Category Archives: Wondering - Page 3

Watching The Races

I’ve been keeping an eye on the COVID race for a few months now.  The players I watch are all standout players:  FL, TX, PA, and GA.  Those are the places that have people that I know, so I watch their progress.

I remember when FL was the star, I seem to recall it was in the top 5 for a while.  But PA put forth a massive effort and shot right up the charts.  TX was a slow starter, but it’s been doing pretty well lately.  GA has always been mediocre, which I suppose is a good thing, honestly.  But FL is recently finding its mojo and is climbing in rank again.  Go, FL!  Obviously, no one is going to take the crown from NY, and NJ is probably always going to be second to NY (in everything), so there’s only so far you can go.

For three of my players, I watch their personal progress dashboards.  Two of them, FL and TX, use the same software, so it kind of gives some equal comparison of the numbers.  But in both cases, they use graphs that are misleading.  Well, they aren’t if you understand the data, but for casual observers and those that don’t want to put the minimal effort into understanding, the response could be either, "this isn’t so bad", or "this is great" when the reality is neither of those sentiments.

Take a graph from FLs dashboard:

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Wow, that’s impressive.  Deaths are falling, and dramatically at that!  This is all behind us, let’s go party!

But there is a small disclaimer below the chart, for those that care to read: "Death data often has significant delays in reporting…".  That means that those low numbers in the near term are low because there’s no data yet.  Those numbers will rise as time goes on, but that’s just fine, because there will be newer, lower numbers to report as time goes on as well.

Here’s a graph from TX’s dashboard.

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This is just dumb design: plotting two values, one that will constantly increase, and one that will remain relatively constant on the same scale.  This will have two effects.  First, the number of deaths per day (in blue) looks like a really small value.  And comparing 20 to 1,698 does make 20 seem very small.  But as the total number grows, and it will, every day, the scale is going to eventually have to be adjusted, and the daily value is going to be insignificant.

TX does the same charting with the number of cases, with the same effects.

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Maybe its incompetency that made these charts, but in the current political climate, and judging that these two states have pushed very hard to justify their reopening plans, it might not be a stretch to think this is just propaganda.  The numbers don’t lie, they’re not telling you anything false.  It’s just being presented in a way that looks most favorable.

It’s Never Been A Better Time To Buy…

…from someone other than Amazon.

It was about a year ago I had made a post about how I’ve wanted to try and reduce my dependency on Amazon.  For the most part, I feel like I’ve been successful.  Sure, there are still things I buy from the empire, usually quick-need things or small trinkets that they’ll ship free where other places couldn’t be bothered with such a small order.  Seriously, I’m buying an electrical wall plate for $2.50 and you’re going to drive it to my house, tomorrow, for free?!  That’s just dumb.  But I’m sure they’re getting it back somehow.

Anyway, since everyone is stuck at home, Amazon is the place for supplies now, right?  And everyone is also trying to scratch their consumer itches, too, so there’s Amazon, again.  But, if you do your research every time, you might just find that there are other options that are just as good and many times better than the empire.  Let me illustrate.

Example 1.  I’ve been without a microwave for quite some time now, maybe 8 months.  How I’ve survived without my dedicated popcorn maker, I don’t know.  But I figured enough is enough.  I want popcorn.  So I went on the hunt for a microwave that was simple and basic-duty.  The options: Amazon, Target, Sears, and Lowes.  Because I’m a brand whore, my preferred brands were Panasonic and Kenmore, which ended up excluding Target and Lowes.  But would you guess?  The winner was Sears.  Sears!  And get this – no free shipping!  But, even including the shipping (a whopping $15), the price was the same as Amazon and I still got it in two days.  Who says only Amazon can do that shit?

Example 2.  I’ve had some stereo speaker stands on my Amazon wish list for some time, just waiting for the right time to make that move.  Today, I decided to make that move.  The stands are made and sold by Monoprice, and sold through Amazon (as well as through their own website).  The stands on Amazon?  $76 each.  The stands on Monoprice?  $55.  Both with free shipping.  I work at a company that sells some product through Amazon and I know it’s not exactly a win-win to make a deal with the devil.  You may gain a lot of eyeballs, but your profit margin is going to suffer greatly from the cut they take. 

