Bucket List

There's an old saying that if you build a better mouse trap the world will beat a path to your door. It's no different for cars or smartphones, laundry detergent or power drills: improve on an existing product and you have a shot at it being a hit. Ford's just released new F150 pickup is a perfect example. The company knew that to compete with Dodge and GMC and Chevy they had to do more than just offer a nicer sound system or more comfortable seats. So for this redesign they went all in. Not only is it electric, but it has more towing capacity, power and speed than existing models. Add to that the 11 power outlets on the body to juice your circular saw and beer cooler, and you have a vehicle that might make more than a few sing along with Brantley Gilbert, "Oh baby you can find me in the back of a Ford truck tailgate."

Beyond being better than the competition there are other ways to get traction in the marketplace. You can create a new product where none existed before. Consider Apple's iPad. Before it there was only the Jetsons, and comic strip musings about holding a piece of glass that would enable you to communicate, shop and be entertained with just a few taps. But then Steve Jobs showed us how something we never knew we needed could morph into something we couldn't do without. And now many would sooner sacrifice their first born then give up their iWhatvever.

You can also repackage an existing product to give it a new look. I stopped to get a drink on my way home yesterday, and went looking for my favorite Snapple. I scanned the shelves, looking for that familiar bottle, which had been glass, then plastic, only to find it now changed shape as well. Rather than being jug-like, it is a now a curvy container, perhaps trying to distinguish it against the soda, water and sports drinks in the same space. Not that the shape of the bottle will make me buy more or less, but it does stand out and draw my eye to it on a crowded shelf.

You can also combine several items together into a convenient package and push it out as new. There are first aid kits, sewing kits, picnic kits and tool kits. In each case you could certainly buy the individual items and make your own. But usually for a reduced price you can pick up the collection which gives most of what you need, some stuff you don't, and a handy container to keep it all in.

But only you can decide if it's worth it. Consider the latest from Weather Tech, a company with a successful niche business in floor mats for cars, which then expanded to bumper guards, trunk protectors and organizers for vehicles. They charge a premium price for what they say is a premium product, and have great visibility and by all accounts happy customers. Good for them.

They've tried all the avenues discussed above to build their business. The tout their floor mats as better than any out there. They created new phone mounts to tame your smartphone in your vehicle. They've repurposed and repackaged their cup holders to hold a bottle of hand sanitizer. And they put together cleaners and cloths into "detailing kits" for you to make your vehicle nice and shiny. 

But I have doubts about their newest effort. Under the moniker of "Ready-to-Wash ‘Just Add Water' Complete Set" you get the "perfect cleaning set for those quick wash, rinse and drying jobs." And what is in this complete kit? Well, it comes with a bucket, wheels for the bucket, some clothes and shampoo. That's it. You could probably get the individual items at Target for $20. Their price? They say it's a steal at $129.95. True, it comes with a top for the bucket to make it into a seat for when you are washing the tires, but that's an awfully expensive place to squat. 

Is this bucket system the F150, iPad or new Snapple of its class? That's up to you. But even if you believe that cleanliness is next to godliness, is $129 too steep a price for a bucket on wheels? Your car, your choice.

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Marc Wollin of Bedford lets the rain wash his car. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Prime Concerns

It looks like we might be coming to the end of our long year of trial. While caution is still urged in certain situations, the latest guidance indicates that we might finally see a light at the end of the tunnel for that which has all but taken over our lives. Masks? Yeah, that too. But what this really means is that perhaps we can finally wean ourselves off of our Amazon addiction.

Not that there's anything wrong with Jeff Bezo's cash cow. It has sustained us in ways we didn't even know were possible. Equal parts amazing and impressive, in the drop of a hat it went from being a convenient alternative for in person shopping to the only game in town. Be it socks or office supplies, groceries or leggings, toilet paper or light bulbs, all you need to do was pull out the nearest screen, tap a few times, and whatever you wanted magically appeared. 

