Big news in Poland

10 years ago when I was backpacking through Europe, I was surprised by some of the US pop culture that had invaded Europe. I remember seeing a 7 year old girl in Brugges, Belgium with a Homer Simpson keychain. And when I got to Krakow, the freaking Smurfs were everywhere. Seriously, I walked by multiple shops with Smurf displays in the window. And I recall seeing a display of top selling CDs and there was, sure enough, a Smurf CD on the list (and part of the display).

So I'm sure fans there are grateful for this news (if they were in the US, of course):

Consumers will sing "la-la-la-la-la-la" when Warner Home Video releases The Smurfs: Season 1, Volume 1 on DVD February 26, 2008. The two-disc box set will contain 19 re-mastered and uncut cartoons from the series' premiere season, along with a special bonus episode, plus a music video. The retail price is $26.99 SRP.

Note the smurfiness of Smurfette. I'm sure that's not meant to appeal to all the Papa Smurfs out there...

Freedom Rock

Two or three times a year, I get in a classical music listening mood in which I pile in Mahler, Sibelius, Beethoven, et al into the CD player for a week or so. And then I realize I don't really have that great of a variety and it peters out after a week.

Last weekend (and this week), I got into the mood. One of the discs I played was Bruckner's 7th, which John gave to a year or two ago. I've played it a couple of times, but it never made an impact. When I listened to it this time, though, I explored the dynamic range of the work. Or in layman's terms, I turned it up. Too loud for Joanne, but I explained to her that music is an amplified medium and the loud parts are supposed to be loud so that the "quiet" parts are audible, since, unlike overcompressed rock there actually is a range of volumes. Joanne retorted that I have the hearing of my dad and that pregnancy has imbued her with superpowers, one of which is super hearing, and she could hear the dynamic range just fine thank you.

Before I turned it down, I noted the increased volume made it a much more affecting piece. Oddly, the next day I listened to it again at a much lower volume (even lower than the superpowered-Joanne reduction) and it was less impressive. To be fair, though, I was paying less attention.

So the lesson learned? Orchestral works, more than other musical genres deserve the Freedom Rock (20 years old BTW) treatment, superpowered spouses notwithstanding:

HIITing it where it counts

Another week, another workout plan...

I guess "month" would actually be better, since my workout schedule has been so sporadic the last 2+ months.

Anywho, the plan is go on a High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) regimen. Wikipedia says:

High-intensity interval training (HIIT) involves a warmup period, several short, maximum-intensity efforts separated by moderate recovery intervals, and a cooldown period. The period of alternating effort and recovery intervals typically lasts a total of 15 minutes.

Studies have shown this method to be more effective at burning fat and maintaining, or building, muscle mass than high-volume, lower intensity aerobic work-outs. According to a study by King , HIIT increases the resting metabolic rate (RMR) for the following 24 hours due to Excess post-exercise oxygen consumption, and may improve VO2 max. Traditionally, long aerobic workouts have been promoted as the best method to reduce fat, as fatty acid utilization usually occurs after at least 30 minutes of training. HIIT is somewhat counter intuitive in this regard, but has nonetheless been shown to burn fat more effectively. There may be a number of factors that contribute to this, including an increase in RMR, and possibly other physiological effects.

Generally sprinting is the HIIT workout of choice, but it can work with any cardio activity, so naturally my first stab at it was on the erg (rower). I suppose I've done this in the past with spring workouts for ultimate, but those tended to be heavy on 400s, which are a bit too long for HIIT. Series of 100s and 200s would be better for that, from what I gather.

So today's workout was a couple of chest exercises before hitting the erg. A brief warmup, then 5 300m sprints. All my times were between 63 and 67 seconds, with the damper set on 4, 7, 10, 2 and 5. I think I like the 4&5 settings the best, as it provided the best balance between resistance and speed. I was hoping to get one more in, but I was fairly gassed.

