thomasquinlan.com

Indulging in the spotlight effect...

No Inflation Indeed! (@starbucks) (@consumerist)

 So I contend that inflation is occurring in this country, though many of the people that I talk to don't seem to think so.  They say that the government is managing to keep inflation in check, and that the Federal Reserve's historically low rates are doing their job, even despite the trillions of dollars they're printing.  My main contention stems from grocery shopping - a trip to the store should tell anyone that prices have gone up quite a bit while item sizes have stayed the same or shrunk.

I am often told that my groceries are so expensive because I live in McLean, which is considered "affluent".  Since I'm originally from New York, I don't need to be told what expensive groceries are; I've basically never bought cheap ones.  Furthermore, I'm already factoring that into my argument; I know my groceries are expensive,  but they're a lot more expensive than when I started buying them here two years ago.

It's not enough to point them to consumerist.com and have them search for "shrink ray" either, apparently.  (Try it - you'll see just how manufacturers are giving you less food for the same or even more money.)  But now I have the perfect example, thanks to Starbucks and Tazo.  Prior to about a month ago, you could buy a box of 24 Tazo Awake tea bags at Starbucks or at the grocery store for $4.95.  That works out to about $.21 a tea bag.  Now, when you want to buy Awake tea, it costs $7.12 for 15 tea bags, a whopping $.47 a tea bag!  That's more than double the price!  To add insult to injury, instead of putting the tea bags in cardboard boxes like they used to (which were recyclable, if not biodegradable outright), the tea bags come in an air filled tin that could easily hold three times as many tea bags as the 15 that are in there!  To add further insult to injury, the tins are Made In China.  (The tea may very well be too, but I've not checked on that.)

So, people who buy Tazo Awake tea are now paying more than double per tea bag, and have to take home the M-I-C tins as well.  Quite frankly, that's inflation of the worst kind.

Best Quote On The Health Care Bill Yet

"So they just passed a health care plan written by a committee whose chairman says he didn't understand it, passed by a Congress that exempts themselves from it, signed by a president who smokes, with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn't pay his taxes, all to be overseen by a surgeon general who is... obese... and better yet its to be financed by a country that's broke."

New Year's Resolution Check - February

So February was not the best month for me in terms of getting things done.  It wasn't the worst month either, but I think I could have done better.

For my first New Year's resolution (putting into practise the principles in the Four Hour Work Week) I've not done anything concrete.  I have an idea for a muse, I just have to get going on it.  Hopefully March will be better.

On my second resolution I fared better.  I've got over 100 clips up on pond5.com.  I managed to finally finish editing them all, and then I uploaded and tagged them as well.  I've still only got the one sale, but with the rest of the clips up there the potential for more is greater.  I also keep my video camera with me at all times, so I can create more when the opportunity presents itself.

My third resolution was to read two books a month.  For February, I read the first one in five days.  However, I've been slacking on the second and I'm still not done.  (The real irony is that technically I'm re-reading a book I read a few years ago.)  This is now affecting March, so I'm going to try and get it finished as soon as possible.

For my fourth resolution I decided to learn Spanish.  I did okay with this one - I got through the third lesson, and I've started to be able to construct basic sentences that I didn't learn using the information I did learn.  There was progress, I would have just preferred to have gotten through the fourth lesson as well.

I went to the gym and run on my usual schedule (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday) for the first three weeks of February, but as I spent the final week of February in Florida I didn't do any running that week.  I've started again here in March, though I took it slow today since I gave blood on Monday and I haven't run in over a week.

I got two more chapters done in wxPython, so I also didn't do too badly with that, but again, I'd have preferred to have done more.

I've been doing well in my grad school class, too, so I haven't been a complete slacker!  I've also started March off very well, so hopefully I can keep up the trend.