Simple?

Every time I see this advertisement I am attracted to it:

...and then I go look at their offerings.

And I think, really? Simple? Less > More? That goes with paying $55-60 for a pair of sneakers? For real?

I guess it is "less > more" in the sense of "I will be rich in this way of paying a lot for a few nicer items rather than having a lot of junk." But that's not really what I think of as simple. I think of simple (in the positive sense) as meaning that you don't obsess over the brand of your tennis shoes.

I'm glad they make the planet happy, though.

The Week's Menu

In keeping with my plan of cooking dinner five times a week, I planned some meals today, and stopped at King Soopers to buy ingredients. Here is what I bought (click for a larger version):

I'm pretty pleased with it. The total cost was $40.62, which, (incorrectly) assuming no leftovers, comes out to $4.06 per person per meal.

Grocery Shopping

I really enjoy shopping for groceries. This week, I went to Walmart, and spent about $50 on groceries for the week. When I got home, I was curious about what I had gotten. I was hoping I actually had a whole week's worth of food; it seemed to me as though I had far more than a week's worth.

Here is what I bought (click for a giant version):

So, I was curious how this compared to my calorie intake. Assuming I might eat about 2000 calories per day (and ideally I would eat a bit less and lose weight, but in fact I think I eat a bit more, so I just chose this as a nice round number), I need 14,000 calories per week.

The groceries above come out to 12,475 calories - not quite a week's worth.

Of course, some of the groceries above will likely be wasted, some (like the jelly) will last beyond the week, and some rely on ingredients not shown but that I already own (like peanut butter to go with the bread and jelly, and pasta for the spaghetti sauce). And I also have other food in my house.

Assuming I eat about 2000 calories per day, the per-calorie cost of this group of groceries suggests I will spend about $8/day on food. It is, of course, quite possible to eat more cheaply than this - even much more cheaply, depending on your willingness to make more food from scratch and/or eat the very cheapest boxed dinners and the like.

But $8/day appears to be about my comfortable average, under present circumstances.

Fuck you, Land's End

I was at Land's End's web site today, messing around looking at some coats they have. There's a button for "try it on" somewhere, and it took me to a site that appears to be run by "My Virtual Model" where you can set up a whole model of yourself to try clothes on with.

When I put in my actual height and weight, I got this message

We're sorry.

You cannot create a model with the height and weight combination you have entered. You may be able to create a model close to your size by adjusting one or both of these measurements.

Or, click "Cancel" to use our generic model.

I am fat, but not some freakishly sized person that it would be difficult to build a model for. So fuck you, Land's End, and My Virtual Model too if they are a different entity, for wasting my time so you could essentially insult me at the end of it.

I think it's really stupid to release this product with these limitations.