ONE MORE AND THEN I WILL GET TO WHAT I SUPPOSED TO HAVE DONE THREE HOURS AGO...

     OKCupid is doing a Christmas-themed gimmick sending me "12 Matches of Christmas"...one per day for twelve days. I was stunned...stunned I tells ya, that this site for the first time actually recommended someone for me whom I am interested in meeting, immediately attracted to, and within distance of - the trifecta. Usually I have found such women through my own searches. She's also the first woman on this site in my five months of being on it who made me go, "Whoa..." Thank goodness I liked her profile too :-)

There's no ID so it's okay to post this, right? :-P

      I hate when I'm put in a position where I would actually be saddened, even if only somewhat, should she not respond to my message cuz, well...goddamn. I need some good news because I am clearly very attracted to Number Twelve and I know I shouldn't be because despite the present benefit of her pulling me away ever so gently from Digby, it will come at the ultimate price of emotional doom. It grows inside me, manifesting as an evil* patience this time. Some days I really hate that my Heart is so patient. My Heart is entirely unable to understand that I will one day grow old and die. So...fingers crossed :-)


ADDENDUM: She did not respond to my message.

________________________________________
* I tend to use "evil" as a synonym for the kind of selfishness which requires the suffering/sadness of another in order for me to be happy. I have trouble accepting that a good relationship can be born of knowingly desiring to benefit from the misfortune of another. In this example, it would be one thing to ask out a girl who's single because her singledom is innocent from your perspective, but to wait for a girl's relationship to sour and end like a kind of vulture before making a move seems inherently wrong. I'm not explaining it well, but I'm hoping you get the point.

WHAT HANDWRITING IS THIS

     I overkern my handwriting...sometimes to the point of no spacing at all between the letters in the words I'm writing in manuscript. I checked out The Complete Idiot's Guide to Handwriting Analysis to see what it meant. The booklet offers this explanation:

Letters crammed together reveal an impetuous person who rushes to judgment and overreacts. Impulsive and often confused about what she feels and what others feel, her need to fit in with a social group can push her to behaving inappropriately. She desperately wants acceptance, so she'll do anything she thinks will help her fit in. This is the type of person who will give in to either internal emotional pressures or external peer pressure.

Besides the suggestion that I may not have been the target audience of this booklet, I wonder what it says about me when the handwriting sample offered comes from the "killer mom" Susan Smith. Except for her letter Ws and Vs (which are pointy whereas mine tend to be rounded) and her Ys (which are pointy whereas mine are rounded), her handwriting is also very similar to mine. Very familiar looking though actually reading this booklet would be necessary to further analyze my handwriting. For example, what does it mean my obsessive need to connect letters in a word? I do this in an alphabet I created in school as well and it was never designed with cursive handwriting in mind.What do my excessive loops on my Gs mean or the fact that in my hurried writing, they look like Ss that dip below the line? Fun, grain-of-salt stuff :-)

      My narrow word-spacing also suggests that I have "an extreme need to surround herself with other people" and that "[l]ike a puppy always on the heels of whoever walks into the room, she needs constant attention and approval. She acts purely on instinct. Without continual reassurance from others she gets anxious, and the moment she's not getting attention, her self-esteem plunges." My line-spacing cannot be judged because I wrote my sample on ruled paper which is a no-no for overall handwriting analysis.

      Later in the booklet, they go back to Susan Smith's writing and describe it as having a "weak drive" and that her writing "just sits on the page, unsure and depressed" as opposed to the counterexample of Dean Koontz's "vigorous writing" revealing a "strong drive" and "stamina and enthusiasm for life".

      Caveat lector...

HEY! IT'S A CHRISTMAS-THEMED ENTRY...

      I think quite possibly the dumbest gift one could give to someone is a credit card sponsored gift card. Actually, I despise all gift cards as gifts for two main reasons. One, you're trading good money in for what amounts to irredeemable "fun money" and irredeemable in the sense that once your money has been transmuted into gift card form, it will not be returned...even trivial amounts like a few cents. Even on paper food stamps, you still got real money for any part of the change which was less than a dollar. And two...the sheer sad obligation it represents. It would seem better to receive nothing at all than to get what a gift card represents which is the gift-giver's admission that s/he knows not enough about you to buy you a gift with even the hint of the personal touch that a real gift carries. But whatever...one can rationalize store-sponsored gift cards somewhat, but I cannot rationalize the credit card sponsored ones for one simple reason:

      Activation fee. The $25, $50, and $100 gift cards come with a one-time $3.95 activation fee for the $25 card going up in one dollar increments for each successive version. The intention behind these gift cards is that "They can be used anywhere Visa/MasterCard/American Express are accepted." Yes, that's the lure...but you're paying money for money. How idiotic is that?

--- Hey honey! I just spent $28.95 on $25 for you!

--- Aw, you shouldn't have! No, really...you shouldn't have.

SOMETHING TO REMEMBER

      My nose is never not stuffy. I don't think I've breathed clearly since I was in high school. I saw this post by Current-C on Reddit offering a temporary solution. I tried it and it does do as advertised. I'm on the verge and have probably already crossed the line for having another sneezing fit. I do breathe through my mouth a lot. I imagine it has been exacerbating the problem. Even breathing through my nose-only these past couple of minutes feels like a mild suffocation. Yeah, it's that bad. But doing this does temporarily open the sinuses. I've noticed that terror does cause the body to reprioritize :-)

Do this now: Hold your breath until just before it starts to really become uncomfortable. Then slowly take a couple shallow breaths, preferably through the nose, then hold your breath again. Did your sinuses open up? If not repeat the above, only try to hold your breath a little longer. After this you should be able to breath easily through your nose. You should only breathe through your mouth when speaking.

