Caught off guard!

I wasn’t paying attention to the news – completely missed the announcement that the Fed was moving Christmas up 13 days this year.
That is the biggest single move since the nine day move of 1958, and the first substantial move in more than a decade. Most of them (like the 14 hour, 51 minute move of 1981) slip by almost unnoticed – and if you did take notice, well – it’s in the rearview mirror even before you have time to think about it.

Well - the joke’s on you, Mr. Federal Holiday Administration! Mr. Big Brother Government! My Christmas cards will -as usual- arrive late, if at all – and the Mall (Maw?) will still see no more or less of me than it usually does. I will not get all caught up in all your irrational Holiday Cheerxuberance®.
Chri$tmas will have to careen down the “Pine-Scented®”, “snow-covered" path without my meager assistance this year.

Sour grapes, you say? Sure – like I said, I got caught off guard.
Sucker-punched, if you will.
I’ll be back on the game next year, though. Just you wait.

The Future of Money

There was a piece on NPR this morning about the state of world currencies. It seems that the dollar is showing a few stress fractures. Its demise is not imminent, but the person interviewed speculated on a couple of scenarios that could tip things the wrong way for the greenback. I'm not the one to comment on that - but that doesn't mean that I can't make some things up.

If we need people to have more confidence in the dollar, how about a real redesign? Forget the threads and watermarks and the embedded chips. I think we should put pictures of cats and dogs on the bills. Our Lab Leo has a wonderful, noble face.(Go ahead and click on that photo - you won't be sorry) I could see it on the Five - and our frenetic new adoptee Georgia would make a good one dollar bill. I could go for that. We'd even forgo the royalties on the images.
(Ellen said Leo should be on the Hundred - I say no, I wouldn't get to see him often enough.)

While not exactly the same as inspiring confidence, you might also consider selling the rights to the bigger bills to large corporations. Microsoft on the thou'? Merck on the fifty? BP on the hundred. Start a bidding war - I'll be glad to collect royalties on that idea.

Last but not least - maybe personalized bills are a possibility. Let's make money fun again. Pictures of your grandchildren on your pocketful of shopping money? You can already print your own postage, this might be right around the corner. The decline of our empire might be inevitable - why not have a little fun? Just a thought.

Devoted reader

Saturday, January 27, 2007

Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, was speaking to the Association of Republican Governors. I’m not sure of the context of the remark, but I do remember him saying that the average number of readers of a blog is one – the person who writes it.
Nevertheless, we think of the blog as the window to whatever it is within us that we consider worth sharing with the world. Nnnnnnnnnnnnnn. Rrrrrrrrrrrr. Spppt.
My (MY!) spell checker has underlined those three things.
Some of the things that we put in our journals are not intended to be shared. For one thing, some of the entries are crude or childish or otherwise not publish-worthy.
There is still one entry that I’ve wanted to put on the blog. An edited version will surely suffer from a lack of context, but it still is a capsule – for me – of one lots-of-coffee morning sitting here at the kitchen counter. I am telling me – my devoted reader – who I am. It was July 25, 2004. I had been writing about an idea for a story, thinking that I’d send it to Josh for an opinion. Not sure if I did or not. Here is how it ended up:

This is a great day. Very relaxing. I find that I can’t do a damn thing about time slipping along under my feet here, or under my butt – here on the stool. I’ve spent a little time (a lot?) looking at and working on the “Lunchbox” here. What do I think? I think I’m an artist by temperament and training, and go fuck yourself. I make my living as a builder, but today I made Peach pancakes for my wife and myself. I made a lot of coffee and drank it. I made two cups of it for my wife, too. So, there! I made that damn barn out there. Go fuck yourself.
Quit Word.