estebanana -> RE: Is Manuel Reyes Sr. overrated? (Mar. 13 2017 1:19:41)
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Some things in business are irrational, we take them as market realities, but really they are irrational. Cost has some determining factors, but components of the equation are irrational. A lot of crazy talk could be avoided if that were universally acknowledged. For example brand loyalty to an extent is about uniformity of product, or style as it effects performance. Another aspect of brand loyalty is peer acceptance and family piety to certain brands. Mom used this kind of bath soap and I know this brand therefore I'm buying it too. My mom uses Dove bar soap, but I switched to liking a less creamy white bar soap, then I veered into Dr. Bronners in my 20's, then I became hopelessly lost on bar soap and liquid soaps became my main everyday soap. When traveling I began the odious habit of collecting hotel mini soaps, I once had a shaving kit full of business card sized hotel soaps from China. Some of them were from a hotel I stayed at in Ningbo, near Shanghai, called Public House Hotel. The bar soap packages were slightly off, they read Big Pudlick House, I thought it was funny, the label. I stashed half a dozen in my shaving kit bag to give as gifts. Humor is also irrational. Eventually I brought them back to Oakland and left them in my shaving kit. I gave a few away as gifts to some guffawing over the spelling error. And forgot about the soaps. Eventually, I began to run my bank account low because I had become disenchanted with the idea of a career path that involved doing architecture and started hanging out at the Albatross flamenco night and drinking Guiness and Harp half and halfs. The Dr. Bronners bottle ran dry one afternoon in the shower, when shopping the next day I had to make a choice between a new bottle of premium liquid soap and peanut butter and bread or peanut butter and jelly and bread and save the Dr. Bronners money for drinking at the Albatross. The thing that clinched taking the decision was remembering the Big Pudlick house mini soaps in the shaving kit. All was good, until I actually got into the shower and was about to break through the paper wrapper when I was seized by nostalgia for Ningbo and the little island of Puto Shan next to Ningbo where I went on a Buddhist pilgrimage for a day walking on a path between temples that were built in the 6th century and having a saffron yellow pilgrimage bag stamped with a large block with a commemorative red ink seal of each temple in the complex. I could not remember where I put the bag, but I had the Big Pudlick House soaps to remind me of the pilgrimage and the slow train ride to Ningbo when I bought dumplings from a girl walking down the aisle with a basket full of hot dumpling. Flamenco is evil sh*t as it drives one to buy guitars and use up sentimentally valuable items like motel soaps with labels that would delight Dr. Freud. This is truly how the market works. And one correction, Picasso, not Rembrandt set the auction price for the highest price ever paid for a work of art. Rembrandt is not even in the upper tier, Jasper Johns paintings have sold for more money than some Rembrandt's, and Titian also beats Old Rumblossom the Dutchman on some auction blocks. And don't pronounce Titian as Tit - ee - ann. That is vulgar.
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