Just how magical? It used to be said that you could order Chinese food and it would be ready before you hung up the phone. While the pandemic has meant that takeout orders took longer, Amazon seemingly went the other way. Place an order for an extension cord, a jar of mayonnaise and a circular saw while you were in bed on a Saturday night, and before you had time to make toast the next morning there was picture texted to your phone of a package by your garage door. 

It is indeed the miracle of the age. Let's stipulate at the outset that there is a serious conversation to be had about the energy and effort it takes to mail a pair of gloves across the country when there are likely multiple options within a five minute ride of your house. Likewise, I have to assume that there are much smarter people than me who have done the homework and figured out how they can possibly make a profit getting a pair of 99 cent shoelaces from a warehouse in another state to your door in less than 24 hours. But beyond those big picture issues there are more prosaic consumer-centric matters, including some aspects of their workflow which gives one pause. True, it does seem a little like complaining about the quality of the linen placemats on the supersonic Concorde, but that's the world in which we live.

For starters, let's talk boxes. I get that they are picking and packing a kajillion orders at lighting speed (Sidebar: Why does everything about Amazon just beg to be described in numerical superlatives? I know it is named for the longest river in the world, but nothing about them is small.) Still, sometimes we get three, four or even five boxes in a day, each with its own item. And often the boxes are way bigger than is needed: a 2 foot long container holding a 6 inch item and 5 packing bubbles. I'm sure we're not the only ones considering building a guest cottage out of corrugated cardboard.

And then there's their accounting system. Matching orders from your account page to your credit card statement is roughly akin to doing a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle of a Jackson Pollack painting. You might have placed an order for picture hooks, exercise bands and peanut butter, total $21.36. But because they bill when shipped, while your order will be 113-254876-15257, you will have 2 invoices, one for $6.99 and the other for $14.37. And that means your credit card statement will code them as AMZN Mktp US*IT34Hlaw394723 and AMZN Mktp US*IKE27owf4Hs037u85. If you're like us, half the time you give up and say it looks about right, but the possibility that some Estonian hacker is skimming off your account is certainly there and completely untraceable.

As the world opens back up, there is hope that you will once again start to patronize your local merchants, pumping dollars and foot traffic back into your neighborhood. Yes, it will require you to get in your car or walk a block as opposed to tapping on your phone, but that's how we maintain the local economy and ecosystem. That said, when I realize I need a tube of super glue at 10PM on a Tuesday night, sometimes the easiest way to have it in hand the next day is to ask Alexa's dad.

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Marc Wollin of Bedford is a proud Prime member. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Out and About

"I was beginning to get worried about you," said my wife as I walked back into the house. It was a Friday morning and there was nothing much happening in my office. I had told her my plan was to run out to get one thing from the store and then come right back. But when I didn't return for four hours, she began to wonder. After all the usual distractions were not in play, like stopping off to visit a friend or going shopping: in our quarantined world, that's just not done. And so the most likely possibilities were I had a flat tire, an accident or in her mind most likely, been kidnapped by aliens. 

After all, like most of you, I have been homebound for much of the last year. Save the grocery store, my expeditions have been few and far between. There have been a couple of trips to collect then redeposit children, a swing past a rotating series of local establishments to pick up a takeout order, the occasional run to get supplies to fix something broken in the house or my body. Every trip had a very specific pattern: start here, go there and then return, spending as little extra time beyond our four walls as possible. If Newton's first three laws of motion were inertia, force and action/reaction, this was the fourth: conservation of movement.

The kind of trip that used to be generically described as "errands" was a non-starter. You remember those: a random series of stops at disparate establishments with you being the only connection. The exact ingredients varied on any day, but it might include the dry cleaner or the bakery, a gift shop or the post office. The route was a variation on the classic traveling salesman's problem: given a list of cities and the distances between each, what is the shortest possible route that visits each exactly once before returning to the origin? UPS drivers follow highly tweaked algorithms that tell them where to go and when. Their route is more efficient, mine more scenic.