A second interesting bit (after the little effect the damper setting had on times or calories burned) was how much extra effort I had to exert in order to speed up by a whopping 8%. I can do 3 1000 meter reps at a 2 minute pace. My pace for a much shorter distance was just under 1:50. Part of the problem though was my form went to hell--my strokes per minute went up quite a bit (25 to low 30s i think) without the same impact on pace, which means I was shorting the stroke a bit, and/or not getting enough recovery to make a powerful next stroke.

The plan is to do this 3x a week, with a couple of lifts before hand. I'm actually getting close to my target (165), but I'm not sure I'm getting there in a good way, as I think recent loss has been mostly the good gains I made over the summer. But bulking/cutting is a different topic...

Parent Controls for the Future Parent

From David Pogue's review of OS X Leopard

"Leopard’s parental controls play catch-up with Windows Vista’s. Now you can set time limits for your children’s computer use (different for weekdays and weekends), and even make the Mac lock itself at bedtime. A log tracks their activities, including e-mail and chat correspondents and Web sites visited."

Hmm... looks like I know what Joanne is getting me for Christmas--a new operating system!

(Note to a particular gift giver: No, you don't have to get me a new OS)

EDIT: Based on the response of the first two comments, the meaning of this post was unclear. The Parental control is not to control the child unit (LBA). It is to control the stays-up-to-late-on-the-computer-spousal-unit. At least Joanne got the gist.

Charitable Diversity

Steven E. Landsburg in an old Slate column makes the argument to only give to one charity, as once you anoint a cause as worthy, every dollar you add to your giving helps the problem, but no matter how much you have, the problem won't go away:

When it comes to managing your personal portfolio, economists will tell you to diversify. When it comes to handling the rest of your life, we give you exactly the same advice.

So why is charity different? Here's the reason: An investment in Microsoft can make a serious dent in the problem of adding some high-tech stocks to your portfolio; now it's time to move on to other investment goals. Two hours on the golf course makes a serious dent in the problem of getting some exercise; maybe it's time to see what else in life is worthy of attention. But no matter how much you give to CARE, you will never make a serious dent in the problem of starving children. The problem is just too big; behind every starving child is another equally deserving child.

So once you decide the worthiest cause, you are best to dedicate your resources to that cause. Contributions elsewhere are vanity.

I think the argument is too black and white, but it does bring up questions on how to decide what charities are worthwhile and what goes into that decision process.

As our income has increased, our projected giving has increased, but I've struggled to make that leap from giving $100 to a charity to giving them $500 (or more). Couple of reasons for that. First, I/we are not so committed to a cause that it feels "right" to write a large check. Indeed, it feels almost more philanthropic to write a lot of little checks--helping all those "good" causes. But apparently that's a bad idea--little checks mean lots of extra mail. The costs of following up with small donors is great, and those are the names/addresses that get sold. Large donors are too valuable and their information gets protected so that they don't get wooed away by some other charity.

The information at Charity Navigator helps, but it has limitations, since some of their scores do not intuitively follow from the data provided. Still, the transparency in fundraising expenses is a key data point. One positive I recall is finding out that a collection of health charities based in Clarksburg, MD exist to be a charity (ie fundraise), not to address a problem.

Still we struggle with how much to give to Mercy Corps versus the American Diabetes Association versus United Food Bank versus 6 or 7 others that we've given money to in the past. So the Landsburg thesis is an interesting perspective, but it doesn't solve the problem then of how to pick just one. Maybe three?

Monorail, monorail, monorail!!

My Mesa readership is fairly tiny, but Joanne thought I should still breakdown the Mesa Waveyard vote next week.

