After failing to deliver my package Tuesday, Amazon was able to deliver it by Wednesday noon. As I mentioned in the original post, I had ordered a tamagoyaki pan. Like many items on Amazon, there were many identical pans “produced” from various strangely named brands. This typically means that all the items were made by one factory in China, and either sold by different importers or the same company trying to create fake competition. These pans were around $15-$20, and came with the identical spatula plus some other accessory. I managed to find one that was made in Korea for $20 that had thousands of positive reviews so I bought that one instead. There was also a very nice Japanese pan made of cast iron, but it was $55.

Since it was around lunchtime, I made a test omelette to see if I can even roll the egg properly. I used three eggs, some chicken broth instead of dashi, pinch of salt and sugar, a bit of light soy sauce, and dome bacon bits that I bought for salads. The heat was probably too high since the eggs cooked very quickly, which made it hard to roll evenly. I managed to get four pours with the egg mix, but the final layer broke off. The photo above was about two and a half eggs worth. The final taste was okay but overcooked. I will try again with two eggs and lower heat to see if I can make the layers thinner and softer.

Three eggs at once is too much for one person anyway.

I buy a lot of stuff on Amazon since I should not really go out that much. So this past Monday, I ordered a tamagoyaki pan to make Japanese omelettes, some salted peanuts, and a book called Red Roulette. When I placed the order, the check out page said the package would be delivered in one-day, so yesterday. I waited all day for the package to arrive, and at 8:30 pm I received a delivery attempted and failed message from 8:16 pm. I checked the activity history on my security cameras there was definitely no delivery attempt made during that time.

This is the third or fourth delivery failure from Amazon this year. It is pretty incredible that they can delivery my crap that quickly, but do not make promises you cannot keep. The tracking data also said the driver was back at the Santa Ana distribution center at 8:30 pm. That is pretty quick if there was a real delivery attempt at my house at 8:16 pm. My guess? My package did not even get put on the truck at 10:26 am, and was generically marked as a failed delivery at the end of the route. That is total bullshit. If the package did not get on the truck in the morning, then send me a message. In either case, the package is not coming, and I do not need to wait around all day for delivery. Instead, I get these useless delivery time updates , but nothing is delivered. It is dishonest and I think it gives their customer a worse experience.

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An Amazon delivery van is parked across the street as I type. Maybe it is a package for my neighbor. Let see if anyone rings my doorbell. Maybe I can make a Japanese square omelette for lunch yet.

I saw a reference to a political compass on a post on Reddit. Instead of just left (liberal) and right (conservative), another dimension is added in an attempt to group people politically. There is a short introduction video on the website linked above:

In addition to left and right, the second axis measures authoritarian vs. libertarian. If I were asked to place myself on the 2×2 grid before taking any tests, I would be slightly right and slightly libertarian. When asked about politics, I am usually slight-left on social issues and middle-right on fiscal issues.Here is my result from The Political Compass (TPC) after taking their online test:

The results placed me pretty close to where I expected: I want the government to leave me alone, and I think my taxes are too high. There is another website that examines your Reddit comment history and an algorithm will evaluates you on the same axis.

This result still has me as a libertarian but at 86%, it is more confident than TPC. However, the same analysis has grouped me as a liberal with 72% confidence. I am unsure which comments in my history pushed the analysis heavily to the left. I would love to understand the algorithm that make the determinations.

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So the California governor recall was yesterday (9/14/2021), and it looks like Gavin Newsom won by a landslide with two-thirds of the vote. Reading some of the comments online, many people thing it was heavily swayed by having Larry Elder as the top Republican candidate. Regardless of your politics, I think supermajorities for either party is dangerous. Democracy needs a vigorous opposition, or you end up with authoritarian governments like China or Russia. I wish the current Republican Party would disavow Trumpism and put up candidates that are electable. Same for Democrats. I want to vote FOR someone instead of always trying to find the lesser evil during elections.

