Team USA

[Hamartia Antidote]

American culture: Sneakers (footwear) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

How Sneaker Culture Conquered the World - The Daily Beast

"The basketball sneaker has a long and lucrative history, especially for the sportsmen who become the brands' ambassadors.
They wait in long lines in the bitter cold. They squeal with delight over the stitch on the shoes or the faux snakeskin upper. Colors more likely to be seen during Carnival in Rio than on any self-conscious American are hits. Catty quips about style choices are met with irrational exuberance over over-hyped new designs.

No, these aren’t the insufferable Carrie wannabes taking up New York’s sidewalks—they are teenage boys and grown men all over the world going on about basketball sneakers.

In terms of American contributions to global style and comfort, the basketball sneaker has to rank up there with the T-shirt and riveted jeans. And as can be seen in any mall or casual glance around the subway, the sneakers left the court long ago.

Today, sneakers are a hugely lucrative juggernaut. In 2012, for instance, Nike’s line of LeBron James sneakers generated $300 million—in the U.S alone. Apparently everybody still wants to be like Mike—so much so that kids get shot over pairs of his namesake sneakers. And the footwear’s infiltration of the fashion world is pretty much complete."

Sneakernomics: Understanding The International Sneaker Market - Forbes

"The Sneaker business in the US was $22 billion in 2013, a new record. The US sneaker business has grown steadily for more than a decade. Since 2004, the sneaker market in the US has grown nearly 30%.

During that period, the international sneaker business grew even faster, +40%. The US contributes about 40% of the world’s sneaker sales. This makes the worldwide number about $55 Billion; $33 billion done outside the US.
...
China is now the second largest sneaker country in the world after the US."

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

Wegman's is the best grocery store out there.

Ok so I went to a new Wegman's that opened up recently with 139,000 sq ft.

I have formed an opinion: I'm passing on Wegman's.

The MarketBasket I go to is 138,000sq ft but it doesn't have a restaurant or a liquor department eating into the floor space. The selection is far bigger. The produce department is 3 times the size. Wegman's only matches their prices...it doesn't try to beat it.

Ah well..

 

[VCheng]

Ok so I went to a new Wegman's that opened up recently with 139,000 sq ft.

I have formed an opinion: I'm passing on Wegman's.

The MarketBasket I go to is 138,000sq ft but it doesn't have a restaurant or a liquor department eating into the floor space. The selection is far bigger. The produce department is 3 times the size. Wegman's only matches their prices...it doesn't try to beat it.

Ah well..

Well, I guess it is time for me to try out MarketBasket I guess.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

Well, I guess it is time for me to try out MarketBasket I guess.

The one I go to has 38 registers all open and lines still backing up down the aisles.

 

[VCheng]

The one I go to has 38 registers all open and lines still backing up down the aisles.

Quantity or Quality?

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

Quantity or Quality?

Quantity. The parking lot is like disneyworld sized.

 

[VCheng]

Quantity. The parking lot is like disneyworld sized.

Spoken like a true Murrikan!

Did you try any of the the fresh baked goods at Wegman's?

============

105 types of fresh baked breads not enough of a variety?

https://www.wegmans.com/webapp/wcs/...4966991+4294862133+4294824971&catalogId=10002

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

Spoken like a true Murrikan!

Did you try any of the the fresh baked goods at Wegman's?

============

105 types of fresh baked breads not enough of a variety?

https://www.wegmans.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductListView?forwardto=ProductListView&Ne=7&langId=-1&storeId=10052&N=77 4294966991 4294862133 4294824971&catalogId=10002

No, I didn't buy any but it looked good.
BTW their packaged bread selection was pretty small.

 

[VCheng]

No, I didn't buy any but it looked good.
BTW their packaged bread selection was pretty small.

Because they have a wider selection of the fresh baked ones.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

Quantity or Quality?

Price Check: Which Boston supermarket chain is cheapest? | Money - WCVB Home

"The shopping list included ½ gallon of store brand or equivalent milk and large eggs, Jif peanut butter, Cheerios, a pack of Bounty paper towels, 2 liters of Coca-Cola, Edy's ice cream and Lay's potato chips."

#1 Market Basket: $20.56
#2 Hannaford's: $20.74
#3 Wegmans: $22.04
#4 Target: $23.59
#5 Stop&Shop: $24.03
#6 Walmart: $24.95
#7 Shaws: $30.51

Video shows some good shots of the supermarkets.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

Food and Clothing prices in the US:
How America Spends Money: 100 Years in the Life of the Family Budget - The Atlantic

"This is our story today: It is a story about how spending on food and clothing went from half the family budget in 1900 to less than a fifth in 2000.It is a story about how a nation that feels poor got so rich. Here's the big picture in one chart showing the share of family spending per category over the 20th century. The big story is that spending on food and clothes has fallen massively while spending on housing and services has gone up.