First a reading list:

• City of Mesa Waveyard site (of no importance, the Project Manager for Mesa for Waveyard was in my MPA prgram and I even partnered with him on a project. I don't recall him doing much of anything to help)
  
• Waveyard site
• Summary analysis from Applied Economics
  
• 10/12 AZ Rep: Pro editorial
• 10/6 Trib: Waveyard "myths"
• 10/21 Trib: Overview
• 10/3 Trib: City of Mesa details benefits
• 10/26 AZ Rep: Tourist magnet
• 10/24 AZ Rep: Bob Robb anti op-ed
• 10/26 AZ Rep: Matt Salmon responds to Bob Robb
• 10/28 Trib: Engineering problems
  

OK. That's a lot of links no one is going to look at. So let me summarize...

Mesa is essentially selling 121 acres to a Scottsdale developer who hasn't really built anything for $10 million to build a first-of-its-kind waterpark with scuba diving, kayaking, surfing, etc. So not Big Surf. It will have a resort hotel, more retail, and make Mesa a destination(!)

To be fair, the developers must pay $30 million for the land, but the other $20 million will be repaid at 4.4% interest over, at most 30 years.

Oh wait, no, it will be deducted from the sales tax generated from the project. The developer gets a refund of ~half the sales tax and half the bed tax as a means to make the payment on the $20 million promissory note.

And from a City perspective it gets even better--Mesa is obligated to relocate the softball fields, as they were built with federal funds. Cost of that land is estimated at $9 million and the building of the fields is $5 million. The City is looking at city-owned property because it can't find 25 acres for less than $15 million in West Mesa.

The Applied Economics estimate, which is by no means independent (because these things never are), is an accrual of ~$50 million in tax revenue (in 2007 constant dollars) for the City over 30 years. So that totals a $45 million benefit ($10 upfront + $50 in taxes - $15 to redo the fields) to Mesa over 30 years.

Or they could just sell it on the market now for $30 million, and likely a lot more as comps have it at $65 million, and some estimates have it around $90 million.

This just smacks of a Monorail like boondoggle, it boggles the mind. The conspiracy theorists note the extra retail, office space and residential buildings in the design plan (the developers are allowed to build 4 10-story residential type buildings, one of which is the resort class hotel) is a precursor of what is to come when the waterpark flops. And those elements are not there for their "mixed use" cache--they are there to generate the necessary revenue to support the project until the developer gets the land in the clear. The developer then basically has 120 acres practically for nothing to develop as it sees fit, based on applicable zoning restrictions.

So as a straight real estate deal, this stinks like a year old's diaper (or so I've been told). But would it actually make Mesa a destination if the waterpark succeeds in practice? I have a tough time seeing it. If a family is going to spend the money for a resort, wouldn't it look for some level of authenticity? Scuba diving with no fish or natural sea life, what's the point? Surfing in a wavepool. Seriously? I can see it as a local amenity on par with a regular theme park, ie local residents use it as a day experience, but that doesn't really create the projected economic impact promoters are touting.

The problem with Mesa (other than a long history of political ineptness) is, like most other local municipalities, that its incentive structure for economic development is short sighted, being wholly focused on generating sales tax. Real economic growth doesn't happen from giving artificial support to retail business. Greater Phoenix's population is an automatic spur to retail growth--more customers means a bigger market that business will look to fill. Retail growth invites low wage employment and generally moves money around, rather than creating new money. Look at the Riverview project. I don't have any numbers on how "successful" it's been so far, but by most accounts part of its impact has been to further depress the Fiesta Mall area, which negates its usefulness.

Cities rarely become destinations for one place. Scottsdale and Tempe are not 'destinations" because of any single resort--it's a general culture. So yes, Mesa has to start "somewhere", but not every city is going to be attractive to tourists--there are only so many of them to go around. But all cities see this as free money--tax dollars generated by visitors mean more revenues without a commensurate increase in necessary city services. That doesn't mean it's worth giving away 121 prime acres to make it happen.

10 days early

Apparently ARod isn't using the full 10 days after the end of the World Series to opt out--he's doing it now.

