Fogo de Chao

For Olivia's birthday we went to this place, known for all-you-can-eat steak. Corner of La Salle and Ontario (or is it Erie), basically right around Hard Rock Cafe and Rock & Roll McDonalds. The deal is, you pay $48 a person for all you can eat, except drinks and dessert. Waiters come around with these big shishkebob type things with different kinds of freshly cooked meat on them. You tell them what you want, whether you want the rarer or more well done sections, and they carve it off for you on the spot.

I'm not an expert on restaurants, but I highly recommend this place. The food was really really good - we especially liked the house special rump roast cut. I liked the service and general atmosphere too, even though it was an expensive place, the people there weren't snooty, overbearing, or anything like that. You get your food fast, and they refill your water often, but they aren't bothering you every 2 minutes either to ask if everything is ok for the 50th time either. I hate when waiters do that. Thanks to their red/green coaster system (you get a coaster and flip it to the red side if you don't want to be interrupted, green side to have the waiters come by), you can eat in peace until you want to be served again.

Like I said, I'm no food critic. For $48 a person, it's probably too steep to go regularly, but unless you are a vegetarian, I definitely think it's worth going once in a while. Nothing beats a really great, high quality meal, and that is what you get at this place.

By the way, I also had dinner at Biaggi's yesterday. I don't know what the rest of you think, but back in the day at U of I, I always thought that Biaggi's was this super nice place that you only go to for special occasions. As a college student, pretty much all of our options for food were at around the same level. If it wasn't fast food, we rarely went anywhere beyond the standard places like Friday's, Chili's, Steak & Shake, Applebee's, Fazoli, Olive Garden, etc. Biaggi's always seemed like it was a big step above all those places. In my 4 years at school, I only went there once, and it was for lunch on a Sunday.

Well, when I went yesterday, the place didn't seem quite as high class as I used to think it was. Maybe the Biaggi's in Deer Park isn't as nice as the one in Champaign, but I doubt that. I think it's more because of the fact that I have gotten to eat at a lot more nicer places, in the 2 years since I left school and started working. It just feels weird that a place I used to think was so fancy, is now merely a somewhat souped-up version of Olive Garden in my mind.

Fantasy Politics

During a conversation at dinner yesterday, the topic came up on how our country's political system is limited to 2-parties. I haven't studied political science beyond junior year of high school, so I can't really get into an in-depth discussion about whether it's good to have more political parties involved or not, instead of just Democrat/Republican.

However, one thing I was thinking about was how cool it would be if we had like 20-30 political parties to choose from (instead of 2.01). Not so much in the sense of increasing democracy (i.e. allowing more groups to be represented). But if we had that many candidates for each election, from the local races to the Presidential races, then we could have fantasy leagues for politics.

I can picture it: every time an election year comes around, you and your boys would hold a draft, a few months in advance of Nov. 2nd. The standard league settings would probably require you to start 1 President, 2 Senators, a bunch of Congressmen, 1 Mayor, 1 Governor, maybe a few state senators too. Then you score points depending on how well they do in the election. Like 1 Fantasy point for every 15 electoral votes in the presidential race, 1 pt for each percentage of the vote in the other races, 10 for each win, etc.

The only problem is that there isn't enough games, it all ends up coming down to one day. Although I'm sure you could probably tweak the rules somehow, to let you have weekly matchups, even starting maybe as early as the primaries.

I know it sounds stupid, but I'm telling you, it could work. Basically all of the same things that make fantasy football or baseball exciting translate to fantasy politics. Like in this year's race, the biggest stud to get would probably be Barack Obama, pretty much a lock to win, especially more valuable at a critical position like Senator. On the other hand, if you drafted Jack Ryan, you got totally screwed when he pulled a Ricky Williams, forcing you to scramble to pick up a scrub like Alan Keyes off the waiver wire to replace him.

Trades would be cool too. Maybe after watching the 2nd Presidential debate, you would decide to ship G-Dubs and Phil Crane in return for Kerry, Melissa Bean, and a first round pick in the next election (which would probably get you a stud mayor like Daley).

Most importantly, if we could make fantasy politics a reality, more people would definitely follow politics more closely and passionately, like they should be anyways. We wouldn't need Puff Daddy and Cameron Diaz begging us to vote, or need Ben & Jerry's and Chipotle to remind us to register.

Ok, so in the end, maybe it's not the greatest or most realistic idea. Sorry. This is the kind of thing that happens when I go out to a club and don't drink, smoke, or dance, and then my mind wanders off to nowhere.

I guess what makes fantasy sports what it is, is that it's separate from reality (hence the "fantasy" part). To some extent you control your team's results, but mostly it still depends on a lot of things you have no control over. And when your team loses, it hurts, but outside of some lost pride, weeks of sadness, and maybe $10 or $20, it's not going to affect the rest of your life a whole lot.

As much as it sucks when your fantasy football team fails, it would suck a whole lot more if you made the wrong moves in fantasy politics, and as a result, all of a sudden your taxes were doubled and you got drafted to go fight in some war.