Collection of my views, interests, and life experiences (some of which tend to be related to cheapness)
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Seven Costanza?This week they had the Seinfeld rerun where George comes up with the name "Seven" for his and Susan's future child. Susan's cousin and her husband were having dinner with George and Susan. During dinner they discuss the baby and possible names. George suggested the name "Soda" which they both didn't like at all. While Susan and George were driving back from dinner, George told Susan of his ideal name for their future child - "Seven" (Mickey Mantle's number). Susan hated the name, and later told her cousin of this argument they had over this name. The cousin and her husband actually loved the name "Seven", and decided to use it for their new baby. When George heard they were stealing his name, he got furious. George insisted that it has "cachet", but Susan disagreed. Then George angrily responded:
Oh its got cachet baby! Its got cachet up the ying yang!
Interestingly, both the name "Soda" and "Seven" meet my 4 rules for baby names. However, as I mentioned last week, both names are probably a little too odd for a name. Also interesting about this episode is that the cousin's husband name is "Ken".
Price Rounding
One of these days, I would like to see a gas station that rounds their prices to the nearest cent. It's amazing that all gas stations have 9/10th of a cent added to their price. Does it really create the illusion that the price is 1 cent cheaper? Let's say you use 600 gallons of gas per year. The amount that you save from not rounding is 60 cents for the entire year. If gas is one cent more costly, it would add up to just $6 a year. Even though I'm pretty careful with my spending, I'm not going make a special trip to a gas station in a less convenient location to save just a penny a gallon.
Vacation to Las Vegas, Gambling, and the Lottery
I'll be taking a vacation starting next Saturday to Las Vegas with my brother. Although I'm not into gambling, there are a lot of other things I look forward to such as the amazing hotels, Hoover Dam, and the Grand Canyon. But one interesting thing to me is the psychology of gambling. It's clearly a powerful force that has built the gambling meca of Las Vegas.
I just heard a fact this morning that 48 of the 50 states now have state lotteries. Seems like the most successful lotteries are the ones that have the biggest jackpot. Every time the jackpot gets big, it gets free publicity on the news. The bigger the prize, the more time the news spend on it.
Here's my suggestion for playing the lottery. Before the drawing, just pick the numbers and write them down. Write down as many picks as you want. But don't buy any tickets. Then when the numbers come out, see if any of your numbers are winners. For each wrong pick, award yourself $1 (assuming a ticket costs $1). For each winning pick, subtract from your "winnings" the price of the winner. Most likely you might have to subtract a few dollars for when you get 3 of 6 right. Perhaps you'll have to subtract around a hundred dollars for 4 of 6. Keep doing this for a year, and I bet you'll find that you are coming out ahead. Of course, there's a tiny chance you'll lose big if one day you get all 6 numbers. But I bet that never happens.