      If I avoid this bout of non-allergic rhinitis (which I can only conclude I have since I have not been able to pinpoint an allergy to anything over the years), then I will have to remember this technique of holding your breath until your body genuinely starts to fear for itself causing it to release its stranglehold on your airways. And no, taking anti-histamines is a no-go because they make me drowsy to the point of being non-functional and I'm not a fan of having to take a medication for weeks-on-end because it doesn't tell me if it's working as advertised. If the drug alleviates allergy symptoms, it should work when I take it for the current spell. I remember the allergist I used to see giving me Nasonex to try. I didn't want to use it until I had an attack to test it. Turns out I would go almost a full year before my next attack so what if I had been taking it? Would we have incorrectly concluded that the medication had been working and that my one attack was an anomaly or cause to increase the dosage? I don't know why that year was so nice to me and the year before I was getting one to three attacks a month. They're infrequent and random which is why I have self-diagnosed myself as having non-allergic rhinitis. I can't imagine a real allergy being so random especially when I live so static a lifestyle.

      Already I want to breathe through my mouth and I am sure it will resume absent-mindedly. I haven't sneezed though (have come close though) and I've been sneezing a lot in the three hours I've been awake thus far. And I still feel like I'm being suffocated very slowly. If not breathing through my mouth is a part of the solution, I need to cover my mouth with tape that sticks fast to an oily face and removes with a minimum of pain :-)

SIN TAXES

      The amount of pens I find cleaning up at work almost offends me. It's so wasteful, all that plastic and unused ink. When was the last time you used a pen up? I know I've done it, but it takes a long time unless you're writing a lot. But there's no incentive to use up pens; no incentive to make sure you don't lose them. A package of ten at work sells for $2.49 (plus tax) so basically, 25¢ a pen. That's practically nothing and inflation shows it. 25¢ is the penny of the modern age.

      Sometimes I think items like pens, pencils, paper, staples, paper clips, etc....all things which are available cheaply and in what seems to be endless supply, should have artificially inflated prices to discourage waste. There are taxes on gasoline ostensibly to maintain roads, taxes on cigarettes and alcohol (ostensibly) to cover the costs of the health associated with their abuse, etc. so why not a comparable sin tax on items which have become ridiculously cheap and use that money to let's say, fund education or job retraining since I've only named school/office supplies. Actually I'll go with job retraining given how quickly the job market has been evolving in the past thirty years.

      Nothing obscene but given their cost, even if they were all sin-taxed 100%, thus doubling their prices, the aforementioned items would still be quite affordable and it may have the added benefit of people not wasting what they have and making sure people displaced by the ever-changing job market have a means to remain competitive.

UNDERSTANDING IS A THREE-EDGED SWORD...

      Anthony of the Opie and Anthony Show is going on another of his rants about taxes and I love the myopia of it all. He's quoting a statistic that 1% of working New Yorkers pay 43% of all the taxes and he cites this solely as overtaxation.

      Now, I'm not going to say that taxes in the state of New York aren't higher than perhaps they need to be. I agree with Opie when he says he wants to know where the money is going because clearly there is much waste going on that is not being addressed. He even said that he would pay more in taxes if he knew it wasn't being wasted. However, waste isn't the sole issue that taxes are so high on the wealthy and it's the one point that he never addresses: the spread between the highest and lowest incomes.

      I think, back in the 1960s when the top 1% of this country made about 10% of the nation's income, the pay differences between a CEO and his lowest salaried workers was about 24 to 1  meaning the top earner earned twenty-four times what his lowest paid employees made. Nowadays, when the top 1% earn over 24% of the nation's income, CEOs make over 275 times what their lowest paid workers make (and that number would be even higher if their contracted labor - the cleaning crews - were factored in).

      The wealthy pay more in taxes not only because they make more money, but also because they make a lot more money than the people below them. If the income spreads were evened out to be more like the 1960s, the top 1% would still pay more in taxes as a whole number, but less as a percentage...but God forbid they look at that part of the equation.

      So...his side and my side...now what's the truth?

LINE OF THE DAY, part XXIV

      From this article on Gawker, referencing a 16th century erotic poem found recently which referred to it as the first recorded "sext". Gawker wondered what our modern sexting would sound like back in 1531. Commenter The Gadget got Comment of the Day with this gem:

With fevered dreams of limbs entwined,

To thee, I send these secret lines,

In hope this rhyme with thee resounds,

As my lust o'erfills my bounds,

Be assured I fond remember,

Thy loving fondling of my member!

May we together lay once more,

Upon the bed, the stair, or floor.

Too soon my mistress calls, alack.

But if thou want to hit this, holla back.

Awwwwwwww, forsoooooth, baby!

Another commenter responded, "Tapestries or it didn't happen" :-)

SONGS THAT CAN JUST GO AWAY, part VII

"This One's For the Girls" by Martina McBride

I hate these feel-good songs and their ilk. Those songs giving advice; the ones telling you everything will be alright because I've been there too; etc. Okay, I should be clear. Not all of them are bad. It's the ones which feel insincere...like pandering, that anger me. I resent these songs because I feel like I'm being talked down to by an artist oversimplifying difficult issues. This also goes for self-serving autobiographical songs and songs for causes too. And yes I guarantee you I like several songs that fall into these categories despite what I've just written :-)
--- Bonus points if you actually clicked on every link ---

LINE OF THE DAY, part XXIII

From this article on IO9 regarding potential of CP-violation in the universe which would explain why we live in a universe comprised of matter and not a balance of matter/anti-matter or nothing at all. From commenter Cheevocabra responding to another commenter who wondered if anti-matter would behave the same chemically as matter:

"...Chemistry is basically all about positive and negative bits sticking together. Chemistry doesn't care if it's an electron− paired up with a proton+ or a positron+ with an antiproton−, the resulting anti-hydrogen is going to interact with other antimatter the same way hydrogen interacts with normal matter. The mass and other properties of anti-hydrogen would be the same as hydrogen, except the polarities of its constituent particles would be reversed. Plus it would be evil."