In this case I needed a single part from the hardware store to complete a project. But faster than you can recall the names of all the vaccines now making the rounds, the ground is shifting once again under our very feet, and as Peter Allen sang, everything old is new again. And so with both shots under my arm and a mask in my pocket, I realized that "shopping" had once again become a possibility.

On the way over I recalled that I needed new walking shoes. I was tired of having pairs delivered to our house that I needed to return because they didn't fit right. And so I detoured to a big box store to try some on. Yes, I covered my face and a stayed 6' away for everyone, but I strolled around looking at merchandise and tried on some I hadn't seen online. I found a pair I liked, paid for it and headed out to my car.

As I walked through the parking lot I noticed across the way a large discount liquor store. Remembering we were in need of some wine I headed in. But again, rather than just grabbing the bottle required, I loitered a bit looking at some new vintages and (gasp!) even chatted with the salesman about his favorites. We discussed a few, and I wound up buying a product different from my usual, all because of a serendipitous encounter by the sauvignon blanc.

The hardware store was no different. Rather than hold my breath and dash in and out, I paused by the display of sliding glass doors, and asked a few questions about replacement models. Similarly, I ambled to the garden center and posed a few queries about mulch. Then a leisurely stroll down the tile aisle looking at options and possibilities. I emerged with multiple items and tossed them all in the car along with the shoes and the wine.

So yes, I got home hours after my departure, toting a little of this and a bit of that. But while I regret worrying my spouse, I felt like I had been to the promised land. It might not have been the Grand Bazaar of Istanbul, but it almost felt like being on holiday again.

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Marc Wollin of Bedford is starting to venture out and about. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

First Person Cleaner

When it's time to walk away from my office, there are numerous things to distract me. First stop usually is the kitchen for a nibble, which explains why my pants feel tighter. That also leads to distraction #2 (as an alternative or perhaps antidote to #1), which is a walk and the chance to listen to a podcast. Number 3 and beyond might be a bike ride, or some fix-up projects, a book or some cooking, which unfortunately leads me back to #1.

The one thing not on the list is video games. For whatever reason it's not an attraction or addiction I have ever acquired. While I dabbled a little in the early days of PC's, with titles such as "Wolfstein 3D" and "Duke Nukem," I never made the move to standalone gaming consoles, and then to the massive multiplayer juggernauts that exploded. I'm a Pong guy in a Fortnite world.

The numbers say I am in the minority. Gaming has grown to eclipse every other form of paid entertainment, be it music, film or sports. Revenue from games on mobile devices, PC's and consoles increased 20% last year to nearly $180 billion, compared with $100 billion for film and $129 billion for sports in 2019, the last "regular" year for totals. Worldwide there are estimates of 2.7 billion gamers, and belying the stereotype, 45% of those in the US are women.

The most well-known titles garner huge followings in the Hollywood blockbuster mold. The latest installment of "Call of Duty" raked in $600 million in its first three days, joining "Red Dead Redemption 2" at $725 million and "Grand Theft Auto 5" at $1 billion in their retail debuts; GTA alone sold 20 million copies last year. While each of those took years to develop with production budgets in the millions, it's a market of more than just the big names. When you include all its permutations, the number one video game of all time may well be "Tetris." Numbers are difficult to track, but estimates are that there may be more than half a billion copies of bricks falling down out there.

That helps to illustrate the breadth of the industry. When you think of video games the image that likely comes to mind is a pair of hands in the foreground with a weapon that is cutting or shooting or zapping everything in front of it. And to be sure first person shooter games like "Halo" and "Doom" are a huge subset of the total. But there are also a host of other genres, each designed to appeal to a different type of thumb jockey.

There are roll playing games like "Legends of Zelda" where you assume the persona of a character named Link and navigate a mysterious fantasy world. If your fantasy world revolves less around a battlefield than a ball field, there's "MLB The Show 20," where you can captain your very own dream team. There are adventure and strategy and even games of games: "Ellen's Game of Games" replicates the segment on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" where audience members play everything from "Dizzy Dash" to "Mazed and Confused."

And it's not just the big names. On sites like Steam you will find hundreds of indie-type efforts developed by folks toiling in their virtual garage hoping to produce the next big hit. While many are modeled on existing and proven winners, others take a different angle. There's "Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion" where you play an "adorable yet trouble-making turnip who avoids paying taxes, solves plantastic puzzles, harvests crops and battles massive beasts all in a journey to tear down a corrupt vegetable government." Or "Wanted Racoon" where you steal food, raid the garbage and generally terrorize the neighborhood. And just announced, a game designed with my spouse in mind, where you wield a high-powered spray gun to remove dirt and grime and makes things look sparkling and new. Welcome to "Powerwash Simulator."

As for me, past an initial curiosity none keep my attention. To do that they would have to have something that plays to my most fervent fantasies. But at least as of this writing I have yet seen a new release of a game where you race to take a doze on great couches around the world. Wake me when they release "Nap Commander."

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Marc Wollin of Bedford has no games on his phone. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Fixer Upper

We all agree we need it, but we can't agree on what it is. We all agree we must fix and improve it, but we can't agree how. We all agree it will cost money, but don't want to spend it. And we all know the dangers of not taking care of it, but we still mostly just talk about it and lament its state of disrepair and put off doing anything until it falls down around our ears. While all those statements could apply to our health, our career and even our relationships, at least this week they apply to the physical pieces of our world, our infrastructure.

Usually thought of as the stuff that connects one place to another, such as roads and bridges, the definition also includes power plants and antennas and water treatment plants. More recently the current administration has pushed the envelope, redefining the term to include action on climate change and racial equality among others. Whether or not those expansive definitions make it through the meat grinder that is the legislative process is an open question.

Closer to home we've all been faced more recently with our own personal infrastructure issues. In the not too distant past they fell into three categories. There were the emergency repairs, such as those necessitated by waking up and finding there was no hot water. There were those mandated by life changing events, like the addition of a new baby. And there were the weekend projects, many of which didn't end up so well. I mean, how hard could it be to replace the dripping bathroom faucet, as water sprayed everywhere, necessitating not just a call to a plumber but also a carpenter to repair the now leaky living room ceiling.

There was also a fourth category that was all but a fiction. Those were the many projects you should do, had on a list, were meaning to get to, been asked to take care of repeatedly, but likely would never be dealt with until they became a real problem. However over the last year their status got raised. Projects that had a priority of "Sure, honey, I'll get to it next week, I just don't have the time right now" moved up the list to "Well, I've got nothing better to do and now that I'm home all day that rickety handrail is really starting to bug me." And so off you went to Home Depot to buy screws and paint and power tools with so much juice that no amateur should have one unless they have a license.

If only that were all it took. You had the time, the money, the material and the will. All that was missing was the skill. On HGTV and its ilk they make updating your bathroom or replacing your kitchen cabinets or redoing your closet look so easy. And usually the demolition part is. It's the putting it all back to together part that requires years of skill, or more likely, hours of YouTube videos. 

But sometimes the straw does indeed break the camel's back, and you just have to grab a screwdriver. When the light under the kitchen cabinets flickered yet again, I had had enough and dove in. Banging on them didn't help, and so I decided  replacements were in order. A little online research, and I found some new LED models that were readily available and didn't break the bank. True, it took me 2 hours when a pro would have had it done in 15 minutes, but now we don't have to make toast in the dark.

Likewise when even I had to agree that the 5 telephone jacks dangling underneath my wife's desk were annoying me. I dreaded crawling under and dissecting the rat's nest of wires that I had installed and updated over 30 years. But a funny thing came to light after I laid on my belly and studied and traced and tested what I thought was the central nerve center of our house. All those other updates we had done to wires and wireless had bypassed the mess, rendering them obsolete. And so it turned out that the jacks I had adamantly maintained over the years could not be neatened up were, well, dead. I removed every one; all that is now required is a small paint job to make it look presentable.

Maybe when I get the time.

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Marc Wollin of Bedford likes projects. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.