California > Texas

A friend of mine recently wrote me an email including the sentence:

"Texas tacos are better than cali’s without a doubt"

(Take note of the capitalization of Texas and subsequent non-capitalization of Cali typical of the geographic-inferiority-complex-afflicted Texan).

Like all other Californians, I’m a pretty laid back kind of guy — but this sort of blatant libel against the great state I call home (and the great tacos contained within) simply will not stand. So I present to you a simple, objective, mathematical analysis of the plausibility of the above statement:

California tacos

2008 population of the state of California[1]	36,756,666
2008 population of the state of Texas[2]	24,236,974
2006 % of California’s & Texas’ population of Mexican descent[3][4]	25%
Total legal Mexicans in California	36,756,666 * 0.25 = 9,189,167
Total legal Mexicans in Texas	24,236,974 * 0.25 = 6,059,244
Estimated illegal immigrant population of California (2006)[5]	2,830,000
Estimated illegal immigrant population of Texas (2006)[6]	1,640,000
Estimated % of illegal immigrants (in all states) from Mexico (2006)[7]	57%
Total illegal Mexicans in California	2,830,000 * 0.57 = 1,613,100
Total illegal Mexicans in Texas	1,640,000 * 0.57 = 934,800
Total Mexicans in California	9,189,167 + 1,613,100 = 10,802,267
Total Mexicans in Texas	6,059,244 + 934,800 = 6,994,044
Total Mexicans in California and Texas	10,802,267 + 6,994,044 = 17,796,311
Percentage of total Mexicans in California and Texas living in California	10,802,267 / 17,796,311 * 100 = 60.7%
Percentage of total Mexicans in California and Texas living in Texas	6,994,044 / 17,796,311 * 100 = 39.3%
Delta in percentage of total Mexicans living in California versus percentage of total Mexicans living in Texas	60.7% – 39.3% = 21.4%

The fact is: California has a 21.4% chance of having better tacos than Texas by virtue of a 21.4% greater population of people who make tacos.

In every day terms, that means that for every 5 tacos you eat in California that are fantastic, slightly less than 4 would have been fantastic were you in Texas. As someone who eats 3-6 tacos per day on average I can safely say that the above constitutes mathematical proof that California is, in fact, the best place in the world.

Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down, Vol. 1

Thumbs Down:

To male porn stars grunting, moaning and, especially, speaking. Shut the F up. Please.

This may come as a shock to you, your goatee, and your shorn scrotum, but no one is picking up a copy of “Schindler’s Fist” to hear your masterful line delivery of classic dialogue such as “Oh yeah” and “You like that?” I don’t know about those blonde twins, sir, but I do not. Like it. When you speak. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the things you are doing, but, much like a barber, shoeshiner or masseuse, I just don’t want you to speak while you are doing them. This is my time, not yours.

Thumbs Up:

To Mongolian Beef.

Or chicken. Or Mongolian ANYTHING. Fry some onions and garlic, add some unrecognizable meat product and then drown it in chili peppers and chili sauce. That is a meal fit for conquerors and the holders of territories that are strategically unimportant in RISK. If science ever created a Mongolian burrito, science could retire to Aruba because I would buy one of those for every breakfast, lunch and dinner. Mongolian food is the best.

I know people will complain that I’m describing a Panda-Expressed bastardization of Chinese food rather than traditional (bland and non-spicy) Mongolian cuisine like Boodog, which, if wikipedia memory serves me correctly, is mutton cooked within the abdominal cavity of a deboned marmot. To those people I say: I cannot hear your complaint regarding my historical inaccuracies due to the loud, tumescence-inhibiting chatter of the dude in this porno I’m watching.

DAMMNIT.

Bonus neat fact about Mongolia: Apparently real live Tremors live in their deserts, Maybe (More here)