Another Cubs game, but this time, a win. The Cubs beat the Giants last night 4-2, with a small enough crowd that my cousin and I were able to "upgrade" from our actual seats and actually see the game.
You see, the Cubs organization counts paid attendance, which last night was 39,112—not bad in a park that holds 41,118. Only, not everyone who paid actually attended. We guessed the actual in-the-park attendance may not have crested 30,000, which was at least better than the sell-out we attended last Thursday in which half the seats were empty.
...I can identify this as an example of non-price competition in an environment of monopolistic competition. It's also damned funny.
Via Bruce Schneier, a poll finds that only 21% of Americans surveyed know how big a trillion is. Possibly because some of them were taught by this clown.
Fighting bumpy air the whole way, I flew today to Rockford, Ill., 53 nautical miles from Chicago Executive. It's kind of a cop-out, of course: 50 nautical miles is the minimum distance of a flight's outbound leg in order for the flight to qualify as cross-country. Check out the KML, though: every time I flew over one of those fields, the plane jumped about 50 m straight up; every time I flew over one of those lakes, it dropped 50 m. Such is the fun of summer flying.
Beautiful day, though, high thin overcast and 21°C the whole time.
Via Sullivan, I suddenly feel very old:
We extracted about 75 percent of the responses on age (representing about 700 responses, taking equally from the earliest and most recent postings, which show very similar age distributions). Per John Makinson's quip at an LBF panel, over half of reporting Kindle owners are 50 or older, and 70 percent are 40 or older.
So many users said they like Kindle because they suffer from some form of arthritis that multiple posters indicate that they do or do not have arthritis as a matter of course. A variety of other impairments, from weakening eyes and carpal-tunnel-like syndromes to more exotic disabilities dominate the purchase rationales of these posters.
Wait! I'm not 40 yet! And I see just fine, with a little help.
This, on the day that I took a final exam in a class (Introduction to Microeconomics) in which every other student was younger than half my age. Yes, there were about 50 of us in there, and the day the Berlin Wall fell down I was older than they are now.
Sigh.
I had thought about writing a long entry on another technical aspect of the new version of Weather Now, but for the first time in weeks it's sunny and 20°C, and I just finished a final exam in economics. So, off to the dog park.
All y'all waiting for the lengthy technical stuff will just have to wait until it rains again.
Update: In the meantime, why not scratch your head, as I did, over meat business cards? Hmmm....
Via Sullivan, Pew has some interesting data on the differences in opinions about torture held by religious Christians and godless atheists:
More than half of people who attend services at least once a week -- 54 percent -- said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is "often" or "sometimes" justified. Only 42 percent of people who "seldom or never" go to services agreed....
Therefore, as Sullivan points out, "Christian devotion correlates with approval for absolute evil in America. And people wonder why atheism is gaining in this country." (Emphasis his.)
Given the Cubs' recent performance, last night's 8-2 loss against the first-place Marlins doesn't sound that far out of the ordinary.
Then you see the box score, and see that the Marlins got 6 of their runs in the 10th inning, and you start to cry. Yes, the 10th.
I actually left the park after the 4th run in the top of the 10th. The Cubs still hadn't gotten the first out by the time I made it to Addison.
I'll be there Monday, when (one hopes) they will not lose quite as badly to the Giants.
...hmm....feels the same...
For a variety of reasons that are really much less lucky or indicative of good planning than one might think, I managed to avoid having a huge portion of my retirement savings wiped out in this current downturn. For one thing, I rarely invest in single-issue securities, having little appetite for eggs when placed in a single basket.
Just now, though, I'd like to gloat that the only single-issue stock currently in my portfolio just rose above the price I paid for it, commission and all, meaning I have an actual capital gain since buying the security in December 2007.
The stock? Peet's Coffee (NASDAQ: PEET), whose slow-growth strategy combined with extremely high quality standards not only means I drink their coffee and tea every single day, but also that their stock is going up in the middle of a crash. (Their 46% profit growth last quarter didn't hurt their stock price, either.)
I can't wait for Summer House to come back next month...