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Regarding reading non-fiction books and not applying it to your life, you may also enjoy my post about metawork: http://sidsavara.com/personal-productivity/are-... . In it, I discuss exactly that: constantly thinking we're building a foundation for something, but never actually doing any work on that "something."
Unfortunately, nobody here plays great music - or any music for that matter. Unless you mean in the store, I haven't noticed.
I am lucky, I never get gas, my partner does that. The lines here in France are much shorter than the US, he never has more than one car in front of him and he always has a book in the car. This is something that can change your calculation. If you have a 15 minute way and spend the time reading a book, then it is not wasted time. The trick it to get into the habit of taking a book with you anywhere you go.
Living in France, we are paying about $7.15 for a gallon of gas.
about $1.90 for a liter of gas
3.79 liters to the gallon
Stumbled the post.
I typically try to use the time somewhat productively by responding to email on my blackberry - but it's not ideal as I can't concentrate as heavily and it's much slower than if I'm at my desk.
I have heard many times that we are lucky in the US to have such cheap gas relative to Europe. Even though Hawaii is more expensive than most places, it could be higher!
There is definitely something to be said for endorphins being released ;)
Buying books is for suckers.
on my blog ;)
You're right though. I try really hard not to buy books unless it's one I'll
really reference often (like say, Spring MVC and Web Flow...) but I am
pretty impatient when it comes to new nonfiction bestsellers.
Funny coincidence, Amazon just shipped my new Seth Godin book (Tribes) that
I had preorded I think in the summer. Excited about receiving it, it will
probably derail my current book I'm reading (Steve Pavlina's - review
copy!).
I bet it's shorter and concise, just like their blogs.
Impulse buying is the worst. I hardly buy anything impulsively (no candy at the cash register, etc), but bargain non-fiction books, especially former Best Sellers, those are tough for me to pass up.
Cheers
Vincent
Personal Development Blogger
In my country, Australia,and state, Victoria, there is a distinct pertrol pricing cycle. The peak price is usually Thursday morning/afternoon with the lowest price point being Wednesday morning. The closet petrol stations that I use usually have the same exact price. The only price differential is that two of the petrol stations accept discount vouchers, that give $0.04 off per litre. The vouchers are obtained by making a total grocery purchase of $30.00 or more. The most intersting fact about this pricing cycle is that the lowest day of the cycle, Wednesday has the lowest percentage of petrol purchases over a week and Thursday has the highest percentage. Thursday is the traditional payday in Australia. I generally get my petrol on a Wednesday morning on the way to work and have never had to deal with a large line of waiting cars.
Cheers,
Ben
I'm not sure whether there is the same price flucuation throughout the week in the States, but it may be noting the price each day, provided it doesn't affect your usual driving routes, to see if there is a distinct pricing cycle.
I'll finish by saying that I tracked my petrol purchases for six months and found that buying at the bottom of the pricing cycle in combination with the discount vouchers was 9.0 to 14.5 % cheaper than if I had bought petrol at the peak price.
That is very interesting, I never knew that about Austraila. Over here (Hawaii, USA), I haven't seen that kind of price fluctuations up and down by week. Right now all gas prices are trending downwards, as the dollar gains strength and oil prices fall. I haven't seen it change based on day of the week at all, except that prices don't tend to change on the weekends, typically only on weekdays: most likely tied to trading in the oil markets.
Thanks for your comment, I appreciate it!
I'm glad you found my comment interesting. The other petrol price factor is that the petrol retailers in my country use a price benchmark from Singapore - the name of which escapes me - and this benchmark is priced in $US. The current problem in my country is that even though the price of crude oil has dropped, so has the Australian Dollar against the US dollar. A few months one Australian dollar was worth $US 0.96, now it's $US 0.66.
Still at least my country is cheaper than most of Europe.
Cheers,
Ben
Australian dollar was so low! That is unfortunate for you, but maybe it's
time for some of us in the US to come visit - considering how bad the US$
has been doing against European currency (though perhaps it has improved
recently - I don't keep up with it), I don't think I'll be visiting Europe
anytime soon like I had planned!