There was a crazy lightning storm in Orange County this past Thursday. I was at my church’s cell group meeting at The Market Place in Irvine when the lightning and thunder started. It actually rained a bit while I was driving home, but it was mostly a light/sound show.

There were some pretty good photos that were posted on Reddit, but I also took some outside my bedroom window when I got home. Since it is nearly impossible to time a lightning strike, I left the phone on the window ledge and took two videos.

The two “photos” above are actually screenshots from iMovie running on my iPhone 12. The phone/computer got stuck trying to convert and send via AirDrop. Those two lightning bolts appears to be quite close. I wonder if they struck anything valuable on the ground?

Since we are in the middle of another drought and wildfire season is upon us again, I was hoping for some rain.

Tonight, our church cell group met up at one of the many corner shopping centers in Irvine. Usually these have a “food court” and outdoor seating. We have met here before, but it was the first time we were approached by homeless people. You hardly ever see homeless people in Irvine. The rumor is that Irvine police picks them up and drops them in Santa Ana.

Anyway, during our discussion how our week went, one (there were two of them) came over trying to make conversation. He said he was a veteran and thought one of us was ex-military. There was no obvious reason to doubt him, but I thought he was just panhandling. To my surprise, he did not ask for any money and left after some awkward conversation. Later however, he came by again and tried to shame us (“Hey, you guys are Christians, right?”) into buying them two hoodies. I mean it does get cold at night, and I do not know if there are any shelters in Irvine. However, it was already 10:00 pm at night, and nothing is open in Irvine after 9:00 pm.

The shaming worked on me though. I was the only one carrying a hoodie. After the ask, our group was just looking at one another in silence. My hoodie on the back of my chair was pretty obvious, so I offered it up. As I handed it to the homeless guy, I read the label and it was an Eddie Bauer zippered hoodie. I think it was a birthday gift from my sister from several years ago. By then, it was too late to take it back. I looked up Eddie Bauer’s site, and it seemed to be this one:

$42!? That is a pretty expensive zippered hoodie. At first I was kind of upset; not because I gave away an overpriced jacket to someone that probably need it more than me, but the fact I was manipulated into doing so. If the homeless person just asked, I probably would have given it to him anyway. It was the implied “if you don’t give us two hoodies, you guys are not really Christians.”

Sigh. It is true that as Christians, we should be charitable. I have more jackets and hoodies at home, some that I have not worn in years. OTOH, we cannot be expected to individually give our way out of the homeless problem. It is a very complex issue, often involving mental illness and substance abuse, and my hoodie will have zero impact. Though very unlikely, I do hope that my hoodie will keep one homeless guy warmer, and somehow help him to seek more comprehensive help.

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Eddie Bauer clothing is so overpriced. Here is one from Costco for $22 and it has a cellphone pocket, thought likely not useful for someone who is homeless. Maybe I will get this to replace my “donated” zippered hoodie.

This past Sunday, I went with my sister’s family to see Hamilton at the Pantages theater in Hollywood. The ticket was originally my birthday present from August 2019 to see it in June 2020. As we all know, everything in California was basically shut down, especially indoor entertainment venues. The Pantages just recently opened its doors again, and we got tickets again for one of the earlier performances.

I thought long and hard about going to the show. I am not a huge fan of musicals. The only other shows I have seen are Les Misérables and Phantom of the Opera, but I feel everyone has seen them as well. Since the pandemic began, I have not been indoors with a lot of people except at hospitals and medical clinics. Since the show was sold out, the venue will be super crowded. I think the combination of getting a third Moderna shot, and “strict” vaccination/mask rules at the Pantages convinced me that it was safe enough to go.

In hindsight, I am glad I went. The show was really good, though I only got about 75% of the words/lyrics. Disney released a movie of a Broadway performance so I will need to watch that with subtitles on. The theater was checking everyone for proof of vaccination, but not ID, and there was 99.9% mask compliance (I saw one idiot walking around without a mask). I sat in the middle of our five seats, and for the first act, the three seats behind me were empty. Things did get a bit stressful after the show as hundreds of people were trying to get out through one set of doors. I was basically shoulder-to-shoulder with strangers for about five minutes so hopefully no one around me was sick but asymptomatic.

