perkonis

Using just a little bit of math, the 11 cities I tracked represented 8,790 person-hours of line-waiting. With 140 Apple stores nationwide (not even counting AT&T stores, by the way), this represents 7.8% of all stores. A tiny bit of extrapolation later and we have 111872 person-hours spent waiting in line

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I’ve had to sit through hours of conference calls before. I have yet to encounter one that actually gave me any knowledge. In fact, I’m pretty sure they actually render whole sections of my brain useless for hours afterward.

I’ve also had to sit through web conferences. Theses usually cause me to consider the Amish lifestyle. Plowing fields or web conference. Tough call there.

And then there’s Powerpoint. The ultimate force of evil to have been released upon the Earth. Sitting through a Powerpoint presentation usually causes me to wish for death. I don’t generally care if it’s me or the presenter, I just want the pain to stop.

Today I had an experience that I’m reasonably certain violates some aspect of the Geneva Convention.

Somehow, someone got the bright idea to combine a conference call with a web conference all for the sole purpose of watching a Powerpoint presentation. Not just any Powerpoint either. It was one I had already seen twice.

Now there was a productive way to spend 2 hours of my life.

ec-o-nom-ics - noun

1.(used with a singular verb) the science that deals with the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services, or the material welfare of humankind.

red-neck-o-nom-ics - noun

1.(used with Red Man and/or PBR) the science that deals wih getting a good deal on something even when it isn’t

I got to see Redneckonomics in action earlier. I pulled into the gas station to fill up and found a ridiculously long line waiting for gas. This may not seem weird if you didn’t know that I live pretty close to the Middle of Nowhere (I think I have neighbors with a purple dog.) and there aren’t exactly a whole lot of people around. This line at the gas station would have accounted for a fairly sizeable chunk of this towns population.

Except they weren’t from ’round here.

They were from Podunk, the somewhat larger Redneck Enclave about 10 miles away.

It turns out that gas in Podunk was selling from $3.15 a gallon whereas gas in the Middle of Nowhere was only $2.99 and the rednecks had gotten word of it. Once one of them got word, it spread through the redneckosphere (which is kind of like the blogosphere except it uses CB radios) like wildfire and they all set out on a journey out to the middle of nowhere so they could fill up with cheap gas. And be in my way which may be the bigger issue.

Now, rednecks aren’t exactly the most “green” people on the planet. There wasn’t a line of Camrys and Priuses (Priii?) at the pump. Any god fearing redneck worth his weight in Skoal knows you have to have a four wheel drive. A big four wheel drive.

Canyonero big.

And Canyoneros need cheap gas.

The kind of cheap gas you can only get by embarking on a 20 mile journey.

So let’s do the math here. I didn’t do any scientific survey, but from casual observation it seemed that the average fill up was 20 gallons. Now 20 gallons at a saving of $0.16 per gallon gives us a net savings of $3.20. I have no idea what the equivalent of $3.20 is in PBR. Probably a keg.

Oh, I think I see a small error in our calculations. Joe Redneck had to drive his Canyonero all the way from Podunk. If you recall, Podunk is 10 miles away making that a 20 mile round trip. I’ll bet a Canyonero can get 20 miles per gallon on a good day. So he used 1 gallon to make the trip. I’ll be generous and assume he somehow managed to use a gallon that cost $2.99. So we deduct that $2.99 from the $3.20 “savings” and find out that Joe Redneck just spent a half hour of his time to save 21 cents.

Brilliant. Just brilliant.

That’s Redneckonomics 101 in a nutshell. The advanced class is Redneckonomics 201 - Saving more by going to Wal Mart every single day.