The last time I had some, I looked closer at the packaging while waiting for my water to heat up in the microwave. And I realized: the product is not called “cup of noodles” at all!

Look closely at these products for sale and they’re called “Cup Noodles” or “Instant Lunch” or “Bowl Noodles.”

(Yes, if you want more than just a cup, you can buy a bowl. But it’s a different brand entirely.)

Notice this product being advertised is called “Bowl Noodle”? It is, after all, in a bowl.

Maybe it doesn’t matter. If the consumer buys your product, isn’t that the point?

Here are just a couple of examples that I’ve seen recently.

“Up to the minute, the minute you’re up.” Really simple. Using the preposition “up” two different ways. I saw this when I was in Chicago, using their wonderful L train system.

“When nature calls, be sure to pick up.” I think this is hilarious! My sister and I have dogs and we pick up after our pets all the time. It’s the civilized thing to do and it shows consideration to the neighborhood. Unfortunately some dog owners are too selfish or too lazy to do this. A sign is required to remind them. This reminder has a sense of humor about it.

I’ll be on the lookout for more signs that amuse me.

I like Armie Hammer. I think he did a good job playing the Winklevoss twins in the critically-acclaimed “The Social Network.” But the truth is, Johnny Depp is the bigger star. Depp gets top billing. Even though he is playing Tonto and not the title role, the movie isn’t going to reduce Tonto to a sidekick.

I thought the movie poster does a great job of conveying the importance of both characters.

The Lone Ranger always wears a black mask, but the mask is illustrated with the silhouette of the “hat” that Tonto wears in the movie. Johnny Depp himself developed his Tonto look based on a painting, according to Entertainment Weekly.

The resulting poster image gives equal weight to both the Lone Ranger and Tonto.

Wicker Park is northwest of The Loop, Chicago’s downtown commercial center. Wicker Park has been gentrified in recent years and is now known for its numerous commercial and entertainment establishments. Vee and I spent the day (a rainy one) walking up and down North Milwaukee Avenue, browsing and making the occasional purchase of a book, latte, t-shirt, or gelato. A sales clerk at one of the establishments we patronized mentioned that we should check out the Walgreens close to the train station. He said it was a particularly glamorous one because the building used to be a bank. “Even the locals take photos in there,” he said.

Here are my photos of this Walgreens.

The building is on the corner of the intersection of N Milwaukee Avenue, W North Avenue, and N Damen Avenue. Not just two, but three streets intersecting. Hence the triangular shape of the block and the building.

Inside, you can see that the Walgreens kept the grandiose features of the former bank. Check out that ceiling!

This Walgreens is the most dazzling I’ve ever been in. It was clean and shiny!

This is the pharmacy. Everything is bright! I did a double take to figure out why.

Each shelf has lights to illuminate the products for sale. No matter how humble that bottle of baby powder is, it looks amazing when lit from above.

The pharmacy is in the basement. We specifically went down there to look at the famous Vitamin Vault. Yup, what used to be the bank’s safe was converted into a room with shelves stocked full of vitamin products. The safe’s door stays permanently open, of course.

This wall had safe deposit boxes.

I was very impressed by how bright and beautiful this Walgreens looked. It was worth going inside.

I didn’t buy anything, but if you go to Wicker Park in Chicago, I recommend stopping by.

If you go, “Travel Well!”

Although I didn’t visit the Morton Arboretum, kudos to them for a clever campaign.

These are Crocs?!

For a long time, I resisted Zappos.com. I mean, how can you buy shoes by looking at them online? Just didn’t make sense to me. I have to look at the actual shoes with my own eyes, wear them on my own feet, and decide if this was another pair I had to have. My friend Jennifer pointed out that Zappos will ship the shoes for free, I could check them out, and return them if I didn’t like them. Free shipping on the way back, too. I didn’t like the idea of the back and forth, but not wanting to be so “20th century,” I gave it a try.

Of course, browsing shoes on a website is absolutely fantastic. Not only are there all these filters for finding an exact type of shoe. There are also photos taken from different angles and, most of the time, a video with a spokesmodel talking about the shoes and wearing them. And Zappos gives you up to a year to return a purchase (of course, just as long as they still look new).