Interesting points about this:

• He's opting out of the last three years of the contract, about ~$81 million
• The Yankees no longer receive money from the rangers, about $21 million
• The Yankees reportedly were offering a 5 year, $150 million extension, in other words 8 years and $231 million (at a cost of $210 million to NYY)
• The Yankees have proclaimed they will not renegotiate with ARod if he opts out.
  

This can be taken to mean he/Scott Boras believe getting $30 million/year for 7-8 years is not a problem. This despite there not being a contract signed in baseball the last five years that averaged even $20 million/year (Manny Ramirez and Jason Giambi were the last two I believe to get that amount).

So this speaks to a couple of things. First, baseball revenues are exploding. By 2009, the only parks built before 1990 will be Wrigley, Fenway, the Rogers Center (Toronto), both LA parks and Kauffman Stadium. Baseball has caught up with football in terms of revenues. How this happened is somewhat perplexing, as the games are largely unwatchable (fox quality and game length). Arod gets 30+. Johan Santana will probably clear $25 million. Heck, Aaron Rowand is looking for $14 million per and is likely to get it (Lil Sarge got $11 mil per after all). So get used to the obscene amounts of cash free agents are looking for and getting.

Second is recency bias. In the past four years Arod has had 2 historically great seasons, though I don't recall his 2005 getting the attention this past year has received. But he's now 32. A $30 million contract takes that as a baseline; the expected level of performance. But that's the peak, not the average. His 2005 and 2007 may be worth $30 mil. 2004 and 2006 are not. Barry Bonds excepted, players tend not to put up career bests in their 30s. But this is the norm for free agent contracts--there's a lot of payment made for past performance. The signing team, though is much more likely to get more 2006s than 2007s.

There's conjecture that Boras has a "wink wink" deal, such as the JD Drew deal last winter, but that seems unlikely. The Yankees would be very likely to press forward on any tampering charges (particularly if its the Red Sox), and any chicanery that way would get Boras barred from being an agent, and he doesn't want that.

If the Yankees hold to their pledge not to negotiate, that takes out a big player, but 7 years ago, ARod got 10/252 from Texas, so that may not matter much. I'm just not sure who gets into that territory other than the Yankees, Red Sox and perhaps the Cubs (depending on the splash the new owner wants to make) though. A lot of speculation about LA, but both of those seem questionable to me as both teams have in the past few years eschewed contracts longer than 5 years. The Mets have his positions covered. I don't even want to contemplate Arod in the Philly infield. Baltimore, Toronto, Detroit are all possibles. Just based on dollars and needs, I think the Yankees get back in it and compete with the Red Sox and it becomes clear there are now two Evil Empires in the world.

Supper Success

An area rife with posting possibilities that I know I've ignored is cooking. We use the grill so heavily when it's warm at all outside that it cuts down on the new things we try, as:

Meat + Salt+ Pepper= Mmmmmm!!!

We tried some different things grilling-wise, but nothing worth writing about. Either a disappointing failure (grilled romaine and grilled peaches) or complete indifference (pork loin on the rotisserie and on a cedar plank). Regarding the latter, the meat itself actually came out great both times--among the tenderest, moistest pork loin I've ever had. But the actually prep of the meat didn't add a whole lot, and Joanne was not a fan of the cedar "flavor". Speaking of which, we have an extra cedar plank. Let me know if you're interested.

So that brings us to tonight, and my first ever attempt at a legitimate stir fry. Or as legit as you can be without a wok. Yeah, yeah, I know it's supposed to be easy, but it's a cooking style neither of us really grew up with (ie, Italian), so we never tried it. But I had a desire to get bok choy, and I don't know what else you do with bok choy other than stir fry.

Anywho, this is what I went with:

• Sesame oil
• 3 cloves of garlic
• Some amount of fresh ginger
• 10 baby carrots, each cut into 4 vertical slices
• 20 sugar snap peas
• 3 large leaves of bok choy
• 6 spears of asparagus
• 1/2 a yellow onion
• 2 green onions
• sauce: hoisin sauce, some soy, some honey, dash of rice vinegar.

