breakfast first

About the Weather

When I first moved to San Francisco, I would sometimes grumble when it drizzled since, Hey, this is California -- it's always supposed to be sunny, right? "You can't control the weather," people would frequently reply. I would responded, jokingly, that it only seems like we can't control the weather because there isn't any significant financial incentive to do so. Maybe, I'd go on, if California state income taxes were tied to the number of sunny days in the year, or average temperature (and standard deviation), maybe then we'd see some progress in this whole weather-control business. Har har.

Well, I was pretty much stunned to learn tonight (and I'm sure this will amuse my more financially savvy friends) that there are indeed weather futures traded on stock exchanges! Apparently they first appeared on the Chicago Mercantile exchange in 1999 and have really taken off, allowing industries at the mercy of good weather to essentially buy an insurance policy. (This article has a pretty good overview.) That is some wild and wooly stuff.

While I'm all impressed by this display of creativity, I am somewhat worried (and I'm sure this will amuse my more free market-minded friends) that this will lead to humanity's rushing into things like dumping 4 tons of some space-age dessicant into the atmosphere to make a storm cloud disappear, without really knowing what exactly we're affecting. But insurance companies (thinking about hurricanes) and sporting event producers are no doubt wetting themselves over the possibilities, and as we know, the more money that's involved, the less time there is for reflection.

Must remember to avoid

Over Thanksgiving dinner last night, someone jokingly remarked how the gravy was good enough to drink straight. This steered the discussion to a local Seattle soda company, Jones Soda, and more specifically to their Turkey and Gravy flavor soda. Well, if that ain't science for ya!

Disgusting though it was, it did remind me of the book Little America which I read when I was about thirteen or so. (God bless my brother-in-law for recommending (and lending me) books that were far too mature for my age.) At some point in the novel, the main character tries to boost sales of his not-good-tasting salad dressing by lacing it with cocaine; later, people are chugging bottles of the dressing in the supermarket aisles. I really enjoy that imagery.

Chez Ficus

My good buddy FK recently moved from the Bay Area to Seattle and became a first-time homeowner. Ambitious fellow that he his, he set out a list of improvements he'd like to make to the house. Now he's started a blog, Chez Ficus, that lets us peek into this world of plaster, old wiring, and plumber diplomacy. Complete with photos! Start at the beginning to get the backstory.

In Search of Lost Time

I think it's fair to say that the education I received in high school was quite pitiful. Only three teachers stand out in my mind as good educators; the rest were essentially babysitters. They were so bad, in fact, that I realized how bad they were as a high school student. That's a bad sign -- when a disaffected punk says the teachers really aren't fit to teach, things have really gone south.

Anyway, one of the lowlights of my high school years is that, despite being in so-called Advanced English for three years (freshman to junior), I was never asked to read an entire book. Not once. Short stories, yes. A few essays, yes. Parts of a book sometimes, but never a complete book. Not even The Catcher in the Rye! Amazing.

As a result, I've read very few of the classics. One of the most embarassing moments of my life came on a date with Miss J while we were browsing around a bookstore and ran into the Cliffs Notes stand. Miss J picked one up and said, "I used to love checking off all of the titles of books that I've read on the inside cover. Let's do that now and compare!" She proceeded to check off the vast majority of the titles; I seem to recall getting about one and a half. Not exactly the way to impress my date.

Since I have a little more time on my hands (now that I am without commute) I've decided to put more of the classics into my reading diet in a vain but none-the-less worthwhile attempt to make up for lost time. I considered going about it in an organized fashion, following paths put forth in books such as The Well Educated Mind and The New Lifetime Reading Plan, but they're a little too structured for me at the moment, so I'm just winging it.

To kick things off, I read Oedipus the King by Sophocles. I knew the basic point -- Oedipus kills dad, marries mom -- but none of the plot. It is great stuff...even though you know how it's going to end, there are many twists and turns and the tension builds with every page you turn. When I finished, I couldn't believe I'd waited this many years to read a mere eighty pages. If you haven't read it either, you should consider it.

