During the school year, I am able to almost never drive a car during the school/work week. I can get where I'm going, with what I'm going there with (e.g. a kid, a laptop, some light groceries, etc), by bicycle. Right now it's summer, and because of where and when various summer camps drop-off and pickups are, I'm driving every day. I would prefer to not do this, but it's only for ten weeks or so, and I can manage it.

What I'm here to complain about, however, is something else. Because I'm driving more, I'm impacted by summer road construction projects, and I find them frustrating. For those of you who don't commute by bicycle regularly, I'll explain. When you commute by bicycle, you know exactly how long it will take to go from A to B. This might not be true in Amsterdam or Copenhagen, but here there's never enough bicycle traffic to impact travel times. But with driving, I have to budget in extra time for construction zones that may or may not have a lane restriction in place. I find this annoying and inconvenient.

Sitting in these backups and seeing only a handful of workers actually doing anything at any one time has given me time to develop an opinion. In short, all publicly-funded works should include the cost to the public in terms of delays and inconvenience when comparing competitive bids. These costs won't actually be paid, but they will be used to compare the true public cost of each project. Let me explain with an example.

Let's say a road needs repaving, and there are two bids:

• Company A will do it for $100,000 and take 30 days
• Company B will do it for $150,000 and take 15 days

Next, using traffic data and other factors, it's found that each day of construction would cost $4,000 from the public in delays, fuel burned in extra traffic, and so on. Bringing in these costs, the true public cost of each bid is:

• Company A $100,000 + 30 * $4,000 = $220,000
• Company B $150,000 + 15 * $4,000 = $210,000

Using this policy, Company B would win the contract despite coming in with a higher bid.

I haven't invented anything here, these are called external costs, and our society would work much better if they were more effectively and consistently applied to taxpayer-funded projects. With penalties for missed deadlines, it would encourage competence and efficiency. Instead of sitting in traffic seeing only five people working at any one time for six weeks (ask me how I know this), you'd see dozens working for only a few days or a week. The public perception of government projects would improve and society would be better for it.

Sadly, because it would be good for society, this will never happen.

There's only one word to describe this album: sex. That's the only topic of every song on the #5 album this week, the eponymous Keith Sweat.

Much of popular music is about sex and relationships, so this album isn't out of line being so focused on those topics. I'm not that into R&B, and this album did nothing for me. Check it out, or don't. If you do, you might want to put on a silk robe first.

Hitting #2 in it's first week on the charts, Secrets is my second Toni Braxton album I've reviewed. It's also the second album she released.

There's only one notable song on the album, Un-Break My Heart, but it's quite a notable song, hitting #1 in many countries around the world. You've almost certainly heard it before, and it still gets radio airplay.

My assessment of this album is very similar to my review of her first album. It's solid mid-90s R&B, but not my usual cup of tea.

Here is the 2026 page for the Tour Pool I've been a part of for 19 years. It's fairly early in the Tour, so it's too early to say how well Team Florky will do.

Like many albums by (I'll say diplomatically) "experienced artists" I review, Banana Wind is a shooting star in the top 10 rankings. Last week it was at #4, this week it's #6, and it never apears in the top 10 again.

That's about right for this Jimmy Buffett album, the second I've reviewed. It's not a great album. The most interesting thing on the album is the song Desdemona's Building a Rocket Ship which has the lines

A woman on a mission, quite familiar with quasars Her heart is in the kitchen, but her soul is in the stars

When I heard this song I laughed because it's such a ridiculous rhyme.

That's the beginning and the end of what's interesting about this album. Like the other Buffett album, this one should be forgotten.

I find that the less I am moved by an album, the slower I am to post a review of it here. My emotion about the album can be positive or negative, but when it's strongly "meh," I struggle to work up the energy to review it. This review could be considered late in less than four hours!

This weeks album, Load by Metallica, is one of those albums. On Last.fm, there are only two songs from this album in the top 40 Metallica singles. It appears I've listened to the album once before in 2011, but I don't recall doing that and this most recent listen didn't trigger any memories.

This is not Metallica's best effort, and I'll be surprised if I listen to this again in another 15 years, or ever. You can skip it.

Tracy Champan isn't exactly a one-hit wonder, but she's never matched nor bettered her epoymous first album in popularity and quality. New Beginning took 29 weeks to reach #4 but apparently sold nearly as well as her first album. However it only has one hit single, Give Me One Reason, which on last.fm has 1/4 the listeners than her biggest hit Fast Car.

I'm not the biggest Tracy Chapman fan. She's not bad, but not my first choice, and this album didn't change my mind. It's fine. You might like it. Or not.

