Author: mike

This year, I replaced all appliances – refrigerator, microwave, stove, oven, dishwasher, washer, dryer.  It was a lot of work to figure out which ones to buy.

At first, I really did want to buy online.  AJ Madison is a great appliances store, and their website is awesome.  It is definitely one of the best ways to learn about what products are available and compare them.  Combine that with free shipping (they almost always offer free shipping for orders over $1500 and no sales tax in CA, and it seems like a great deal, right?

Well, it is a pretty good deal, but despite all that, they still generally are more expensive.  At the end of the day, they are mailing their appliances across the country.  They hide this by declaring “Free Shipping”, but you know it’s not really free!

I ended up buying most all the appliances at Western Appliance.  I don’t really like having to go to the store.  Appliance stores always make pricing difficult.  Instead of just showing the price, its the base price minus the in-store rebate minus the manufacturer rebate, minus the weekend special, etc.  I guess they think most of their customers can’t do basic math?  It seems to backfire, because it makes the prices seem inflated.  If they didn’t inflate the price, I never would have thought the e-store price was cheap.  Western Appliance’s salespeople are pretty reasonable and not high pressure, and they are knowledgeable too.  In the end, I know I paid less, even after Western Appliance’s $50 delivery fee and CA sales tax. 

There is one more important reason to shop locally.  The local stores know the PG&E/Water company rebates for energy efficient and water-saving appliances.  AJMadison, or any other e-tailer, just can’t possibly keep track of local area rebates for everyone.  These rebates are non trivial too; I’ve had about $400 in utility rebates this year.  If I hadn’t bought locally, I probably wouldn’t have known.

I don’t understand why we care that the TV & Movie writers are going on strike.  I think this is great! 

My reasoning comes from three angles.  First, how many times have we complained about the garbage on TV?  These are the guys that wrote that junk!  Do we really need federal mediators for this?

Second, we watch too much TV.  Every hour we spend in front of our TVs is an hour we could have spent, learning, working, cleaning the yard, fixing the bike, washing the car, volunteering at the library, reading, or researching who should be the next President.  There are so many better things to do than watch TV.

Third, cable just costs way too much.  Some people pay for service which is over $100/mo!  The cheapest is about $30/mo.  That means we’re paying $360-$1200 per year to be couch potatoes! 

How about if we all recognize this opportunity as a time when we can save ourselves some money and make our lives and our communities a better place to live?  OK – I can dream. 

The interesting part about this strike is that these guys have never been on strike in the Internet Era.  Will the Internet make it so that people don’t miss TV so much?  After all, if you want to watch stupid people, you can do that on YouTube.  I wonder if this strike will end up being good for Google?

Update: I really liked Marc A’s writeup on this.

Fun: http://www.turnoffyourtv.com/, Too much TV may result in academic failure, TechCrunch

What is the difference between: 

   “Let’s flesh out the details of the plan”

and

   “Let’s flush out the details of this plan”

?

These phrases are so often interchanged, and it bugs me!  So let’s figure this out.

Generally, you “flesh out” details, not “flush” them out.  Fleshing out is a phrase which comes from the art world, where you start with a skeletal body, and then “flesh out” the rest of the image – adding “flesh” to a skeleton.  Get it?

Flushing out means to bring out into the open; police may “flush out” a criminal from his hiding place behind the toilet.  I’m not sure what it would mean to “flush out the details of the plan” – somehow the details are in hiding, waiting to be revealed, and you’re going to scare them into the public?

Here are some bloggers that I hope will read this!
– Travis Killion
– The Simple Millionaire
– Aaron @ PrimeAdvertising
– Zoe

Sorry for being a word snob.

I think spending money on Africa is a waste of money.  I’m not unaware of the human suffering.  I’m not racist.  You may think I am cruel.

Africa is what happens when you overpopulate the planet.  Africa represents about 15% of the world’s population.  Over the next 50 years, it will increase to ~30% of the world’s population.   It also represents about 69% of the world’s AIDS cases. 

AIDS is a like a famine.  It’s Mother Nature’s way of adapting to too large of a population of one species.  Africa is just an example of what we already know:  Either we learn to control ourselves- have fewer children and take better care of the planet, or Mother Nature will do it for us.  If we don’t, what is happening to Africa will happen to every other country in the future.  It may seem cruel to limit population growth here in the US.  It may seem cruel not to “help” Africa.  But trying to stop forces of overpopulation is no different than trying to stop a  tornado.  You can’t.

Unfortunately, the United States will eventually be like Africa.  Mother Nature will destroy our children if we don’t limit them.