And that leads me to example 3.  eBay has become my primary Amazon alternative.  Just some simple hair product purchased today.  $18 at Ulta, $12 at Amazon, and $10 on eBay.  Ok, so I’ll get 3-day instead of 1-day delivery from eBay, but this isn’t a need-now product.  More importantly, I think it’s important to buy from eBay because it’s smaller retailers or even individuals doing a hustle.  You’re more likely to be helping people than a company.  And while eBay is a company and yes, they do take fees for their service, it’s not a egregious as the empire.  Plus there’s the whole flea-market atmosphere which has a slight appeal to me.  There’s less Ai involved, so when you find something you like and a great price, it’s because you’re smart, not because the empire’s computer knows everything (fucking EVERYTHING) about you and tossed you a biscuit.

And speaking of eBay, I need to go now and buy the stereo stand that is also in my Amazon wish list.  Same product, same price (actually 9 cents cheaper on eBay), free shipping.  Why not patronize the little guy?  Make them happy in these bleak days.  Amazon is going to do just fine.

The Unexplainable Terror

Following on the heels of the other dream post, last night I had a nightmare.  I know, most people’s nightmares are pretty realistic and usually grounded in some sort of reality.  An event that could potentially happen.  No, not me.  The things that scare me to death are just… weird.

In most of my dreams, they play out kind of first-person, kind of third-person.  More accurately, it’s like I’m a cameraman in the dream.  I may interact and be party to the events going on, but there are also a lot of wide shots or overhead shots, or views that I could not physically have if I was there.  It’s actually quite typical for the astral plane, which is not bound to any concepts of the physical plane.  But I digress.  I’ll come back to that in a bit.

The part where the dream centers on is where myself and a few people have been placed in a remote location.  Not exactly barren, but there’s no civilization there.  We more or less know each other but we don’t know why we’re there.  We are informed that a nuclear explosion is expected to happen.  It’s not absolutely certain, but it’s highly likely.  The time frame is also unknown, but it’s expected to be soon.  It’s assumed to be an attack from outside, not something we’re doing to ourselves.  Despite this, no one is really freaking out over it.  It’s all delivered and received very matter-of-factly.

This is the unexplainable part.  After being told that essentially we’re all going to die soon in a nuclear blast, it is explained that is not exactly how we’re going to die.  When the first nuclear explosion happens, we will utilize a different weapon for retaliation.  Not much detail is given about this weapon or technology, but when asked about its effect, the explanation is "time will go backwards for about 30 seconds."

That statement still creeps me even now.  I can’t explain why, but I’ll try in a little bit.

Our group passes the time, inexplicably, playing music together in a band format.  We’re figuring out songs that everyone knows and surprising each other with our musical knowledge and breadth of experience.  During one song, me being cameraman, I have a wide shot of the group playing and suddenly the music stops and everyone has been knocked to the ground.  In the distance, a mushroom cloud starts forming.  The time has come.

As cameraman, still, the scene pans to the left to an open field where I know the special weapon is.  Out of the ground, small (like really small, maybe an inch in diameter) metal tubes rise up.  The number sticking in my head is 60, but there were no way 60 in the scene, maybe 8-10.  And they each shot a small cylinder high into the air.  No huge explosion or report – I’m not sure how they were propelled.  A few seconds later, the payloads came back down to the ground and submerged into the ground.  Again, no explosion, they just buried themselves into the ground near the tubes they were released from.

The weapon then started and it appeared like the payloads got sucked back out of the ground and arced back to their tubes, but the motion was choppy and sequenced.  Not all the payloads came back out and the ones that did made a very clear whooshing/shh-ing sounds as they came back out.  And then.. nothing.  Stillness, a freeze-frame.  And I woke up.

I woke up absolutely terrified.  And what I was scared about was not death or dying, but this concept of time going backwards.  As I’ve spent the day pondering why that is so scary to me, the best I can come up with is that in my dream, the smart people have theoretically devised a destruction method that transcends all life.  A nuclear response is simply not enough.  Destroying all life on Earth isn’t enough, even physically destroying the Earth itself isn’t enough.  This weapon has to destroy the entirety of existence, everywhere.  Because no one knows what would really happen if you could reverse time.  The best theory we have is the event horizon of black holes where time slows to nothing and matter is ripped apart at the atomic level.  What could happen if you went beyond that?

