Kashi and I first met in college when I was looking for a high protein cereal that was delicious and nutritious. The “Crunch” cereal from the Kashi line became my best friend. But it was so fibrous that after some time it was doing some interesting things to my intestines. So I scaled back and eventually found new cereals. My quest for high protein in cereal was also less important, as I’d found other sources.

For a long time Kashi only seemed to be a cereal brand, but then I saw some frozen blueberry waffles next to some Eggos. Not normally being a frozen waffle guy, I decided to give it a shot. They were quite tasty, but another addiction (sauces, in this case syrup) took a healthy food and turned it into a fattening one. I never looked back.

But then Kashi showed up in commercials, and they blitzed me with tons of new products. And now I have two new loves. Kashi chewy bars and Kashi cookies. Chocolate and I go hand in hand, but when I’m not careful we go mouth to gut. So when I want a chocolate fix these Kashi products do two things for me.

1) I have no self control. I could eat an entire package of Betty Crocker’s oatmeal chocolate chip cookies in one or two sittings. For one, they are awesome, for another, they’re cheap. Eating pricier foods helps control me. The Kashi foods are pricy (but do go on sale). Price does more to limit portion control for me than anything else ever will.

2) The chocolate is blended in with some of the healthiest ingredients available in prepackaged food. There is just enough there to satisfy a sweet tooth. Even though the cookies aren’t fantastic, the quality of ingredients make up for it. And anything with chocolate that gets softer when dunked in milk will satisfy a cookie craving.

Kashi continues to impress me with products that are perfectly matched to my kind of diet. This is not a paid endorsement, I am a legitimate fan. We live in a fast-paced, perpackaged world. And when I want something that’s convenient and won’t make me feel guilty for eating it, Kashi is a good place to go.

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I love cereal so much that it’s likely responsible for a bout of obesity as a child. Today I keep things regulated by eating bran flakes with a banana and treating any other cereal like a dessert. But that doesn’t mean my love has wavered.

Recently there seems to have been a rush of new varieties of cereal. Have you seen how many different kinds of Cheerios out there? Here’s a list borrowed from Wikipedia of just the kinds currently on the market:

• Cheerios (1941)
• Honey Nut Cheerios (1979) (see above)
• Apple Cinnamon Cheerios (1988)
• MultiGrain Cheerios (original 1992, relaunched 2009)
• Frosted Cheerios (1995)
• Yogurt Burst Cheerios (2005)
• Fruity Cheerios (2006) (Cheerios sweetened with fruit juice)
• Oat Cluster Crunch Cheerios (2007) (sweetened Cheerios with oat clusters)
• Banana Nut Cheerios (2009) (sweetened Cheerios made with banana puree)
• Chocolate Cheerios (2010) (Cheerios made with cocoa)
• Cinnamon Burst Cheerios (2011) (Cheerios made with cinnamon)
• Dulce de Leche Cheerios (2012) (sweetened Cheerios made with caramel)
• MultiGrain Peanut Butter Cheerios (2012) (Multigrain Cheerios with sorghum, not wheat, and peanut butter)

Honey Nut and Frosted are probably the best in my humble opinion (the peanut butter was bleh).  Seeing all these varieties makes me nostalgic for some of my childhood favorites.  Without a doubt, Cinnamon Toast Crunch is the best cereal out there.  I recently tried Frosted Toast Crunch which is a new derivative product.  It wasn’t too great but it did bring back memories of French Toast Crunch!

French Toast Crunch would never quite replace Cinnamon but it sure was tasty.  I wish they still offered it.

As it turns out, General Mills does still make French Toast Crunch. But they sell it in Canada.  I wonder why there’s demand for it there but not here.

Oh well.  What kind of food can you notput down?  Do you have a cereal problem?  Maybe something else?

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And when that happens he’s no different than any other house pet. And what do they all have in common? They all barf, and they all barf in the same place.

The carpet. Our humble abode is blessed with hardwood, tile, vinyl, and carpeted floors. Additionally there are rugs. Given all these options where should our dog choose to let dinner fly but the carpet floors of course! And while we clean that up we do what any responsible pet owner does and shove them in the bathroom in case they throw up again. This is where we have tile. So we’re safe. Or so we thought.