The 12" everyday pan I used, worked out well, as it was big enough to allow me to add everything without having to take anything out. Basically once some got heated up, I was ready to add the next ingredient (I added in the order listed above, except the actual bok choy leaves [as opposed to roots] got added after the onion).

We both enjoyed it, though i made a mistake in not preparing anything else (ie, rice), so Joanne could only eat so much before needing a different taste in her mouth. The only other change, is I cut the asparagus too small, so it was essentially unnoticeable. It may be more worthwhile to just omit. One of my issues with this kind of medley (such as a smoothie or roasted veggies) is I have a tendency to keep adding things, so that it's a combo of 5, 6 or more things, which ends up being an overwhelming amount and makes any one part too small. But if its fruits and veggies, that's not so bad, right?

Woe is me

My boss is requesting I attend a lecture this afternoon (Friday at 3:30?!) entitled "Canoes, Bracelets and the Firm":

The firm, or in any case the modern firm, is a socially impoverished institution. The dearth of social features and dynamics within the firm, if remarked upon at all, will be normally viewed as an ineluctable concession to the realization of efficiency. I will present for discussion a set of observations and somewhat speculative arguments to challenge this view. This may have some urgency: more and more public policy making relies on conceptualizing society modeled after the firm with potentially debilitating consequences for both.

I do not know what this means, or how it is applicable to me or my job in any way. And given the time, I expect 6 people to be there.

Couch Potato

< meta >That last week has been slow posting. I think the two causes are the belaboring of a topic (eBay) combined with better posted comments that the blog entry itself (SCHIP). These combine to raise the interesting-ness of my next post to a level I'm not confident I can make. Hence a lack of posts. < /meta >

The irony of Joanne & I spending so much on a TV nearly two years ago is that we don't actually watch a lot of TV. The main reasons being a lack of cable and the regularity of ultimate 2-3 times a week. Homeownerness and increasing internet connections speeds are also a factor.

Two years ago, we had 4 shows: West Wing, Alias, Arrested Development and 24. So that left us with with just 1 last year, with the cancellation of the first three. But we added Studio 60 (which wasn't very good most of the time) and through that, we added Heroes, the only show that made it to this year (yes, 24 wasn't canceled, but last season was bad enough to kill any enthusiasm for it this year).

But we've made an attempt(?) to add/watch more, not that there's any compelling reason to do so.

Chuck - the lead in to Heroes is pretty good. It's likeable and fun, but I think it will have a short shelf life (2+ seasons at most). No reason not to watch while it's on though. The everyday nerd as James Bond--we can all identify.

Back to You - Kelsey Grammer, Patricia heaton and Fred Wilbur, what's not to like cast-wise? It's a by-the-numbers sitcom, and watching the first couple of episodes, it made me realize how long it's been since I've intentionally meant to watch a formula sitcom.

Private Practice/Bionic Woman - neither of these are in rotation, but I watched an episode of each--they are on at the same time. PP wasn't bad, but the ep i saw didn't seem to have compelling personal dynamics which are supposed to drive soaps/dramas. BW is fairly weak IMO

Life - I've watched two episodes and it is fairly well done. The star, Damian Lewis was Winter in Band of Brothers. As a police procedural, it may fall into the trap of being predictable, but for now it has a certain Boomtown like flair (Boomtown was on NBC in 2001-2, last 24 episodes. The first season is a great DVD buy.). This is scheduled against Dirty, Sexy Money. Joanne saw an initial promo for DSM and was excited about seeing Casey (Peter Krause) back on the air (no cable means no familiarity with 6 feet under). Then we saw a longer promo after PP and she remarked "you're not actually going to watch that are you?!")

The Office and 30 Rock - More on Joanne's watch list for now, as I've got league. But we got the first season of the Office on DVD and enjoyed it quite a bit.

