Money, Housing, and SimCity 3000

Not a whole lot has happened the last few days.

Work has been a little bit of a struggle, what with meetings, and a number of somewhat difficult bugs (of the sort you send to a programmer, they send them back saying they've been fixed or can't be reproduced, and you send back again with some new twist). Progress has been a little slow.

Today I bought SimCity 3000, the latest version of this well-known game (uh, simulation). After reading the rules and playing with it for half an hour tonight, it seems like:

1. It's not much of a revision over SimCity 2000;
2. The interface (as Ceej warned me) is pretty clumsy, which means not very Mac-like, and
3. It actually doesn't have as good graphics as its predecessor, and it seems markedly slower.

Well, maybe it will get better with time, but the early word is that I'm disappointed.

At the party I went to last month I commented to someone that it seems right now like I moved here about five years too late. But no doubt five years from now it will seem like I moved here just in time. He said that seemed like a sensible attitude, but we'll see what happens if and when I look for housing. Several people have commented that the 'entry fee' into the housing market around here is $300,000, and you need to be willing to either put more money in via your mortgage, or spend a bunch of time fixing the place up, in order to have anything worthwhile. Never mind anything with much space. Actually, I guess if you want space to go to the East Bay, or some distance from the area altogether, like near Santa Cruz. Ack.

The problem, I guess, is all the IPO money flying around - people who make hundreds of thousands (if not much more!) from small companies going public. People are willing and often able to pay a lot to stay in the area, since it's a nice urban area in a terrific climate. But I suspect people like me - young single people who have a good paycheck but nothing outstanding, especially adjusted for the cost of living - get squeezed.

The contrasts between Madison and the Bay Area never seem to stark as when looking at the costs of living.

So, as I've said, I'm trying to get my spending under control (so far, so good) to prepare for possibly buying something a year or two down the road. Which mostly means planning my spending, and considering whether I'll actually have time to read or use something, or if I really need it, and if not to defer it until a time when I do. Too much lately I've been in a mode where if I know I'll use something eventually, I'll buy it now. This strategy worked much better in Madison than it does here.

Today I was weak and bought SimCity 3000. Meanwhile, Railroad Tycoon II has been sitting next to my desk for months and has barely been used, since I've been largely playing Starcraft.

I think this is a subject which is going to be bothering me for quite a while. But, I suspect it bothers a lot of people in the area.

Michael Rawdon (Contact)