Blog

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

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!

O package, where art thou?

There is indeed a first time for everything.

Like most of you, I’ve been shopping with Amazon for the longest time. I’m old enough to remember when Amazon did not charge sales tax in California. Anyways, throughout this long relationship, the couriers contracted by Amazon have not once lost a package of mine. (Or stolen before I got to it, I guess.) Sadly, that streak ended this past Monday.

I got the standard notification email saying the package was delivered. However, it was nowhere to be found - and I was out the front door almost immediately. I live in a nice neighborhood, so package thievery doesn’t really occur (knock on wood). Couriers typically take a picture to confirm the delivery, but for this instance there was no picture! The only explanation is… well, bottom line is the package is missing.

In such situations, Amazon asks customers to check with neighbors to see if the package got delivered to them by mistake. Hope you’re on friendly terms with your next doors! If that returns unfruitful, the customer is then to wait 48 hours. Because apparently. couriers sometimes will mark a package as delivered, but will actually make the delivery on a different day (USPS has knack for this, according to Reddit). Only after 48 hours should the customer contact Amazon support.

If the courier is third-party (UPS, Fed-ex, DHL, etc), customers can and should contact them about the missing package that was marked delivered. In my case, the courier was Amazon (affiliate, probably), so nothing to do but wait the two days.

To Amazon’s credit, I was able to get a refund after a quick word with support chat. I was surprised at how easy it was, given it was about $160 worth of stuff. The fact that I’ve not once before this contested a missing package probably helped to grease things. I’m obviously not trying to scam Amazon here.

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.

Of man and pants

I don’t always buy jeans, but when I do, it’s got to be Levi’s. (Sponsor me!)

Now that I’ve returned to a more rigorous workout schedule (three times a week), my current pairs of jeans - Levi’s 502 in 31x30 size - have become a bit loose. What was once possible to wear without a belt, now requires one to hold the pants up properly. Out of curiosity, I went back to look when I last purchased these jeans, and it was May of 2021.

That is right smack in the middle of the pandemic. The reason I bought new Levi’s jeans then was the reverse of now: the current pairs were too tight. Indeed, the COVID weight gain comes for us all, and during the middle of 2021 I was at my heaviest in a long time. I can remember that September, when I absolutely struggled to fit into a suit that was tailored back in 2014. Suffice it to say, I got back on a weight cut after attending my friend’s wedding with said suit.

Back to the present day. With high inflation touching seemingly everything, I was surprised to find that Levi’s jeans (the 502 style, at least) have not increased in price. The $70 for a standard pair is the same today as it was back in 2021. Of course, no one should be paying full price for a pair of Levi’s. Their website has an automatic 20% off, plus free shipping, when you give them an email address for their newsletter. (Goes to show how absurdly high the margins are.)

Third-party retailers often have sales, too. I bought four new pairs of 502 jeans from Amazon at around $50 each. Hopefully, I won’t have to buy replacements in larger sizing for a very long time.

Perfect example why you should buy a Tesla over any other brand of electric vehicles.

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.