Let's talk about PriceLine.com.
You go to their site, say what you want to buy, and how much you want to pay for it. The little gnomes at PriceLine.com try to "find" someone who's willing to sell you what you want for the price you offered, and if there's a match, you got it. They started with airline tickets, now they sell stuff ranging from hotel rooms to groceries. I was afraid to use their services because of the following:
- You don't have a lot of information you can specify - for example, you can't say at what time you want to fly - just the dates.
- You say how much you want to pay, and give your credit card information. If they find a flight for you, they buy it, and you can't cancel the transaction.
- They might find two flights with a connection instead of a direct flight, and there's nothing you can do about it. You can actually say you allow more than a single connection to better your chances at getting a ticket.
- It's obvious you don't get the lowest price - if they find a price that's cheaper than what you offered, they will probably buy it, and keep the difference.
Then again, I can think of some reasons to try using PriceLine. I am still loyal to the now chubby and always smirk captain of the USS 1701 Enterprise. Mr. William Shatner was offered stocks in the company in order to appear in their TV commercials. In these commercial he "sings" and tells you to use PriceLine.com. So I tried. Can't disobey a direct order from the captain.
I wanted to visit my uncle and his family who live in the West Coast. I checked around and found out that tickets cost around $350. So I decided to try buying the tickets at PriceLine.com. I offered $240 and got it!
An additional "bonus" - you're issued an eTicket. This means you have no ticket. You just go to the airport with an ID, and get a boarding card. One less thing to forget at home on your way to the airport.
Check out William Shatner singing at http://www.adcritic.com/content/priceline.com-age-of-aquarius.html
If you're not a programmer, you might want to skip the next sentence. A couple of years ago I read the following somewhere:
Berkeley has two famous exports: Unix and LSD. This is not a coincidence. My uncle and his wife are doing their Post-Dr. in Berkeley, California. They live about 20 minutes drive from San Francisco. They live in the northern part of the San Francisco bay, which is a gorgeous place. I used the first day to climb a nearby mountain. The sun was blazing on my bald head, and I got burned really hard. This meant I couldn't really take off the roof of my convertible rented car (A Mustang) for the rest of the trip.
But it was worth it. This is the view I saw from the top of the mountain:
Down in Bekeley, however, things look a bit different. My uncle is trying to tame the human genome and solve the riddle of life. While doing that he tries to keep pace with the latest trends in the fashion world. The results of this are shown in the following picture:
There was another reason for me to go the West Coast. I thought about leaving New York, and going to work in the Silicon Valley.
The distinguished Mr. Aharon has joined me for part of the trip, and we went to tour the Silicon Valley. By the way, don't look around trying to search for a picture of Danni. He carries a special certificate from the Israeli Mossad that requires that no pictures of him will be taken. Okay, I didn't actually see the certificate, but it looked like he had such a document.
The Silicon Valley looks like a very large suburb of an invisible city. The houses are very nice and there are a lot of trees and green areas, but it looks like they turn off the lights at around 10:00 PM and force you to go to sleep.
I did a lot of thinking, and decided I couldn't trade my happy and relaxed lifestyle in New York with the family neighbourhoods of the Silicon Valley.
Actually, there's a large city near the Silicon Valley - San Francisco, but it's more than 30 minutes drive when traffic is good. I, on the other hand, saw what happens when the traffic is not so good.
It was (of course) on the day I was hurrying on my way back to the airport to fly back to New York. The 5 lane way was anything but free. The alleged 20 minute drive took longer and longer. I hoped Einstein would stretch the time for me, but at this bumper to bumper speed, I got no help from the relativity theory. I was really edgy. I didn't know what would happen if I miss the flight. I bought a cheap flight, which probably means that if I miss it, I have to buy a new ticket.
There was one ray of light during the traffic jam. At one point I was driving just behind a red Chevrolet Corvette that had a very interesting license plate:
My camera was packed in my bag in the back of the car. I couldn't take it out, so the following image is a mock up of what I saw. But I actually saw this plate with my own eyes.
For those of you who don't appreciate this license plate - If you've never written a line in the odd programming language of JCL, you're excused. If you did, however, please meet me for a harsh talk as soon as possible.
I had to pass the Corvette and show its driver my appreciation for his license plate. He looked like a 40 year old beach boy with a few missing teeth, and he liked the fact that I knew what the license plate was all about. This incident distracted me from the slow traffic for a few minutes, but these minutes passed, and I was still crawling towards the airport.
It took me an hour and a half to get to the airport, and I missed the flight. The steward at the Delta counter didn't blink and assigned me to the next flight that left a bit more than an hour after my original flight.
When I read the the following sentence, I immediately thought about Gili - this is something he should have said: 'For mad scientists who keep brains in jars, here's a tip: why not add a slice of lemon to each jar, for freshness?' Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey
I never believed in earning money without working for it. I know some people do that, but it seems to me that it's in my genes not to be one of these people. A place where you earn without working is the stock market. If it were up to me, I would blow up the building and forbid this line of work. Some people would say this is an economical tool to advance the world. To that I will say 2 things - first, this tool never helped the poor who really need the help. Second, I don't mind if we slow the pace a bit, and pick up all those that were left behind. I didn't see a lot of new agriculture companies going public lately.
On the other hand, I would sell my soul to the devil at a very reasonable price. So when I got a tip about a hot stock in Nasdaq I invested some money in it.
As I said, it's in my genes not to earn money without working for it. The day I bought the stock, the stock market started tumbling down. Remember the horrible days of the stock market? Now you know why it all happened. It's all my fault. I should have warned you all that I was about to attempt such a move beforehand. I can only say that I was punished by losing 2/3 of my invested money.
At least I took a lot of people down with me...
Yesterday Microsoft stock dropped so dramatically that Bill Gates was losing money at the rate of $4.7 million per second. When reached for comment, Gates said, 'I now know what it's like to produce a Kevin Costner movie.' Conan O'brien on Late Night
