Blog

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

Straight cash, homie

The greatest thing Tesla did for the American car market isn’t being the vanguard for the electric vehicles revolution. It is offering an alternative to the traditional dealership method of car buying. For once, you can simply tap on your phone to buy a car, no hassles, no begging some asshole across a desk to sell you a car. The price is the price, no add-ons, no hidden fees.

I’d buy a Tesla car on that procedural benefit alone.

But I’d have to want a Tesla car, which I don’t. So to buy almost any other brand, I have to set foot inside a dealership, and talk to a guy or gal. The incentives at play cannot be more juxtaposed. The customer is trying to pay as little as possible, and the salesperson is trying to sell for as much as possible - because their proverbial food-on-the-table depend on it. When two sides are so directly opposed, each inch given and taketh feels especially painfully emotionally.

By asking to pay a lower price for a car, you are directly hurting the paycheck of the salesperson. It’s kind of perverse when you think about it. That relationship is entirely adversarial, no matter how cordial the conversation may be.

What doubles that whammy is when a customer like me shows up: paying in cash, no vehicle to trade in, and declining all add-ons.

You see, it’s not just on the net profit of a car that a dealership can make money off a customer. When you have a vehicle to trade in, the dealer makes money when they sells that to another party. When you finance a car purchase, banks kick back money to the dealer. Call it a finder’s fee. And we all know about add-ons: extended warranties, wheel insurance, paint protection, et cetera.

So with me, I am robbing the dealership of two thirds of the potential profits. This creates a slightly awkward situation because the sales department knows they are not going to make as much money off me. Depending on the particular car and brand, selling me a car might even be a waste of time! Why make $300 from me when the next person - financing, with trade-in, and amicable to add-ons - is a walking $900 sign asking to be snatched. It would take selling three cars to three of me to equal that one transaction.

I am not surprised then when their attitude with me isn’t as favorable compared to a customer with higher profit potential. Again, the incentives are perverse. If my salary is entirely commission based, of course I am going to treat the higher potential customers with more enthusiasm, if not complete favorable bias.

Try it next time: nothing kills the mood faster than telling a car salesperson that you are paying in cash fully.

It can be done!

This past Saturday I needed to get down to San Jose from where I am at in San Francisco. A 50 odd mile trip that would take about an hour by car. But I couldn’t do the drive. You see I was heading down to San Jose to buy a car. That meant I couldn’t arrive with a vehicle, lest I call a friend to come with. Hashtag lonely driver.

The Bay Area isn’t metropolitan Asia, but the public transportation infrastructure around here is reasonably passable. I wouldn’t rely on it to get you to work at a specific time (if you can avoid it), but for the odd getting around on the weekends at a leisurely pace, it’s quite alright.

So I hatched a plan to get down to San Jose using purely public transportation. First I took a bus to the nearest BART station (the regional subway network, for those of you unfamiliar). I then took the subway southbound to Millbrae, a transfer point to Caltrain. I took the local train for the majority of the miles down to San Jose, then transferred again to the local light rail (VTA) for the final leg to the dealership. In total, the trip took two and half hours door to door.

What do you think? I reckon that’s a decent time for a 50+ mile trip using public transportation. The fares in total for the single way trip was about $18. Compared that to hailing a ride-share: Lyft quoted me $75 for the same distance, plus tip. No thank you.

I think we are fortunate to live in a region where such a trip is even possible, sans private car. On weekends when you are not under any time pressure, it might even be more enjoyable than driving. The views on the train down to San Jose were rather interesting!

We're going to need a finer screen

While I am happy that San Francisco isn’t burning up like Europe is currently, nor are we experiencing record heat waves like rest of America, global warming for us is a bit more insidious. We may not get the extremes - thank god, but our overall summer temperatures have definitely been trending on the higher side in recent years.

Five years ago - when I first moved to this current spot on the west side of town - I didn’t even have to change out of winter blankets. Flash forward to the present, and there’s definitely a distinct summer season where the thinner material of duvet is absolutely required.

Mosquito season was never a concern in the years prior. Thanks to climate warming mixed with San Francisco’s renowned humidity, mosquitoes have become proper foes. Because I am on the first level of a house, I am particularly vulnerable to these critters coming in during the night to disturb my sleep.

Which revealed another problem. Because my windows are mesh screened, I’d thought it be fine to keep them open - you know, to cool down during the night - and not have to worry about mosquitoes. Not true! The typical bug screen installed on home windows isn’t fine enough to keep out the blood suckers. According to the Reddits, mosquitoes can squeeze through as fine as 2 millimeters of space. Damn buggers.

The solution was simple: get an even finer mesh. I bought this from Amazon that is dense enough to block No-see-ums. Because of that, it will defend just fine against mosquitoes.

First world climate problems, of course. I would still rather be in San Francisco weather-wise than anywhere else in the world.

Stop it. Get some help

The local mall here gained a new boba tea place, and it’s been super hyped. HeyTea, a milk tea spot originating from China. Who doesn’t like China? I love China. (End of Trump impression.)

As per the usual with hyped up food openings, the lines at HeyTea has been long. So long in fact that the queue has extended beyond the shop and onto the entrances of adjacent stores. And those aren’t even the most aggrieved tenants, I would say. The other boba shops in the same mall has to be sick at this new kid on the block sucking up all the customers.