During my initial shoe-buying experience on Zappos, I ordered a pair and had them delivered to my workplace. I tried the shoes on once they arrived. Not the right fit. That same afternoon, I repacked the shoes in the box for return. Then I jumped back on the website and ordered the same pair, but now half a size larger. When those shoes arrived, I tried them on immediately, but I decided the shoes were all wrong for me. Back they went to the Zappos warehouse. And back I went to the Zappos website to find another pair.

At one point, I had a couple of pairs of shoes inbound, a pair of shoes at my office, and another pair of shoes outbound. If I were at the shoe department at Nordstrom, we’d call this “lunch break.” But this was a shoe browsing experience with a website. My credit card was charged to have the shoes sent to me and Zappos took a couple of weeks to process each refund. This meant that I had several hundred dollars revolving between my bank account and my Zappos account.

I’m not complaining about Zappos. (In fact, the website is so well-designed, they built in a means for the customer to easily send them complaints or suggestions, which you know of course I have done.) But to do this kind of shoe shopping requires time, patience, and healthy cash flow. That must be the trade-off for being able to shop through thousands of pairs of shoes at the click of a button.

In the meantime, I might find myself wandering into a store this weekend so I can take a closer look at those Crocs.

But not these Crocs. Yikes!

Before I go on, let’s get one thing straight. I refuse to pay any kind of annual fee for a credit card. Also, I personally don’t care to earn miles or “gifts.” I don’t travel that often and the merchandise to earn looks like junk to me. Besides, if there’s an item I really want, I’d rather just go out and buy it instead of trying to earn it for free in a process that could take months or years. It boils down to money. I’d rather have cash back. With enough cash you can buy plane tickets or MP3 players or keychains.

But already I’d found that earning cash by using a credit card is hard. Most credit cards only offer 1% cash back as the default. In order to earn 5%, the charge has to be for certain categories or you have to sign up for specific periods. Or both. Ugh, the inconvenience! I have to do more shopping around for a really reliable cash-back credit card, but in the meantime, I’ve been pretty content with my two new credit cards.

My first new credit card gives me iTunes gift cards in increments of $25. It’s essentially another one of those 1% back cards, but I don’t think I’ll ever run out of stuff to buy on iTunes: music, apps, or something to stream on my Apple TV.

My other new credit card is my current favorite. This card gives me 1%, 2% or 3% depending on what I’m buying. The percentage back results in points where one point = $1. Certainly I can spend those dollars on Amazon.com. But, in its best move, this card also gives me the option of depositing the money into my bank account.

In the first year that I’ve had the iTunes credit card, I earned $100 into my iTunes account. And in six months of using the Amazon card, I got over $50. So already I’m earning my cash back at a rate faster than I did with my previous pair of credit cards.

But in the last couple of years, Camelbak has been selling all their water bottles with a drinking straw built into the cap. Which I don’t like. I would rather unscrew the bottle and drink from the wide mouth, like a drinking glass. I finally figured out that I could buy a Camelbak and buy a separate cap that doesn’t have the straw (available from Amazon).

So now I have the best plastic water bottle for me. It cost a lot more, but it will last me a long time. It’s a more responsible way of bringing along your own drinking water, which I have been doing for years.

Back in the 1990s, I carried a SIGG metal bottle. It was red like this one pictured.

But when I first used it, a classmate was shocked to see me take a swig from my SIGG bottle. “I thought you were drinking kerosene!” they said, because that’s what these bottles look like. When you brought a camping stove to on a backpacking trip, you brought your kerosene stored in a metal bottle by SIGG. It’s good to know that these days, reusable water bottles are commonplace and available in all sorts of shapes, sizes, materials, and designs.

Alex Martin’s Little Brown Dress website

Alex Martin sewed her own dress and wore it every day for a year as a statement against overconsumption. I admire the effort, though I was a tad disappointed to find out she wore the rest of her wardrobe such as sweaters, pants, etc. with the dress.

Still, I laud what she did.

My friend Gabe turned me on to this photographer, Chris Jordan, who makes stunning pictures of consumerism. Based in Seattle, Jordan has exhibited around the country and also has three photographic series on his website.

In one series, called “Running the Numbers,” Jordan takes statistics about American consumption and literally visualizes the numbers.

So what do two million of these plastic bottles look like?

Come closer for a better look.

Even closer to make the bottles recognizable.

There’s some digital manipulation involved, but his images remain staggering. Also in the series is a photo of what 426,000 cell phones look like. That’s how many are discarded in the U.S. every day.

Check out the rest of this series and his other photographic art by visiting Chris Jordan’s website.