Category Archives: Items of note

Chocolate war!

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But there are two separate groups vying for credit in what some might consider the research arm of a chocolate factory war.

The candy maker Mars is expected to announce on Wednesday that a project it financed has essentially completed the raw sequence of the genome of the cacao tree, and that it would make the data freely available to researchers.

The announcement upstages a consortium involving French government laboratories and Pennsylvania State University that is backed in part by a competitor of Mars, Hershey. This group says it has also completed the sequence, but cannot discuss it until its paper analyzing the genome is published in a scientific journal.

– Andrew Pollack, N.Y. Times.

Whoa, nelly. The article says that understanding the chocolate genome sequence should help chocolatiers create more chocolate more deliciously, which seems awesome at first but is actually kind of terrifying when you think of it.

The French government is normally considered benign to the point of punchlines, but I’ve read Brave New World, and I’ve got to think that if someone were creating a drug to tranquilize society, it starts with a mass-produced super-chocolate.

Also, who the hell knew that Mars and Hershey were into this type of stuff? Mars has a research arm? I mean I guess that makes sense, but that’s so completely ominous.

And furthermore, I just now considered the implications of a chocolate war. Chocolate war! That’s about the most amazing thing I’ve ever heard of. You can call me naive, but I like to envision a world where all wars are chocolate wars — not like that book, but like replacing gunpowder with pure molten chocolate, and then when soldiers get hit they’re all covered in chocolate, and they say, “OK, you got me,” and they have to stand down, but the upside is free chocolate. Kind of like paintball, I guess, but the guns shoot chocolate truffles. Holy crap why has no one invented that yet?

Finally, you know who’s behind all this research at Mars? The article calls him Howard Yana-Shapiro, but you may know him better as Santa Claus:

The double act

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I’m off to Citi Field to conduct some interviews and watch Jenrry Mejia. I’m on a Mitchell and Webb kick, so enjoy this sketch that reminds me of something me and my friends from college might have made for our sketch-comedy show if we ever got our acts together, and also got much funnier:

When in doubt, blow it up

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Look, for all I know that horse was chock full of plastic explosives, though it sure didn’t look like it from the way it blew up. I imagine some paranoid parent saw the thing and called the cops, the cops had to respond, then they showed up and saw that it was obviously just a toy horse and the conversation went something like this:

“Dude, this is obviously just a toy horse.”

“Yeah, but we came all the way out here and we’ve already got all our bomb stuff out. So we should probably blow it up.”

“Obviously.”

And let the record show, that’s precisely the type of logic I’d employ all the time if I were a cop, because if you’ve got opportunities to blow stuff up while you’re on the clock, you take them.

Excuse me: Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Blow it to smithereens.

On absolutely everything

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At its core “The Grand Design” is an examination of a relatively new candidate for the “ultimate theory of everything,” something called M-theory, itself an extension of string theory, which tries to reconcile general relativity and quantum mechanics. “M-theory is not a theory in the usual sense,” the authors write. “It is a whole family of different theories.” According to M-theory, “ours is not the only universe,” the authors say. “Instead M-theory predicts that a great many universes were created out of nothing.” The image that comes to mind here, others have written about M-theory, is of a God blowing soap bubbles.

But Mr. Hawking and Mr. Mlodinow assert that “their creation does not require the intervention of some supernatural being or god. Rather, these multiple universes arise naturally from physical law. They are a prediction of science.” Many of these universes would be quite different from ours, they add, and “quite unsuitable for the existence of any form of life,” or at least any form of life remotely like ours.

M-theory, if it is confirmed, would be “the unifying theory Einstein was hoping to find,” the authors write. But it’s a somewhat disappointing theory, a patchwork quilt rather than a fine, seamless garment.

– Dwight Garner, N.Y. Times.

