[no subject]

Megatech. Giant Robot. Sigh.

I bought a pound of gummi worms, and ate them until I was sick.

Am I any good at what I do? Am I of any value?

Am I too old to run away and join the circus?

Smokin'...

Ever wonder if cops smoke out? This is hilarious.

Bitter much?

Sometimes I think I've recovered from my intense, reflexive hatred of anyone with money. After all, I make a pretty serious money these days.

But, some guy that I'd been chatting to on an online personals website had been talking about how his early retirement was boring, and how he might get a job to fill the time.



I hated him so much.

I wrote this reply, that I sort of regret.

Jed-

I don't think we could be friends.

In general, I find it really difficult to get along with people that have money. I find that usually we have no common frame of reference and no common ground.

A large part of my professional life is pretenting to care about the concerns and politics of people more successful than myself. I have been embittered by the experience.

I know that I'm being unfair.

Sorry,

Mike

The old white-trash Westminster Mike lives on. I may be "the man," but, that doesn't stop me from hating "the man." Fuck authority, silent majority

Bikes

Ran across a cool website for a club of bike punks up north. Point 83. I think that's a pretty cool idea.

LA Story

I'd seen that barber shop last time I was at the 24 hour Pastrami hut. I parked around the corner, in a pristine Jefferson Park neighborhood, and watched the rapid degeneration over the space of 100 feet as I headed up to W Adams Ave. Four rough looking women sat on the sidewalk, smoking. One in a wheelchair. There was trash in the gutter, wet from the rain.

They didn't speak English at the barbers, so I talked my way through with bad Spanish and gestures.

"Muy corto aqui, and short como asi," I said, making cutting motions with my fingers.

My stylist, a 50-something chubby Latina with worn, vintage scissors, worked quickly.

I spoke far more Spanish than I was letting on, so I could eavesdrop. They talked about babies and car seats. Soon enough I'd was a clean-cut, and headed back to the car.

Back by my car, two guys pushed a beat-up 70s van, black, with pop-out plastic windows. One asked me if I'd push the van with my truck. I said no, but, gave them a couple of bucks. They offered me some pot.

"Nah, I'm good," I said.

Then, I motored to Santa Monica to buy a high visibility yellow-green cycling jersey, and a new flashing light for the bike.

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Found at completely at random on weblogs.com... Julian and Hannah want everyone to know that they're happy. Young love is cool. Good luck, kids.

Just enough for the city

I advertized a room for rent on roommates.com. I expected a flood of interest, because I was only asking $300/mo all inclusive, no deposit, month-to-month. I posted some pics. I got many e-mails, but only a couple of people actually came out to see it.

(For those of you not in LA, just know that $300 all included is a tiny amount of money for a room in a house, even for a room as small as this.)

I don't need the money. I actually thought of it as my favor to the world, an opportunity for others.

I just got a call from the last candidate, from an Aussie backpacker. He comments echoed many of the e-mails I'd received: the neighborhood is too rough.

C'mon people. Aussie backpackers are the cockroaches of the world. I had Aussie backpacker neighbors when Richard and I lived in Catford, the armpit of London. To be rejected by an Aussie backpacker is harsh.

I guess I see the upward trend: houses being fixed up, new young families moving in, Saturdays where everyone drives back and forth to Home Depot.

All my neighbors have been great: friendly, talkative, community minded, unified.

But I understand. I was a renter once: I had the opportunity to live in a fancy neighborhood free from bars and graffiti and them pesky negros. I had the opportunity be near the hotspots. But now I'm a homeowner. To make that happen, I made some strategic choices.

I'm just surprised that there are so few people that understand my choices.

Voodoo economics

I was a little troubled after watcing Frontline's documentary on China and Wal-Mart on PBS last night. There wasn't anything in their that I didn't already know: the manufacturing of virtually all consumer goods has been exported to China. Prices for consumer goods in the US have decreased. Inflation is kept in check. Wages have decreased. Cities dependent on manufacturing have become veritable ghost towns. The United States exports nothing to China because its people, mostly earning between 2 and 8 dollars a day, couldn't afford to buy anything we make.

So, reading through a couple of columns on Yahoo Finance, I came across three interesting articles.

The first, by Ben Stein, tows the line of conservative economic dogma. Lower prices mean more available money for the consumer. The availability of the extra money is a benefit to the economy. Many jobs are being exported, but, somehow, somewhere jobs are being created that make up for it. Trust me, life is only getting better. Yadda yadda.

As a bleeding heart leftie, my problem is this... Our government conspires in a system that helps jobs be exported and cost-cutting consumer goods be imported. The same government demonizes those who have lost their jobs as a result of these policies. And if these same people need to rely temporarily on programs such as food stamps or welfare, they are excoriated. The government needs to recognize that if they are complicit in the destruction of local jobs for the greater economic good, those who have lost their jobs cannot all be lazy welfare queens, and it is the responsibility of government to help with retraining and to provide temporary cushions to protect those in need.

The second, by Charles Wheelan, says something I think is more intellectually honest. He notes that many jobs don't provide a living wage, but having some money is better than nothing. He believes in the value of the earned income tax credit to help protect those that do work but can't afford to live on what they have earned.

The third, by Robert Kiyosaki, is the most interesting. He frames the debate with respect to China in terms of the cost of assets instead of the cost of consumer goods. While the cost of consumer goods have gone down, freeing up dollars to buy more goods, the value of the dollar with respect to assets -- land, gold, stock, gas -- is worth less and less. Holding onto dollars at a time when the price of assets is increasing is essentially just letting money evaporate.

So, while the system is rigged so that the price of a TV compared to the average wage is holding steady, the cost to buy those things that help build wealth -- property, stocks, gold -- continues in increase.