being cheap

I don't mind spending money when I feel that it's justified (e.g. Tivo, premium orange juice, nice sheets and towels, trying out new restaurants) but I hate discovering that I've paid more than necessary for a particular item/service. So, I research purchases online ad nauseum, check prices on eBay for weeks, and track cash rebate credit cards and savings account rates.

Recently, my Nokia 8265 started to run out of power at an alarming rate. The battery gauge would go from four bars to one during a 15 minute call. Since I've had the same phone for at least three years now, and it's a TDMA model, I thought I'd look into getting a new phone; maybe a quad-band GSM.

I called up Cingular, and asked for deals on new phones, and was told that I qualified for a new phone, but as an old AT&T Wireless customer, I would have to "upgrade" my rate plan in order to get one. By "upgrade", they meant, switch from my current $34.99/month plan (with unlimited incoming text messages) to a new $39.99/month plan (with no text messaging). Apparently, even if I bought a phone from a retailer, in order to activate it, I'd have to "upgrade" my rate plan. I declined, of course.

A week later I bought a new battery off of eBay for $6.96, including shipping and handling.

time to go east

A friend of mine is planning an Eastern Europe trip for this fall, and I'm hoping things will work out so that I can go too.

I've been to a bunch of countries in Western Europe, but I've never gone very far east, as you can see:

(You can make your own map at www.world66.com.)

pill popping

I went to the doctor about a week ago about some persistent foot pain. She diagnosed it as tendonitis, and prescribed 600mg of ibuprofen, to be taken three times daily, with food.

My biggest problem with this is that I don't usually eat three times a day. I've actually taken to getting up earlier and trying to get to work in time to eat breakfast at 10am, so that I can take my pills earlier in the day. Unfortunately, I still have to adhere to the 4 hour rule, so I can't take another set of pills until after 2pm, and I have to wait until I eat again, which is generally at dinner time.

Also, 600mg works out to 3 (over the counter) tablets, which means 126 tablets over two weeks. I've already finished bottle I had lying around (expiration date: January 2005), and am now raiding the first aid cabinets at work.

I never understood before why people talked about it being hard to keep to a medication schedule, but given my difficulty with a two-week regimen, I can only imagine what it's like for victims of chronic illnesses.

studying birth rates

From SFGate:

The study found there were 6.4 million pregnancies in the United States in 2001, resulting in about 4 million births. There were 1.3 million abortions and 1.1 million miscarriages. The pregnancies were almost evenly divided between intended and unintended, and the unintended ones led to almost even numbers of births and abortions.

Hidden in that sentence is confirmation that about 50% of pregnancies are unplanned. I conclude that if everyone in the country was willing and able to use contraception, and it were 100% effective, then our national birthrate would be cut in half. Basically, as a country, we're depending on many of our residents to plan poorly. In fact, many of them do, but they are disproportionately poor and uneducated.

It seems like in the long term, better public policy is needed, so that children will continue to be born to upper and middle class parents as well.