Nobrainer’s Think Tank

4. My traps have killed 4 mice in my shed in the last 2 days. My only regret is that I let the problem go on for too long. My 5 traps are reset and waiting silently for another night’s catch.

I’m particularly pleased the the old school wood and wire snap traps. The two I own have accounted for all the fatalities. I’m disappointed by the newer, jaw-like traps which are still waiting for their first KIAs. I’m extremely disappointed with the live trap I set which clearly caught and let go one of the varmints.

I’m even considering expanding my efforts. I may purchase some rat traps and start going after the tree rats furry little squirrels. Normally I like the little guys. But today… Today one of the smug bastards stole my first tomato of the season right off the vine. And then, just to piss me off, he merely nibbled on my little green tomato before carelessly discarding it.

My recent run ins with rodents have me rethinking my hatred toward cats. Maybe it’s okay to have some neighborhood cats with owners who “take care of them” by letting them constantly roam through and piss and shit in other people’s yards who can serve as judge, jury, and executioner of the local Varmint-Cong population. Or maybe not. I’ve definitely seen cats in my yard. Unfortunately I have mostly caught them lounging comfortably on my deck furniture. Perhaps they are on strike from rodent-hunting since I chase them away.

Anyway, this all brings me to my brief review of the 3rd installment of my recent reading series. The book? The $64 Tomato: How One Man Nearly Lost His Sanity, Spent a Fortune, and Endured an Existential Crisis in the Quest for the Perfect Garden. In short, the author, William Alexander, recounts humorous stories about and pertaining to his garden. The book is well put together, and I liked the author’s sense of reality. Alexander was able to take his gardening seriously without mindlessly preaching about urban sprawl and other crap as some single-minded gardener are wont to do. Right now I’m reminded of his writing about the deer that came after his plants. He very clearly wanted them dead. His wife, however, at first liked the cute little woodland creatures. Eventually, the reality of deer hit her and she apparently recommended that the best deer repellent was a good gun. This attitude shift actually ties in well with the rational irrationality model that was discussed in the first book in my recent reading series; being idealistic and pro-deer was fine… until reality hit and the costs associated with the pro-deer stance became clear.

Overall, The $64 Tomato is the one book of the 4 I read that I most recommend simply because I think it appeals to the widest audience and because, unlike Everything Bad is Good For You, it pretty much is what it says it is.

UPDATE 2008-07-15 07:30AM: Add 2 more to the list, both caught with traditional snap traps. All death-traps have been redeployed.
UPDATE 2008-07-15 07:30PM: Add on one more. The total is now 7.
UPDATE 2008-07-16: Two more this morning. Make it 9.
UPDATE 2008-07-17: Up to 10. Things are slowing down.
UPDATE 2008-07-22: Got two more the last couple mornings. Both with the old-school traps. I’ve now re-deployed both traps and one of the new traps to the recent “hot-spot” of activity.

Right now, I’m about halfway through the Black Swan, written by Nassim Nicholas Taleb the same author wrote one of my other favorite books, Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets.

The combination of reading this book, and recent world events are leading me to become much more contrarian. Translated, that means I’ll probably be more of an asshole in the future, so I’ll just go ahead and apologize now.

In general, I find myself questioning much of the conventional wisdom upon which I have relied in the semi-recent past. I consider that which is founded upon a grain of truth, will become less correct as more people believe.

Among that conventional wisdom is the idea that homes are good investments. Obviously this is proving false for many people at the moment. I suspect many people who are now hurting are the ones who bought into the conventional wisdom (a conventional wisdom sold, in part by President Bush (although I suspect many others from all political spectra did the same)).

I also find myself having less trust in the stock market. Yes it has had a good run for a long time. But you never know when something horrible is going to happen, not just in the market, but in the world or to the country: a president can be assassinated, a military coup can begin, a nuclear accident or natural disaster can happen.

Along the same lines, I put less faith in privatized social security (not that I have more faith in the current system), or whichever plans would let people invest more of their own money. The problem, I think, would be of supply and demand. The supply of good stocks would remain relatively stable while the demand for them and for other stocks would go up greatly. In other words, a lot of people (at the government’s recommendation) would be putting a lot of money into a lot of bad investments.

I’m also less impressed with free markets. It isn’t because they don’t work. It’s because they don’t work as well as advertised. Part of it is overselling by economists. Most of it is because whenever proponents do manage to carve out a free market in bureaucratic mountain, the free market is quickly limited by its surroundings. Electricity markets, of which I know a thing or two, are prime examples. The markets do an exceptional job of pinpointing where investment should be made. The ability, however, to actually make those investments is extremely limited. To build a power plant or transmission lines is a red-tape nightmare that I fortunately do not have to deal with.