ADDENDUM: An article talking about the Higgs boson had this opinion by commenter PhDinSeagalogy:

This is clearly just another excuse for the patriarchal science-monger regime to "discover" a particle that disenfranchises other, feminine particles, and then elevate that particle to a transcendental, phallic godhead. Why isn't it Higgs-bodaughter? Because of the patriarchy, that's why. And I bet that this particle will be all like "I'm a man particle and I love war, get back in the kitchen tachyons!" What we need is an empowered, feminist particle to counteract this phallocentric "physics" that privileges the male-membered "boson" particles over the nurturing "bodaughter" particles. But that will never happen because "science" is just really a sausage-party of sausage-affirmation! Down with the phallocracy of Higgs-boson and up with the koleologocracy of Higgs-bodaughter!

Now if anyone knows what "koleologocracy" is supposed to mean, I'd be much obliged. I'm assuming it's supposed to be the opposite of "rule by penis" that is the word "phallocracy" but I can't find references to it anywhere. The closes I can get is κολεος (koleos) meaning "vagina" but it does not explain the fuller word unless it is supposed to mean "rule by vaginal reason" as λόγος (logos) means "reason". I don't know. I overthink shit.

THOUGHT STARTER

      I've heard some weird things about the character Tom Bombadil from J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and when I read this paragraph on the wiki page devoted to the story, I became quite intrigued by the possibilities to storywriting the highlighted line offers:

Other possibilities (compatible with the above theory) are that he is an abstract concept; possibly the embodiment of Arda itself, a veritable "Father Nature", or some kind of 'spirit' which, unlike the Maiar, was of a non-divine nature. Not only does the Ring have no effect on him, but Tom himself seems unable to affect the Ring in return. This shows that Tom was outside the divine plan and struggle and had no position in it. During the Council of Elrond it is suggested that the Free-Peoples entrust the Ring to Tom, but this is rejected due to the probability that he would lose it, because according to Gandalf, such things had no hold on his mind. It is also stated that if Sauron were to regain the Ring, Tom Bombadil would be the last to fall. It is also stated by Galdor that 'Power to defy our enemy is not in him, unless such power is in the earth itself. And yet we see that Sauron can torture and destroy the very hills.' implying that Bombadil is in some way connected with the very earth itself.

      What an interesting idea! I wonder how such a thing would play out in say, Christian mythology? Unless humanity itself could be considered "outside the divine plan" by virtue of having been given free will by God. If that's the case, then this idea is already boring. But I like this idea, perhaps crudely explored in the Matrix trilogy, that there's someone who simply is, but is not a result of our being. Sure, God created the world and all upon it, its inhabitants and life, many and varied...but not this one thing. A separate consciousness, if you will, that can explore and investigate the universe created around it, but which had no part in its creation or purpose. I don't know where I'm going with this. I feel it, but I can't describe what I'm feeling. Maybe you felt it too :-)

PROBABLY INDICATIVE OF SOMETHING...

      I have been watching Survivor since its inception, missing only Seasons 4 and 5. I might  have stayed away for good too, but Season 6 started with a gimmick whereby the men and women were separated and I wanted to check that out. Anyways...

      One of the continuing themes of the show  happens near the end after the tribes have merged. Originally it was just letters from home but as the show's popularity (and presumably budget) improved, it became videograms and in later seasons, actual visits by the family members. Actually, Nan was still alive when I first remember actual visitors (Johnny Fairplay's lie about his dead grandma to get sympathy points with his competitors) so Survivor's been doing this for eight years now at least.

      Every time this moment comes, everybody whether reading a letter, seeing a videogram, or actually seeing their family member in person after about 30 days away from them breaks down in tears. It's a very emotional moment for those involved and yet, since the show's inception, I have been mocking their tears not understanding how a mere thirty days away from the people they love could be such a heavy emotional moment for them.

     But then I realize I have no idea what it feels like to belong at such a level that thirty days apart would actually be emotionally traumatic. My second year of college was probably the closest I will ever come to that sense of belonging.

MORE REJECTED FACEBOOK POSTS...

      It really does bug me just how prolific I get when I am sad. It hasn't even been two months since the last time I made one of these posts and I've already got so many slips of paper that I'm making another entry while stalling  going to bed so I don't have trouble sleeping tomorrow.

Here goes:

INIMANDVS IX

While I have had some good days, I have not been happy for almost thirteen years.

SONGS THAT CAN JUST GO AWAY, part VI

"Betty Lou's Got a New Pair of Shoes" by Bobby Freeman

eNOUGH! aBOUT! the SHOES!!!

LINE OF THE DAY, part XXII

From a caption on a picture in this article on Cracked's website:

A few years later, as she was trying to sell it during a garage sale, a passing art teacher walked by and told her that it looked like a Jackson Pollock, to which Horton politely responded, "Who the fuck is Jackson Pollock?"

I the fuck am Jackson Pollock

FAMILY MATTERS...

      I don't like going to see my Mom anymore. This actually isn't a new sentiment...I've felt it for several years now. I don't hate my Mom nor my stepfather nor my brother and his fiancée. I just don't feel like I belong with them anymore.

