the shrewdness of apes

some slightly old - but still disheartening - news:

Washington Mutual will start charging fees for non-WaMu customers at their ATMs. turns out that offering this service for free served only to create longer lines at its ATMs which had the opposite of the intended effect by causing delays and annoyances for its actual customers. this provides an excellent opportunity to dig out a quote from a few years ago to make them look hypocritical: "'Consumers are tired of being nickel-and-dimed by banks, so we're saying the buck-fifty stops here,' said Tony Manisco, senior vice president and group manager for Washington Mutual retail banking in Illinois. 'We've opened 60 locations in Chicagoland since mid-June with ten more to come by year-end, so it's getting easier for people to find a safe haven from nuisance fees other banks are so fond of.'" but wait, i'm still tired of being nickel-and-dimed by banks! oh well, at least i have my offshore accounts.

meanwhile, planbreaker passed along the sad news recently of the impending demise of Vanilla Coke. my love for this product was borne of its seemingly remarkable effect on hangovers, but i think that conclusion was based on a too-small sample size and my consumption has mirrored the overall downward trend for the product. still it shipped 35 million cases in 2004 (down from 90 million in 2002), which you would think would be good enough to keep it around but you would be wrong. has it come to this? a product that sells 35 million cases can't even be considered to have a niche? don't hold your breath on seeing Raspberry Coke in U.S. stores any time soon. this is another example of Americans getting the shaft variety-wise. i know that's bullshit for the most part, but there are significant categories of products available in places overseas that are not offered here for reasons that aren't clear (cf. kfan's rant about KitKats).

at any rate, the passing of this once-revolutionary tonic will no doubt merit little critical discussion and won't have the nostalgic irony of a Crystal Pepsi. it will however soon be replaced in grocery aisles by Super-Ragin' Berry-Blasted Mountain Dew: Special Victim's Unit or some such.

on the topic of soda, i've been experimenting with making my own ginger ale recently and hope to have a D.I.Y. post about that at some point.

Posted by Jamie at 12:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

there are just 5 spots left now as the home-and-home playoff series began on Saturday. my earlier predictions proved surprisingly cogent, as i went 4-for-5 in Asia, was mostly right in Europe, and correctly predicted Trinidad heading to a playoff. Uzbekistan let me down, as did Chile, but still not bad overall. so without further ado, your guide to Wednesday's games written by someone who will be unable to watch any of them (quick perusal turns up only reruns of Trinidad vs. Bahrain anyway).

Australia v. Uruguay - La Celeste won the first leg 1-0 at home, but now face an arduous trip to Sydney for a game 4 days later and 13 time zones away. the Socceroos tried to claim the mental edge by taking a charter flight back home replete with massage tables (but presumably no Foster's). apparently, Uruguay doesn't care about its team because they all had to fly coach. they didn't win a single road match during South American qualifiying going 0-6-3, but they only need a tie here. still, i like the Aussies to either win outright by scoring twice or by netting one and then taking the penalty kicks. i would have considered getting up at 4am for this one just to relive the fun of 2002, but i don't see it in the listings so i might actually be productive at work instead.

Bahrain v. Trinidad and Tobago - Trinidad payed a terribly lackluster match at home and needed an unreal strike from Christopher Birchall - who had never set foot in Trinidad before the Qualifying began, but who's mother is Trinidadian and who is Trinidad's first white player in something like 60 years - just to escape with a tie that means they likely will have to win to advance to the World Cup for the first time in their history. i don't know much about Bahrain, but i still think that Uzbekistan got hosed and i have numerous co-workers from Trinidad, so i'm rooting for the Soca Warriors.

Czech Republic v. Norway - the Czechs won on the road 1-0 in a game in which the losing goalie was given the "Man of the Match" award, meaning it should have been worse. can the Norwegians become the first team to overturn a deficit in a European home-and-home qualifiyer? seems highly unlikely.

Turkey vs. Switzerland - the Turks really hurt themselves by falling 0-2 in the first leg, including a late 2nd half goal. Switzerland allowed just 7 goals in 10 matches leading up to this, so expect them to pack it in on defense and hope to make the game as boring as possible.

Slovakia v. Spain - speaking of boring games, Slovakia will need to win this game 4-0 in order to advance. Spain allowed but 3 goals in going 5-5-0 during the first stage of qualifications, so i think i like my chances in Tuesday night's Mega Millions drawing better than i like Slovakia's.

after this, it's a long, cold winter until things kick off on Munich on June 9th. not to mention a long 4 years for those that get left behind. i'll be back with more analyses once the groupings are announced on December 9th.