And even that explanation doesn’t satisfy me.  It’s assigning a bogeyman to the concept, but it’s the concept itself that scares me.  One of my post-waking thoughts was a consideration of how supposedly everything in our universe is simple vibrations.  Denser matter (the physical) vibrates at a slower frequency and you move into the astral and higher planes of existence the vibrations become higher.  And my mind thought that a sudden shift in time from forward to actual reverse, would disintegrate our beings by disrupting the vibrations in a way that we could not rematerialize again.

That probably doesn’t make any sense.  Let me try and give it some context.  In esoteric philosophy, there is the belief that at our core, we are a soul (an ego, an id) and we present ourselves on different planes of existence by forming bodies of material native to those planes.  Those bodies would be of the vibrational frequency native to the plane.  As you move up in divinity, you shed each denser body to begin life in a higher-frequency body in the higher plane.  Follow that so far?  So now, what if your ego/id/soul was ripped apart even at its highest frequency?  You would no longer exist, period.  Nothing, no one would exist anymore.  It’s the real end-times.  Not just the end of the physical world, but the end of all planes of existence, the end of existence itself.

But, that’s just a weird, funny, unexplainable idea.  I mean the planes of existence concept isn’t even widely considered valid, and no one even knows what time is all about.  Some sources say we’re a unique species that is bound by time, where other, higher forms do not have that constraint.  Oh well.  I guess time will tell what comes of this.  It’s just a dream, right?

That Dream When I Was A Friend

A few nights ago I woke up from a dream.  In the dream I was a Friend.  I was on the Friends sitcom and my brain was writing an episode for me.  This is what I remember from it.

Rachel was complaining about how every time she goes out to eat at a restaurant, the experience sucks.  Her food is never prepared right, the service is bad, everything.  Phoebe, Chandler, and I decide to go to a meal with her to see this first-hand.  At the restaurant, I notice that Rachel is getting some covert attention from the men and I suggest to her that maybe people are just intimidated by her looks.  She says she doesn’t get it.  I say, "maybe you’re too attractive for the public good."  Chandler of course takes the opposing viewpoint with sarcastic comments and Phoebe makes a non-sensical comment.  So far, my brain isn’t working all that hard at developing a script.  This is the standard Friends formula.

The waiter takes our orders.  Phoebe, then me, then Chandler, and as Rachel starts her order, the waiter starts collecting our menus and only partially paying attention to her.  When she is done, the waiter takes off without even acknowledging her order.  Rachel makes a "see?!" motion and we all mutter in agreement.  So it turns out that attractiveness is not Rachel’s problem.  We determine it’s that she’s just too particular about her order and the staff can tell she’ll be a high-maintenance customer and tune out.

Towards the end of meal, Rachel brings up the point about her attractiveness and her intimidation factor and gets an idea.  When the waiter comes back over for refills and is helping everyone else and ignoring her, she demands his attention. 

"Hey, what’s your name?"

"Matt," the waiter replies.

"Matt, I’m Rachel.  Would you like to go out on a date tonight?"

The waiter is startled and embarrassed, but sheepishly agrees.  Rachel writes her phone number on a napkin and says, "Call me after your shift."  The waiter takes the napkin and immediately refills her water and leaves.  Rachel motions to the water glass and to the waiter with a "See?" expression.  More muttered agreement.

The next day it is learned that Rachel and the waiter did go on a date and hooked up.  Rachel makes a cringey comment about "service."  Rachel, Joey and Chandler decide to go to the restaurant the next day, assuming the service will be good.  At the restaurant, Matt is not working.  However, Rachel is getting excessive service from all the male staff – bread, water refills, "everything ok?" checks.  And everyone that stops by to help her is sure to mention their name clearly.  It’s clear that Matt has spread the word to everyone how he hooked up with her.  Rachel is enjoying the attention, oblivious as to why, but Chandler is being very suspicious and is especially wary about the head waiter in particular who he describes as "Stalker-pro".  Chandler makes his point in Chandler fashion by reiterating his observations five different ways.