      It probably doesn't help that Mom has been living for like the past seven years now in a house I've never lived in so going home isn't going home at all. There are trinkets from our time together in places I would have called home, but it's not the same. I can't get comfortable in that house ever. I feel like I'm visiting some relative's house where you're not allowed to touch anything or the food available is stuff you never eat (in the bad way). I'm also so out of the loop in this household that I'm clearly the square peg being stuck into a round hole. I'm not like them at all. It's so much more stifling. The stuff they find funny doesn't really do it for me anymore. It's not that it isn't amusing, but it's like the difference between Louis CK (who is brutal and swears a lot) and Brian Regan (who is family friendly). They're both very good comics, but if you're of the Louis CK type, it's gonna be an uncomfortable experience and believe me, every time I do pipe in...if there is a wrong thing for me to say, I said it. Or to put it another way, imagine being the one Democrat in a house full of Republicans (or vice-versa). What's the point of offering an opinion if it is either going to be ignored or "wrong"? And then you get shit for not talking...no way to win.

      Even my cats are mostly gone. Only one remains of the three we got when I was in high school. There are two new ones now...more unfamiliarity, but they're not my cats, they're Mom and stepfather's cats. Sometime's I feel like the only reason I go to see my Mom at all is to see that cat and she's already seventeen so how much longer will that anchor remain?

       Mom already wants a Christmas list and I really don't want to provide one. I just don't want to bother anymore. I'm tired of it all. I'm tired of the chore it is to go visit. I want to just drift away from that side of the family. I'm better with my Dad's side or at least I feel more welcomed so it's not like I want to shun everyone. Mom's side is like walking on eggshells and Dad's side, if I say something stupid, I will be called out on it then and there rather than "taken aside" hours later and quietly scolded. On Mom's side, I feel like I am allowed to have my opinions provided they are the right ones. I feel like I should not speak at all when around them because offense is internalized on that side and held like a grudge. If I avoid a subject at a gathering on my Dad's side, it is out of respect because I know where everyone stands on issues and we all want to have a good time. On Mom's side, offenses are strewn about like landmines so I avoid subjects out of fear. Visiting my Mom is stressful. If I could leave her home in the same mood in which I had arrived, it would be a miracle.

      It's stuff like this that makes me wonder if I am cowardly by nature or if my upbringing is more to blame. It's probably no coincidence that my discomfort with my Mom began not too many years after moving in with my Dad. I do not hold myself blameless in these confrontations but I refuse to accept that I am totally the asshole. I do not feel comfortable around my Mom, my stepfather, and my brother and haven't for a long time. Nowhere else do I feel this. My Best Friend's grandparents made me feel more at home and theirs truly was the house where you couldn't touch anything. I am just out-of-place with them. I don't want to deal with it anymore...

IT WOULDN'T HURT IF THIS MADE SENSE...

      I got a negative shock this Thanksgiving morning before going to bed. My friend, Bronx, unceremoniously deleted me as her Facebook friend. I was hurt and still am hurt because it doesn't make any sense. We've been friends for three years. I've wanted to see her more often than the one time we actually did but always had to defer because she was always crying poverty. She had to keep putting off hanging out/visiting because she had no money. The fact that she's been unemployed for as long as I've known her and who knows how long prior (except for maybe an occasional babysitting per diem) factored heavily into this and not my reluctance to take a bus into Manhattan to meet up. Hell, I've even offered to pay for her to come down and visit me but she would always refuse to accept my money. The point of me mentioning this is because the only reason I got for her tossing me to the curb was, and I quote, "We never see each other so I thought that maaybe [sic] we should stop talking. I have been looking for work and want to make friends and not have penpals."

     I don't get it. I really don't. We used to have long phone calls together and I delighted in receiving the occasional holiday card (and me, sending her some as well). She's honestly one of my favorite people and a source of joy. I don't understand this sudden change of ideology in her. There was no warning. It's not like we fought constantly or I would sabotage her happiness or simply make excuses not to hang out. The last time I talked to her was around my birthday. My Mom and stepfather were taking me to the Bronx Zoo and I invited her to come along (a cost my mother would have borne as Bronx would have been my guest) but she declined so this isn't for want of effort on my part. It took two years to finally convince her to hang out one time in Manhattan together and here I get the impression that she feels like I've been the one to keep us from being "friends" rather than "penpals".

     I sent her a polite message asking her to reconsider her position. I have not yet heard back from her. I may never hear back from her. She'll be yet another person I have built up an extensive knowledge of that I no longer have any use for. This really does wonders for my depression. It makes me wonder why I bother getting to know people and care about what they have to tell me. It all turns to ash.

     This suddenly has me thinking of an outline for a fake religion I created for an important country on a world I made up in high school. I wrote it almost ten years ago and it's eerily analogously autobiographical. The rough theme is that the Creator starts in a void that has nothing in it. For a long time, he is happy but in boredom creates the universe. He later desires to have his creations appreciated and makes three attempts to satisfy this desire, each of which fail for different reasons. The Creator, in frustration, tries to undo creation but his creations rebel. The Creator wants everything back the way it was believing he was happier before he created anything. I'd go into detail, but it's not like I thought to have it copyrighted but I really identify with that idea. It's so dangerous to want, but nevertheless ever so tempting. My life has been only rarely happy since puberty...





      I just don't get why Bronx would do this. I want to understand but I strongly feel that I never will and for once, it's not actually my fault. This just really sucks. We don't even have any mutual friends so I have no one I can talk to about this who could talk to her on my behalf. This really...I don't...I...

ADDENDUM: May as well end on something funny, but true...

http://www.someecards.com/usercards/viewcard/MjAxMS1kZmJmZjk2ZGQ4ZWJiY2Yy

THIS DOES NOT BODE WELL...

      I had an unexpected Monday off on Thanksgiving week so I decided to take advantage of it and texted these two girls who had given me their phone numbers off Plenty of Fish and with whom I have been having texting correspondence and in one of the two cases, an actual phone call with about getting together that day so we could finally meet up and see if there might be something for us to build upon (now that is a difficult sentence!).