OK, let me make this perfectly clear: I am in no position to reasonably doubt Stephen Hawking. Through endless Wikipedia tangents, I’ve tried to wrap my mind around theoretical physics, and I pretty much can’t do it. It seems like it’s the type of thing you’d need to be a physics major in college to fully grasp, and I was an English and music guy. I am not qualified to be discussing this.

But my understanding of M-theory is that it’s an attempt to explain everything we know about how the universe started under the terms of everything we know about how the universe currently functions, at the atomic level, on Earth, in deep space, everywhere.

And all that stuff is complicated, so you kind of work backwards to reconcile everything and settle on a pretty convoluted-sounding conclusion that states there are 11 dimensions, a bunch of them unknowable and unprovable, and you just kind of have to believe they exist because it’s the only way we can figure out to make sense of this all.

Again: I’m oversimplifying and talking out my ass about something I don’t really understand at all. But I read a pretty awesome article in Discover a couple months ago (which is unfortunately not online) that suggested a controversial counter to M-theory.

Some say the laws that govern our universe could have changed over time since the Big Bang, sort of like evolution, except without the whole survival of the fittest part. And so, they say, the scientists trying to use the physical forces as they currently exist to explain what happened eons ago are looking at it the wrong way.

That seems to make sense to me, uninformed though I am. It’s a difficult thing to even think about, but if all of the galaxies in the universe were once compressed into one dense mass, it seems believable that the physical laws governing that mass might be different from the ones governing everything now. Does that make any sense?

Maybe not. No more theoretical astrophysics. The game’s on.

“Hey Malcovich, think fast!”

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I’ve always wanted to be mildly famous. Not like big-time Tom Cruise famous where the paparazzi follows you everywhere, because that seems like a huge pain in the ass. Just like about as famous as James Rebhorn, the guy who played the secretary of defense in Independence Day, because I feel like being that amount of famous makes everything you do exponentially funnier.

Think about it: If you popped a tire and Tom Cruise helped you jack up your car, you’d be like, “that was weird… what a freak, he obviously wants his ego stroked or something, that’s creepy.” But if James Rebhorn pulled over and bailed you over, you’d be all, “Sweet, Rebhorn! This guy plays a sniveling bureaucrat in like a billion different movies,” and you’ve have a hilarious and random story to tell your friends for the rest of your life.

And it doesn’t even have to be James Rebhorn being a good samaritan. It’d be just as funny if James Rebhorn cut you off on the parkway or if you pulled up next to James Rebhorn at a red light and saw him pick his nose. Pretty much any vehicular interaction you could have with noted character actor James Rebhorn would be a funny one.

I know this for a fact because the younger brother of one of my friends once got into a fender-bender with the actor David Paymer, and I still find that funny.

I listed two character actors but any other means of minor fame is fine by me too. Character actors just the most identifiable random not-quite-famous people, for whatever reason.

Anyway, part of the fallout from this job is that on rare occasion people actually do recognize me from the video stuff I do on SNY.tv, which I enjoy, in part because I’m tremendously vain and in part because it feels like a very small step toward that Rebhorn stature I so desperately desire.

By “on rare occasion,” by the way, I mean “almost never.” Sometimes at Citi Field, but only three times when I’m not walking around the place where the Mets play with a credential around my neck that says my name on it.

One time was some guy in a bar who saw my stuff on MetsBlog. Not a particularly notable interaction.

Another time I was in a parking garage waiting for the attendant to bring my car around. A businessman was sitting in his car, nearly ready to pull out, and rolled down his window.

“Hey, are you Ted Berg?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said, excitedly.

“I’ve seen your stuff,” he said, almost in disgust, as he rolled up the window.

The third time was last night outside MCU Park in Brooklyn.

I didn’t stay for the Cyclones’ last night. I wanted to because I love that park and I wanted to see some of the Wallyball everyone has such strong opinions about, but for a variety of reasons I also wanted to get home and I feared the hours worth of traffic I faced.

But before I left Coney Island, obviously, I stopped to get a cheese dog at Nathan’s.

