More Art, and towards a unified theory of the social optimal wait time

11/14/09: Big day today. First, St. Peter's Bascillica, which is utterly amazing but the problem is there is nothing to do there except look at how gaudy it is. Again with the "they must get bored and just keep adding stuff" theme. Then to the vatican museums, and the Sistine Chapel. Mostly this is just hallway after hallway of religious relics made out of gold and pictures of saints and biblical scenes with heavy handed chiaroscoro. But their modern art collection is pretty tasteful and I spent alot of time there. The sistine chapel (extra lowercase if i could) was pretty disappointing, not just in the "its just a fresco" way, but also in the doesn't really have any kind of emotional impact or gravity whatsoever way. Even "the last judgement", which is supposed to be super dark, is just kind of a mural with a bunch of dudes that aren't interacting with each other. Over it.

-Waiting in line for the Vatican today, I started trying to come up with a unified theory of wait time to cost ratio. What i mean is obviously the museum isn't charging enough money on purpose, because they see their purpose not only as a market force, but also a social good. But undercharging always results in other kinds of cost, most frequently a wait time. ( I waited close to an hour, but I can't imagine how long it is on the last Sunday of the month, when you don't even owe them 14 Euro). So society benefits if entrance is cheaper than a profit maximizing market price, but not really, because all of that good is gobbled up in the wasted time in line. The optimal solution to these problems is probably some kind of straited pricing model, where its a different price each day, or for different times in the day. This way, rich people don't have to wait (there time is more valuable, sorry to say) and poor people can get a "coupon" price, by waiting in line on a cheap day. [Measuring how many more people come on a cheap day is pretty much an economist's wet dream, btw.] I have more, but it gets complicated, i.e., seperate parallel lines and even more complicated things, but I just wanted to give you the heads up, because when I win a Nobel prize in 30 years, its possible its going to be on something like this.
-Amerians. Are. So. Fat.
- I finally remembered to buy a pack of playing cards today. Not sure if I ever made this public, but I am actively trying to collect something. But I always forget to buy them. Doing the postcard thing was a good excuse, maybe I can connect the two and always be on my game.
-The wierd fashion thing in Valencia was this odd haircut that was kind of like a Dreadullet, short all over except dreads in the back, or sometimes even just one dread. The odd thing here is danceclub kids with a mouth peircing, like a labret or one above the mouth. Just a little stud and ball. Except the ball is bright white. Ive seen it maybe a dozen times. It looks like a white head so bad!! I just want to pop it. Ive actually double taked a few times. I get quite a kick out of it.