In the bathroom is a bathmat which takes up less than 10% of the space. And our dog wasn’t finished… Where did he go? Where else?

Such is the life of pet ownership.  Totally worth it.

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Please don’t consider me an Apple fanboy. This post is being written on a Samsung/Windows machine using a Google document and by the time you’re reading this I’ll be in a world of Windows XP and Blackberry. A world I prefer. But between The Sheconomist and me, we’ve owned 4 iPods, 4 iPhones, and a Macbook Pro. These are all Apple products and very rarely have we ever had an issue with them.

Which brings me to my issue. The Sheconomist got me a brand new iPod Nano for Christmas, a wondrous and highly desired surprise. This iPod is touted for fitness types with a built in tool for tracking your jogging and is light enough to not be felt. It even has a convenient clip. Ahh the clip.

There is a problem with the clip. It’s not a manufacturing one but one of design. It doesn’t grip things easily. And just barely a month after I received this prized possession, the clip slipped off my shorts during a routine walk and the following happened.

Tragedy!

An accident, some asphalt, and a heartbroken Weakonomist. Knowing how expensive consumer electronics are I’ve always bought protective cases. My original iPod Nano doesn’t have a scratch on it. Because this device was so small and had a clip, I never bothered to acquire a case for it. As a matter of fact, my local Apple store only sold one case that protected it, and the case was an ugly thing with a carabiner attached to it. Apple appeared to be sending the message this device was durable enough for its intended purpose.

This was the cusp of my plea to my local Apple store for help. Apple is smart, they looked up my account and can see all my activity. This essentially allows them to determine if I’m profitable enough to help out. My service history with them has been zilch, other than a replacement iPhone that was defective. My relationship is profitable to them. And so, much to my delight, they replaced my Nano free of charge!

That last sentence alone sets apart Apple from most other companies I’ve ever had a relationship with. Apple does this for two reasons. First, they’re willing to eat some profit on the hope that I will reward them in the future with more business, which I will. Second, they’re able to price their goods in such a way they can build in the cost of such consumer friendly behavior.

What further sets them apart is their empowerment of the workforce on the ground to make these decisions. Surely a tool probably helps them, but the final decision is likely theirs. I didn’t have to ask for a manager, I just presented my case.

Why aren’t more companies operating this way?  Surely Apple isn’t just a diamond in the rough.  In some ways Apple is.  For too long companies have been focused on short term results.  It’s easy to make a chart showing how great margins will be this quarter if we just cut a couple of corners on outstanding customer service.  And when profits start to suffer, going the extra mile for the customer is the first thing to go.

For the last decade or so Apple has been able to avoid short-term thinking.  Many times the pressure to thin short-term comes from Wall Street, and the late Steve Jobs wasn’t a fan of “the analysts”.  Should Jobs’s successor have a similar disdain for the street I would expect such high levels of service to continue.  So thank you Apple.  I am impressed.

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Not so fast.  Such a tax could be great for the US, but at the same time to could be bad.  And it would of course create huge fights in Congress.

The right will start by saying this is an infringement on people’s rights.  Might like a cigarette tax is designed to punish behavior.  This is arguably unfair.  It’s something I agree with.  Cigarette taxes are more understandable because the smoke can bother other people.  But why should anyone get in the way of someone who wants to enjoy a soda?  And why just call out sodas?  Why not tax frappuccinos too?  How about potato chips?  They all contribute to obesity and reduced consumption would help.  A tax just on sodas is unfair, and may not solve the problem.  People will just switch to drinks that aren’t subject to the tax.  Companies like Pepsi will suffer huge losses due to a tax that doesn’t even solve the problem.  And let’s not even get started on what the government would do with it’s new revenue source.

These are all legitimate arguments that I believe in.

But I’m as blue as I am red.  The government is desperate for new revenue sources.  This is the kind that Republicans can be convinced to implement because it doesn’t hurt their traditionally more wealthy constituency.  I believe that government can implement responsible policy and while I concede a soda tax doesn’t solve all the problems, it’s a step in the right direction. It’s clear to me that while people are free to make their own decisions, they typically don’t make the best ones.  Like the cigarette tax, this helps reduce consumption of something that’s bad for people.  It also helps raise much needed funds for the government.

