Shopping, Or Not

After reading Whale Warriors and a SF Chronicle article about this Berkeley dude with so many solar panels on his house that PG&E owes him something like $700 a year (they don't actually pay him, they just reset his balance to zero at the end of the year) I was thinking of ways I could become even more of a radical. I discovered that thanks to rennet cheese isn't vegetarian, so I thought about becoming vegan instead of just vegetarian. But I'm a really big fan of wool and down. Currently I'm working on some sort of convoluted argument about how wearing petrolium-based polyester is worse for the environment and ends up causing more suffering than wool directly so that I regain some sense of internal consistency. Plus polyester gets smelly quickly.

I also discussed the possibility of doing some sort of stop-shopping deal with a few friends of mine. I didn't expect anyone to be down for it, but I think some of them may actually be more excited about it than I am. Basically, there's a bunch of people that call themselves members of The Compact that try not to buy anything new except food and toiletries and stuff that would be super-gross used like pillow cases and underwear. Articles here, here, and here.) Maybe I'm deluding myself, but I feel like other than gear, the only things I ever buy are books and CD's. The gear thing would be tough though. It would certainly be a shame to let all my pro-deals from work go to waste.