Cultural Oddity

Crooks, crooks everywhere

Well, not exactly everywhere. But I did go into a local "AT&T Wireless" outlet. And it was weird.

Could not quite figure it out for a while, until it dawned on me. It's but a smaller version of a car dealership. You know, a place, where crooks can work legally while "selling" crap to their customers under a disguise of "low monthly payments".

For what it's worth -- I use a pre-paid T-Mobile thing. With my volume of calls, it works out to about $10 a month, a far cry from $40-50 a month for most plans. Even if the volume of calls increases sharply, at 10cents a minute, that's a reasonable price. And I'm in a full control of this expenditure. It does not automatically fly out of pocket.

The more the better

The "fitness" gurus have a habit of saying nonsense. They would like you to believe that if only you do something-rather a few minutes a day, which is, or course, easy, you'll get fast results. In such cases, they are lying through their teeth.

But such nonsensical claims have a valid point. That is, people are generally lazy. They don't like to spend effort. They like exercises which are:

• quick,
• easy,
• which bring results fast.

Which is a sheer nonsense. But it gives rise to a proliferation of strange practices. Such as "yin yoga", where you don't spend efforts, because stretching cold muscles is all you have to do to be fit, in spite of all the rules of sports medicine. (By a strange coincidence, the founder of this "yoga" is Pauli Zink, who proclaimed himself to be a Monkey (Kung-fu) King a while ago. Which encountered some serious fraud accusations. )

These natural human tendencies (leading to unhealthy desires) caused one kettlebell aficionado David Chester to joke that heroin is the best for those who want to loose wait fast. Because it's quick to take. And it's easy. And it brings results fast. Very efficient.

If, however, you want to get some fitness results in a natural way, you have to work on it. And the more, the better. Here is a study (if you need one) which showed that extra training was giving rise to health improvements even for runners covering 50 miles a week.

Scooter Economy

I ride scooter to work. When I mention this to my friends, their typical reaction is something like "you'll save money on gas". Well, yes and no.

Yes, I save some money on gas, but no, this is not a significant category money-wise. Here is a comparison of ownership expenses between car and scooter in my case:

• Parking at work: $800/year for car, $200/year for scooter.
• Insurance: $600-700/year for car, $100/year for scooter.
• Maintenance: $300-400/year for car, $200/year for scooter.
• Gas for my commute: $300/year for car, $150/year for scooter.

So yes, there is some "fuel economy", but in the total cost of ownership it is insignificant. Although it is gratifying to know that a little scooter with conventional technology is "better" than a huge expensive "hybrid" car.

Of course, one's transportation a personal choice. If somebody considers "scootership", I'd strongly recommend doing MSF classes before jumping in on it. Those guys have a lot of experience, and many great advices one needs to know. They usually teach you motorcycles, which is "complicated" (5 controls for the 4 limbs of yours). You'd really appreciate an easy ride with a scooter afterwords.

Sleeping on an Airplane

This long-winded and marginally helpful article about sleeping on the airplane reminded me about a better one. I think I saw it in a AAA travel publication. The gist of it was very short:

• Sleeping on the airplane is the best method to deal with jet-lag and travel tiredness.
• In order to fall asleep, it helps to:
  • NOT follow the airline drink/food schedule. They bring the stuff every couple of hours, that it keeps you awake. Best to have your own to drink/eat when you naturally want to.
  • Bring your own eye covers and earplugs. They help to shut down "external simulations".
  • Bring your own pillow for the neck comfort.

That's it! Works like magic for me.