Las Vegas- i imagine this is the trashiest non-Fox network show on the air. By no means do we schedule around it (Fridays 9 pm), but I've caught two episodes after Joanne's gone to bed by 9. It is entertaining, I'll give it that.

And then, of course, the aforementioned Heroes. It's off to a bit of a slow start, but it might be similar to last year when we only had it on in the background for the first couple of weeks. It wasn't until the Save the Cheerleader, Save the World arc that we stopped doing other things while it was on. Claire has taken a step backwards, which is the biggest annoyance so far. We'll see how the new "heroes" get incorporated.

What are you watching (or plan to watch from your Tivo/DVR)?

Goldmine, Part II

I previously discussed my decision to divest myself of various collectibles I've obtained over the years.

Yesterday I hit paydirt, selling 12 CDs for a considerable sum.

Most of the CDs in question come from a series of bootlegs (referred to as the Prism CDs) of Dream Theater material put together by a guy in Chandler from 1995-1998. He managed to get a recording studio to produce silver releases and he numbered them (he made 500 of each) for authenticity. At the time, even though I had only been a fan for only a couple of months, I jumped in, swayed by the hype over some of the material. Over the 4+ years, I got 7 of the 8 releases, listened to them and didn't really think about their value too much. Over the last couple of years I listened to them less and less, as my DT fandom diminished and the dubious recording quality made them less appealing.

I remember 5-6 years ago some of the releases demanded major coin, but I assumed that ship had sailed for the most part, with the prevalence of mp3s and the ease of CDRs. I listed them for sale at the price I paid for them ($25 each) or best offer and waited to see what the offers would be.

The first one was from Indonesia for $25 each. The second was from the UK for $200. Then a french guy offered $300 for 6 of them. So i turned down the first two offers and advanced with option 3. Then he made the savvy bargaining technique of dropping his offer by $100, but i negotiated him back up to $275.

At this time, however, there were a couple of eBay auctions going on, and one of the CDs in question sold for $160, so I reconsidered my position on trying to sell as quickly as possible. Auctions for these (and similar) CDs often are booted off eBay, but there seemed to be a window of opportunity to list them, so decided to try it out by listing one CD--the one that sold for $160.

After much consideration, I decided it wasn't completely inappropriate to inform the auction loser (second highest bidder) that the same item was again on the block and that the other Prism CDs would be listed soon as well.

Fortunately, he was receptive to my notice and was interested in most of the lot. He admitted some unfamiliarity with how much the Prism CDs went for, but he was interested in them all (except one that he had just won) and asked for a group price. I came up with a figure of $550 shipped for 6 of the Prism CDs and one other boot.

When I arrived at that figure, I wanted to write in the email "i feel goofy for saying that much for 7 CDs, but that seemed to be their approximate value," but Joanne criticized my namby pambiness and told me that would weaken my bargaining position.

My buyer responded by saying he was hoping for a little less (but didn't clarify). He also expressed interest in another CD based simply on the provision of a tracklist and hoped wasn't super expensive (these things are relative I guess). He gave me his phone number to close the deal. This was Thursday morning.

When we talked, he said he was thinking $500, but conceded he didn't know exactly how much the CDs were worth. At this point, we were dealing with a high enough figure that I just started throwing in extras to keep it at $550 shipped (2 other boots, and two promotional singles). He agreed.

Then I brough up the possiblity of using a non-paypal payment to avoid that charge. He understood my point, but said is wasn't worth his time to get a money order or anything like that, so he added $10 to cover that. Then he asked how much was "freight", even though everything i had said indicated the price included shipping. But he said "no, no. i'll pay for that", so another $10 to the tally.

End result, 12 CDs and 3 old fan club newsletters for $570 minus $32 in shipping and paypal charges. Not bad. And I still have 1 cd that can add $60-70 to the tally. This worked out better than the Star wars stuff, that 's for sure.

