New Yorkers are neurotic. Woody Allen has long been our patron saint.

I would bet SSRI prescriptions per capita here are the highest in the nation, in part because the doctors hand them out like candy.

What is missing? People here are very stressed (and that’s not projection, that’s what people who feel able to let their hair down talk about for the most part). Most people either work like a dog and are affluent but time starved, or have time but are under financial pressure. I have trouble thinking of people who aren’t in one or the other camp (and some are in both).

Compound that with status anxiety (reinforced actively; amazing sensitivity to subtle differences in standing here), unstable relationships, and lack of a sense of community. Plus crowding, which is known to promote aggression.

Yves,

This is the second time today I’ve read that New Yorkers are neurotic. I didn’t know this was the prevailing perception. I work in psychology in Chicago. It is well known neuroticism is another way of expresing a low grade depression. Not clinically, but in an everyday blah kind of depression. If I were counseling you I would ask you “what are you really trying to tell me? What is it that you’re missing from your life?’ Perhaps this is the state of modern man…

For many, it will feel as if one’s enjoyment of the shopping experience has been stolen . . . by a culprit for whom one will have a hard time identifying.

But perhaps many will find that there is a solution. I suspect many will discover that they can still enjoy the shopping experience, but they’ll have to do so without actually buying anything . . . or at least not much.

Perhaps, over time, many will find that shopping without buying becomes even more enjoyable than buying while shopping. Maybe they’ll feel like they really come out on top, not only keeping the enjoyment of the experience intact, but doing so while also saving money.

Out of this one might then find added enjoyment, knowing that salvaging the shopping experience without buying, one experiences pleasure in getting back at some diffuse target who, albeit failed, attempted to steal one’s shopping experience.

Carrying out this activity is done to improve one’s quality of experience. Supposedly. But this is really beside the point. The real enjoyment is found in the activity itself, as a recreational pursuit for which one feels good about themselves.

Same with shopping in general. The aim is not so much to walk away with a product, but to have purchased an experience . . . from which one derives enjoyment.

Cultural capitalism at its finest!

See Jeremy Rifkin’s ‘The Age of Access’.

But OTOH, if you can do so quickly at the time of booking, then why not? The difference between SeatGuru and jetBlue is instructive. If you use Seat Guru, then after you’ve purchased your ticket on expedia, for example, you have to figure out which airline and which specific plane your flight will be on, then go to seat guru’s site and pick out which seats are the “best”, then go back to expedia and reserve those seats (going back and forth if the “best” seats are already taken and you need to figure out your 2nd and 3rd choices).

with JetBlue, information about seat pitch and location is already integrated in their booking site, and when you go to pick out your seat, jetBlue’s website itself will tell you exactly how much space each seat has. In that case, it doesn’t cost much extra time / effort to try to reserve the best seat.

In my mind, using seatguru is needlessly neurotic because as you mention, aside from a few rules of thumb, the marginal difference between one seat and the other on one plane is so minor that the time spent looking such things up on seatguru is not worth any benefit you might gain. Needless to say, I don’t use seatguru even though I’ve know about it for a few years. But jetBlue’s site allows you to optimize that minor gain with very little time cost. So it has some marginal utility. And I do use it when booking flights with them.

We’ll see if TripKick is able to survive the same cost/benefit analysis.

Tip on restaurants: never eat out on Saturday, Valentines Day or Mother’s Day. Saturday because it’s the end of the week, and the food is less fresh. Busy nights because the chef is swamped so your meal won’t get the best attention.

Tip on restaurants: never eat out on Saturday, Valentines Day or Mother’s Day. Saturday because it’s the end of the week, and the food is less fresh. Busy nights because the chef is swamped so your meal won’t get the best attention.

Tip on restaurants: never eat out on Saturday, Valentines Day or Mother’s Day. Saturday because it’s the end of the week, and the food is less fresh. Busy nights because the chef is swamped so your meal won’t get the best attention.

Maybe it’s too many years of being a late check-in at hotels and figuring if I had a problem, I couldn’t do much about it (ie, if they are full, they can’t switch you even if you are correct that the room is deficient), so I travel defensively. Ear plugs are dirt cheap and very effective.

Only partly true. I’ll get more sleep in a quiet room at the Raddison than a room right across from the elevators and ice machines at the Ritz (yes, I’ve been in that room, which was part of the process of realizing that brands are overrated).

If this site has got information at that level, it’s worth it.