Rachel gets up to go to the restroom and stalker pro comes over to the table.  He strikes up a fake conversation and casually asks what Rachel’s name is.  Joey answers, "Rachel" and Chandler gives him a fierce look.  Stalker pro is called away by another waiter and Chandler hisses at him that this guy is definitely stalking Rachel and don’t give him any more information.  Stalker pro comes back and apologizes.  He clarifies her name is Rachel and asks what her last name is.  Joey starts to say, "Gree" and Chandler kicks him under the table.  Joey pivots and finishes with "Greetings".

"Her name is Rachel Greetings?", Stalker pro asks.

Chandler and Joey both confirm it, to stalker’s confusion.  Just then Rachel returns from the bathroom and stalker welcomes her.  "Hello, miss… greetings."

Rachel looks a little confused and replies, "Greetings." and Joey and Chandler both exclaim, "Greetings!"  Stalker is as confused as ever and leaves.

At the end of the meal, Rachel is thrilled by how everything has been perfect and how much attention she has gotten.  When the check comes, delivered by stalker, she offers to pay.  "I’ll just put it on my card."

Stalker looks a little victorious and says, "May I see your ID?"  As Rachel starts to instinctively look for her ID, Chandler interrupts, "No, we can’t let you pay for this meal!" And what follows is formula Friends – Joey and Chandler making up a reason why Rachel can’t pay for the meal that of course makes no sense.

And that’s when the dream started to fall apart.  Probably due to the lack of anything interesting coming out of my brain.  This stuff sort of writes itself.

The Way The Cookie Crumbles

Ah, youth.  A time of growth and exploration.  And a time to test limits and boundaries.  A time to express yourself in all sorts of unproductive and unhealthy ways.  A chance to act without any fear of consequence or concern of others.

I wax poetic about what I assume is youthful indiscretion at my local convenience store.  Framing the behavior in flowery prose is about the best I can do in the situation.  Certainly can’t catch them in the act; certainly couldn’t smack them in the head if I did.  And in some ways, I even hesitate to address the problem.  Not that my post is going to raise awareness of the problem and cause a rash of copycat actors, but sometimes it seems that just giving thought to problems seems to make them multiply.

So what’s the big, huge problem likely instigated by young hooligans upon my poor, local convenience store?  Well, there’s these cookies, you probably know of them, Fudge Stripes.  Shortbread cookies with chocolate stripes on one side and a chocolate back.  I like them.  I buy them every once in a while for breakfast.  Don’t judge me.  Tell me how cookies for breakfast is any worse than donuts.  It’s the same thing.

Anyway, these cookies.  At my local store, the cookies in the Fudge Stripes packages are always crushed.  Crushed into tiny crumbs, so eating them is an experience more like eating cereal than eating cookies.  And it’s not just a random thing.  It’s also not attributable to shipping problems.  Every pack is crushed.  Once I came in and the box was brand new and full.  I checked the lower layer.  All broken.

As maddening as this is, I do actually get it.  Breaking a shortbread cookie does have a measure of satisfaction.  It has a nice firm, but silent, snap to it.  I can understand why an ignorant child would be attracted, and maybe addicted, to doing something like that.  It still doesn’t make it right, or good.  And as an older person, I feel it’s my duty to express that these miscreants are going to be the future anarchists of the world.  The "Jokers" of their generation.  And I also have to comment on how bad the world has gotten compared to how it was when I was a kid, shoplifting candy from my local drug store.  Wait – scratch that last irrelevant (although true) comment.

Is the world worse?  Hell, yes it is.  But it’s only worse because there’s more of it.  More people, more opportunity, more stores, more products, more cookies.  The suck grows in proportion to the size of our environment.  And it’s this expansion that also feeds the proportional movement to create small, insular communities that attempt to keep out what is perceived as bad.  A poor solution – completely unsustainable.

So again, I reach the conclusion I’ve held for ever so long.  We need less people.  Sorry, fewer people.  We need to conserve everything we have – resources, sanity, cookies.

Breadcrumbs

On an online forum where I browse, someone had posted a gripe suggesting that everyone that posts should have to provide a minimum amount of information in their post.  The gripe was directed at people who were posting pictures of 2 or 3 CDs with a title like "What I bought today".  To the griper, posts like these were useless and added nothing to the community.  Many of the replies to the gripe were of the mindset, "let people do what they want", which I agree with.