      I got no response from the one I've actually spoken to and two days later have still not gotten a text. The other one, the one who prefers texting, told me that while she was in fact off that day, that she just wanted a day to "relax". I wasn't asking to make a day out of it, just the old classic "meet for coffee" type thing but apparently an hour or two out of her day was asking too much. I didn't press the issue in that manner...or at all really, that negative thought was just in my head. She didn't text me yesterday either even though we had been communicating daily for a while now. Yes, I know it is near Thanksgiving and people are busy but still...this lack of "excitement" is bugging me a bit. You'd think they would want to meet and feel bad if they could not. So instead of having a full social day (and being awfully tired the next as a result), I only took out my Best Friend for her birthday.

      Like the title says, this does not bode well...and like I joked at work, the way things are going, I will be back waiting for Number Twelve to break up with her boyfriend in no time...

APOLOGY NOT ACCEPTED...

      I hate when people say, "...and I apologize if I have offended anyone with my/by my/because of/etc. (blah blah blah)." The most insincere of all apologies.
   
      This article offers a fairly recent example of this kind of false contrition. The owner of a ride featured in the Broward County Fair named his rollercoaster "The Zyklon". Anyone with even a quarter of an education should be wincing uncomfortably after having read that. And while yes, "Zyklon" means "cyclone" in German and the owner of this ride was most probably trying to associate himself with more famous rollercoasters operating under the "Cyclone" banner, a simple Google search would have put the word in historical context very quickly (though surprisingly, a Norwegian death metal band called Zyklon ranked higher in the search than the more infamous "Zyklon B"). When confronted with this fact, Mr. Zaitshik offered his version of the insincere apology, "There's actually no ill will intended to anyone of the Jewish faith, and I apologize if the name has offended anybody." (full article here)

      Now, I actually believe him: I really do. I've come across enough people wholly ignorant of things that one would think would be widely known. And while I still blame him for not doing a basic Google search beforehand, I in no way believe he was deliberately intending a Holocaust reference for his fair ride. But that's not the problem...it's the "if".

      You don't make apologies unless you've not only done something wrong and are penitent about it and you certainly don't use the word "if" when doing so. Clearly you've offended people. There's no longer any "if" about it. The use of "anybody" isn't helping either now that I think about it. It's a bit clumsy, but how about this? "I did not intend a Holocaust reference when naming my rollercoaster The Zyklon. I have been informed of and have since learned about the historical context of the word and will change the name of the ride immediately. I apologize to those whom I have offended with my ignorance."

       Even just changing the word "if" to "that" in his original apology would have made all the difference.

      That being said, I still feel genuinely bad for this company. This is a real commercial and it came out shortly before AIDS made its public debut. I wonder if they renamed or simply went out of business?

SONGS THAT CAN JUST GO AWAY, part V

"Come See About Me" by The Supremes

This one is a personal vendetta on MUZAK's FM-1. Although in recent years, FM-1 has stopped playing lite-FM suitable tracks from the 1960s, this was not the case in the beginning of my tenure in my place of employment. I swear EVERY night this song would play. It's a good song, but years of overplay make me never want to hear it played again. Though I will admit the intensity of this animosity has lessened, it has not returned to my good graces like "Smooth" by Santana (featuring Rob Thomas) has. Back in 1996, that song came onto the scene and was immediately a staple of several radio stations to the point of irritation. I got about a ten year break from the song and now love it again.

CAVEAT EMPTOR...

      I love these commercials going around on the radio and TV trying to convince people to part with their hard-earned cash to buy bullion gold, gold coins from back in the Gold Standard days, or just shares in companies that mine the commodity. The fast-talking narrator is all about the falling value of the dollar via inflation and how you need the "security" that comes with owning physical gold because a "day of reckoning" is coming because the Federal Reserve (or "government") is printing money ("Ben Franklins" according to one commercial I just heard) and has a license to do so.

      Not that I know where this security comes from seeing as how in all my years of cashiering, while I have had the occasional pre-1965 silver dime and quarter pass my way, never once has anyone paid me with an American Silver Eagle (1986-present), any of the various American Gold Eagles (1986-present), or Platinum Eagles (1997-present) either at face value (for which you would be an idiot) or at trade value (which as far as I know, my store would not even accept at a percentage of current bullion value).

       I understand the basic argument in that you convert your spendable cash into tradable gold which you can then later (and the commercials strongly imply at a profit) convert back into spendable cash by selling them to dealers. The commercials just annoy me because they prey on the ignorant and use their irrational fears to encourage them to part with their money. Gold is already high (at least from my perspective). It's trading in the $1700/tr.oz. range when ten years ago it was under $300/tr.oz. Not that this stops these commercials and print ads from speculating that gold will rise to $5000/tr.oz.

       According to an official inflation calculator, gold should only be about $360 per troy ounce today if gold were truly the indicator of the dollar's loss of value its supporters claim (calculation based on the official $20.67/tr.oz. price in 1933 in 2011 dollars). Back in 2001 thanks to countries dumping a lot of their physical gold holdings back in the late 1990s, this gold as an indicator of the dollar's loss of purchasing power temporarily matched actual inflation statistics perhaps giving (re)birth to this idea in modern times (with a little help from Y2K hysteria no doubt). So gold being at $1700/tr.oz. is not the result of inflation (or hyperinflation as these commercials warn is just on the horizon) but speculation and speculation fueled by irrational fears too. I feel bad for those people who will be holding on to their overpriced gold when the bubble finally bursts and it comes down to more reasonable levels.

       But then, I also won't feel bad because a fool and his money are soon parted as has been said and really, if you take the time to think about it, if holding physical gold were such an important thing to be doing right now, why is it this company is trying to sell it to you? Magnanimity? Why are they perfectly happy to take your dollars, those very same dollars the commercials and ads are claiming to be losing value and will soon be rendered nearly worthless as per their claims of hyperinflation to sell you their gold? Perhaps if you are the buyer, you think they are suckers to part with such valuable metal for mere paper and ink or perhaps they know something they know you don't...

