Is this what they mean by "going to the dark side"?

I like to think of myself as "unique".  My daughters very kindly refer to me as "quirky".  Some others just think I'm weird. 

Why do I bring this up now?  Because this morning as I was giving Jax, our SuperDog, his first walk of the day, I realized that dawn is now coming noticeably later, and I like it. 

Autumn is my favorite season for a variety of reasons, one of which being the days are becoming shorter by about a minute a day.  Yea!  I also like a few rainy days now and then, which are more likely in autumn than in summer.  And of course, autumn also = the start of football season.  Ha!  Take that hot, sweaty, sticky summer!

I've become a fairly successful minimalist....except for my collection of coats and jackets.  I LOVE coats and jackets.  I have light windbreakers, a GoreTex rain jacket, a heeeeeavy LL Bean arctic parka, and a jacket for pretty much everything else in between.  This time of year I'm always optimistic it will be a cold enough winter to wear some of them.

Unique, quirky, or weird....I'll answer to any of them.  Just don't call me Shirley.  :)

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You've heard the old saying, "Make hay while the sun shines"?  That's pretty much my work ethic.  I feel like if it's still daylight, I should be working or doing one chore or another.  When evening comes, it's time to put my tools down, metaphorically, and relax.  These days I don't have the energy I once did, so relaxing while the sun is still high sorta bothers me.  The earlier it gets dark, the less guilty I feel.

Can you imagine how rested people must have been 150 years ago?  When the sun went down there was little else to do but go to bed and sleep, or maybe make more little farm workers.  Candlelight barely illuminated the space you were sitting in.  Later, coal oil or whale oil lanterns offered a chance to see better later into the night, but those fuels were expensive.  

The big breakthrough came with successful oil drilling and refining in the late 1850's.  Back then the refined petroleum product of choice was not gasoline or diesel (there were virtually no internal combustion engines back then), but kerosene.  Kerosene was a much more affordable fuel, and burned much brighter, too.  That gave John D. Rockefeller the light he needed to count his money late into the night.  Thomas Edison's electric lighting was just the icing on the cake of illumination progress.

I think today we have it just about right:  It gets dark early enough to allow for some rest time before bed, yet a flip of a switch gives us enough light to write unique / quirky / weird blog posts. :)

S

Not sure what to think of this one....

Sacre bleu!

I read in ze news that the French Senate has unanimously passed a bill that says online booksellers (read: Amazon) can offer consumers either a 5% discount or free shipping, but not both.

My first reaction was, "Why would the French government not want their constituents to get the best deal they could?"  Why, that's just downright un-American!  Umm....wait....

But then I realized they're just trying to keep the smaller booksellers from going out of business.  They're just trying to save jobs.  Hmmm...

But....but....free enterprise....the market....   

It's a real conundrum for sure.  Of course entrepreneurs should be encouraged to bring their new ideas to market.  What if the old school had tried to stifle Thomas Edison or Henry Ford or Steve Jobs?  But at some point you have to wonder how far this should go.  

It's one thing to keep the competition on their toes, but if pricing becomes so predatory (prices so low, sometimes at or even below cost....at least until they get a near-monopoly) they force the smaller competitors out of business entirely, is this really in the consumers best interest?

I think we're now seeing that airline consolidation in America is going to work against the consumer.  (Check fares on the "low cost" carriers.  They're not so low any more.)  It will be great for the airlines and their stockholders, but consumers will pay more.

And now that just 5 big banks control the majority of the banking biz, do you see yourself getting better service or lower fees?  When is the last time you got a free toaster from a hungry bank wanting to gain market share?  Their attitudes sure changed, didn't they?

Major appliance manufacturers are worried, too. That's why, contrary to popular opinion, the big box retailers (Home Depot, Lowe's) do NOT get better wholesale pricing than the mid-sized retailers.  They know that if the big boxes get better pricing and put the smaller guys out of business, then the 2 boxes will in effect "own" the manufacturers.  The manufacturers don't want to lose control.

So more competition is good.  The government should just butt out and let the market do it's thing.  And less competition is bad.  The government should step in and make sure the big don't get too big.  (Don't kid yourself.  Our anti-monopoly regulators are not at all pro-active.)

DOH!  See, conundrum.  We don't live in a black or white world anymore.  Think about it.

S

Who invented advertising?

Whoever he was, he was an evil genius.  He has had more influence on the world that we live in today than Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, or even Carlo Ponzi.  I mean, any guy who could turn snakes into oil was either a genius or one smooooooooth talker.  

It was advertising that sold Ford Pinto's, women's "housecoats", and OxiClean.  (Hey....you think Billy Mays invented advertising?)  But not Twinkies.  They were a gift from God.  Advertising built the free market system, really.  They invented stuff we didn't need and via advertising made us think our life wouldn't be worth living without it.  

But wait....there's more!

I'm pretty sure an entire branch of advertising has been developed just to sell things specifically to my wife, and they've honed their pitch to a fine art.  I can't tell you how many exercise gizmos, kitchen implements, and hair care and beauty goops she's bought.  

Her latest must-have stuff:  Some kind of "nutritional shake".  This morning she asked me, "Will you be a doll and stop by Whole Foods on your way home and get me some Vega One?"  

"Uhh....What's Vega One?"

"Here....just walk in the door and give this $5-off coupon to anyone wearing an employee name tag and let them get it for you.  You'll never find it on your own."

"Holy Crap!  If it's $5 off, what's the regular price?"

*silence*

But of course I'll buy it for her, mainly because I've never seen a grown woman leap over a tall building in a single bound.  At least that's what the advertising pitch promised.

S