Although I didn’t reply with my comments, I did try to understand and consider the problem without simply thinking, "let them be".  I mean, if they’re being stupid, why are they being stupid?  Is there a valid reason for them to make such a minimal post?  The rationale I came up with is that the post isn’t for everyone, it’s just for them.

The community I am referring to is Reddit, which can certainly be classified as "social media".  As is my standard for anything social media, I don’t participate much.  But this isn’t about me.  Most people have made their primary choice for social media, whether it be Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, WordPress, or many others.  Their chosen platform is where they document their life, at least the parts they want to share publicly.  Basically, it’s where they leave their breadcrumbs to look back on later to see how their life was in a specific time period.

So these posts that people are making with their recent purchases, they’re nothing more than a status update or a tweet.  And in Reddit, they can use subreddits as categories, to classify and group their different activities.  It’s a different application of the platform, and one that probably differs from those that want Reddit to be a discussion forum.  That difference leads to griping that the majority of posts are uninteresting to some people.  It’s probably not a surprise to observe that these are younger people making these status posts, where it’s older Reddit users complaining about the lack of discussion.

But yeah, look at me.  I could have put all this explanation in a reply on that thread, which would have spurred discussion and conversation.  Instead, I make a post in my little private-public journal, where no one can respond to me and start any conversations.  Am I any better?  Well, I’d never suggest something like that.

Help Us Help Them

I’m fighting a pretty tough bout of cynicism right now.  I got an email from a hotel chain of which I am a rewards member.  The email subject was about supporting the Australian relief efforts.  The big type pleaded for me to donate my rewards points for the cause. 

I have a long-standing issue with companies that ask their customers to help in disasters by giving them money.  Primarily because I am very, very certain that the company will use all the money collected in the drive as their own donation, and then they will take the tax write-off for that donation.  Don’t you think?  They’re not a non-profit.  You don’t get a receipt for your donation to them.  You can’t claim it as a tax deduction yourself.  Are they going to let that go to waste?  Hell, no.  Plus, they are the ones that get to say, "We donated $550,000 to the relief effort!"  And not all of it was their money, for sure.

This email plea irked me in another way.  They are asking you to give back something they gave to you to give to someone else.  That statement says what I mean it to say, but it doesn’t seem to capture the full audacity of the premise.  On the surface, it sounds legit.  The company has a liability on their books with all those outstanding rewards.  That’s value.  You’re donating something that has value.  But really, it’s nothing.  It’s all fake, virtual value.  You paid them for those points.  You redeem those rewards for empty rooms.  The empty rooms are there for offer regardless of any points balance.  What I’m saying is the hotel can just as easily make those rooms available for disaster relief regardless of any points donations.  All the donation does is reduce their future liability to their customers.

And here’s the final nagging thought.  Yes, charity is good.  Corporate charity should be good as well.  If no email had come in today, I wouldn’t have had anything to bitch about, so the fact they’re doing anything is better than nothing – I acknowledge that.  Regardless, if an offer evokes cynicism, it just doesn’t have the level of altruism that makes you proud of a company.

So when the offer from the company says they "will match up to $25,000" of donations, that’s really saying they are willing to donate $0.  As long as no one donates anything, that’s all they’re on the hook for.  And it’s also saying that if their customers are super-generous, they’ll personally stop at $25k.

I feel bad for criticizing a relief drive effort, but this offer just has a bad vibe to it.  I think they should have done it right or not done it at all.

News You Make Fake

In my phone’s news feed, there are some headlines that I know are pure clickbait and more times than I’m willing to admit to, I’ve clicked them.  The grand offender of this scam is a website, Alternative Nation, which seems to specialize in rock music gossip, a total tabloid trash website.

To get an idea of how bad they really are, I went directly to their site and did some browsing.  Because they appear to be a blogging platform, I simply appended /feed to their domain and I was able to get an RSS feed of their latest articles, which I loaded into Outlook for some cleaner review.

Here’s an example of how this bullshit works.  Eddie Van Halen has been rumored to be in poor health for a very long time.  So what the editors at AN do is create a headline that suggests EVH’s health has taken a turn for the worse.  An example would be: Eddie Van Halen Family Leaks Terrible ‘Skinny’ Photo. (The subject of the post is not EVH, but his wife.  The photo is not of EVH or his wife, but of a random skinny person who is representative of her weight loss goals.  Not a leak, not terrible.)

