People have always liked really big stuff, particularly of the unnecessary variety. Stonehenge, pyramids, colossi, IKEA. Yesterday, we went shopping. Anne was looking for a pillow for Harry. The store is monstrous in size. Entering, we were greeted with a map that read more like a flowchart, complete with loopbacks. I was afraid that I would be caught in an infinite loop and never get out. I felt trapped and wanted to escape, but I patiently stuck it out. Letting Anne do her shopping. Eventually we left, emptyhanded. Throughout the store were navigational symbols that directed us along. They were projections, beamed from ceiling to floor. Like the pictured arrow, they would begin to vibrate when approached. It was unnerving.
Boeing, my former employer, has been in the news a lot this year, for all of the wrong reasons. Strikes, aircraft crashes, and money woes have plagued the company and seem to have finally caught up with it. Here in Saint Louis and elsewhere around the country Boeing is doing what it always has done when it gets into trouble, layoff its employees. These layoffs always seem to hit at this time of year. Just when thoughts have turned to the holidays and family, life gets disrupted. I really hated those times. I always felt that I was on the bubble, the next one to be cut. Fortunately, at least for me, those days are gone. I am retired. I have a pension and a 401K, but Boeing has divested itself of both of them. Still, this news hurts, knowing what my former colleagues are going through, but most will survive, carry on and live to fight another day.
Walking the streets of old Montreal, Anne snapped this pic of a cobbler’s shingle, wooden, with a nine-inch rusty nail through the toe and a boot tongue that if painted red, would remind one of Mick Jagger’s. Wow, it hurts just to look at it. How did they ever get their foot out? I hope their tetanus shot was up to date, but it seems like it would make for pretty effective advertising, hard, sharp and cruel, but to the point and impossible to forget later.
Nowadays, we’ve got Google ads. Look at anything online and these ads will follow you no matter where else you might go on the web. I’m always puzzled though as to why these ads appear only after I have already purchased that item. It is as if one is being cultivated as a repeat customer or maybe the left-hand doesn’t know what the right is doing. I suspect more disingenuous motives. These ads are targeted, meaning that I’m seeing them, because I am, or at least was, likely to buy this product. Google could even tout to their customer’s, the vendors whose wares are being hawk to me, the fact that I had just purchased one of these widgets as proof of their algorithm’s efficacy. As if to suggest that it’s not really Google’s fault that their ads were shown too late to make the sale.
Anne is experimenting with new to her quilting techniques. She learns all about them by watching instructional videos on YouTube. I was in the other room while she was doing this, but I could still hear the lessons and I could also hear when these videos were interrupted by ads, for more quilting materials. This seems a much more legitimate exercise in targeted advertisement than showing me other examples of a product that I have already purchased.
We are almost on the eve of one of the high holy days for Madison Avenue, Super Bowl Sunday. This event is reserved for the big boys, the titans of the marketing industry. As pay-to-play goes only the mighty can afford this game’s ante. How is a poor little Geppetto expected to compete? Two kinds of viewers tend to watch the Super Bowl, football fans and people who like the ads. At any watching party, an even balance of these two types helps to keep the line short for the restroom and guaranties no matter when you decide to take a leak that a roar from the living room will let you know you have missed something.
Here again people whose products are advertised are given only short shrift. They pay a fortune for their timeslot, producing these ads isn’t cheap either and they are often so esoteric that the product itself is lost in the mix. Case in point, Chrysler’s 2012 commercial starring Clint Eastwood, It’s Halftime, America. Everyone thought that it was more about selling Obama’s reelection than selling cars. Even Eastwood did, who went on to waste some of Romney’s valuable prime time speaking at an empty chair. Too meta for a Republican convention.
I’m way over my thirty-second spot limit here. Once I got going, I couldn’t stop. In these times when we have distanced ourselves from one another, things can take on outsized importance and when you are looking for new things to distract yourself with, you open the door to marketing. I hope that you really love those new shoes that you’ve just bought. Not too tight, I hope? Good.
