Category: Commerce

Products, services, marketing, names

Reduce, re-use: yes; recycle: no

A little over a month ago, I began drinking sparkling water (agua con gas) instead of wine.

I love the vastly reduced clink-clank of bottle recycling, and the cash savings will certainly buy a little sushi, but I didn’t feel good about the single-use plastic water bottles from the supermarket. Given tightening purity standards in China for recyclables, many municipalities up north have gone from making a little selling recyclables, to paying much more to send them to a landfill.

I don’t know the status here. I don’t know if plastic is really recycled, and if so, where (but they seemed serious about it last I checked, seven years ago). But then I remembered how we got drinking water before I installed filters: the water guy who comes around every Monday morning.

He brings pressurized bottles like the one on the left. Total waste is reduced from a bottle with three types of plastic, to a little piece of plastic wrap. Plus the water stays fizzier because the bottle is pressurized. Also it costs less. And the delivery guy is friendly and helpful. For example, after starting delivery only a few weeks ago, we were out last Monday morning. We returned to find six bottles of water at our doorstep, to be paid this week, no problem.

So how many times can these pressurized bottles be re-used? I have no idea. However, this is one delivered today:

refillable water bottle, Uruguay

Notice the phone number. Phone numbers in Uruguay no longer begin with zero. In fact, they haven’t since late 2010. So, chances are these bottles have been around a while.

I like that.

The scoop

We haven’t gone out for ice cream this summer, and Syd mentioned vanilla with walnuts and maple syrup, and seeing as we had the latter two ingredients – and the weather being insufferably hot – I procured the former.

I think it’s been eight years since I used the ice cream scoop we purchased here. It was a piece of crap then, and now, even on ice cream fresh from the store, it was even more a piece of crap:

Yes, digging into relatively soft ice cream it bent completely back. Instead of going back to the drawer, it now goes to the trash.

This is, unfortunately, all too typical of products purchased in Uruguay. We discovered this early on, of course. However, as a followup, I’m happy to say that those new garden tools mentioned in that 2012 blog post are still going strong – I used them both today!

Startcoin, stopped

A few years ago I started paying around with cryptocurrencies. I’m not sure what got me onto Startcoin, but it was probably during a particularly frothy period where a gimmicky 20-something took to YouTube to present himself as an expert and this was The. Next. Great. Thing.

Some time ago, an exchange warned me to move my holdings to my own wallet, since they were delisting it for lack of activity. Duly noted – recent global 24 trading volume USD 2:


Think that’s bad?

Think that’s bad? Here’s the most recent 24 hour trade data:

Of course if there’s no trading, no nothing, it’s kind of hard to connect with the network to update. This was a few days ago:

This is today:

I’m almost half way there! How exciting! Maybe when I’m up to date, I can transfer my few dollars worth of Startcoin to one of the two exchanges that still list it (why?):

Then I can place an order to dump my stake and watch the price dive – a true market influencer? I doubt I’ll ever get there. Still, it’s fun to watch. Of the thousands of cryptocurrencies, 95% or more will follow this trajectory into complete worthlessness.

By the way, this “investment” was not with real money – I long since recouped my capital in fiat currency. This is playing with froth.

Currency value decline a.k.a. inflation

I stopped by the butcher to get menudos (giblets) and corazón (beef heart) for the dogs. To my surprise, prices had jumped significantly from the last time I looked at a receipt a couple weeks ago:

receipt

That’s a 25% and 10% increase respectively.

Same thing at Tienda Inglesa:

receipt

Mushrooms have gone up 22% in the last two weeks.

In our little local store, the price of eggs has gone up 8% in the last two weeks.

This is not a case of higher prices for tourist season. All of the price hikes have happened in the last week or two, as tourist season ends. And the USD exchange rate has been steady for the last several months (although the highest since we’ve lived here).