Again, all legitimate arguments that I believe in.

This being an election year, I should feel sick.  How can I have two completely different viewpoints on the same issue?  Actually, it’s quite easy.  It’s called being a moderate.  Politicians might call me a flip-flopper, which outside of our extreme political spectrum I would take as a sign of someone that is willing to be convinced they are wrong.  But there’s no place for me in American politics.  Being a largely rational human being, I find myself in the middle of the arguments above.

If you look at sales of soda over the last few years, they’ve actually been falling.  It’s not just the recession that accounts for that, because other types of beverages have increased in sales.  Part of that is due to people smarting up about sodas.  Part of it too are increased prices on sodas in the checkout lane.  It wasn’t so long ago you could easily find a 20 oz for a buck.  Not anymore. But to hit that magic dollar mark again manufacturers have introduced 16 oz bottles.  That means soda companies are making the same or more while you consume less.  All without the help of a national tax.  So you’ve got a lot of factors outside of the politics of the issue.

Where do I stand on this issue?  Somewhere in the middle.  It’s a problem for sure, but it could be a problem that solves itself in time.  I’m a bit too skeptical to believe a study that tries to extrapolate the direct health benefit of a soda tax.  People will likely get their fix some other way.  Extremists will start making their own soda, or if the tax got really high they’d buy it on the black market.  You think that’s a joke?  There’s been such a market for cigarettes forever.  At the same time, getting a tax on the books will raise some revenue, and adjust some behaviors.  Do I need to make a decision about this?  No.  I pay people in Congress to figure it out.  But what I expect is open-minded conversations and for these hundreds of supposedly competent politicians to actually come up with a solution to a problem they can agree on.

Image: robad0b

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In reality, I think I’m just too lazy to learn how to do some stuff. But that’s started to change recently. At some point hardware stores started to look like toy stores to me. Now I’m buying tools, drilling holes, and taking more of a Tim Taylor attitude to the things I own.

But I’ve never done anything with my car.  Happy to pay someone so long as it comes with a guarantee.  But after working on other things and not wanting to spend hundreds of dollars this weekend I decided to look into some of the stuff a dealer wants to charge me to do.  My car is telling me one of the things I need to replace is the filter in the cabin.  This filters the air that comes in through the vents.  I passed the last time my car told me to replace the filter because the dealer said they would need to rip out the entire dashboard to replace it.  The cost was north of $150.

Not worth it so I took my chances.  20k miles later my car wants to replace it again.  Not dead yet, but I asked the dealer for a quote on all the service.  Aside from basic services which I expect to be less than $150 even at the dealer, they need to replace this filter.  Total quote, over $300.  This thing must be a pain in the ass to get to.

So I looked it up.  The part (which I’m holding in my hand) is about $30.  Cheaper online or at a auto parts store.  The process to replace it, about as hard as filling up your gas tank.  I had to remove one latch on my glove box and pull the thing down.  The filter was right there.  So I pulled it out, cleaned it with my finger, and put it back in.  Later today I’ll go buy a new one.

I’m not about to start changing my own oil, but I could get used to this DIY stuff.  Whether you can afford to pay a mechanic or dealer to do the work is almost irrelevant.  Some of these things are so simple it’s not worth your time to take it somewhere to get this kind of thing worked on.

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But before you start thinking about how great 2012 could be, stop and consider whether 2011 was really so bad.  In my family we would always have a fire and write down the things we’d like to forget and then throw them in.  A great way to cleanse the mind.  What would you put in the fire?  Did you feel the same way about 2010 when it was finishing up a year ago?

Why not instead of looking forward to a new year and new possibilities, or trying to forget the bad moments of 2011, cherish every moment.  In business we’re supposed to applaud failures, because we learn from them.  2011 was a good year.  It had ups, it had downs, even found some grey hairs for the first time.  Call them battle scars.

