Saturday, August 14, 2010

Can't Spin the Garbage.

"From a peak of 186,572 tons of garbage in 2006, the landfill's intake fell by 8 percent in 2007, then by 18 percent in 2008 and again by 18 percent in 2009." Bulletin, 8/14/10.

I'm skeptical of some of the local economic statistics. There are just too many ways to spin them.

But garbage? Who's going to bother? So a 44% drop in three years? That sounds about right.

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Linda had one of her credit cards go up over 20% interest, and when she called them, they told her she had agreed to some sort of 'deal' that she didn't remember. She paid off the card in full and told them she wouldn't be using it anymore.

Scumbags.

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Summer business finally started looking normal about the 20th of July, a full month after the usual mid-June takeoff.

I'm going to take one final potshot at the 'Those Wonderful Downtown Promotions" and point out that sales have been roughly one third better since they ended. I challenge anyone to look at the foot traffic downtown on non-event days and tell me we're lacking in notoriety.

Let retail stores be retail stores.

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Despite the overall average being better, I have these little lulls that seem to happen just as I'm thinking of making reorders, and they give me pause. And then enough time passes, that I think I can wait. Then business gets better and I'm thinking of making reorders, and there there is this little lull....

I've mentioned before, I prefer to let summer take care of itself. I prefer making the bulk of my reorders in the off season, where they seem to do the most good. Keeping the powder dry, so to speak.

But doing it this way always seems to bring about spot shortages. I've been out of the main Settlers of Catan, for instance, for about two weeks which I swore I wouldn't let happen. I tell myself, I have the new Settlers of Catan American edition, instead.

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The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy, by Tim Burton, is one of my favorite books, and I've sold a lot of copies over the years. Yesterday, I found it on a liquidation list at an extremely low price.

I ordered 25 copies.

Last time this happened, was There's a Hair in my Dirt, by Gary Larsen (Of Far Side fame), and I dared to order 10 copies -- and kicked myself ever since for not ordering way more.

I hope I won't kick myself for ordering "only" 25 copies....

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7 comments:

Anonymous said...

The card with the 20%...CO?

Duncan McGeary said...

I checked with Linda, and I'm going to have to revise my story a bit.

Turns out, it went from 6.- to 14.9% and it was U.S.Bank.

Anonymous said...

Yes, USBANK is being real assholes lately, something is going down.

For obvious reasons.

Looks like more&more its the credit unions that are the safest regional banks and most likely not to fuck you.

Every bank is going to fuck you. Because they can, and nobody cares anymore, ... who you gonna call? Sure but most people can't afford to pay off the balance.

That said I know a lot of guys over the last 3 years that have ran their cards up to $100k combined, and now simply quit paying payments. What can a bank do? Turn it to collection and make call's and that's about it.

Like always in life its the good people who always get fucked.

Anonymous said...

Shit its sad that are garbage generation is down so much, goes to show you that everybody is hurting even Bend sanitation, oh well that just gives them a reason to hike the rates on the few souls still remaining in the ghost town.

Anonymous said...

Dunc,
What do you think?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steven-g-brant/progressives-deserve-to-b_b_682070.html

Duncan McGeary said...

There's some true to it. But the alternative would appear to be the folks who got us in this fix in the first place and who would ACTIVELY pursue the same agenda.

yokem55 said...

I didn't catch the article, but did those "Landfill" intake numbers include recyclables and yard debris? Because if not, there is an obvious source for a big part of the decline: the new, larger recycling bins and the yard debris bins. Most people on my street are now using the small 32-gal garbage bins, and seem to be filling up the recycling bins regularly.