Jason Kottke, Brooklyn’s resident professional Blogger, brings up an interesting few ideas on how to order food at a restaurant from authors in his post How to order food in a restaurant.

Although none of the methods mentioned reflects the way I order food at restaurants. I ask my waiter or waitress which their favorite dish is and, ignoring any warnings from patrons in my party, order it.

If the question arises _how would you like that cooked?_ I always reply, _as the chef recommends_ unless the waiter or waitress look surprised and frightened at my response… then I go my old standby FDA(Food and Drug Association) medium.

I never ask for substitutions and never ask for anything on the side.

_This method hasn’t failed me yet._

So that “TED”:http://www.ted.com stuff was right on the money. It was a really phenomenal night of creative people who not only talk the talk, but have the money to walk the walk. Entrance into TED cost $4,400 per year and the only way to join is to be invited by a TED member.

*You thought those jeans from college were hard to get into?*

The talk by Steven Johnson about his book Everything Bad is Good for You was a real treat. Steven was a very good speaker who really knew how to push a crowd and avoid his argument’s weakness. His argument was interesting, but focused mainly on the idea that video games and modern television are complex in relation to their 1970’s counterparts. Unfortunately, there really isn’t any way to equate complexity with non-superficial content… Interested? “Buy the book for \$16.77”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1573223077/upthetree-20/

!(photo)https://www.upthetree.com/wp-uploads/zana_group_shot.jpg(Born into Brothels group shot)!:http://www.kids-with-cameras.org/

After that, I attended a screening of “Born into Brothels,”:http://www.kids-with-cameras.org/ the Academy Award winning documentary by Zana Briski, who after the incredibly fascinating film answered questions from the 10+ crowd who stuck around for the screening. The film is astounding and quite frankly I can’t do the film justice during a quick post during my lunch hour. Please “rent it.”:http://www.netflix.com/MovieDisplay?movieid=60034778&trkid=147038 I will talk further about it on the next podcast.

The whole night left me wanting to change my life.

I really have to do more with my time.

I’m going to be heading off to a TED event tonight as the guest of a business associate here in NYC. She had originally planned to bring my father, but as he is slumming his way through London for this week, I am taking his place.

TED is kind of like the organization for creative minded people that I usually would never be invited to, but today is different. Today I am a bad-ass. Today I shall make an impression on somebody, anybody who will take the time out and talk to me as I cower under the appetizer table.

It’s all about people who you would kill to meet in person. People who have influence, street cred, and incredibly different ideas. So, it should be cool.

As always, I will have my camera and voice recorder going, so hopefully I can bring you back some interesting stories and ideas. Person talking is going to be Steven Johnson about his new book, Everything Bad is Good for You which got some good reviews already. Man it looks pretty sweet.

Hope nobody smells my B.O.

!(left photo)https://www.upthetree.com/wp-uploads/uttcelebratebrooklyn.png(give $3 at the gate)!:http://www.brooklynx.org/celebrate/schedule.asp Marking the official beginning to my music calendar, “Celebrate Brooklyn”:http://www.brooklynx.org/celebrate/schedule.asp has finally released their 2005 schedule. There are some real stunners on the line-ups and some real disappointments. The biggest disappointment for me is the lack of my indierockers in great amount on this years line up.

*But then again I do loves me some indie music.*

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