HOW WE SPEND: 1900:

The year is 1900. The United States is a different country. We are near the end of the Millennium, but in the "warp and woof of life," we are living closer to the 1600s than the 2000s, as Brad DeLong memorably put it. A quarter of households have running water. Even fewer own the home they lived in. Fewer still have flush toilets. One-twelfth of households have gas or electric lights, one-twentieth have telephones, one-in-ninety own a car, and nobody owns a television.
...
HOW WE SPEND: 1950

The year is 1950. Compared to just five decades earlier, the United States is already a different country. The population has doubled to 150 million. The economy's share of farmers has fallen from 40% to 10%, thanks to the mechanization of the farm, led by the mighty tractor. At the same time, food has gotten much cheaper compared to wages, and its share of the family budget has declined from 43% to 30%.
...
HOW WE SPEND: 2003

It's become fashionable to consider the 1950s a golden age in American economics. Employment was full. Wages were rising. Manufacturing was strong. But if you're the kind of person who likes clothes or food, then welcome to paradise.

In the last 50 years, food and apparel's share of family has fallen from 42% to 17% (and remember, we were near 60% in 1900) as we've found cheaper ways to eat and clothe ourselves. Food production got more efficient, and we offshored the making of clothes to other countries with cheaper labor. As a result, apparel's share of the pie, which hardly changed in the first half of the century, shrank in the second half by two-thirds..."

-------------------------

2011

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

So food and clothing prices go down so what do Americans do with that cash...

America's homes are bigger than ever - Jun. 4, 2014

"The average size of homes built last year hit 2,600 square feet, an all-time high that surpassed even the housing bubble years, when homes averaged around 2,400 square feet, according to the Census Bureau."

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

With all that food people have to keep in shape.

Jogging - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pretty much in all cities there are dedicated jogging/running trails where people get out and enjoy the sunshine and fresh air.

Chicago

Boston

Austin

Jogging in New York City - barefoot!

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

With all that food people have to keep in shape.

Home fitness machines
Home exercise equipment: Finding the right machine

"Thinking about canceling that gym membership and working out at home? You're not alone. Industry analysts say that gym memberships peaked at 42.7 million in 2006.. ....But sales of home exercise equipment, including treadmills, elliptical exercisers and stationary bikes, have continued to grow in recent years."

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

Life at (a cluttered, stuff-filled American) Home

"What do you get when a team of archaeologists, anthropologists, photographers, and ethnographers team up to study the stuff found in the houses of 32 U.S. families over the course of 4 years? You get an colorful, even graphic look at Life at Home in the American consumer culture. While this insightful book deserves a full read, let me highlight just a few gems that the authors discover while visiting these homes from 2001 to 2005.

First a bit of context: as the authors note, Americans have the most possessions in all of human history. To the extent that we now even rent self-storage units because our giant homes no longer will fit our stuff. While that’s been normalized in this culture, it certainly isn’t normal.

But, as the crew observes, we have difficulty getting rid of stuff even when we get new stuff to replace it. Hence the outdated TV or computer in the basement, the stack of casette tapes even though you’ve moved onto CDs, or pile of CDs even though you’ve moved onto MP3s. The crew found that even the stuff that people have committed to get rid of accumulates in “liminal spaces” and can linger there for weeks, months, even years–something the box of old CDs and books sitting in the corner of my office reveals that I’m not immune to either. But this goes much further than an errant box. Of the homes the group studied, there were no cars in three-quarters of the garages—as they were too full with junk.

One interesting discovery of the anthropologists: “The number of objects families place on their refrigerators appear to signal something about the possessions they have in the rest of the house. Specifically, the look of the refrigerator door hints at the sheer quantities of possessions a family has and how they are organized or arranged in the home.” In other words, “a family’s tolerance for a crowded, artifact-laden refrigerator surface often corresponds to the densities of possessions in the main rooms of the house (living/family room, dining room, office, kitchen).” The average number of things on the refrigerator in the 32 homes they studied—including magnets, photos, schedules, postcards, take-out menus—hit 52, with the busiest refrigerator having 166 items on it.

After I read that, I purged half of the junk off my refrigerator (going from about 30 to 15 things, mostly magnets, plus a few pictures and reminders). As the authors note: “The iconic place in the American home—the refrigerator panel—may function as a measuring stick for how intensively families are participating in consumer purchasing and how many household goods they retain over their lifetimes.” I’ll keep that in mind next time I think about putting something on my fridge.

There is so much more described in the book—from the ugly side-effects of bulk buying (thanks Costco), and the food in our pantries, to the messiness that come with the hyper-stimulation of consumerism in children (you should see the pictures of kids’ rooms), and how common the displaying of trophies is (who would’ve known that trophy selling and engraving is a multibillion dollar industry in the United States)? And then there’s the section on video games (with kids spending 7% of their time on these, compared to 3% of their time on chores), the discussion of how many photographs line Americans’ walls, even a section on how deeply people identify with their cultures, religions and yes, their sports teams, prominently showing the icons of all of these in their homes.

Life at Home in the Twenty-First Century is a treasure trove of information about how deeply Americans have internalized the consumer culture and propagate it as they raise the next generation of Americans. Let’s hope more cultural reformers than ad men pick up this book, as, like with all information, this book can be used both for good or ill."

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Hmm...I guess I can't comment on the magnets on the refrigerators. Mine are all stainless steel (it's non-magnetic)

I plead guilty on the self-storage. While other people store their stuff I was storing a car (for the winter).

Typical outdoor self storage: