Taco Bell's statistically invalid promotion

So Jacoby Ellsbury just stole second base in game 2 of the world series. Taco Bell has a promotion that says everybody in the United States can have a free taco.

This has to be one of the most horseshit offers ever, both in spirit and statistical impossibility.

Lets look at the numbers.

• Offer is limited to 2-5pm local time on October 30, 2007. (180 minutes)
  
• Of course, most people are at work between 2 and 5 pm on a Tuesday. This is the "horseshit in spirit" reasoning. The MLB broadcasters even mentioned that they'd serve more between 2 and 5 AM.
  
• As of July, 2007, there were 301,139,945 people in the United states. (source)
• 202,360,787 between ages 14 and 65
• 12% live in poverty. Poor people are more likely to give a shit about a free Taco Bell Taco. 12% of the US population is 36,136,793
  
• The last 5 times I went to Taco Bell, it took them 5-10 minutes to complete my order.
• Lets be generous and say that they could turn around an order in 5 seconds, assuming everybody is just getting their free taco and nothing else, and that everybody pays attention and moves forward in line in an assembly line fashion.
• Lets be more generous and pretend that each store just continuously cranks out tacos and puts them in a big pile at the register, and everybody can just take one and go. Conceivably (but not practically) they could deliver 90 per minute, if every customer was running in unison through the queue and grabbed their free taco with the skill and precision of a relay racer receiving the baton handoff.
• As of 2006, there were 5,608 Taco Bell locations in the United States. (source) The numbers have been in decline for the past several years, and Taco Bell's food continues to suck, so there's no good reason to assume that that number has increased significantly in 2007. Again, though, we'll be generous and round up to an even 6000.
• So using the actual numbers and realistic estimates from above, 5608 stores can serve a taco every 5 seconds (12 per minute) for 180 minutes.
  
• 5806 x 12 x 180 = 12,540,960 tacos available.
• So there's no way "everybody in America" is eligible. They can't statistically be eligible. Not all of them. Each of them, individually, can *think* they're eligible. But they'll be wrong. Most of them can't be.
• Statistically, 96% of America is ineligible for this promotion.
  
• In other words: Look at the 12 people on your left. Look at the 12 people to your right. One of you is eligible.
  
• Remember, there's 36 million people living in poverty. That's only enough for 1 out of every 3 poor people.
  
• Using those generous numbers from above... 6000 stores can each serve 90 tacos per minute for 180 minutes.
• 6000 x 90 x 180 = 97.2 million tacos available.
• Again, there's no way that everybody in America is eligible. We're up to about 33% of the population give or take. Close to half the if you only include ages 14-65, but that's only if you concede that old people and kids don't matter, you ageist jerk.
• So now, look to your left, and look to your right. Now "only" 2 of you aren't eligible.
• 1 of you is eligible if you knock over the little kid or grandma next to you. (ageist jerks only.)
  

Some summary bullet points.

• Taco Bell states that 100% of America is eligible for this promotion.
  
• The actual number is closer to 4%
• Thus, Taco Bell is confused about the difference between 100% and 4%.

Nice job Taco Bell. You're 100% awesome!

Also, there's a rumor that Taco Bell taco meat isn't really beef at all (hence, that's why they call it "meat". It being made from "whatever" meaty goodness is in the scraps pile.) This is of course ridiculous. I'm pretty sure Taco Bell meat is made from 100% USDA Beef.

molting

(Or - a medical entry with forced humor so people don't think i'm dying.)

So apparently I'm some sort of crustacean all of the sudden.

And it's molting season.

You know when you get sunburned, and then you peel? It's a lot like that, except without the sunburn. And the "peels" are crunchier.

Nice imagery, huh?

From what I've read, it appears that in humans, it's called (medically) sloughing, but please do yourself a favor and don't do a google image search for that. If you do, rest assured, that I'm not looking anything like that.

For the 90% of you that just did that search, I'm willing to bet that you wish you'd stayed with the crunchy sunburn imagery.