Of course, the smarter of us would forgo the line at HeyTea and patronize the other boba places. It’s just milk tea, after all. I don’t care if Salt Bae himself is sprinkling on the last bits of sugar on top. (Is he still around?) The subjective taste difference isn’t worth the hour of waiting in a line. Granted, I don’t have an instagram account to show everyone the latest boba tea hype. Nor am I a food blogger vying for content.

I know this is all a bit old man yelling at a cloud. If waiting in crowded line is how you like to spend an afternoon, then bully to you. Memento mori is always on my mind, and I simply don’t have time for that. Besides, I’ve already had the best milk tea possible on the planet: in Taiwan.

Turn it down a notch

Public service announcement: don’t be like me. Don’t chase every little interior rattle in that used car you purchased. It’s not worth the hassle or mental anguish. Take the car for what it is: imperfect. It gets me from point A to point B, and the air conditioning works superbly. What more is there to ask for?

Heck, even new cars are not immune from interior rattles. My 2013 model year Subaru WRX STI is kind of known for a rattly interior. Of course you can take your new car to the dealer to have the technicians there chase the sound for you. But then you’d risk introducing new noises when the techs inevitably take apart the interior to investigate. Or worse, they break a piece and don’t tell you about it. (Don’t ask me how I know.)

You know how just because someone is a pro in one domain, it doesn’t necessarily transfer to other domains? A Michelin three star chef might be horrible at playing pickleball. I think the same framework applies to my innate perfectionism and obsessiveness. Those qualities are a positive when it comes to my job. Attention to detail and comprehensiveness is what gets me paid. Let me sweat the details and point out areas of inadequacy.

The same qualities are a huge negative when applied to my hobbies. The compulsion for perfection sucks out the fun. And that is why we do hobbies, right? For the sheer fun of it. There’s a happy medium between aiming high and self-flagellation for mistakes. A medium I’ve yet to achieved. I just spend a solid hour Googling various causes and fixes for front dash rattles for my Golf GTI. What a waste of time! It’s a used car, the interior is going to make some noises. Get over it.

The problem is: I can’t simply turn down the obsessiveness knob. It’s me. At least the Michelin star chef can readily admit defeat against a pickleball master.

The world together

The 2026 edition of the World Cup is over. Congratulations to the Spain national team on a truly dominant showing. Ignore the low final one-nil score: Argentina got utterly spanked in the Final.

Congratulations also to the stadium food vendors. Selling beers for $22 is just excellent business. Exploitive capitalism will continue so long as there are willing participants. Consumers have clearly shown a high price inelasticity, no matter how much they may grumble externally.

The magic of the World Cup happens when the games are on during the workday. The collective attention is drawn to the games. Productivity drops down as close to zero as allowed. (Sorry and thank you, bus drivers.) Even the casual sports observer is glued to the screen. The best games are those that go on to penalty kicks as the decider. During which the entire office comes to a screeching halt to watch the nail-biting tension.

Seismic sporting events like the World Cup and Super Bowl are truly awe-inspiring when you zoom out and think about just how huge a population is tuning into the matches. So it’s no wonder FIFA instituted a hydration break in the middle of each half: the advertising dollars for those three minutes of stoppage must be profitably enormous. Who run the world? Girls marketing.

But for us Americans, it’s back to ignoring the sport of soccer for another four years. I think that’s a good thing. America’s Major League Soccer should remain the relative niche that it is: for the die-hard football fans. This keeps the matches accessible and affordable for attendees. Can you imagine how much tickets would be if El Trafico had the same cachet as El Clasico? Capitalism will get its grubby hands on MLS and price out the peasants.

Until four years later, world.

Sweat stinks, but Arrid works

If you are like me and have sweaty extremities at the mere hint of any kind of bodily motion, it’s quite a chore to handle the water-fest that comes. After, of course, you curse at your awfully unlucky genetics. Because like that famous deodorant commercial, a sweaty guy is not in the least attractive.

A sweaty head is easy enough. Anytime I am doing anything active, a sweat band goes on. It doesn’t stop the sweating obviously, but the primary function I need it for is to prevent the droplets from interfering with my eyes.

Sweaty hands just means frequent glove changes when I am involved in any dirty jobs. Partly why I buy single use nitrile gloves on Amazon by the 1000s. Environmentalists please don’t come for me. I have a monthly donation to the NRDC since 2016. Think of it as buying carbon credits, but on an individual level.

Drippy feet are a more difficult issue to solve, unless I literally don’t go outside ever (read: wear shoes). On the regular, I absolutely must wear wool socks. Cotton or synthetic (or both) socks would soak up the moisture and utterly stink up the proverbial joint. Painfully, wool socks are hilariously expensive. The Darn Tough ones I bought are $20 for a single pair. At least there’s an unconditional lifetime warranty…

However, I’ve found wool socks to not be the best for running - it isn’t thin enough. How to avoid the stink then when wearing cotton blend? Foot powder. I’ve had great success using Dr. Scholl's. It is hugely cumbersome to use: you’re essentially sprinkling it on the feet before putting on socks. The powder gets absolutely everywhere, so the best place to apply is in the bathtub or shower area. Other than that, it does the job fantastically: soaks up the sweat, no stink.

I might try dousing my hands with the product before using gloves…