Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large.

A truck when you need it

I don’t always buy furniture (my room is tiny), but when I do, I lament the fact I don’t have a proper vehicle to transport anything big. The tiny backseats of a BMW M2 may fold down, but the trunk aperture is so narrow that I can’t even fit a typical office task chair through the opening. I get why SUVs and trucks are so popular: you may only need the carrying capacity maybe once or twice a year, but damn if it isn’t handy when you do need to ferry something huge.

So instead going to grab the new couch from IKEA directly, I paid for shipping like a rich person who can’t be bothered to waste time like that. Admittedly it sucks to pay for any shipping at all when I am so used to free shipping on even the bulkiest items from Amazon (100 pound television set is just fine and free). But I wouldn’t buy staple furniture pieces on Amazon: no way I’m plopping down thousands of dollars on an item I’m presumably keeping for decades without first laying eyes and butt on it.

Speaking of IKEA, it is opening up a store in San Francisco soon. The problem is, the location is on Market St. downtown right near the twitter headquarters. Also known as drug-dealing central to us locals. The Whole Foods nearby just announced it’s shutting down (after grand opening less than one year) due to the deteriorating conditions in the surrounding area, and the rampant theft that occurs daily. Unless San Francisco starts actually enforcing those type of quality-of-life laws, there’s no way an IKEA store will last very long there.

There’s also the issue of parking downtown. I guess that particular IKEA store won’t be selling too many bulky items. From the outside there doesn’t seem to be any space at all for the typical monolithic parking structure. How are people going to load their Billy bookcases? It’ll be interesting to see. I for one will continue to go to the store in East Palo Alto. That is, when I’m not buying something too large.

Return of Chuck

For the first time in a long time, I bought a new pair of shoes. It’s one I’ve been missing in the rotation for a while: a basic pair of Converse Chuck Taylor low top, black and white. This used to be my go-to shoe until I converted to lightweight running shoe just like everybody else. Athleisure is ruling out world! Do people even wear actual pants anymore? We all have a pair of Allbirds, don’t we?

The problem with my pair of Allbrids is the wool construction exacerbates my sweaty feet. Taking them off at the end of a work day is kind of a yucky situation. I would spray Lysol into my pair after each use like a shoe rental at a bowling alley. I’m sure the synthetic version of Allbirds is better, but as we know, Allbirds are not cheap. It was time to go back to something old and classic.

Enter the Chuck Taylor. Surprisingly, Amazon does not ship and sell these Converse shoes from its own warehouse. Plenty of third-party merchants, however. Seeing this, I decided to go directly to the source: converse.com. The official website ended up being the least expensive as well. Win.

When did Chuck Taylor gain cushioned insoles? This was a pleasant surprise the first time I slipped the new pair on. My old pair definitely have the typically hard and flat insole - you didn’t buy Chuck Taylor for orthopedic benefits. This is great because I plan to wear these shoes often, and the orthopedic benefit is a nice bonus for my old-man feet.

Does anyone know how to recycle old shoes? Seems a bit odd to just throw them into regular garbage.

Subscribe to everything

Amazon Prime Day is happening right now. Hope you all get something nice with a massive discount. I am not participating because I don’t really need anything right now. It’s best to avoid spending money on things I want simply because it is on sale. I’m not even going to look at the Amazon webpage, lest I be tempted to click the checkout button. Besides, it irks me that you have to wait for a certain time/day for particular items to be on sale; I don’t have time to play stake-out.

You know what isn’t available for Amazon Prime Day? A PlayStation 5 console. Insert smirk face emoji.

Word on the street is that BMW will start charging subscriptions for features in their cars. It’s happening now in the South Korean market. You want heated seats? That will be $18 dollars a month. A heated steering for your precious hands costs $10 dollars a month. These features are already built into the cars: payment merely unlocks it in software. Customers are able to pay one full price for “unlimited” access to the features - much like ticking the option box when ordering a car.

I guess this appeals to our millennial generation who are so used to figuring out costs on a monthly basis. If the monthly payment for a particular thing is doable, then I can afford it! Who cares if the full payout stretches many years out into the future. I’ve been paying a month lease on the latest iPhone for many years, and will likely continue to do so. For certain products, it’s just easier.

I don’t feel the same way in paying a subscription for features in a car, however. It’s as if the customer doesn’t own the car at all! I joked that since the lock is all software, I’m sure there will be cheap hacks for sale on eBay. But then someone raised a good rebuttal: BMW can probably disable your car entirely if it sees you’ve got some illicit code running.

Glad my BMW M2 was made and bought before the oncoming of this connected-car nonsense.

The only subs in this car is the subwoofer.

Costco rethink

Who doesn’t like going to Costco? I sure do. There’s no place else that can get you as best a bang for your buck, no matter what it is that you buy.

Groceries is what my family most often buys from Costco, and now that I’m living by myself away from my parents, I’ve continued on that tradition. However, there’s a problem: buying in bulk is great in terms of price per single unit, but now, that giant bag of potstickers will need to be eaten entirely by me. There’s no other persons in the household to share in that burden of depleting a multi-pound tray of fish, so while it remains tempting to buy, these days the purchasing decisions involve careful planning on how to eat it all.

