Item number one: Seattle's music scene is amazing. You can listen to KEXP and hear music you will never hear on the radio otherwise. How many places can you turn on the radio at 8 am and hear Jurassic 5? Add that to the Crocodile Cafe and the record labels out here and you will never want. It is almost hollywood-like how many record store clerks are secretly DJs or in a band.

Item number two: the dot com era is over and good riddance. I phoned a couple of places around Seattle for rent. A one-bedroom (550 feet) apartment near Redmond is $515 a month. I phoned the used and second hand furniture places in Seattle. Dixon's is having a sale this week just to get rid of some inventory because they're so overstocked. They're being buried in mattresses. You can pick up a used bed for $40 to $100.

Bear in mind that a few years ago in the Bay Area, you couldn't get a one bedroom for $515 -- you couldn't even get a closet for $515. I don't know if this is because Redmon isn't a cultural center or Seattle is just plain cheaper, but to my eyes it looks insanely cheap. I think that the Boeing layoffs must be hitting people pretty hard.

Item number three: Banana Republic must make an insane amount of money if it can price the same shirt at $80 and then mark it down to $20 because it's "winter and we're looking for spring." It's not winter. It's a brown shirt. You use it the same no matter what season it is. Same goes for the $100 umbrella I almost bought from them.