Tri the Rez 2011

Edit: 4-25-11 - Tri the Rez 2011 will officially be on October 8th! Mark your calendars!

Band of Horses Coming to The Moon

Band of Horses will be at The Moon on April 3rd! When I found out, I saw the event on The Moon's website, but not on Band of Horses's website. Weird. Anyway, you should totally go. I saw them when they came to the Beta Bar (the place that's now the Engine Room) a couple years ago and they were amazing.

Pick #229

Dminor - "Can't Get You Out of My Head" from an untitled album (and I can't find a link, but I heard it on Pandora)

Costume Parties as Signaling

When I moved to Tallahassee, I noticed a big difference between Tallahassee parties and HC parties. The majority of parties I attended in Tally my first year here were themed such that attendees were encouraged, if not required, to dress up. Not that there was an absence of themed parties at the HC, it's just that there was maybe one pimps-n-hoes party to every 15 normal ones. In Tally, there are about 15 themed parties to every non-themed one. Why the difference? If you guessed economics, you must have read the title of this post...

Have you ever been to a normal (non-themed) party when some people who were not invited stopped by and somehow ended up ruining everyone's good time? I can remember everyone being sent home because some unknown dude punched an invited party-goer in the nose. There was a party from which I was fortunate enough to be absent when some kids tried to sell hard drugs then stole some personal property. I think everyone's had the experience of wondering if some of the people at the party are vouched for or if they're just drinking free booze.

Dressing up is a way to let everyone else at the party know that you are on the inside. You got the invite and prepared for the party so you belong there. This mechanism wasn't needed at the HC because everyone knew everyone else at a glance. If a stranger was spotted, they were asked who they were with. That's not so easy to do in a school a couple hundred times as big as the HC.

I went to a party in Tally where I knew one of the guys who lived there and some other invitees (who had confirmed that they were coming via Facebook). Well, these other invitees ended up going to a different party and I was there with a ton of people whom I'd never met. Luckily, I was dressed for the occasion and nobody thought that I might not belong.

Signaling is costly. It means that one must dress up for parties in Tally. This act requires forethought, perhaps purchase of new attire or accessories, and time to get dressed up. However, the benefits of keeping strangers away (and having an automatic topic of conversation with fellow party-goers) outweigh the costs in places where this phenomenon exists.

Pick #228

Glenn Miller - "In the Mood" from In the Glenn Miller Mood

Anti-Choice

WARNING: The link below takes you to a site with very graphic images which you may find disturbing.

I was invited to a protest of an "anti-choice" group on campus over Facebook and I commented that it's not very nice to call the group anti-choice (do they call you "anti-life," etc). It turns out that the group calls themselves the "Anti-Choice Movement at FSU." They have a link on their fb page that takes you to this website which sells graphic pictures of aborted fetuses, presumably for protests/demonstrations.

While I am all for providing material to help make educated decisions, I can't help but think that the aborted fetuses used for these pictures have been mutilated by the same group. The mutilation really adds to the macabre nature of the photos, even if an intact fetus is an unpleasant sight.

I guess outlawing abortion may lead to a marginal reduction in the number of abortions, but what the anti-choice/pro-life side of the debate forgets is: if you eliminate legal channels for abortion, it's just going to be done in less regulated and sterile conditions. The life of the mother will be put at risk (which you should be against if you are "pro-life") as well due not only to shoddy procedures but also infections and aftermath. Another alternative to not having an abortion is to throw the baby in a dumpster or completely neglect it after birth. The economist will remind you that good intentions do not guarantee good outcomes. And speaking of economists, it may be interesting for these people to read Chapter 4 of Freakonomics.

White v. Hispanic Dancing

Have you ever noticed that white people can dance without moving their feet and hispanic people can dance without moving their upper bodies? I've seen it happen.