NPR has been tracking retail prices, to gauge the effects of tariffs on consumer costs. They picked a particular Walmart in Georgia and compiled a shopping list of a 100 items. Items selected to run the gamut of all the many different things that Americans regularly buy. They published an article that compares the prices from a year ago to now. Here is a link to their article. Cod and cabbage lead the list with the largest jump in price, but these price increases have more to do with bad weather than with tariffs. While garlic, with the third largest price jump is a good example of the effects of tariffs. What got me interested in this subject, was the higher price of toilet paper that I had already noticed. Apparently, this price increase is not tariff related either, but is because of higher transportation costs for its raw material, wood pulp. Some things on their shopping list have gone down in price, but unfortunately I had failed for the most part to notice these changes. This is because for the most part I don’t but those items often enough to notice the changes. China’s reverse tariffs have forced down the price on some seafood items like shrimp and lobster. Even though Saint Louis is as landlocked as you can get, I’ll have to have to start shopping for more shellfish. Most of the items on the NPR list did not change in price.
The pictured salty is not likely to carry any of the shopping items on the NPR list. With its larger than normal cranes, it is designed to carry outsized cargos. A popular example of this type of cargo are wind turbine blades. With this ship’s name, Happy River, I leapt to the conclusion that it was of Chinese origin, but now I am not so sure. It was built in the Netherlands and was likely deadheading back down, after dropping off turbine blades that usually come from Germany.
I think that the protectionist trade policy that the current administration has adopted is horribly misguided. Trade wars are not easy to win. Especially, when you try to go mano a mano and all alone against a command economy. The latest round of US tariffs have been delayed until after the rush of this year’s holiday shopping season. That means that the real bite from tariffs won’t be felt until next year, which also happens to be an election year. We’ll see how happy voters are about getting a huge sales tax, just in time for next year’s election.
What a year! What a sports town Saint Louis is this year. First, the Blues won the Stanley Cup! Next, STL scored a Major League Soccer team. Now the Cards look like they are playoff bound. Even the elephants at the zoo have got game.
Last week, I had my annual physical checkup. Today, Anne and I had our annual fiscal checkup. Fortunately, both checkups checked out just fine. We don’t have to stock up on cat food, at least not anytime soon. When I retired, three years ago, we looked into getting a financial planner, but the one that we spoke to was asking 1%, which is nominal for the industry. Still, at the time, I balked at the price, figuring that I could do as well and for free. In the intervening years, I’ve come to a different conclusion. I think that getting some help would be a good idea now. It just so happens that I’ve had a financial advisor all along. They are an online, super cheap (0.15%) service that I got through my last employer. They never have cost much, but I never felt that they did all that much either. I think that has changed. Anne and I had a face-to-face meeting today, with their local representative. It was illuminating and I look forward to working together.
With our new found feeling of wealth, however illusionary that it might be, we went out to lunch. We ate at the Frisco Barroom in Webster. It’s only been open for a year. We’ve tried to dine there before, but have always been shutout. There were no problems today though. We each had sandwiches, which we both saved half, making lunch for tomorrow. Feeling virtuous, we split some key lime pie. There was some confusion on the pie order and the waiter brought us pecan pie by mistake. He ended up comping us that piece of pie. Now we have dessert too.
Dan has launched a Kickstarter campaign. His company, Fallen Tower Designs has created a line of laser cut terrain called Oculus Station. It is modular terrain for use in the 28mm miniatures game, Warhammer 40K. This line of terrain features a modular design and easy assembly that can be reconfigured to fit your game. Build the battlefield using this sci-fi industrial design.
He makes this terrain using his Glowforge laser cutter. He has been showing prototypes of his designs on his Instagram site, Grimmest Dark and it’s good to see it going now. Unfamiliar with the concept? Kickstarter is a crowd-sourced fund-raising website. Glowforge used Kickstarter to launch its laser cutter.
I think that he launched it yesterday and already has a few backers. As part of this campaign, he offers varying investment levels, with commiserate rewards. I believe that the above photo represents the highest such level, Oculus Outpost Primaris (Figures not included). Checkout his Kickstarter page for the straight dope though. On it is a rather well produced movie featuring his product line.
He has given himself about a month to raise his goal of $5,000 USD, which would cover his investments in the laser cutter and materials. The pictured terrain set runs $145, but rewarded contributions can be as little as $25 and if you just want to support the arts, as little as a dollar. Check it out!
