little discoveries

following my mantra of exploring the cities I live in, I've been shyly driving around fort worth on my own a bit. one day I went chasing after a pink and purple sunset and found myself driving next to a field full of horses. I've had some mishaps of going off track and missing exits on highways. but another day I drove around the historic stockyard region and guess what I found. a hispanic collection of strip malls. I still have to explore all the places in here but so far I've found a grocery store with the colors and shapes of produce foreign and alien to me, with some 30 types of dried red chillies in a corner, and cacti and strange fruit.

and the strangest thing of all, despite existing in the US, this whole area has a feeling of having crossed the border. its difficult to find people on the other side of the check-out counter here who speak English. and because I am an ignorant brown person from across the world who cannot differentiate one Hispanic country from another, my first reaction was to think of them all as Mexicans.

but I also found this little market and restaurant there, that has heavenly meat, easily the best frita chicarron I have ever sampled. its so crisp on the outside and so tender when you break it, it almost feels like chunks of fried fish. there's a wide menu with a long list of pupusas and I have yet to sample 80% of what's on it, especially all that seafood. and yes, the freshest of jugo de naranja, freshly squeezed minutes before. and if you forget to specify 'pequena' then you will end up with a huge soup bowl sized glass on a stick. and of course, I am yet again trying to learn Spanish, and using this place as an incentive and practice platform. the other day some guy behind me in the check-out line went on for about 10 mins saying something about the broccoli that I was buying, looking at it with disdain and shaking his head in a warning-to-not-eat-it kind of a way, while I kept trying to catch a single word that I would understand, smiling all the while, not wanting to give away that I couldn't understand. and yet another day I saw some dancing in costumes, right inside the grocery store, on a wooden stage, with all that tapping of heels on wood. amazing energy.

oh yes, and then I figured out that the restaurant wasn't Mexican at all but Salvadorean, explaining why I hadn't eaten that chicarron frita anywhere else. because Mexican cuisine is abundant here, not so much Salvadorean. still have to try the Taqueria a few steps away, and still have to learn more Spanish than 'para illevar'.

btw a digression, I always wonder why potato fries are so popular all over the world when they are nothing compared to those golden fried yuccas.

the Monday myth of low domestic airfares

smart consumers are rare. and ill-based myths and perceptions abound amongst consumers. since ever, people have been trying to figure out that sweet spot of time before travel to book airfares to get the best deals. because people love rules of thumb, that help them avoid thinking. and all this would be good for someone who thinks time spent thinking is more expensive than the extra price she would pay without thinking. that's rational marginal analysis. but not everyone thinks like that, or is that rich.

so there are theories of how many weeks before your travel should you ideally buy air tickets to get good deals. and of course these time windows are different for domestic and international flights. and maybe there is some correct guess-work here. but think about it. if whatever the guess-work and whether its correct or not, as long as it becomes prevalent it is automatically ruled false simply because everyone (almost) is thinking the same thing. that is, if everyone thinks 3 weeks before is that sweet spot and everyone clusters to buy at that time then the demand will go up exactly then. airline algorithms that price dynamically as they track demand would therefore raise prices exactly then. if you were part of that crowd then, you end up paying a higher price than you would have if you hadn't clustered your demand with the market because some days later when no one is buying the prices may come down.

everyone has told me of the Monday theory of buying tickets. and they all claim it feeling very smart at the time they explain it to you. according to this theory, most people plan holidays and travel in general over the weekends because that is when they have the time to plan anything. so ticket prices are high on weekends because airlines are trying to cash in on the high demand. ok, so far. and then they say, on Monday when demand slumps again some airlines will drop prices, others will follow them to stay competitive, etc. etc. and Monday-Wednesday is a good time to buy. ok, so far again.

now think about what was just said. if there are a lot of people with this perception or those who believe in this theory-myth, then what will happen? all those people will wait for Monday before they buy. what would this do to the demand on the early days of the week? of course it would surge, and would be captured by the dynamic tracking of airline algorithms which would then lead to prices being raised instead of being lowered. there you go, the very existence or prevalence of the Monday myth rules it false.

there's something called k-level thinking in Game Theory in Economics. and that above was an excellent example of that. if your payoffs depend on a strategic situation involving similar players like yourself, then to get the best out of the situation you have to keep guessing what others will choose to do and you have to respond to that in the best way that you can. the Monday myth does sort of use it in as far as it thinks about weekend high demand and responding to that. but it falls short in being clever precisely because of the feeling of smartness that it allows in having accomplished the first-level of response, and it forgets that the extent of prevalence of such reasoning automatically makes it essential to go a level further, or maybe more levels further - depending on how many levels of thinking is done by how many people.

some days ago, nytimes.com had a simple game running on their website: everyone playing was asked to guess a number between 0 and 100 such that the number would be 2/3rd of the average of all such numbers guessed by everyone together. go figure. that's a pretty cool exercise in k-level thinking.

so when do I buy my tickets? if I state that out - given any domestic flyers read my blog which is probably none - it may cost me a k-level advantage that I currently have. but yeah, here's a hint - I have often tracked airfares for days and haven't really observed the Monday drop. moreover, I just booked something on Sunday morning that is priced lower than what it and others like it were this last week and I know I got one of the last couple of plain economy seats on it because I saw the seat map of availability when booking, and its schedule is really convenient to me. so I don't know if I won this round, but hey I'm competing not only against the airlines but against all those buyers out there too.

looking forward to this much planned half-day trip to DC. huh. damn airfares. hope there will be some fall foliage at least.