Blog

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

Appointment in Samarra

I have a coworker who doesn’t like the drinking water coming out of a taps on campus. Not even the bottle filling stations where there’s a filter. His explanation is that he ultimately cannot trust the water that are in the (he supposes) old pipes. What does he do to sustain life? The coworker buys bottled water from the campus Peet’s Coffee.

I guess he does not know about the dangers of microplastics. Conventional wisdom is that we should avoid plastics as much as possible when it comes to things that can enter our body. Food and drink containers, specifically. Haven't we stopped leaving the plastic wraps in when we microwave our food?

Sadly, it looks like my coworker is avoiding a (potentially non-existent) harm by embracing another harm. An Appointment in Samarra situation, without the dying.

For a company as successful and beloved as Costco, why is their website and app situation so pitiful? It’s a complete chore to get it to show me whether an item is in stock at a local warehouse. And even if it does show to be in stock, it is not a guarantee to be true. Last week I was looking to buy some fish oil that was on sale, and the two stores I went to that showed to have it on the Costco website, did not. What a royal waste of time that was.

I get it: with all those delicious membership fees that Costco is charging us, what incentive is there to improve online shopping? I’m not sure they feel the need to chase those sales. Besides, the in-warehouse experience is where they can feed us samples to entice us to impulse buy. How many times have we gone to Costco with a list, but came back with twice as many items?

Chicken and Accutane

The rotisserie chicken at Costco remains one of the best food deals on the planet. Six dollars for two pounds of cooked chicken meat. Weightlifters looking to gain mass on the cheap should move next to Costco just for easy access. Have a hot dog and soda while you are at it, too.

It is somewhat bothersome that the chicken is put into a plastic bag. A piping hot roast straight out of the oven and into something entirely plastic. I’m no evangelist against polyurethane, but that cannot be completely healthy, right? I’ve stopped heating up food in the microwave with any sort of plastic container or wrapping a long time ago, and so should you.

Costco should use a paper bag alternative, or a compostable container. Raise the retail price slightly if you have to. I’d gladly pay for more for zero heated plastic.

Two months into the Accutane treatment for my chronic acne, and a new side-effect has materialized. Accutane causing intense dryness for the entire body is well-known and par for the course. I’d thought that meant my skin would become dry and cracked like on a cold winter’s day. I was wrong: my dry skin is showing up in the form of tackiness, a mild stickiness to the epidermis. Crossing my legs would cause the thighs to adhere to each other like velcro.

The skin is also fragile, too. Not just towards sun exposure, but impacts. Small abrasions that usually wouldn’t amount to anything can now wound the skin. I am definitely not going on mountainous hikes wearing shorts during this Accutane cycle.

No soup for you

Word on the street is that Costco will begin scanning membership cards at warehouse entrances. As if the problem at Costco is they don’t check for your membership enough? Not only do they already visually check for a card at the entrance, but then they scan your card again at checkout. One time I was at self-checkout, and a team member asked to see my card, even though I already scanned it at the machine?! Nowadays you even need to show proof of membership before buying at the food court.

Of course, I get it: Costco has to protect its 4.5 billion dollars per year cash cow in the form of membership dues. Inflationary headwinds has made it difficult for Costco to keep its famously bargain prices. Much like how Netflix cracked down on account sharing, the prevailing standard operating procedure is clear: no more freeloading. A hot dog and soda for $1.50 - a menu item that Costco most certainly loses money on - is for paying members only.

I wonder if non-members have solicited members to buy food for them. Like teenagers asking an adult to go inside a gas station to buy liquor. With fast food prices in the 10s of dollars for a meal, $1.50 for a hot dog and soda just might be the closest thing to a free lunch.

I guess Costco membership “sharing” is not statistically insignificant? I mean, otherwise the company wouldn’t bother implementing account scanning at the front entrance. They want to make doubly sure the membership is active, and the cardholder is the actual person there. No more taking screenshots of the membership QR code in Costco app and sending it to your friends or relatives. (Does that even work?)

Hey, if that means less people inside of Costco during busy times, I welcome the new membership enforcement mechanism!

Acceptable substitute

One of my favorite fishes to eat is raw salmon. (Grilled on a hibachi is also acceptable.) Unfortunately, I haven’t the money nor the time to drive to a Japanese supermarket to buy fresh, “sushi grade” salmon. Therefore, the only time I actually eat salmon sashimi is when I’m at a sushi restaurant, or a poke restaurant. Shame.

I was over at a friend’s house, and I noticed in his fridge a package of farm-raised salmon purchased from Costco. I remarked the fish looked good enough to eat raw - I wonder if we can. To the Reddit! First things first: apparently, “sushi grade” is a bit of a scam. There isn’t any governing USDA rule that qualifies a cut of fish fit to eat raw. It’s all marketing, though I suppose a supermarket better be damn sure it’s absolutely safe if the package claims sushi grade.

Anyways, according to Reddit: Costco farm-fresh salmon should be fine to seat sashimi-style. The fish is delivered frozen to Costco, and the workers thaw it for retail packaging. The frozen part is important because that’s the procedure that kills the bad stuff. If you still have some apprehension, the best practice is to freeze it yourself for seven days after purchase. That should effectively (99% with an asterisk like a Clorox bottle) kill anything that can potentially upset your stomach.