Posted by Jamie at 12:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

things are getting interesting in the Republican controlled Congress these days as many of the the more moderate members feel they have more to gain from standing their ground on certain issues rather than blindly following the lead of Bush and Co. this played out in an interesting way this week as the House dealt with a budget bill that included drilling in the Arctic while the Senate Finance Committee faced the possible extension of Bush's welfare for millionaires, i mean "tax cuts".

normally i could care less about much of the inner workings of government, but i do have a very real interest in the issue of oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) - a priority for Bush since he took office, as he has a lot of palms to grease in the energy industry. i'll set aside for now the ridiculousness of the hearings that Congress held on gas prices and the record profits of the world's largest oil companies in the 3rd quarter of '05 ($9.9 billion for ExxonMobil alone) that might actually be a harbinger of their doom. the fact of the matter is that we are fast reaching the tipping point where oil production will be unable to keep up with the demands of a rapdily growing world population, with resulting shortages and skyrocketing prices. U.S. oil production has dropped by 3 million barrels per day in the past 20 years (about 30%) while imports have risen from about 4 million to 12 million barrels per day during that time. this is where the ANWR comes in.

with fewer reserves of oil untapped, the energy companies are under increasing pressure to develop new sources. so for them, drilling in the pristine Arctic wilderness makes sense - they're attempting to ensure the long-term health of their companies. the problems arise when you start to take a look at just what new exploration and drilling in Alaska will actually produce. first, any production in the area won't likely begin until 2013 at the earliest, with peak production not reached until 2025 or so. keeping in mind that these are estimates that could easily be high or low, the best-case scenario for peak ANWR oil output is about 1.5 million barrels per day, with the average scenario predicting closer to 1 million. by 2025, we will be importing an estimated 70% of our oil. adding ANWR oil to the mix lowers that to 64% at best while also reducing any trading imbalace by $6-$15 billion. so basically we would be providing less than 10% of our actual oil needs while having a minute impact on world oil prices and our balance of trade. oh, and we'll need 10-20 years just to do that - time in which market forces will likely continue to wreak havoc on oil prices and time in which a more forward-thinking government might invest in resources that might still be around a century from now. oh, i almost forgot, it would also mean encroaching on one of the last few wildernesses that we have left. you know, polar bears and caribou and all that jazz.

so it was heartening to see a group of 22 Republican representatives refuse to back the budget bill before them until the provision for drilling in the ANWR were removed. this led to the House leadership pulling the budget off the floor entirely when many reps were still not sold on the cuts in Medicaid, food stamps, student loans and farm supports that were part and parcel of the bill. without those provisions, many hardline conservatives would not support the bill. meantime in the Senate, the permanent extension of the tax cuts could not get out of committee, and even a proposal to extend them for just a year did not get off the ground. again the hardliners were at odds with the more moderate sectors of the ruling party.

so where does this leave all of this legislation? it's hard to say. both sides of the Republican party seem unwilling to budge and there will also be the distractons of Supreme Court nominee hearings and a Defense bill that is getting contentious over the revelation of secret prisons ans suspension of due process. so i'm cautiously optimistic that the specter of Arctic oil drilling may be beaten back fr good and that the Democrats may be able to seize on their chance to turn the tide in next year's general elections. but i've been disappointed before and the Democrats have yet to offer anything resembling a cohesive policy vision, so there's still lots of room for things to go sour.

Posted by Jamie at 01:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

i have been bestowed with what i will call an honorable mention in Daniel Radosh's latest New Yorker Cartoon Anti-Caption Contest. the bar has now been set for the rest of you.

Posted by Jamie at 11:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

attempts to alter (some might say censor) language and perceptions to be more sensitive and/or inclusive are derided by conservatives as politically correct. affirmative action is ridiculed as reverse discrimination and "quotas" that cater to minorities. and yet many of the same people who hold those beliefs have no problem derailing Halloween in schools, thereby forcing school districts to cater to a minority sensibility for fear of offending those who can't just let their kids play dress up and eat some candy because it's not in Revelation (which is plenty scary, actually) or the Qur'an.

Binghamton University philosophy professor Eric Dietrich sums up my feelings pretty well when he says, "Halloween is a flare-up of huge social problems we're facing. If you show me a United States with no holiday where you can be creatively weird, I will show you a United States with no hope."

Posted by Jamie at 01:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)