Remote violence

As if guns haven't already separated people enough from their actions, some guy in Texas is setting up a website that will let users fire a rifle at animals on his ranch.

The idea came last year while viewing another Web site on which cameras posted in the wild are used to snap photos of animals.

"We were looking at a beautiful white-tail buck and my friend said 'If you just had a gun for that.' A little light bulb went off in my head," [Underwood] said.

Good God, do you hear yourself?

Good Idea

To read: nominations for the Best Software Essays of 2004, a book being editted by Joel Splosky.

More saving on consumables

Hot on the heels of saving money on contacts lenses, I turned my attention to another money sink: razor blades. In the past, I've attempted to save money in this department by switching to an electric razor, but alas, even a high-end electric razor made mincemeat of my hella sensitive skin. (Aren't I just a mess of problems?) After that, I decided to play it safe and stick with my Mach 3/Neutrogena Razor Defense shaving cream, pricey habit though it is.

So I did a little searching the other night and found RazorsDirect.com, which sells in bulk and has pretty good prices (looks like about $1.37/cartridge in the 48-pack), so I'm going to give them a try. Sadly I don't have any stats on what I currently spend on razors, but considering that I typically pick them up on-demand, it's probably much more than that.

While searching, I also found all sorts of other fun stuff. It turns out there's a whole segment of the industry focused on after-market cryogenic tempering of razors, which supposedly makes them last a long time (about four times longer). Who knew? At this point, I wouldn't even be surprised if they had a magazine for razor mods, along the lines of Import Tuner.

I also discovered this great post on epinions which has a history of the Gillette razor product line, complete with prices (for recent models). (Wow, seeing names like "Trac II" and "Atra" really brings back memories of my youthful television watching.) Fun fact: the Sensor razor, introduced in 1990 and priced at $0.75/razor, would go for $1.07 today, when adjust for inflation (comparing October 1990 to October 2004 CPI data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics). In comparision, today's top-of-the-line Mach 3 M3Power blades go for $2.50 a razor. Dang. Meanwhile, Gillette has done well for itself during that same period.

Every day I get in the queue / To get on the bus that takes me to you

As mentioned previously, Seattle's bus system is good, and extensive, but it can be difficult for a newcomer to navigate without using their online TripPlanner. That website isn't exactly designed for mobile devices, so about a week ago I put together a braindead, stripped-down interface to the trip planner. It's been working well for me on my hiptop (that is, I've actually taken the bus places; my previous attempts had ended in disaster) so I thought I'd pass it along.

I'll improve it greatly as time goes on, but I needed something right away so I could leave my immediate neighborhood.

The cost of a routine

It's funny how you get into little routines in life that end up costing you. For many years I've ordered my contacts online, and by default, I've always shopped at 1-800-contacts. I wear one-day disposables, so the price can really add up. And yet (other than when I first started ordering online) I've never really shopped around.

Tonight, I attempted to re-order my contacts. After a painful web navigation experience at the 1-800-contacts site (that's another story), I get to the final step of the order and see, way way at the bottom, in small type, that the estimated shipping date is...December 9th. "One or more of your items isn't in stock," it helpfully explained. I wear a pretty mild prescription, and standard lenses, so I can't imagine what would take a month.

Anyway, the potential delay got me thinking, so I decided to take a fast look around. I went to epinions and looked up my lens type. At the bottom of the page it listed a half-dozen online companies that sell my lenses, all cheaper than 1-800-contacts. I took a fast look at the sites, and ended up ordering from visiondirect.com, which says it's part of drugstore.com. Their price was about $5 less per box (30-day supply, per eye).

Assuming that I'll have a good experience with them, this will save us a lot of money over a year. Miss J wears similar contacts, so assuming a similar price reduction on her lenses, that will save us close to $250 a year. Pretty nice.

Useful Seattle Sites

I've started to collect some useful Seattle links over on linkmonger. Useful to me, anyway!