Another broader method they use is to exploit the perceived depravity of rock bands.  Motley Crue, Aerosmith, KISS are all prime targets here.  The trick is to take something completely simple or innocent and twist the words so your brain thinks it’s something dirty or horrible.  It’s your fault and when you figure it out after reading the article, you might be mad at AN for tricking you like that, but again, you know you’re to blame for reading too much into the headline.  Some examples:

  • KISS Singer Paul Stanley Leaks Creepy ‘Feet’ Photo – It’s a picture of him wearing KISS branded Puma shoes.  No leak, no feet, no creepy.
  • Steven Tyler Girlfriend Reveals ‘Worst’ Drug Used – A brief mention about listening to music while on acid.  "Worst" does not get used in the article.
  • John Lennon Sad ‘Licking’ Claim Finally Revealed – "Lick" as in "guitar lick", no tongues.  Sad, indeed!

The headlines have some go-to words: "sad", "disturbing", "terrible", "stuns", "caught".  But those words are probably part and parcel of any tabloid editor’s toolkit.  It wouldn’t surprise me at all if there was a utility that could re-write an article replacing all normal-strength adjectives with hyped-up, over-the-top versions.  The only difference between these articles and printed tabloid stories is the lack of exclamation marks.

But you know, it’s all for the clicks.  These "editors" subscribe to celebrities’ social media, then attempt to build an article on a single statement.  A single statement isn’t much to work with, but with some clever wordsmithing, at least the article will generate a page view and some ad views.  That’s all that matters anymore.

Charitable Angst

I wouldn’t consider myself a generous person.  My charitability is off-the-charts random.  You have to catch me in just the right mood to have a successful pitch for donations or whatnot.  However, I don’t really consider myself a scrooge, either.  I think I’m overwhelmed with how much needs to be done and given and it seems that anything you give is just never enough and if I opened up to that possibility, I could really do some damage to myself.  So, I’m just really guarded about the whole thing.

But this year, two causes broke through my defenses.  And they’re kind of odd choices.  Well, they’re not odd causes, but they’re odd choices to donate to.  It’s pretty much like the case of a person who actually registered and purchased a license to WinRAR.  The two causes were both online websites:  The Internet Archive and Wikipedia.

Wait, Wikipedia?  The one that shows this begging banner a few times a year and says if everyone donates just a fraction of a penny that the donation drive would have ended 10 years ago?  Yeah, that one.  I use Wikipedia a lot, although that’s not really any sort of metric of who I should be donating to.  They’ve been doing what they do for a very long time and in that time, they haven’t changed in a way that you could perceive as “selling out” or “sucking”.  There’s something to be said for that.  So, I don’t really see my donation as a gift for the future, I see it more as a thanks for everything so far.  I suppose that’s an ass-backwards way of viewing donations, because had they started sucking a while ago, I wouldn’t have donated, but then again, why donate to a site that sucks?  See, this is why I can’t think about charity.

And the other one, The Internet Archive.  This one actually is sort of a gift for its future, because I expect them to be around when I’m ready to offload everything I’ve collected for future internet people to view.  Sometimes I’ll browse their stuff randomly and just be amazed at the obscurity of some of the items.  And other times it’s amazement at what is actually in there.  It’s so much stuff, I can’t imagine anyone could monitor it all.  So anyway, they got a little gift.

But here’s something I’ve thought about for some time, and maybe, just maybe, I’ll act on it this year.  I have heard that social service shelters of all types really like hotel toiletries.  They are the perfect size for people that are just passing through, with less waste, and it’s something that everyone needs.  So if you are at a hotel and can grab an extra bar of soap on your way out, they would appreciate it.  But collecting a few bars of soap over a year isn’t really all that useful, despite “every little bit helps”.  And really, you’re not donating the soap, the hotel is.

You can buy travel-sized soaps and shampoo from plenty of places like Target or Walgreens or CVS, but have you seen the prices?  That’s not bad when you’re on vacation and you need one, but it’s not scalable to the hundreds.  So… why not buy a whole case of mini soaps from a hospitality supply company and donate that?  And mini shampoos, too?  So I looked into that possibility a little bit.