Life can always be better.  It can always be worse.  Enjoy the ups and downs.  Even if 2011 wasn’t a great year for you, you should feel good if you made the best of it.

Resolutions do not work.  The motivation people find to make the resolution will fade by MLK day.  To the universe this is just another day.  Tomorrow is just another day.  Make the most of next year but not in the name of forgetting a prior one.  Here’s my guide on how to do it:

Step one: don’t take life advice from an anonymous blogger.

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Keurig coffeemakers: My wife doesn’t drink coffee so it’s rarely made sense for us to have a normal coffeemaker. Even when I did have one I was so lazy I rarely used it. But we found some leftover giftcards from our wedding and a coupon so we bought a Keurig earlier this year. I love it. The K-cups are pricey (70 cents a pop retail) but much cheaper than coffee shops. But what makes it a real winner is using a reusable filter so the machine can brew regular coffee, which is no more pricey than a typical coffeemaker. Keurig makes their own but it doesn’t work that well. I recommend the “Solofill” branded one that’s sold in many store or on Amazon. Just don’t actually put coffee up to the “fill level” because it will stop the machine up.

Moe’s Southwest Grill: I’ve been eating at Moe’s for years, but it was only recently I realized they do good stuff there. They use cage-free chicken, grain fed beef, hormone free pork, and even whole grain tortillas. You can certainly make their food bad for you, but you can also make it very healthy and feel better knowing you’re eating quality ingredients. I don’t eat meat often, but when I do it’s nice to do it at places like Moe’s.

Total Wine: I’m not a big wine drinker, but Total Wine has one of the best beer selections out there too. And I really appreciate stores that let you just get one bottle of a beer in order to try it. Unfortunately for people not on the east or west coast, you probably don’t know what this store is. Sorry.

Fresh Market: Once again, if you’re not east of the Mississippi you may not have heard of this store either. It’s a grocery store that sells goods similar to a Whole Foods or maybe a Trader Joes. Typically organic or on the high end, they have the best produce I’ve ever seen. They also offer a number of products (like tons of jellies and honey) that you can’t find elsewhere. But the best thing is the food they’ve already made for you. In the middle of the store is basically a buffet designed to make you drool. And if you like pastries or breads, they make tons of those on sight. Service is always great, and there’s usually tons of samples.

Flipboard: This is a new app to the iPhone but has been on the iPad for some time. It’s a beautiful way to read the news in a magazine like format. It’s also one of the few apps that gets me to read news that don’t have anything to do with technology or economics.

Google Maps: I could say simply my iPhone but want to call this out specifically. Google Maps was one of the main reasons I first got an iPhone back in 2008 and it remains one of the most important apps I have. It gets used regularly for traffic, finding faster ways around town, and looking for landmarks in Streetview.

IKEA: Once again you’re shafted because there aren’t that many IKEAs in the country, but they are the best furniture store around.  When first starting out my wife and I bought a coffee table for $20.  Now we’re looking for a nicer one and find ourselves still at IKEA because they have quality products for price below the competition still.

Power drill: Thanks to things like IKEA and a move recently I’ve been screwing lots of things together or taking them apart.  A drill with screwdriver heads is so invaluable. The downside is hardware stores are starting to look more and more like toy stores for me.

Readers: Most of my readers will never see this post.  Most of my readers come from Google searching for a specific topic.  But there are a few hundred of you out there that read my blog every day.  I appreciate you, and it means a lot to me that you take 3 seconds out of your day to the read headline and then ignore the post.  But the readers I appreciate most are the ones that literally read every word I write, and thus are the only ones that will actually read the bottom of the post.

Once again (and for the last time) I’ll ask you readers to tell me what your favorite things are.

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The rural population that makes mail too expensive: The postal service is required to make shipping available to anyone anywhere in the US accessible and at the same price.  It’s why a stamp costs the same no matter where you’re coming from or where it’s going to.  The cost is clearly more to send a letter to Alaska than it is to send a check across town, but the price is the same.  The 1% most rural population make things so much more expensive for everyone.  They need to have easy access to a post office and so much of the bloat that is bankrupting the postal service has come from serving this entitled 1%.  Talk about socialism.