Hitting #2 on its first week in the charts, Down on the Upside by Soundgarden is the second Soundgarden album I've reviewed. Following up the massive hit Superunknown was always going to be difficult, and Down on the Upside probably did just about as well as could be hoped. It had a few big hits, including Blow Up the Outside World and Burden in My Hand.

As the final album before a 15 year hiatus, it is a good continuation of Soundgarden's sound. If you're in the mood for some grunge, but you don't want to hear Smells Like Teen Spirit or Black Hole Sun again, this is a decent option.

In January I posted about a house for sale in Boulder that I was slightly obsessed with. You can click through that link for the full story, but the short version is the sellers were asking for too much money for over a year. I had a bet with myself that the final sale price would be no more than $2.3 million. I can happily report that I was 100% correct: the house sold two days ago for $2,225,000, over a million dollars below the initial asking price.

As glad I am to be correct, I hope the developer/seller didn't lose money. I want new housing to be built in Boulder, and if developers lose money, that won't happen. At the same time, I don't want sellers (including private parties) being overly greedy, and I do have a little bit of schadenfreude when unreasonable sellers are shown that the housing market can have some logical sense.

There's very similar new build, unsold house in Boulder that was initially listed just after the one above. It hasn't sold likely because it has yet to fall below 70% of its initial asking price. It is also being sold by a developer. I probably won't post about it when it sells, but the fact that it hasn't sold yet, when the one above has, should tell the developer that they need to lower the price more (and be less greedy).

Sadly, there's always truly greedy (and/or delusional) developers, like this one. They have dropped the price less than $150,000 over a year and a half on an initial asking price of $4.7 million. By my math, they need to drop by at least ten times that before it will sell. I hope they enjoy paying property taxes, insurance, utilities, and the construction loan on an empty house for another 15 years!

Debuting at #6 in its first week on the charts, Older by George Michael was his attempt at more mature music (hence the name of the album). According to the Wikipedia page, the album was very successful in the UK and Europe, but less so in the United States.

Personally, I have no use for a more mature George Michael. His catalog of pop music with Wham! is all I really want or need from him. Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go, Careless Whisper, and Last Christmas (at the right time of the year) are some of the best pop songs ever made. His first solo album Faith is also excellent because he didn't try to get away from his pop roots. Older is trying too hard, and that's not what I want from George Michael.

My recommendation is to skip this album but definitely check out his earlier work.

Hitting #4 in its first week on the charts, The Great Southern Trendkill is the second Pantera album I've reviewed. I closed that review by writing "I could only take one listen to this album. I didn't like it at all. I like various kinds of metal, but not this kind." I feel the same about this album. You can skip it.

Debuting at #2, the album Crash by Dave Matthews Band, has their biggest ever single, Crash Into Me. Thirty years later it continues to have decent airplay and on Spotify, Crash Into Me has 130% more plays than their second most popular song, Ants Marching. The ratio is similar on last.fm.

I have always been pretty neutral about Dave Matthews Band. I find the music inoffensive but not all that moving. It's almost never something I choose to listen to, but I don't skip it when it comes on. Crash is very 90s, and certainly if I wanted some 90s nostalgia, it would be a solid choice. I suggest that if you want to try to capture the 90s for a few songs, you can put it on.

Finally, whatever your opinion is of Dave Matthews Band, they don't rock.

Hitting #1 in its first week, this is the second Hootie & the Blowfish album I've reviewed. I can't recall ever hearing any of the songs off this album before, and according to last.fm, it's entirely likely I'm correct.

My feelings on this album mostly mirror that of Cracked Rear View. It's fine. Extremely 90s. Listen to it, or don't. Whatevs.

I've always preferred Rage Against the Machine's eponymous first album over Evil Empire. That being said, this weeks #1 album is wholly worthy of that position.

Thirty years later, the machine is still very much active. Look at who is in the White House, has control of Congress, and the Supreme Court. We have a wannabe fascist president, a congress that has abdicated their constitutional powers, and a SCOTUS that rules based on desired political outcomes. AI is coming to take our jobs away, only the very rich are getting ahead in this economy, and the US is steadily ruining our democracy via gerrymandering and media that spreads lies and misinformation. Rage Against the Machine is no longer making music, but they remain as relevant as ever. I always enjoy reading stories about idiots (AKA conservatives) who don't understand they're the machine being raged against.

My recommendation is to listen to this album whenever you need to get angry about things you should get angry about. This is unfortunately all the time at the moment.

I really like this art from Kid #1. It's all doodles but I like the colors. It reminds me of the late 1980s or early 90s. I could imagine these shapes on some clothes worn by a cast member of Saved by the Bell.