Best seller

My first batch of eBay sales are in the books. I sold 3 CDs, all my Transformers, a pair of Air Jordan retros and an Star Wars Hoth lot (AT-AT, Wampa & a playset) for a sales total of ~$390. My shipping charges look to cover actual shipping and almost all of the eBay and Paypal commissions and charges, leaving a net of about $390. And I'm happy with that, but I do think about ways in which I could have increased the windfall, among other issues:

1. The psychology of shipping costs. When I purchase an eBay item, i view shipping as part of bid price (ie I'm willing to pay $40 for something, shipping is $5, that makes my max bid $35). But will that always be true? Can seeing "free shipping" increase bids? Maybe. It does seem to be fairly common practice, though, to inflate shipping, as eBay doesn't take a commission from a shipping charge, hence my rationale for having a $7 shipping charge for a CD that costs <$2 to mail.

2. International buyers. Two items (a CD and the Transformers) sold to European buyers. And shipping overseas isn't particularly cheap, nor did I indicate I'd ship internationally. So that leaves me stating a shipping charge I hope they find acceptable. And that doesn't even get into issues with foreign use of Paypal. On the plus side, though, my buyers have good feedback.

3. Ad content. As I mentioned in the previous post, I was fairly direct and concise in my listings, because (a) I'm not a salesman and (b) i wasn't aware of all the issues that can arise (largely the international issue). I also skimped a bit on pictures, which is kind of dumb. The 15 cents for each additional photo, in retrospect, is a fairly good value.

4. The tension of a closing auction as a seller isn't all that different than a buyer. 5 of the 6 items had bids in the last minute. The transformers lot had the biggest last minute jump, and I'd say that was the only one I was very happy with. The others I was content with (around my target), but the transformers well exceeded expectations (I was thinking $60 or so).

Big fan

Watch for the guy in the blue windbreaker, just above "office":



Drinkwater is there night in and night out. Well, not always the last out. Going back to my memories post, this guy isn't really taking in the moment. He'd just rather not sit in traffic. But it was exceptional recognition of the game being over.

OOOOOOOOO

No hugs allowed at Ill. middle school

If you need a hug, you won't get it at Percy Julian Middle School. Principal Victoria Sharts banned hugging among the suburban Chicago school's 860 students anywhere inside the building. She said students were forming 'hug lines' that made them late for classes and crowded the hallways.

I find this interesting, because apparently this middle school is like ultimate. Or rather, I've experienced more hugs post-ultimate than pre-ultimate (excluding family), and it's not even particularly close.

Is there too much hugging in the world? I think there might be. I still have some issues with casual hugging--it strikes me as something intimate, not casual. Of course I also give off a "keep your distance" vibe that some people pick up on. I remember being at a party once when a person was leaving and was essentially going down a hug line. Then she says goodbye to me with a wave.

Goldmine

As part of the downsizing/getting rid of stuff process, I finally eBayed some items and posted a "for sale" message at a band fan site. I'm optimistic that between some CDs, vintage transformers and star wars figures, and a pair of Retro Air Jordans, the cost of the new speaker(s) I was interested in for my birthday will be largely covered. And definitely covered when factoring in the sale of the present speakers.

To be fair, the figures won't account for much, since they are all played with and out of their packages. But the CDs! I have some Dream Theater bootlegs and other rarities that fetch a fair amount from obsessive fans. I got an offer of $300 from France for 6 Prism releases, and a fan club CD I'm selling is being sold by another seller for a "Buy it now" price of $170, which I don't expect to get, but still.

The other expected big sale is a pair of Air Jordan XI retros. Back in late 2001, one of my credit cards was used fraudulently to purchase the shoes. The thief, however, was not smart enough to have them shipped to himself, so I got the shoes. The exact same pair (style, color, size) sold for $182.50 in August. My fingers are crossed.

My main concern is that I don't have enough (what I consider useless) information on the sales pages and that will drive down interest, particularly with the figures. I may add more info to the shoes, since it has some potential for pay off.

We'll see how it goes...