Anyhow, what started as a mysterious rash on my forearms, and then turned into what looked like a bad case of poison ivy on my arms wrists and neck, has now exploded into a lovely, itchy rash that's spread (at least in some capacity) pretty much everywhere except (fortunately) my face and my... uh.. how to put it delicately... "boy junk".

So, being the health-conscious person I am, I made my first visit to a doctor since... oh... the early 90s. I guess that's not technically true. I visited the doctor with Judi when she was pregnant (late 90s) and I went along with Andy to some of his doctor's appointments. Nonetheless, pending the results of some blood tests, I'm a model of health. (Except for, you know, the molting.)

So I got some 'roids, some antibiotics (yes, Mom, I remember that I'm allergic to Penicillin), and some ointment. And a follow-up appointment next Monday. And a shot in the ass, which, surprisingly, was far more pleasant that getting blood drawn. I used to donate blood pretty regularly, but for some reason, the last few times I've given, it's been way uncomfortable. Downright painful, even. So I guess in retrospect I shouldn't have been surprised that getting the shot in the butt was less painful than giving blood, but I think that's an understandable assumption.

I hereby declare that I have the option to revise my "comfort preference" with regards to things being stuck in my arm vs my butt. (see: colonoscopy and/or prostate exam.)


So what is it? The Doctor said he thinks it's a mild case of
"Stevens-Johnson syndrome" Don't look up pictures of that one, either. If you already did, rest assured that the pictures that you find aren't in any was representative of "mild". I'm hoping to get the results of the blood work in the mail soon. (Mainly because i said they could mail them to me if they were negative. They'll call if it's bad news.) And I'm supposed to "not be a hero" and "go to the emergency room" if I start "not being able to breathe". Call me old fashioned, but I prefer my medical advice to not be of the "no duh" variety. I understand, though, he probably has to mention things like that, lest he lose his license.

More followup after next Monday.


Oh - the other thing that totally sucks? I have no idea what triggered the reaction, but there's a good chance it was one of the woods I used when woodturning. Evidence of this increased when, like a genius, I used the leafblower to clear out the sawdust accumulated under my lathe in the garage. Symptoms worsened shortly after that. More sucky - having just gotten the lathe, and having just gotten a bunch of random pen blanks, I've been exposed to a shit-ton of different wood species, in a short amount of time, so I can't really narrow down the culprit(s) easily. When this is all said and done, I'll have to find a good allergy specialist who can help me figure that one out.

On a "good news" note - it's only 2:15 AM, and I'm starting to get tired. I haven't slept more than a few hours each the past 3 or 4 days. Surprisingly, I've felt totally refreshed throughout. Of course, I'm on-call this week. I'll probably get paged a billion times now...

let them lie

first attempts at turning pens

I turned my first 2 pens over the past couple nights. The first one is actually a combination of 2 different pens - one that was going to be cherry, and the other an unidentified pen blank that I got some time ago. When turning them, I got a little bit too heavy-handed and wound up splitting the wood when it got thin, effectively ruining that half of the pen. Rather than waste the effort, I put them together into one mismatched "first try" pen.

Honestly, I'd have to say it's more of a "use this for paying bills" kind of pen, rather than a "showpiece that's going to net me millions of dollars in lucrative pen-turning contracts" kind of pen. It's hard to not be disappointed, because the grain on the mystery blank was really really nice. The pictures are a little blurry, because apparently my camera doesn't auto-focus so well when you take pictures in near darkness, which was the case when I took these.



I'm far more pleased with Pen #2 - made from another mystery-wood pen blank. I even managed to make a captive ring on the top part, though it's shaped more like a thick washer than a doughnut. But to be fair, I don't have a fancy special captive-ring tool - just a skew chisel, so...

I didn't plan it, but the clip for the pen comes meets up pretty well with the "lumpy" part at the bottom of the top piece. Now I wish I'd planned that out better, so that the clip came down right at the center. Oh well.

I'm also pretty sure that, with time, the captive ring will snap off, as it will take a fair amount of abuse given its location inside the pen clip. Maybe I'll just make this a "desk pen" instead of a "carry pen" -- that way I'll be less likely to break the ring off when clipping it in my pocket or something. We'll see..