HELPFUL TIP FOR THE LADIES

      This has happened to me twice in a row now. Hardly a trend, but no less annoying.

      What I am talking about is relationship statuses online...specifically Facebook since that is the hub website du jour of the internet. Don't be like Digby, who I know for a fact had three boyfriends over the past four years but never once changed her status from Single to In a Relationship with So&So. Sadly (and I say this for her), she could have avoided my numerous advances entirely had she been "In a Relationship with So&So". If a girl is taken, I'm not gonna hit on her (at least once I know). Now, maybe you don't want to change that little status marker for fear of the embarrassment that comes if and when it needs to be changed back to "Single", but there's a way around that.

      Number Twelve, while it listed "In a Relationship", made me question it because when I first friended her, she was listed as "Married" to one of her female best friends so when it switched to "In a Relationship", while a fair hint you might say, the fact that it had not indicated with whom and the fact that none of her friends "Liked" this change nor commented on it suggested to me that it might be a feint. I searched her pictures and saw nothing to indicate she actually had a boyfriend.

      This was also true of Digby. I know these boyfriends existed because I learned about them afterward through hearsay amongst her friends. But never once was a picture posted of her with one of these boys. And here is your helpful hint.

      Now, while I'm aware there are those guys who simply do not give a fuck and will proposition you anyway regardless of what you post, you can still relieve yourself of the headache of better mannered men by simply posting that you are "In a Relationship with So&So". The "with So&So" part is important as it puts a hope-killing fact right in your face. But there's a better way...a blunter way.

       What you do is, create a photo album with just one picture in it of you and your boyfriend. Label him as your boyfriend whether by name or by status. Secondly, call the album something very in-your-face like "I Have a Boyfriend So Leave Me The Fuck Alone". Simple. Elegant. Blunt.

       Now, if you're the type who posts a lot of picture albums, just remember to add a photo to it once-in-a-while to keep it up to date. You can leave the total photo count at one, but make sure it remains visible.

       Thank you.

      And yes, should I ever get a girlfriend, you can be damned sure I will enjoy posting just such an album myself for the sheer pleasing arrogance of it.

LONG TIME VEGAN SCHOOLS LIFELONG OMNIVORE, see comments section

      Over the years, I have had many fried foods and by fried, I mean breaded/battered filets in a layer of oil, not pan-frying or stir-frying. Fish filets, chicken breast filets, turkey breast filets, pork chops, even eggplant (filets?)...but never beef. I've wondered why that is. Is it just one of those things like where ketchup is a sensible condiment for french fries but not for mashed potatoes even though really, what's the difference? Or is there a real reason behind it?

       Tonight I will find out. I bought some beef filets (or their rough equivalent) and eggs...I haven't bought eggs for over a year...and fry them in oil. See how it turns out. Messy food preparation tonight, yay! I'll have to addendum this entry tomorrow.

ADDENDUM:  Turns out the beef I had bought was exactly the correct ones to buy for this experiment. As was brought to my attention in the comment section, the cuts were referred to as "chicken steaks." They came out rather well but I failed to season the beef before breading it so flavor-wise, they were a bit lacking. If I bother to make them again, I will have to marinate in teriyaki sauce or otherwise spice them a day before cooking. Oil frying is one of the last areas of cooking I have to perfect as I've been favoring baking and broiling over the years. I was worried they would be too tough and that would be the reason why I had not heard of fried beef. I guess instead, it's just regional cuisine.

SONGS THAT CAN JUST GO AWAY, part IV

"Carnival" by Natalie Merchant

I genuinely liked this song and the other singles off the Tigerlily album when it was released but thanks to years of overplay on the radio and the MUZAK player at work, I'm tired of all of them. Not just "Carnival", but "Wonder" and "Jealousy", all songs which are perfectly worthy of merit but I'm done with them and the next song in the queue can't up soon enough. I think I was done with years ago. I don't even have the album anymore. A rare toss. Usually once I like a song, I always like it...but not always.

TERRA INCOGNITA ON THE HORIZON...

      The fourth incarnation of my online dating profiles seem to be the charm. I may finally be on course to securing successfully a date off these things. So far, OKCupid seems to be a place to meet new friends as I am up to two so far and Plenty of Fish seems the better place for finding a date. I don't know why that is.

      The timing was even good. I asked a girl out at work whom I am convinced is totally attracted to me. Although she accepted at first my invitation to "buy her dinner tomorrow after work", I think she misheard me and thought I had said, "get some dinner tomorrow after work." Hours later, she figured it out and told me that she had a boyfriend so I was sidelined. She still wants to be my friend, though. Though brief, I am going to classify her as the twelfth one and for want of a better alias, will refer to her as Number Twelve (or simply Twelve or whatever I feel like settling on).

      Her behavior though, is confusing. Maybe she just likes me as sees something in me that she really needs in terms of friendship or maybe I'm right and she not only is really attracted to me but has also optioned me in the even of her current relationship's end. After her shift ended on Saturday, she spent a half hour exclusively with me at my register (despite other choices remaining available...VERY unusual for me. In fact, that's the first time that has happened to be in nearly eleven years), even bagging customers groceries so we could talk. She is not wanting for friends: I know this. So I'm confused as to what is going on. It's potentially a poisonous mix, but I intend to be a good boy and be solely her friend. She set the rule and now only she can change it. However, because she is confusing me...I feel it in my Mind that she has been reclassified as a Secondary.

