In the Urban Design Center in Kashiwa, Japan is a small cafe with a rather unorthodox service method. You arrive, place your order and pay for it and are then served whatever the person just ahead of you in line bought and paid for. The person behind you will get what you ordered.

While I don’t predict a long term stay for this eatery it does reveal something about the patrons. Is the man in the business suit generous with his order when he knows his meal is dependent on the teenagers in the corner? Would you order big to surprise the next person in line or would you order the cheapest item offered and hope to win the lunch lotto?

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Imagine yourself twenty years ago imagining where you’d be today. Did you have any idea that you’d be standing here?

I did laundry today which is quite an ordeal when I let it go as long as I did. I entered “buying socks and underwear” mode last week with a Sunday night trip to Wal-Mart. Today I did six “loads” (meaning probably 10
“conventional” or “non-overloaded” loads).

With most of my clothes on the bed I decided a closet reorganization was in order. Once everything was placed I did a quick and dirty count, an inventory if you will. While I won’t commit to an exact number I will say that, provided the weather cooperates, I could easily go four weeks without effort and as long as three months without washing a shirt…and never have to wear anything twice.

New quotes have been added to the random quotes box over on the right. I’ve included them here for those keeping score at home.

“Adults are just obsolete children and the hell with them.”
“Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.”
“Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.”

I have a 7 gmail accounts. A hotmail account. A Yahoo! mail account. A work email account. I’m nearly always signed on to MSN Messenger. I have an XBox live account. Google Chat, Google Voice, Skype. Facebook and Twitter. Two blogs and a mobile phone.

Why do I have no one to talk to?

This guy built his own Segway for what he says was about half the cost. My favorite line from his description:

There is no redundancy or backup system. It is not even robustly made. Loose wires literally dangle out the bottom. In the fairly likely event of the software crashing, a wire coming loose, a component failing, or the batteries running low, the wheels will stop and the entire kinetic energy of the system will be used to accelerate my head toward the ground.

From the comments of a story on the woman charged with videotaping four minutes of the Twilight movie:

She was charged with a felony. By the government. And arrested.

Unregulated markets are not good either. But this is not a case of that. This is a case of poor regulation.

Furthermore, a free market is a theoretical thought experiment implying equal ability and knowledge among participants and no force or fraud. It is a thought experiment alone and an unregulated market would immediately devolve away from it. They are, in fact, entirely mutually exclusive.

In short, learn more.

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Am I the only person who gets more satisfaction from managing their queue than actually sitting down and watching something?