People who back into parking spots: Seriously, unless you’re about to rob a bank, you don’t need to save the extra 7/10 of a second it takes to back out of a spot.  You take up so much more time backing into a space, it inconveniences everyone around you.  And you aren’t very good at it anyway.  Is it going to help you beat the traffic?  Do you anticipate some kind of emergency?  Do you hate the way the back of your car looks?  Please explain to me why it’s cool to take up everyone’s time to do this!

Drivers with political statements on the back of their cars: Oh thank you.  I was on my way to get an abortion right now and because your bumper sticker says abortion is bad I’m going to take a pass.  That’s what stopped me.  And it’s so great that you eat local but drive 45 minutes to the nearest farm to do it.  My 5 minute trip to the grocery store was better for the environment.  And I’m sorry 1999 Honda CR-V owner, Kerry/Edwards lost, you can remove the sticker now.  And 1980s truck owner, did you really read all 1100 pages to find out who John Galt really is?  I would just die to have a real conversation with you about your Objectivism (if you know what that is).  Or do you just not like taxes?  The 1% that put such things on their cars can only hope to get 1 thumbs up for every 5 middle fingers.  Free speech is great, and I respect that.  But man are you annoying.

Those that think their success is only due to themselves:  Really, you had all this success and it was due to how great YOU are.  No one succeeds without good coaches, supportive families, customers with money, or some amount of luck.  You are successful and you rose to the top.  That is great, but you can’t get to the top alone.

Antibacterial resistant germs: Bastards, this is actually less than 1%, but those jerks just won’t die.  Now that they’ve grown and grown, they’re probably at like 5% now.  Those antibacterial commercials should have to retest monthly to see if it’s still 99.9% or whatever they kill.

Friends that post pity-parties/angry messages/try to influence opinion on Facebook: I don’t care if you hate your job.  I don’t care that the lady at Starbucks has it out for you.  And I really don’t care that you think that society is falling apart and your moral character is so strong.  No one, not even the people who used to call you friends before you got all combative on Facebook care.

• Followup – The people that actually respond to these messages thus encouraging further behavior: Seriously people?  This 1% just encourages that 1%.
• Followup – The people who complain about such conversations but won’t block the people: Maybe this is like 10% for some people.  But as soon as I see crap like this on Facebook you’re blocked and gone.  Don’t post anything on Facebook that you wouldn’t say to someone’s face.  My rule is simpler, don’t say anything you wouldn’t say at a high school reunion to that person’s face.  Or in front of your mother.

Don’t forget to check out the 99%s I hate.

Image: mskogly

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I don’t like taking drugs. When I can avoid it I will. That includes everything from basic pain killers to prescription suppositories. So it was with great reluctance that I was transported to an urgent care facility yesterday. I knew all the people there would do is give me some drugs for what ails me. And damnit, I loved those drugs.

You see, when I get intestinal flues I violently expel everything but my actual intestines through my mouth. Even capillaries on my face will burst. Friday morning I had so much trouble with it I literally strained my back. And I was dumb enough to walk to work to get my laptop. Very much regret that adventure. There was no possible way to sit still or lay that did not aggravate my back or nausea. Though the medical facility made me wait an hour before they would treat my writhing pain and nausea, it was worth it.

I got two shots in my bum, one for the back pain and one for the nausea. And now I feel great. I was able to sleep, retain food and fluid, and as of this morning I only feel as if I were hungover. Which for me, means craving bacon.

And I have the drugs to thank. I also got a prescription for ongoing nausea but am already behind schedule because I don’t like taking anything unless I absolutely have to. This is especially the case if all the drugs do is treat symptoms. I have similar feelings towards Sudafed, but boy will that stuff kill your cold symptoms when you need it.

Given how much pain I was in yesterday I understand how addictions form. That’s one more reason why I don’t like taking anything. I don’t want to disrupt what my body does naturally for fear that I’ll then need the drugs just to function normally in the future. Still, I had three needles poked in me yesterday and it was all worth it.

But it’s worth it like a trip to Disney World is worth it. Very rarely and only after someone that means the world to you forces you to go.

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