It turns out, that stops all the fun. Instead of buying multiple items, I’m stuck to buying just one package of breakfast sandwiches, because it will take me some time to get through all 10 of them. Never mind the fact the fridge I’ve got in the studio unit is not that large.

It won’t stop me from going to Costco probably every other week, but now I have to be more strategic with what I buy. If variety is what I want, then it’s the smaller chains like Trader Joe's and Whole Foods where I’ll need to shop at for groceries.

Luckily, there’s a Trader Joe’s within minutes walking distance from where I live, and sometime in the near future, there will be a Whole Foods as well. Be that as it may, I don't think I can give up going to Costco. It remains the most economical place to shop: a box of Keurig cups is half as expensive on a per-cost basis compared to Target.

Good thing those cups don’t need to go into the fridge, because mine is absolutely full.

One can never escape from a Costco run with less than $100 spent.

Where's the furniture?

I am moving in two weeks, and part of that process is buying some new pieces of furniture. Nothing mysterious here: I am going to IKEA. I really dig the company’s furniture designs (and the meatballs from the dinning hall), and the notoriously bare instructions don’t flummox me one bit. It’s about convenience, too: for an impatiently anxious person like me, it’s helpful to do all the furniture shopping at one place.

However, there’s a problem: the bloody pandemic. It seems I am amongst the many with grand moving plans during these times (waving goodbye to the folks leaving this great state of California), so there’s a bit of a shortage at IKEA. Friends of mine went there a few weeks ago in hopes to buy some pieces, but returned home empty handed because the ones they want were on backorder. I’ve got my fingers crossed that in two weeks’ time I won’t encounter the same fate, though I’m quite okay placing the mattress on the floor for some time (hashtag bachelor life).

I don’t need that much new furniture anyways, just a bed frame and a large bookshelf. Ever since I read Marie Kondo I’ve tried to keep personal items to a minimal, so in terms of what I need to buy and what I need to move, I don’t really have that much relative to the typical person. Except for books: I am a cruel tyrant to trees because I refuse to stop buying books in paper form, rather than the far more ecological digital format. If I didn’t have physical books, I can move everything I have (sans furniture) in two suitcases.

The 1st of November cannot come fast enough; my impatiently anxious self is eager to get this change done and move on to other beautiful things.

IKEA trip

The problem with preferring to buy physical copies of books instead of digital (sorry, trees) is that there’s never enough shelf space to house it all. Eventually I have to start shoving the new ones into drawer, and how esthetically pleasing is that? Isn’t the whole point of physical books is to show them off in book cases and shelves? How else are people going to know I am a learned being and I read a ton.

Joking aside, I do enjoy the library-like feel of having books on display, and in the never ending battle to procure more space, this weekend found me at the local IKEA store. There is a sale on the famous ‘Billy’ bookcase, and since I am an Asian always in search fo a bargain, the time was perfect to make the trip to East Palo Alto.

Not forgetting it’s still very much coronavirus season, I was curious at how IKEA is handling the flow of people in and out of the premise. The solution was rather simple: an amusement park-style queuing system, with a snake-like barricade system, and of course, six-feet of space in between each person/familiar group standing. It was indeed like waiting to in line to ride a rollercoaster, right down to the fair warning at the beginning that it’s a 30 minute wait until the absolute front.

Once inside, both sections of the IKEA store - showroom and warehouse - is open, though obviously the people flow is far reduced compared to “normal” times. You can even head straight to the warehouse section now, where previously they always forced you to walk through the showroom first. Knowing precisely where the bookcase I seek was located, I head straight for that aisle and section, bypassing the opportunity to walk through the second floor showroom.

After checkout, it was then another queue - with social distancing - to get into the elevators and back down to the ground floor where everyone was funneled to be parked on; you can’t have too many people stuffed into one like we’ve done previously. I would say the whole shopping experience was a bit strange, but not too much of a bother. I didn’t realize how much I had miss the simple task of heading to a store and buying something (that isn’t groceries).

With a new shelving in hand for more books, I am ready for the at least another year’s worth of purchases. Bring it on.

No more Amazon Prime

After nearly a decade of subscribing to Amazon Prime, starting with a measly student account way back when, I’ve recently decided to not renew my membership with the online shopping giant. Including taxes, the annual fee for the privilege of having items shipped to my doors for free in two days (among other perks, admittedly) have ballooned to $120, and in this year of all years (hello, coronavirus), I am not seeing the value in paying that.

Ever since the pandemic started, I’ve been super conscious about spending, so my Amazon account is sort of just languishing, with hardly any purchases made. Even at the times I did purchase something, I’ve selected the slow shipping method, out of some sense of moral obligation to not further overload the surely massively overloaded system. If I didn’t need something absolutely right away, then I can wait the few extra days. These warehouse workers and delivery persons have a tough enough job without me adding any additional unnecessary burden.

Hashtag virtual signal.

So with utilization having gone way down, and getting comfortable again with slow shipping, (I was never a big watcher of Prime video) the forces combined to allow me to stop subscribing to Amazon Prime. The clock has turned back to the early 2000s, and I have to accumulate over $25 dollars worth of product in order to get free standard shipping. No more impulse purchases or last minute buys like a box of paper clips shipped to me on the same day, which is quite okay and not really problem in the grand scheme. How’s this for a novel idea: if I need a particular item immediately, I can physically go to a store!

In the beguiling voice of Stefon: these days, Target has everything.