Author: Bryan Z

I’ve noticed that shopping cart etiquette varies a good bit in the different places I’ve lived. In New Jersey, people just leave the carts wherever. Next to their cars, in empty parking spaces, inside the shop next door, wherever’s most convenient and doesn’t require an ounce of extra effort. In Maryland and New Hampshire, people generally bring the cart back to the stall where you are supposed to return them. The jumble of carts can be a little chaotic but it works.

Pittsburgh is the only place I’ve lived where people not only return the carts to the stall, but properly organize them as necessary. People who don’t even work there will collect carts from the parking lot, and then re-pack the different types of carts in the stall as necessary to make things a little easier for whoever has to return them to the store. I’ll always love Pittsburgh.

As I go through today’s mail, it amazes me how much banks and insurance companies must spend on trying to get us to switch. Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve been with the same bank for almost a decade, and the same insurance company for a few years with no intent of switching. But my physical mailbox at this point seems like it’s nothing but letters from Progressive and Chase trying to convince me to change over. Do these actually work on anyone?

There’s one thing that could get me to switch. If someone whispered to me that there was an insurance company that did not spend millions of dollars on ads, but just laid low and put all that money into paying claims and lowering premiums, I’d pay attention.

And I like the cold, but not THAT much.

Over the past couple of years I’ve found social media to be less enjoyable, less useful, and more aggravating. On Facebook, the one site I still used fairly regularly, my feed became filled with spam and AI posts, and the real people I interacted with seemed more likely to be itching for a fight. Other than habit, the main reason I’ve hung on there is to promote my musical projects. But social media music promotions have never seemed all that effective. We interact, we chat, but the butts in seats have largely seemed to come from real life interactions, not online ones.

I’ve spend the past month spending considerably less time online, and I am amazed at the extra time it has opened up in my life. I have more time to read and to play guitar, and I certainly feel less stress. How bizarre is that? The tool that initially brought us together, that reunited us with long lost friends, has become such a source of angst. All that said, I still feel a need to collect and post my thoughts. And I think I’m going to do that here. At least for a while. Please feel free to visit anytime.