut” was coined.

Kil·by short·cut

noun (kÄ­l’bÄ“ shôrt’kÅ­t’)

A path between two points which is longer than other obvious choices, but the extended length is mitigated by travelling faster.

An ironic footnote is that Kilby doesn’t drive, and never has, yet somehow is the best navigator I’ve seen when it comes to exploring cities or unfamiliary territory. Except, of course, when he says “this way’s faster”…