Armed with this newfound information, I bought a package of Costco salmon last week. I cut up the fillets into meal-sized servings (for me, which is about 3/4 a pound), then put it all into the freezer section. A week later - that would be yesterday - I thawed a piece, sliced it up, and prepared the soy sauce for dipping. Verdict: it’s very decent, no worse than the cubed salmon served at poke places.

For a fraction of the cost of the truly fresh stuff from a Japanese supermarket, I can totally get used to buy Costco salmon for a long time to come. Proteins and omega−3 fatty acids, baby.

Get your hot dogs here

With all this complaining from me about food price inflation, the one constant I forgot about is the price of a hot dog at Costco. It seems come hell or high water, $1.50 will forever still buy you a hot dog and a soda there. A slice of pizza remains $1.99 as well. There is no freaking way McDonald’s and its $12 for a meal can compete with that.

It’s reputed that the Costco food court is a loss-leader. A marketing spend, an enticement for people to join its membership. That’s why the prices there have not kept up with inflation. That being said, Costco must be hemorrhaging cash at that side of operations now more than ever. Corporate greed aside, it’s indeed true that material costs have increase dramatically in recent years. Even Costco and its buying power can’t be immune to that.

The fact that even under these circumstances, the price of a Costco hot dog remaining the same is a testament to its corporate culture. It’s one of the few brands you can be morally satisified to do business with. (Another is Patagonia.)

But even Costco can only take on so much red ink. Word on the street is that soon, Costco will bar non-members from patronizing its food courts. Previously, anybody off the streets was allowed to buy a whole pizza for the low sum of $9.99. Not anymore! Inflation is so bad that Costco is restricting its de-facto food court subsidy to members only. There’s got to be a return on that subsidy.

The legion of blue-collar workers going to Costco for a cheap lunch will be so disappointed.

The greatness of Costco

Even though I live within walking distance to a Whole Foods, Target, and a Trader Joe’s, I still make the pilgrimage (in relative distance) to Costco every few weeks. It’s one of the few reasons I still own a car (other than, you know, being a huge car enthusiast) - to drive there and carry all the stuff back.

Because Costco cannot be beaten from a price per unit standpoint. I may have to buy more than I really need at that time (four pounds of oranges compared to one pound at Whole Foods), but I am paying significantly less. The key then is to have enough space to store the extra stuff until it is time for me to use it. My favorite is buying many pounds of Alaskan cod, separating them into half pound pieces, and freezing them for long-term keeping.

Fitness guys and girls: don’t forget about the sale on Optimum Nutrition whey protein at Costco. 48 dollars for 80 servings is a superb deal, from a hugely trusted brand. (Though I can remember it used to cost $48 un-discounted before the pandemic.) I took great advantage of this and bought four bags (had to go to Costco twice, since the sale limits two per customer per visit). Suffice it to say, I am set for much of 2024 on protein. (Yeah buddy! Light weight!)

Another awesome thing about Costco: clothing. For your everyday basic items, Costco offers excellent quality and low prices. Every time I visit, I take a look at what’s newly available at the clothing section. (Would that be compulsive?) I own many pants, shorts, shirts, sweaters, et cetera - all bought at Costco. It is fantastic.

I am admittedly lucky in that I get to bum off my father’s Costco membership (one account can have two cards). But even if that weren’t the case, I would happily pay the $60 for the basic Gold Star membership. Much like an Amazon Prime membership, I easily make back the annual fee in either savings or credit card points.

Government work

Last week I wrote about the aim to not spend any money on Black Friday. I am happy to say: mission accomplished. Going away somewhere during Black Friday helped tremendously. I’m not tempted to click on the latest slickdeals tweet if I’m nowhere near a computer! Today is Cyber Monday, yet another black hole of potential spending. I’m doing my best to avoid Amazon right now.

During Black Friday we ran into a friend whilst getting lunch at Costco. Say what you want about inflation, but Costco food court prices have remained consistently low. A hot dog, a soda, and a slice of pizza can still be had for less than four dollars. If gas prices weren’t so enormously inflated, I’d drive to Costco more often for lunch. If the price of a hot dog ever increases from $1.50, surely the American economy have gone to the toilet. Hasn’t happened yet in my lifetime!

Right, the friend. He works at a credit union slinging loans to people looking for a lower interest rate than the big banks (credit unions are great). He said he’s looking to switch to a government job, perhaps with the city of San Francisco. The allure of excellent benefits and a pension at the end is rather tempting for a person in his mid thirties wanting long term stability. Especially during these uncertain times: we’ve all read about big tech massively laying off employees. Companies not doing layoffs are freezing hiring.

I guess I should consider myself lucky to be employed by the State of California. I didn’t realize a government job can be so desirous by those on the outside looking in. The conventional wisdom is that the private sector pays substantially more than the public sector. Everybody wants a solid rock to climb onto during times of uncertainty and recession. Public sector jobs also typically offer excellent work-life balance, something I cherish greatly.