      To help my dear reader(s) out with my insanity, crushes come in four flavors: Primaries, Secondaries, Dormant, and Past. You can blame my Best Friend for this because simple answers were never enough for her. She long ago started me on a path of introspection. You get to suffer with the results. A Primary is an active crush and intense. A Secondary is more a passive crush that, while weaker in intensity, remains persistent. A Secondary can exist without a Primary but is usually overshadowed by one. Rabbit is an example of this. For over four years, she was never able to become a strong focus. A Dormant Crush is like an ember. The fire has gone out, but it still glows, fading as time goes on. The First One and Digby are examples of this. A Past Crush is a dead one. I have moved on completely in terms of longing. They will always be extremely attractive to me because that never changes, but...they're over. There are also Potentials,  those who could be crushes but are missing that certain something to push them over the edge be it predictability of presence (don't see them enough...I have one in mind right now), immediate knowledge of their unavailability (either they're introduced as a girlfriend/wife of so&so or make their disinterest in you known immediately - a prerejection if you will), inappropriate context (let's say, at a funeral for the sake of example), etc. The list of Potentials would be quite long but often I've never learned their names because I only saw them once (or a couple of times at random).

      If I sensed no attraction from Number Twelve, I would move on from her, but her confusing behavior is causing me to retreat into the shadows and watch...and wait...should the day ever come that I may be called upon. It could persist for years or new information could cause it to die quickly. For example...

      I have received attention from four women in the past week on Plenty of Fish. One is just looking for friends (I hope, because I am not feeling it otherwise). Another seemed interested but I guess I failed that audition because I have not heard from her in days now. Another week and I'll delete her from my phone. Then I got two this morning. It's exciting, especially since both seem accepting of my baggage (my place of employment and lack of car/driving). One is moving faster than the other. I just hope I don't have to choose...that it works out to one or the other or the other because the last time I had to choose, I chose badly and have suffered under the effects of that "curse" for thirteen years now.

     I am not in terra incognita yet, but I may very well be soon. This could be the first time in a while that I will really be putting my intelligence to the test...see if I can pull a relationship out of my ass with nothing to go on except suppositions, experiences with friends, exaggerations learned from television and movies, articles read, and anecdotes. Should be interesting...to say the least of it.

     And here I wrote in a fit of sadness quite a number of Facebook status updates that were wonderfully depressing. I guess I won't be sharing them with my FB friends now...keep an eye out for them here one day :-)

LINE OF THE DAY, part XXI

      What Would Tyler Durden Do posted this quick article today about parents being upset that (former?) porn star Sasha Grey reading to a group of elementary school students in Compton for a Read Across America campaign.

      While this upset by the parents annoys  me because I'm not a fan of scarlet-lettering people with their past life choices, especially when what they did then is not relevant to what they're doing now. I mean, if she were demonstrating fellatio techniques on a dildo to elementary school kids, aside from the fact that that would actually be illegal, I would fully understand the parents being upset. But as part of a program to encourage reading? Shut the fuck up! But I liked how the website's author described it better:

Those parents are idiots. Why shouldn’t a porn star read to kids? THAT MAKES READING SEEM COOL! If some hot girl who swallows had come to my school and told me she liked reading I can pretty much promise my spelling and punctuation wouldn’t be as shitty as they are today.

      Hard to argue with that :-)

SONGS THAT CAN JUST GO AWAY, part III

The latest entry in this what will undoubtedly become "Songs I Hate" list is "Bass Down Low". I heard it at work one night when the station was on the rap/hip-hop station "Concrete Beats". I think my real problem with this song is that it makes me feel old. This tune sounds like a headache: irritating and incessant but attentively addictive. Listen to it. Go ahead and see how long it takes for you to get "If you wanna get with me, there's one thing you've got to know. I like my beats fast and my bass down low" out of your head (Bass down low. B-B-B-Bass down low). It will remain for some time and infect your thoughts. Since it's only three one syllable words, it can easily be incorporated into anything you're doing. (Throw. It. Out. --- Turn. It. Off. --- Read. This. Book. --- etc.) It's an obnoxious, infectious beat. It's not a bad song per se. But I have work I need to be doing! Please...get out of my head. Go away!

And what's with songs these days "featuring" people and/or bands? Music these days has special guest stars like sitcoms. It's nothing new I know...it just seems more frequently done these days. I liked it when it was done quietly. You'd discover when reading the liner notes that Eric Clapton played guitar or Ringo Starr did drums for some of George Harrison's solo work. I'm sure it's a ploy to sell more digital downloads but seriously, is any Snoop Dog fan giving Katy Perry a chance because of his "featuring" in "California Gurls"? And likewise, how many Katy Perry fans are now checking out Snoop Dog's work because of his dissonant contribution to that passable pop song? (No Doubt's album "Rocksteady" was full of these featurings back in 2001) Just like I hate remixes because they're not the song the artist put out, put out your own shit. If you can't do it without "help", maybe you don't deserve to be on this level just yet.


"Bass Down Low" by DEV featuring the Cataracs

And yes, that girl is totally hot (at least in this video) and I was totally surprised she was white. I like how some of the girls in this video have that scared look on their face like they've been coerced into performing.

WHERE MAH INTROVIGGAZ AT?

      Now I've been doing the online dating thing for over three months now. I have yet to secure a date but that is not the point of tonight's entry. No, what I've been wondering about is something I've noticed fairly early on but dismissed as an anomaly but now, after three months find it inescapable: where are all the introverts?

      And by "introverts", I'm also including those people who simply don't like going out under the assumption that that is an introverted tendency even if they have no social anxiety. I simply have not found them. They are either a truly rare breed or they are elsewhere...or maybe hiding behind lies on their profiles.

