So $3 gas is back. Last time it was Katrina, this time I heard it was because some of the refineries were taken offline for maintainence. For us average consumers, since we can not trade in current (regular) car for hybrid, nor can we buy cheaper gas and store it somewhere. We have to fill up when the gas price is cheap (relatively). I found a good sign of gas price going up. There are two gas stations near my house: Shell and Exxon. Usually they don’t raise the price at the same time. So…when I saw one gas station already changed the price (up), I would go to the other one and fill up.
Category: Fun
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Stock Reading at Mall
Reading Time: 2 minutesI went to West County mall in the weekend, my first trip after coming back. Among all the St. Louis malls, I like West County the best because it has some of my favorite products (or stores): Apple store; Journeys, the shoe store has Crocs and Heelys; Dick’s Sporting Good has Crocs and Under Armour. Here is my impression on them.
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Free Coffee at Borders
Reading Time: < 1 minuteI got it in email. The Seattle’s Best Coffee is opening stores in the Borders Creve Coeur and South county stores (it already opened in Borders Chesterfield and Brentwood). Here is the link for coupon.
As you may know, Starbucks also started in Seattle in 1970s.
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Gas Price is Up
Reading Time: < 1 minuteI saved an invoice of gas before the trip (early March), it was 2.379 per gallon. When I came back, it went up to 3.049 at the same Shell gas station at my neighbourhood. I don’t know what happened. Maybe I paid too much attention to the Chinese stock market and lose what’s happening in the middle east and Nigeria? One thing I do know is the crude oil price did not change too much during this period.
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May Day Holiday
Reading Time: < 1 minuteIt’s the so called “golden week” here, it’s also my first time spending the golden week in China (we did not have this kind of long holidays back in middle 1990s). I will spend some time with my family and friends. No more stocks. No more computers (if I can accomplish that), and I can not promise I will write blogs in next week (May 1 to 7).
Happy holidays !!!
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Addict to Plastic
Reading Time: < 1 minuteI’m not talking about the credit card use (I’ve talked a bit in my previous posts).
It appears to me Chinese are using more and more plastic bags for packaging: from the morning “Bao Zi” to “Ma La Tang” (Chong Qing hot pot) on the street.
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Got the Diplomat Luggage back
Reading Time: < 1 minuteI got the Diplomat luggage back. It took me quite a while to get to the elevator in “Si Chuang Da Sha”, because it’s 9 AM in the morning and obviously the building does not have enough elevators (lifts). This is something new to me but not to many Shanghainese: people lined up for the elevator. The good part is, I got my luggage case back, and it only cost me 20 Yuan (to install a wheel), which is the price of a big Mac. I will put on a picture later on. On serious part, I think the cheap labor in China help the low inflation in the US and other developed countries in a big way (cheaper goods).
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Things I don’t Like in Shanghai
Reading Time: < 1 minuteEnough praises for Shanghai, let’s look at the other side of the coin.
Traffic, very few cars will stop and wait for pedestrains to pass, from time to time a bike would zip through (in front of) you;
Cigarette smoking is prevalent in restaurants, sometimes I think about smoking myself because I heard it’s safer than second hand smoke;
Wait in line at banks, I only waited at China Merchant Bank, one of the top banks in China, but still…
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Sogou Ranking of Baidu Netease Sina Sohu
Reading Time: < 1 minuteSogou, the new search engine from Sohu, has a ranking for every web site. I went to their web site, and checked out the following web sites:baidu (type in link:www.baidu.com in the blank and hit “search”, do similar for the other sites), netease, sina, sohu and stlplace. Here are their scores:
baidu: 90, sohu: 81, sina: 72, netease: 64, stlplace: 37.
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Buffett, Siegel and Wharton Students
Reading Time: < 1 minuteJeremy Siegel, a Wharton Finance professor and a well known author, took 100 Wharton students to see Buffett as an annual tradition between the school and the Oracle of Omaha. Here is Jeremy’s report. You don’t need to read it all. I think this is the most important part: “Priorities:…But Warren does not stew about past mistakes. He wisely counsels that anything that happens to your finances is secondary to the important things in life – picking a suitable and compatible mate, developing a relationship with your children, and doing something that you enjoy…”
Laura Rowley, a journalist and an author, also shared similar views.