Pao Ferro bowl

This is the small bowl I made this weekend. The wood is the smaller piece of the pao ferro I bought last week at rockler. I didn't make any major mistakes on this one, and I am pretty pleased with the shape. There's a little bit of tearout on the inside of the bowl, and I could have done a little better job blending the side to the bottom on the inside of the bowl.



I didn't think to take a picture of the blank before I turned 80% of it into shavings, but it pretty much looks like this larger blank that I haven't done anything with:

Lathe projects + Shopping experience

I finally got my new lathe which was on back order for a few weeks. I've spent my nights turning a few of my famous chipped-edge bowls, one bowl that came out half-way decent, and a lidded box that may be nice enough to sell for more than the price I paid for the wood, were I to try to sell it.

The patented chipped-edge bowl, made from the remains of what Judi says is a willow oak that died in our backyard. Interesting note: this is the same tree that (i think) kept rooting into our main sewer line. The wood was kind of punky in spots, and this was more of a "make some shavings" project than it was a "make something nice" project, so I didn't really put any effort into the finish.


A straight-sided bowl made out what I think is bacote. It's from a blank I picked up about a year ago in a grab bag from woodcraft, so I'm not 100% sure. I caught the wood a couple times with the tool, leaving some pretty deep gauges in the wood. In this picture, you can sort of see these from 9 to 11 o'clock on the inside of the bowl, and from about 6 to 9 o'clock on the outside of the bowl. Other than those, though, this one came out pretty nice for attempt number 2.


Next I decided to try a lidded box. This is from another uncertain species blank from the previously mentioned grab bag. The grain and color are remenicient of mahogany, but the wood doesn't feel dense enough (to me, anyways) to be certain. It's sort of hard to tell now, but when it was in "rough block" form, it just seemed too light. Anyhow, this one came out okay for a first try, if I do say so myself. I didn't apply any finish, and I could have done a better job sanding, but without a chuck, it was too much of a pain to try to remount the pieces for sanding after I'd parted them. And I didn't remember to sand the insides. The friction fit on the lid is the tiniest of hairs too tight, and when the lid is fully engaged, it is somewhat difficult to seperate. Also, when the lid is pressed down tightly, a small crack opens up on the side of the bottom piece, visible only when the pressure of the lid pushing out causes the bottom part to expand. :(


My friend Brian (the guy with the sailboat) loaned me his pen-turning mandrel, which allows you to (surprise!) turn pens on a lathe. I went down to the local Rockler on my lunch hour with the intention of buying some pen kits and maybe a bowl blank or two. Upon arriving, I was greeted by some overly-friendly employee. Apparently he was under the impression that since we both had a lot of facial hair that we were instantly "beard buddies" or something. Like most people (I'm assuming) that I've never bother to talk to, I'm a bit of an introvert. After about 5 minutes of pretending to be nice while listening to him yammer on all the gorgeous (and overpriced) turning blanks they carry, I was finally able to get rid of him and browse in peace. Tip for salespeople: if the person you're talking to is giving you answers no longer than "yeah", there is little you can do to influence the sale. Your customer is either uninterested in you or your products. Also note that they walked into your store voluntarily and are looking at your merchandise.

(hint: It's probably you that they're uninterested in.)

So anyhow, I picked out a few Pao Ferro blocks that will wind up being bowls or something, because they were relatively inexpensive and looked like they'll have an interesting figure. It's a new wood to me - we'll see what it looks like. I grabbed about 10 or so pen kits that happened to be on sale, figuring they'll be good for cheap gifts. (note to friends and family: "cheap gifts" = "thoughtful handcrafted gifts that for all you know must have cost a lot of money.")

As I'm heading up towards the registers, Beard guy comes out of nowhere with a board (I think it was lacewood) asking me what I thought of it. I said it was nice. He then went on to explain that (somebody) told him to "sort the wood in the back", and he found this and he was going to buy it before anyone else did. In other words, he likes to go through and grab out the "good stuff" before it makes it to the shelf. Which is cool - that's just one of the perks of working retail there. But it seems to me that maybe, just maybe, if you're going to do that.. maybe you shouldn't excitedly tell your customers about it.

In summary.. leave me alone.