Lightning over St. Louis

Really loving this photo I took as storms rolled through the city last night. I suppose “I took” is slightly misleading, as I used the CHDK firmware for my camera, which has a plugin that does motion detection, which is what I used. But still — my camera, my window, my view. My photo. Love it.

Aww, yeah, it’s Business Time. On Wednesday, you’ll see a post about businesses, economics, products, consumer experiences or general money matters. If it involves someone taking your money, it’s probably here.

Pay me a dollar and I’ll let you play this game. I’ll take your dollar and a dollar of mine. First off, we agree this isn’t three-card monte — it’s not a scam, there’s no sleight of hand involved, everything is as it seems and I’m not playing a trick. It’s gambling. Got it? Ok.

I’ve got three cards lying face-down on the table, an Ace and two Jacks.  If you end up with the ace, you get the two dollars. If I do, I keep the two dollars. During each hand, I shuffle the cards around, and you can’t tell where they go. I stop, and you pick one. I slide the card toward you, but don’t flip it over so you can’t tell if you’ve picked the ace. Then, during each hand, I look at my two cards and flip over a jack.

I give you the option of trading our face-down cards. Do you trade?

Keep in mind, my flipping over a jack doesn’t change what’s on the bottom of your card. Also keep in mind that once I’ve eliminated that jack, there’s one jack and one ace, and two cards. 50/50 chance, right?

Nope. Switch. Every time. If I always flip over a card — and this is key, I always have to look at them and flip over a jack, I’ll explain why in a minute — you have odds of 2/3 if you switch, and 1/3 if you don’t.

How can this be? The easiest way to explain is to look at it this way: You pick one card. THEN I give you the offer to switch your one card for my two, before flipping any of them over. You’d rather have two chances out of three, right? That’s essentially what I’m giving you with my offer to switch after the flip. I’m saying, “Here, I’ll trade you my two cards for your one card — and I’ve already flipped this one over.”

The key is, I always have to flip one, and I always have to know where the right one is. If I pick one by chance to flip, then 1/3 of the time you’ll have the ace, 1/3 of the time I’ll flip the ace and 1/3 of the time I’ll have the ace but not flip it. If I don’t always have to flip one, it gets tricky — I could try to bluff you. If you recognized that you had better odds if you always took the one I flip, maybe I decide to flip one only when you already picked right, in the hopes that you’d think you picked wrong and would decide to trade. But then you’d realize that I only flip when you’re already right, so you never trade when I do. But then I counter-bluff by flipping sometimes when you’re wrong, but not all the time.

But given the rules as I stated them — I look at my cards and flip over a jack, every time — you have a 2/3 chance of winning if you trade.

Still don’t get it? Exaggerate the problem a bit. I have 100 paper bags, and one of them has $1,000 in it. You choose one. I search through the other 99, and tear 98 of them open, revealing scraps of paper inside. I offer you the same trade. Two bags, 50/50 chance, right? Again, nope. If I’m compelled to open 98 empties by the rules, you have a 99/100 chance if you trade and a 1/100 chance if you don’t. Why? Again, when you picked, you had a 1/100 chance of picking correctly. Pretend that before I started opening any of the bags, I asked whether you’d like to trade me back your one for my 99. Would you? Of course you would. That’s essentially the offer I make after I’ve opened mine — I’ll give you all of these for that one.

Homework: Tell me how this relates to Deal or No Deal (hint: not as much as it seems).

Research: The Straight Dope

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Qdoba Mexican Grill, 4049 Lindell Blvd, St Louis, MO‎

Had a Queso Burrito with steak for lunch. Good stuff. I normally avoid chains (for example, it’s hard to write a whole post about someplace that’s not terribly unique), but living here is the first time I’ve lived near one, so I tend to give it a pass. Plus, sometimes chains are good.

If you’ve never been there, they have a bit of a limited menu, but what they do have is good. The tortillas are sort of stretchy/doughy, not dry at all, which isn’t a bad thing, given how much stuff they pack in there. The chips are good, though I didn’t get any this trip.

My burrito was $8 even, and I didn’t get a drink or anything. You can get out of there for right around $10/person with a drink and maybe splitting some chips or something.

www.qdoba.com

For dinner, I had Best Steakhouse again — Steak burger patty, baked potato and texas toast combo with a side of fried mushrooms, and it was less than $7.

I need to go to the grocery store.

Treadmill. Music: The Last Five Years, by Jason Robert Brown.

Daily total: 4.0 mi.

Monthly jogging total: 4.0 mi.

Yearly jogging total: 4.0 mi.

Yearly walk/jog/run total: 10.5 mi.

Each Tuesday and Thursday, I will write something inspired by some media I’ve consumed recently. This could be a review, a synopsis, analysis, comparison or just some thoughts. It could be about anything from books to movies to TV to music to news of some sort. If you see something I’ve posted about and it reminds you of something I might like, let me know in the comments.

