some observations from my recent travels
I've been traveling a bit lately, and I've made a few observations as a result. First and foremost, Houston is dirt cheap compared to everywhere else. Cali, of course, has high real estate values (and therefore rents), relatively higher food and gas costs, and perhaps most annoyingly, virtually no dollar bins left in any record stores in San Francisco. New Orleans had higher food and drink costs, as might be expected post-Katrina and also for a city where one of the primary industries is tourism.
Because I've been staying in hotels, I noticed something about the toilet paper. If you make it through a significant portion of the roll, the hotel staff replaces it with a new roll. That makes sense; they wouldn't want you to run out in the middle of the night. But where do all the half-used rolls of TP go? I'm guessing that the hotel staff are allowed to take home all the half-used rolls, but still it's a little weird, huh?
That also raised an issue I've been wondering about for some time. I distinctly remember when I was a kid that TP sheets were perfect squares. I'd pull four sheets and fold twice. Now, however, it seems that TP companies are playing an interesting game - most toilet paper is no longer square. It seems that most sheets are now 4.5" × 4.0". This is genius marketing - it allows the companies to claim more sheets per roll (12.5% more for the same length!) or use less paper for the same number of sheets. In addition, if you now pull five sheets, and fold twice, it looks more square (4.5" × 5.0") but in fact wastes more paper! I wasn't sure about all of this, but bless the internet, someone has an entire website about toilet paper.
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