Way back in my college days I chose to ride a bike rather than drive my car for the same reason. My buddy would leave my house with his car while I rode my bike. After finding a parking spot then walking to class, he almost always arrived after I did. His father, visiting at the time, observed this and threatened to take his car and buy him a bike.

50+ and hot chicks, isn't there some rule or social regulation prohibiting that, unless a large boat is in the mix?

An advertising guy one told me that since people stopped buying as much stuff once they hit fifty, they were demographically dead to advertisers. Sex is the single most important reason people buy, to make themselves more attractive in the mating game.

Best study of this I've seen is Thorsten Velben's "Theory of the Leisure Class" which is on the net to read for free. It traces modern day consumerism back to our tribal roots ans shows that we aren't really that different than the hunter-gatherer folk we are descended from not that long ago.

So, yes, a large boat, *by virtue of its general impracticality and uselessness* in the day to day world, is a powerful chick-getter.

One could almost say that anything that shows that you have money to burn is.

Got stats for that? Was there a big change since this report? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...les_per_capita