I’m going to stick to a price of about $45 per case of product.  Depending on the size of the product and its quality, the quantity will differ.  But initial searches say you can get 200, 500, or even 1000 bars of soap for $45 or less.  And for the same amount, you can get 144, 160, or 288 little shampoo bottles.  Of course you can spend more and get improved quality, which as some might reason is a better value because you would use less product overall. 

What else?  You can get disposable toothbrushes with toothpaste included: 144 for $60.  Razors?  500 for $70.  Pretty much anything that a shelter could want, you could supply in bulk if you consider things from a hospitality perspective.  If I’m wandering a flea market or an outlet store like Ollie’s Bargain Outlet, I see boxes of toiletries for sale and I know the sellers got them for cheap – duh, since they’re selling them for so cheap.  But the problem is those are full-size, retail bottles, which might not be suitable for someone that is only staying at a shelter for a couple of days. 

And now my mind is racing, thinking of all the things that could be donated.  And this is why I can’t think about charity.

Ok, Boomer

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-11-04/millennials-should-be-happy-they-are-stuck-renting

“Millennials spend a lot of time bemoaning their inability to buy a home, forcing them to keep renting. They should want to stay renters, if they know what’s good for them financially.”

You son of a bitch.

This fucking article, written by an economist, is trying to sell the idea that people are better off renting than owning a house.  And specifically, millennials are better off doing it.  You wonder why young people hate the boomer generation?  Well, this is a pretty good piece of evidence.  Take away the condescending tone and you actually are left with malicious advice.

It’s amazing to me the slight of hand that is performed in order to make the pitch in this article.  The author actually says that buying a house is a losing proposition.  “…it has cost the homeowner 3% per year to own a house before taxes, maintenance, utilities and insurance.  That’s a real negative return.”  A goddamn economist, who manages investing funds, is selling this shit.

Then this paragraph:

“Some millennials were caught up in the subprime mortgage boom and collapse, and remain scarred by it. They believed they could buy houses with no money down and never shell out a dime because continuing rapid appreciation would allow for continual refinancings. So the bursting of the subprime mortgage bubble and subsequent one-third decline in house prices was a rude awakening, especially since it was the first nationwide drop in values since the 1930s.”

This needs some unpacking.  First, not just millennials were caught up in this shit.  Everyone was.  But who was most vulnerable to it?  And that snark about what millennials believed?  You fuckers sold them that belief.  You convinced them.  They had no prior experience in real estate investing and falsely trusted you.  So then we get the first housing crash since the 1930’s.  Thanks for that.

Look, I’m no economist.  I’m just a former renter who became a homeowner.  When I went to purchase my new house, my simple criteria was, “is the same cost as what I’m paying in rent?”  That was my budget and that’s where I went.  I completely understand the issue of house prices being insane, but I also see what rent costs and it’s not much better.  So, I encourage anyone to buy when they can.  If you have to start small, do that.  Don’t hold out and wait until you can afford big.  And don’t listen to this bullshit that you shouldn’t buy at all.

Here’s the truth that the author is not telling you.  It’s very simple.  When you rent, you get nothing for your money.  You get lodging and that’s it.  When you own, you keep what you spend.  People want to argue that housing doesn’t have a high rate of return on investment?  Fuck them.  It’s not supposed to.  They say, what if you own a house for 10 years and sell it for what you paid for it, not gaining a cent?  You fucking assholes, you gain all the equity in the property.  All the money you paid into the loan (minus interest of course) is equity.  You get that back.  If you’re renting, what happens when you end your lease?  What equity do you get from that? That’s “not gaining a cent”.

Then they can argue that property values can fall.  Yes, this has happened once.  Do I think it will happen again?  Probably, but not as extreme as last time.  But here’s the thing.  You don’t lose money until you sell.  I was underwater over $30k at one point.  I kept making my mortgage payments and the property value eventually came back.  And all the payments I made while it was underwater?  Guess what?  They still counted!  Just like every other payment.  It’s all equity.  Stay the course!

So, you want to know why this fucking boomer wants you to keep renting?  He’ll tell you right at the end of the article.

“The trend toward renting over owning should persist and may even increase. I continue to favor investments in rental apartments—assuming, of course, they meet the location, location, location test.”

So you better keep renting, if you know what’s good for you.  And what’s good for you is very good for me.