I've been commuting by car to work for about 1.5 years now, and I still hate driving. As a regular driver though, one would think I'd favor access to cheap fuel and find a common bond of complaint with my co-workers, TV advertisers, and politicians over the misery that is high gas prices. In fact, I'm happy to see prices skyrocket, revealing the true cost of car commuting.
Friedman correctly points out that reducing the price of an addicting substance is no way to cure the addiction. I agree, and I'm happy to see high gas prices having an effect on the kinds of cars people are buying. People used to talk about "hybrids" being environmentally friendly, disregarding the fact that there are many small cars that are more fuel efficient than certain hybrids. Now that efficiency actually matters to people, I hear actual fuel efficiency numbers much more frequently than I hear the assumption that hybrid *means* efficient.
High gas prices has made efficiency one of the most important factors in new car buying. It has also reduced the amount that people are driving. What's not to like? I do wish that gas prices were allocated appropriately (i.e. taxed more), benefiting public transportation and alternative fuels rather than oil companies, but for now I'm happy that there's at least some incentive for car makers to step up their technology and for fuel consumers to consume less. In the US, we're still getting a bargain compared to European prices.
I have an Amazon credit card. Amazon is, of course, not the bank. The bank is Chase. The card "rewards" me by giving me approximately 1% back in the form of Amazon gift certificates. When I got the card, I assumed my Amazon account would just get random credits of $25 every time I spent $2,500. Instead, Chase keeps track of my "points" and when I have enough for another $25, they send some kind of notification to a "Rewards Processing Center". The rewards center *prints* a coupon code on a piece of paper and mails it to me. I open the envelope, recycle the cover sheet, type the 13 digit number into Amazon, and recycle the certificate and envelope. To me, this is like an email client that sends an email to a processing center where it is printed and mailed... and where then ultimate recipient then re-types it into their email client. Total inefficiency.
I've been trying out twitter for a couple weeks. I didn't think I had anything to say using short frequent text-based messages (not "text messages" because I still get charged for those, but messaged consisting only of text). I think I was missing the point of twitter; I think saying some very simple things is pretty useful. I'm also finding that I *do* have things to say. Compare reading just one newspaper article to reading no articles but all the headlines.
I had a great time at the American Craft Brew Fest today. The fest took place in the World Trade Center Boston, which is the same location of the Massachusetts bar exam. The carpet was the same bright blue color, but by all other measures, the beer fest was better than the bar exam.
The fest had a great selection of beers, and the crowd seemed focused on certain craft brew leaders (or perhaps the bar tenders at certain booths were just slow to serve). Among the greats: Lagunitas, Dogfish Head (probably the most popular), Brooklyn Brewery, and Stone. Check out my blurry picture of Sam Calagione serving up Dogfish Head and Garrett Oliver serving up Brooklyn (note the cowboy shirt with hop vines and flowers).
There were a lot of quality lesser known beers too. Interestingly, Michelob had a large booth. Someone told me one of their beers was really good, but it looked like most were avoiding it.
The highlight of the fest for me was a presentation by Garrett Oliver, who is clearly an advocate for drinking better beer. Garrett had one point that I found particularly inspiring (paraphrased): Some of your best experiences in life with be sharing a meal with family and with friends; shouldn't you be eating real food and the drink equivalent? His basic argument is that mainstream american beer is like wonderbread. It's meant to synthesize the real thing, but it's not made of real ingredients using a real process. (Maybe the word "honest" would convey this point better. Hopefully, you get the idea.)
I started brewing my own beer over the last couple months. It's quite an enjoyable process involving simple ingredients, a reasonable amount of effort, and positive results. Much like baking bread, there are very few ingredients but infinite variety in the finished product. It's also a hobby that requires cool equipment like giant stainless steel pots, tubes, siphons, bottle cap crimpers, etc. Brewing has great colors too: lots of copper, brown, and shiny silver (the stainless steel).
My first brew was a bock, which did not turn out that great (something about lack of cold-aging, "lagering", that I didn't do). The second brew (pictured) is a Belgian Dubbel that turned out great. I'm still a beginning brewer so I'm using malt extract as one of my ingredients. In the picture here I'm pouring the syrupy goodness that is malt extract into my beer. Over time, I plan to amass an arsenal of brewing gear, which I'll use to expand into "all grain" brewing.
Starbucks has a new logo featuring an older, more hung-over, split-tail mermaid. This mer-woman comes in brown, and is apparently connected to Starbucks new "Everyday" coffee. It's a warm, rustic look, and as it turns out, that's because it's the original Starbucks logo (but with strategically placed locks).
The Competitive Enterprise Institutes's pro CO2 advertisements get even more hilarious with age. There was at least some semblance of a debate on this topic two years ago when these ads were made, but there's really not very many people left who would say that there's no scientific consensus.
I never did post a follow up here regarding the Apartment Therapy Fall Colors 2007 contest. We ended up winning second place in the east! I even made a video. Making videos is actually not that easy, even on a Mac.
to buy something on eBay? Shouldn't it just take one or two? Or maybe it shouldn't take any.
My cousin is making yoga bags. Excellent holiday gifts - assuming your giftee has is interested in yoga.
My law school contracts professor, Mark Pettit, was on NPR yesterday for his (now famous) singing. I had the honor of supporting Professor Pettit on electric guitar back in 2003.
I was moving around Halloween last year and I didn't get a chance to make a jack-o-lantern. This year I bought a 40 lbs. pumpkin and gave it big cartoon-ish face.
I just ordered Radiohead's new album, In Rainbows, for about $5. You can only pay in Pounds Sterling, but the price is entirely up to the buyer (so you can choose to pay £0.00 if you so desire). The business model relies on consumers paying for something they can get for free, where I think any motivation to pay nothing is actually driven by inconvenience rather than perceived value. I tend to leave pretty good tips at restaurants, so I have no trouble conceptualizing spending a little extra simply so that someone gets paid a little extra. I do think that the difficulty of making micropayments by typing in credit card numbers and similarly complicated transactions is holding back a lot commerce. I'm always optimistic that things will be more efficient in the future, but check out my third point in my 2003 post on a similar topic.
I'm really fascinated by this story of an artist who set up an apartment in some sort of utility area in a shopping mall parking garage: "Starting in 2003 I committed to the idea of creating a luxury apartment in the mall. Over the course of the years to come I systematically coordinated the movement of the core elements that start to define a home."
My entry to Apartment Therapy's Fall Colors contest is the first one to be posted! Check it out and vote!