I don’t pay attention to too many prices, although I do recall when we first moved here, our son liked to order entrecot (boneless ribeye steak) at Don Vito. It cost 245 pesos, which seemed expensive – at least compared to what we ordered. Here’s where we are with that at the moment:

menu

Granted, it’s been almost ten years, so that’s not entirely unexpected. I remember being appalled when red peppers hit 99 pesos/kilo. Now you’re lucky if the price gets that low. And of course produce varies with the season.

But all these significant price jumps in a very short time, given my expectation of 10-12% per year, have definitely got my attention.

The business card

When we first moved here, we found an older tapicero – upholsterer – to redo a bunch of used furniture we had purchased. We haven’t needed work done since, but I don’t that guy is still working, and I do think about it from time to time.

So when I saw a guy in the feria for the second time advertising his services, I thought it might be a good idea to ask for a business card. Which I did. This is what I got:

No card, no name. Just “TAPICERO.”

Which reminded one of the calendar I got from one of the other vendors a few weeks ago:

It hangs above my computer monitor, with retrograde Mercury and shoulder dates highlighted just in case I get a sudden and unexplained urge to buy electronics when I shouldn’t.

But noteworthy is “J&E” – they have a business name? Who knew? And if I told you the name, would you be able to find them in the feria? Maybe by the blue color of the truck in the photo?

No, instead they’re the cheese truck on the school end opposite the produce stand on the school end, as opposed to the middle-aged couple cheese truck a half block further, across from the produce stand where they usually wear maroon jackets.

That’s the extent of “branding” in the Uruguay feria.

There was a seed and nut stand memorably named 8 Búhos (8 owls) which appeared in Atlántida a couple of times. Since they were new, I asked if they planned to be there regularly. Always, they replied.

You guessed it: they’ve never been back.

Every yard should have one

Uruguay "negro" lawn ornament

Ah, Uruguay! Every day that I walk dogs with Syd, we go by this house. FWIW, only 4% of Uruguayans are black. 

If you’ve been with me a while, you might recall similar remarkable coffee packaging (which El Palacio Del Cafe subsequently changed).

On another note, weather here went from very rainy to very hot. How hot? Just before I took this photo, all six dogs were in the recently filled swimming hole. I don’t remember ever seeing that before

Dogs enjoying a swimming hole

Quite a lineup at the drugstore

40+ people lined up to get into a farmácia? That seemed a bit odd. I was on my way to pick up alterations from the modista (seamstress*). 

I asked her why this might be. Turns out this is the first and only pharmacy on the coast licensed to sell marijuana. Aha!

.

* 2 women’s pants extensively altered, torn men’s cargo pants turned into shorts, baggy shirt turned into tapered, all for $700 – USD 21.50.

Design Notebook 20181201

It took us three consecutive day trips to Montevideo to get our Uruguayan passports renewed (actually to get our Credenciales Cívicas updated, a process gratuitously complexified by various functionaries in different government offices) – but we’re now good for ten years, yay! The latter two days involved lunch at new places: Lisandro, offering a variety of sandwiches and salads, but better yet, a peaceful location in crazy Carrasco, and Estrecho, similar fare but better, on Sarandí, the busy walking street in Ciudad Vieja. (Fun to note that Lisandro’s web site offers the address of their other location in Zonamerica as “Driving Rage,” which could, in this country, well be a Freudian slip.)

Yesterday, in Estrecho, the waitress gave us tourist map.

Montevideo tourist map

At first glance, it seemed promising.

Montevideo tourist map

But then I looked closer.

Montevideo tourist map

I guess the idea is you find a bike and make your way, maze-like, through this circuit that just kinda looks like it was laid out to accommodate the sponsoring restaurants and stores. Since we were recently in the area, I looked closer and quickly found a couple that gave addresses nowhere near their Carrasco locations.

Montevideo tourist map

On the flip side, this:

Montevideo tourist map

Postage-stamp sized listings of exactly 100 businesses, with details in 6-point type.

In terms of design, it’s attractive, and not particularly informative. It might be interesting to follow some of these routes, but I find nothing compelling about them. Nor would I settle on any of the sponsoring restaurants without learning more about them.

In the end, though, it’s got maps. And I love maps!