The Cure for Road Rage

It has almost been a year since my last blog post. I think that may be related to the fact that the Subway near my office is now closed. No more meditation sessions over foot-longs.

I have tried different approaches to convincing myself to not to get worked up when other drivers make aggressive or seemingly inconsiderate moves.

In retrospect, the cure seems perfectly suited for me.

I read an article about x number of driving habits to improve fuel economy from some auto publication online. Unfortunately I cannot remember the links. They claimed to have experimented with a large sample size of different vehicles but did not actually include any information from the tests. Most of the points they made were fairly logical but others were counter-intuitive.

For one, it said if you need to cool down, roll your windows down if you are off the freeway, but turn on the A/C if you are on the freeway. Simple enough.

The habits that I applied that really cured the rage were:
1) Try to avoid using brakes. If you have to use your brakes, you used too much fuel to get there too quickly. It kills kinetic energy.
2) 55 is most cars optimal cruising speed for fuel efficiency. Unless you are driving really far, if you drive 55 or 65 you will get there at almost the same time on average. Maybe 30 seconds later. The article did include that it is unwise to go slower than the flow of traffic, but hey, if your lane is going 55, don't sweat it.

Now the reason these habits or mindsets cured my rage is because it gave me a reason to not drive aggressively and it helped me realize the cost of driving aggressively. When someone accelerates and cuts me off and hits the brakes, I used to think, "Oh that jerk, I have to teach him a lesson and create a social cost for him so he won't do it next time." It is my desire for justice as well as applied economic reasoning. Now I think, "Poor sap is going to pay for that at the tank. Oh well, his choice. If he wants to make costly choices, its his money." I mean, there are still externalities there, but at least there is some existing cost to put my mind at ease. I no longer feel the anger and need to enforce driving etiquette.

The best part is I also gained a MPG or two by using the new habits.

Toilet Seat Covers

Its time seat covers are changed!

Why is the poke-out tab attached at all? It just rips! There is no quick/easy way to detach the middle portion from the sides and front. If it comes predetached, no problem at all.

That was my beef and solution until I read this: The Oatmeal, Public Toilets. So true.

Sorry for the language.

Wipeout Here We Come!

Heather and went to an open casting call for wipeout today in Burbank. I thought it started at nine and we were going to be late. Fortunately I was wrong and it started at 11 am, so we had a pretty good spot in line. Only about a block down from the front. Considering the first in line got there at 4:30 am, I am glad that we did not get there until 9:30 am.

They may have a few episodes as couples, father/daughters, mother/sons, coworkers, etc. as indicated by the website, so we registered as an engaged couple and wore matching shirts. On the back Heather hand sewed "The Future MRS" on hers and "Hixon" on mine. As we waited in line, Heather finished her shirt like mad. She gained the respect of anyone who had hand-sewn in line and even a few gals said they would by a shirt like it.

The line moved surprisingly fast. I bought a dozen doughnuts to share with people in line and with the Wipeout crew. There were a lot of Halloween costumes including a tennis player, mario, "Bobman" (who had fliers with his in-costume picture on it that he would sign and hand out), a Leprechaun and many more.

The process was to move us through in groups. They told us to have a lot of energy and show our personality. So they asked us a few simple questions and we were supposed to answer. I answered in Chinese first and when the crew member spoke back to me in English with the correct conversational dialogue, I realized that she too spoke Chinese (and looked Chinese). She said, "Did you just guess I was Chinese?" and I told her that no, I was planning on it no matter who it was. What do I plan to do with $50,000? I told her, "I am engaged, so whatever she wants." To introduce humor and Heather simultaneously.

Heather was charming as usual and we showed off our shirts and our crew member liked that she was a future opera singer. Our group of 9 was selected to go inside and upstairs to make an appointment with a casting director. Our appointment is for Thursday Oct. 28th. I do not know what the other possible results were because not everyone went inside and upstairs. I do not know if some people got to audition today or not or if people were sent home, but we think we did pretty good. So our on camera audition will be in 2 weeks! Wish us luck in your hearts! If I get on the show, I will dominate the course. I have my secret strategy planned!

Countercyclical Products

Are movies/tv shows/entertainment creations about economic downturns counter-cyclical?

Is a good way to make money in a recession to make a movie about the recession?

Space

I was typing a SQL statement and considered how SQL might be different if it was in Chinese. The computer just matches up the text prompt with the call name for the data column. In our database the columns titles are often multiple words with no spaces. I thought, "Well, that wouldn't even be a problem in Mandarin."

Then it struck me for the first time (somewhat depressingly, since I started learning Mandarin 7 years ago) that there are no spaces between characters in written Chinese.

I knew Chinese had very limited grammar rules, and nothing was lost by not having conjugations for verbs based on time, subject or object, as usually this is made redundant by context. I never realized that the language is also without spacing.

Each character is written in the same size square area, and the more simple characters have a lot of room around them, but since each character represents an idea, space is not required to distinguish words.

Sometimes multiple characters are used together to form a larger or more complete idea and sometimes it is confusing if you run into character combinations you do not know, or an idiom you do not know. But for characters that you already know, spaces are not needed. Each character has its own "built in" spaces.

New Evidence for Clothes

An interesting graphic that supports this previous blog post.

Bank Give-aways

ING Direct has a referral program where the person who provides the referral receives $25 per qualifying account opened and the person who opens the account receives $50. I took advantage of this offer about 8 years ago. I forgot about the account for about 4 years and eventually came back to it. I made like 5% back on $70 or something that was in the account. Not bad for a savings account with very low balance.

I am now signing up for an account with Bank of the West. Free ipod touch for signing up by 8/20/2010. I read the fine print and its not too shabby. Just open an account and use it through 10/31/2010.

I am not sure how banks can be profitable doing this kind of sign up promotion. I stuck around with ING. They had less than $100 bucks from me for 4 years but I am a loyal customer now. Maybe they can afford it because they know they have a good product.