Several coworkers bought me an Ember Mug for my birthday last week. I finally opened the box and set everything up last night. You may be thinking how hard is it to “set up” a mug? Well, first you need to download an iPhone (or Android) app, then recharge the mug, turn it on, and connected it to your mobile device using Bluetooth.

The idea is that you pick a temperature you would like to maintain via the app. When hot liquid > set temperature is poured in, a layer of phase-shifting material would draw the heat away and store it. Then when the liquid temperature drops below the set temperature, the phase-shift material would release the heat back into the mug/liquid until it runs out of stored energy or when the battery is depleted. So, the mug works best if the initial fluid temperature is high, i.e., there is more energy to extract and store. It is an interesting concept, but makes the mug design fairly complicated.

When I tried it out last night, my coffee from the fake Keurig machine was 155°F. I did see the temperature fall pretty quickly, but since it is only a 10 oz. mug, I finished the cup of coffee before the mug needed to reheat again. I will need to drink slower next time so I can test out if the heat retention system works.

I have been looking at electricity rate plans since I installed solar panels on my house. Each time, the Edison comparison tool shows the tiered rate plan as the least expensive option. I think this is due the power use and solar generation between the A/C and my electric vehicle. Since my net usage during the day is offset by the solar panel output, going to a time-of-use (TOU) plan is more expensive.

Up to now, if I wanted to switch to a TOU rate plan, I had to opt-in to a specific plan. Yesterday, I got a letter to Edison saying they would switch everyone over to a TOU plan unless you opt-out. In the letter, it also has an analysis of costs. Once again, TOU would be more expensive for me:

Not sure what period the $962 covers but it is slightly different from what I paid in June for 12 months. Maybe it is from January to December. Anyway, I signed the attached opt-out form and will mail it back to them. No reason to pay an extra $200.

Likely Edison wants everyone to switch to a TOU rate plan so they can influence people’s usage patterns in the future. Every summer there are rumors of rolling blackouts since California ISO cannot match peak demand with supply. After most people switch to TOU plan, Edison can increase the price difference to reduce demand during peak hours. I do not think this is a bad thing, but after the “get a free smart thermostat so we can shut off your A/C whenever we want” campaign, there is not much trust.

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In case you think my electricity bill is super low, we also have gas for heating, cooking, and drying clothes. Additionally, the $900 annual bill is after I installed a 3.64 kW solar system that cost $15k before tax credits.

My niece will be a freshman at a Catholic high school this school year. The school held a “retreat” for all the students at a different church this morning, so I drove her there and dropped her off. Like a normal person, I pulled over to the curb next to the church and let her off. Meanwhile, cars are still driving by on the driveway. This was in the church parking lot so there were a lot of empty parking spaces as well.

When I was exiting the church, there were three cars in front of me, going really slow. The lead car was a Porsche Tacyan Turbo, a $150k electric car. The driver tries to squeeze into a small space next to the curb on the right, but only manages to get the front of the car in, blocking half the driveway. The line of cars managed to get around, then the next car, a huge Cadillac Escalade, just double parks to let the passenger out. The car in front of me pulls around and just stops in the middle of the driveway to let their passenger out. Not one of those three entitled assholes pulled to the curb earlier where it was empty. Nor did they park their car in a parking spot so they are out of the way. Instead, they basically decided their time was more important than anyone else’s so they will just block a entire row of cars behind them and let their passenger out. I can see one person maybe, but three in a row?

While I was pulled over, my niece commented that there were a lot of nice cars dropping students off. Well, when the tuition is $18,000/year, it is really target to the upper/upper-middle class. Since this was South Orange County, the line was full of Japanese and European SUV’s.

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Seriously, I was going to hold down my car horn when the last car just stopped in the middle of the driveway to let the student out. However, this was at a church parking lot and the event was a Catholic high school retreat, so I just waited.