Went to the library last weekend and the only thing I found that I’d been looking for was Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood. I saw the trailer for Synecdoche, NY with Philip Seymour Hoffman, which reminded me of Capote, which reminded me that I wanted to read the book.

Good read so far — I’m about three-quarters through. The thing that keeps coming back to me is how detailed and thorough it is. The amount of research, of background that went into the book — Wikipedia cites a Sparknotes article that says 8,000 pages of notes — is both readily apparent and astounding at the same time.

Also interesting is the quantity of first-hand information Capote includes — documentation like Smith and Hickock’s letters to the psychologist, which Capote reproduces apparently nearly in full, and incredibly long stretches — pages upon pages — of monologue, without much (sometimes any) interjection from the author. This is a source of criticism by those who claim the book is inaccurate, as Capote never used a tape recorder or took notes while talking with sources.

Additionally, the difference between how you’d write the book then and how you’d write it now is pretty interesting to me too. If you weren’t predisposed to putting down the shoe leather for the interviews and interactions and instead googled “Perry Smith” for background, who knows what all you’d miss.

Hearing this, Mrs. Hickock wept. Throughout the trial she had sat quietly beside her husband, her hands worrying a rumpled handkerchief. As often as she could she caught her son’s eye, nodded at him and simulated a smile which, though flimsily constructed, affirmed her loyalty. But clearly the woman’s control was exhausted; she began to cry.

…At last a woman reporter, the only one present, led Mrs. Hickock out of the courtroom and into the privacy of a ladies’ room.

And then Capote leaves the courtroom and talks to Mrs. Hickock for about a page. Rather, lets her talk for a page.

Good book.

Nothing to report today but a couple of cheese sandwiches.

Chili and Grilled Cheese

That’s my lunch. I made chili a couple months ago, and it freezes pretty well.

I make a big pot, eat it for a few days and freeze the rest to have whenever. Come home for lunch, toss a container in the microwave and start making the grilled cheese. By the time the sandwiches are done, the chili’s hot and you’re ready to eat.

It’s a pretty simple chili recipe — ground beef, tomatoes, green peppers, onions, kidney beans, a couple hot peppers, nothing out of the ordinary — but it’s good stuff.

Tip: If you have a muffin or cupcake pan, ladle the chili into the pan (try to get equal parts liquid and food), and freeze. Pop the “pucks” out and put them back in the freezer in a plastic bag. Then you can pull out the appropriate amount whenever you need it, whether you want a big meal, a snack or have a guest.

On Mondays, I will post entries inspired by things — buildings or structures, people or happenings, or anything else — I can see from my apartment window in St. Louis.

Flickr Photo by MBK (Marjie) CC by-nc-sa

I’ll refer you to yesterday’s foodlog, and add that it’s fascinating to watch folks coming and going, lining up and dispersing. Crowd interactions from above, that sort of thing. Almost like watching ants sometimes.

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Best Steak House, 516 N. Grand Blvd., Saint Louis, MO

Ahh, the Best Steak House, “Since 1964″.

How to describe it? It’s a cafeteria-style restaurant: You line up, a cook shouts “NEXT!” at you, you yell back what you want, and you proceed through the line while it cooks, picking up your salad or dessert if you want. By the time you get to the front, your food’s probably done. Then you pay. Then you eat. Then you say how good it was, and how there aren’t many places around like it anymore.

Of course, you can call ahead or do carryout too. But what’s the fun in that?

Located where it is, in Grand Center, the Steak House seems to get a lot of “event” traffic, rather than people just passing by. Before shows at the Fox Theater, across the street, the line is often literally out the door. After church on Sunday, it’s just about as busy. And almost any night around dinner time, there’s a fairly consistent stream of cars pulling up, stopping, the occupants rushing in to get their carryout orders and leaving, to quickly be replaced by another hungry driver.

The menu is a diversity of combinations of a few ingredients — if that makes any sense. Meats: Pork chop, fried fish, gyro, grilled chicken, chicken strips, chopped steak patty. Breads: Texas toast, pita bread. Also salad. Make a combination out of those, and it’s probably on the menu. Sides of fries, baked potatoes, onion rings, mushrooms. On the high-end, you’ve got a Porter House steak or a T-Bone too, and shrimp to go alongside, if you like.

It’s pretty wild, actually, to walk into the place and be faced with a choice between a Porter House for a bit under $20 and a chopped steak patty sandwich for $3.15 — and know that whichever you choose will be cooked well (as in competently, not charred) over a grill while you watch, and — in their respective categories — they’ll each be good (I suppose I’m assuming about the Porter House as I’ve never had it, but if they can make a $3 burger taste good, I’d be shocked if the steak was terrible).

Sandwich (and we’re not talking fast-food-sized here…) with a baked potato or fries and a drink’ll run you less than  $10. Most anything else with a salad, potato and drink is less than $15. And I’ve certainly never left hungry.

This place is also deceiving about its size from the outside — once you get your food, it goes a ways back. Though I’ve been when it’s busy, I think there’s always been a table open.

www.beststeakstl.com