Look: I’ve never been what you’d call a skinny dude. I played offensive line in high school football, and even then I carried a few extra pounds around my midsection. I like food a lot. I’m cool with it. I realize I could be healthier, eat better, work out more, all that, but that would mean not eating cheese dogs when I’m in Coney Island, and that’s inconceivable to me.

And though I’m hardly neurotic, it’s hard not to feel a little bit self-conscious when you’re walking down the street punishing a cheese dog, trying to keep all the excess cheese, ketchup and mustard from spilling all over your clothes, licking one hand clean while carrying a huge soda in the other.

It was the perfect time for some guy to drive by and, from a moving car, yell, “Ted Berg — Sandwich of the week!”

My first thought was, “oh Ted, you disgusting beast, what have you become?”

My second, a few moments later, was that this was a pretty hilarious way for someone to recognize me.

I mean, anyone familiar with the “Sandwich of the Week” series must be a TedQuarters reader, not just someone who sees the Baseball Show videos on MetsBlog or whatever, and so obviously a hero. I very much appreciate that. If you’re reading this, guy, feel free to identify yourself.

Second, it’s funny to think of how it must have been for that guy, who knows me as some sandwich-loving Mets fan, to spot me outside a Mets’ Minor League facility destroying a hot dog, cheese everywhere.

I don’t know if he saw me from far away or what, but I like to think he was all, “hey, that guy kind of looks like that Ted Berg fellow, but I’m not sure… oh, he’s eating a cheese dog, yeah, that means it’s definitely him.”

And I’m fine with that.

Fooled you!

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I’m off to Brooklyn to film some Cyclones stuff for the Baseball Show. Actually by now I’m probably already there.

To be perfectly honest, this blog has been on autopilot for several hours now as I do a bunch of stuff to get my act together to go to Chicago on Friday. I got you good, suckers!

Anyway, I may or may not have some more posts soon depending on the Internet situation in the park and the whims of my crappy home laptop. In the meantime, enjoy this merengue-dancing dog:

‘Mass Transit Menace’ totally awesome

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Mass transit menace Darius McCollum racked up his 27th arrest in three decades Tuesday by taking a Trailways coach on a cross-state joyride.

The 45-year-old transportation-obsessed oddball went from the driver’s seat to a holding cell after cops caught him with the hot wheels in Queens.

“I’ll bet they won’t leave the keys in the ignition,” McCollum told the arresting officer. “I’ll bet they’ll be more careful now.”…

No one was hurt and the bus was in tiptop condition. That’s how it’s been in every McCollum escapade since he commandeered an E train and drove to the World Trade Center in 1981 when he was just 15.

– New York Daily News.

This guy pops up every few years and every time it’s something like this: He impersonates a mass-transit employee, gets on some mode of mass transportation (or, once, in a control tower), operates some piece of machinery safely and effectively for a while until someone finds him out, then cooperates with the arresting officers. It’s a whimsical story, but he’s hardly a menace.

McCollum has Asperger Syndrome, which explains the fixation with mass transit — not that trains aren’t sweet and all. I worked with a few kids with the disorder when I was TAing in the high school. I’m hardly an expert on the subject, but I think it’s a hard one for even the experts to figure out.

Anyway, if I ever make a ton of money, I’d like to start a charity called the Awesome Fund. Basically, it would raise money to benefit people who do awesome things then need money to cover their legal fees because their awesome actions were illegal, like the JetBlue flight attendant beer bailout guy for example. Plus it would benefit other awesome people who hadn’t done anything illegal but were down on their luck. Also, it would work to raise awareness of general awesomeness.

I’m not sure that Darius McCollum needs money, but I think the ability to effectively impersonate mass-transit employees and safely operate complicated 15-ton machinery for no other reason than that you like trains and buses and you think it seems like fun is pretty damn awesome. And you know what? I don’t even think that makes you an “oddball,” just a guy with a dream and a series of well-thought-out plans.