      The vast majority of profiles I encounter are written by women who claim to either love travelling and going out and doing so or they profess their desire to do so the moment their financial circumstances permit. Occasionally I'll see a line or two about staying in to catch a movie but it's a one-liner amongst many a sentence devoted to dining out, bar/club hopping, trying new things/foods/cultures, activities both done and desired to be done, places travelled to and places where she desires to travel in the future, how their jobs take up much of their day and that they love it, working out at the gym 3-7 days a week, going for a jog/run, reading this and that novel (often obscure), going to live shows to watch indie music (surprisingly few girls admit to liking popular music as if that were some sort of badge of dishonor)...basically no time for down time because they are always doing something or interested in portraying themselves as the always-doing-something type. I don't even know where they'd find the time to date to begin with, especially all the ones who list such activities in addition to the fact that they are also a parent.

      They're all go-getters. Many have post-graduate degrees or are otherwise over-educated. And they all like dogs. I don't know where this single lady with cats idea came from because the two sites I'm on are full of dog owners. I like cats! I don't want a fucking dog. I don't hate dogs but that doesn't mean I want to own one. Yes, cat owners exist, but it's not the 50/50 split you would expect. Though I have no evidence besides circumstantial, I really do suspect that cat-owners are more laid-back by nature seeing as how owning a cat is more a passive ownership as compared to a dog which needs to be walked multiple times daily and trained. And it may just be me, but I find dog owners tend to be intolerant. Not a truism, just an observation. It's much easier to find a dog owner who hates cats than to find a cat owner who hates dogs. I'm sure some psychological studies have been done on this.

      But the thing is, I can understand why these types are on dating sites: they are too busy doing things to meet new people through normal channels or they're not home enough to be out and about around town. Their presence online makes sense to me. But that being said, where are the people who have trouble meeting new people because they're home whenever they can be? Because they'd rather watch television or read than share some drinks over a game at a bar? Because they don't envy the clubbing scene? Because they prefer doing (usually quiet) solitary activities at home? Or simply because they have few friends? They must exist and in great numbers so why aren't they a presence on the dating sites I'm on?

       I would think the rise of online dating would be a boon to social misfits and eccentrics who would now have a means for advertising their availability to the wider world out there. Yet, I know I have stumbled upon a few, but not nearly as many I would think should exist. Am I really so rare? Have I been spoiled by friends who are largely hang-out-at-home types. Is my level of income related to my not-going-out-muchness? If so, do relatively poor people not use dating sites? Still, if laziness is supposedly endemic in society...where are they? Too lazy to create profiles? I guess I'll just have to try and lure them out myself...

QUOTING QUOTABLES...

On this page of TVtropes, this dismissive description of the Shadows and Vorlons really made me laugh:

"Eh... you guys are making the mistake of actually seeing it as a war like we have over here... a better analogy would be a debate that turned into a fist fight... it just so happened that the debate was between Cthulhu and Space Angels, so the collateral damage was rather apocalyptic. The First Ones and Lorien being there made them stop and listen... which can do wonders in situations like this. Or even parents always having fights over how to raise the kid until the kid and his lawyer serves them emancipation papers."

Followed by: "I lov0e this explanation."

Okay, and this one too for its sheer asininery:

Was G'kar laughing or crying at the end of Acts of Sacrifice?
      ∙ Yes

(originally posted to That Other Journal on November 6, 2011)

SONGS THAT CAN JUST GO AWAY, part II

The second entry for this series will be Dave Matthews Band's "Ants Marching." Another song, while nothing wrong with it technically, I'm simply tired of. And yes, it's another one of those songs which has found homes on multiple channels of our store's MUZAK player. Please go away.


"Ants Marching" by Dave Matthews Band

Enjoy...or not...because I certainly won't be.

A MAN RESPONDS...

      This profile was recommended to me by another OKCupid user. The man's answer to the WTF female profile I posted back in September? You decide :-)

      While I don't agree with everything he's saying, I feel where he is coming from...that anger.

My self-summary

I'm tired of American women, their quest for perfection and their appraising me as if I were some piece of meat, or a sperm donor with a fat wallet. I'm tired of woman in their mid- to late-thirties thinking they will find a guy their age or younger to have kids with them.

DARK QUESTION...

      We were having one of those "fun" conversations at work and this moral dilemma was proposed: It's a widely known fact that people feel especially guilty about their first kill. They remember the face more, the details, etc. As time goes on and more kills are racked up, this guilt mostly goes away as they have become routinized. So the question posed was, "Since you know you're going to feel guilty over the first person you kill, would you rather that first person be an innocent or someone who truly deserved it?"

      I chose the innocent because, as a member of some sort of death squad (the scenario that precipitated this question), I know I'm gonna be doing a lot of killing and I'd much rather have nightmares about having killed someone who was an innocent than feel guilty about murdering a molester, rapist, thug, whatever. By the time you've killed hundreds of people or more, you'll stop feeling guilt at all but that first one will remain so I said I'd rather be able to justify the guilt than to feel bad that I feel bad for doing something which could almost be rationalized as just.

      How about you? :-)

SECRECY TRUMPS PUBLICITY...at least here

      I never liked the publicity behind coin collectors dropping valuable coins deliberately into circulation. Scott Travers is one of those people and even though he has never found out the fate of any of his drops, it bugs me nonetheless because of the timing of the publicity. I remember reading about this in a coin magazine too...he's surrounded by photographers watching him make those purchases. Now, he sets up a ruse that those picture takers are there for something else, but that's too much publicity at the time of the drop making it all too likely that this coin will not be spent around before being located but instead, will end up in the pocket of the vendor who received it. Certainly that would happen with me.

      I'm not against these drops, but I don't think people should be in on them until after they happen. If you need "proof", then watch the guy roll up the coins in question and deposit them (without suspicious photographers and videographers about) in a local bank. Who knows where they'll go and how long it will take them to be found. It's more interesting to me that way and it allows for a more realistic chance that this coin could be found by anyone rather than the vendor who received it right there and then. Hell, deposit them into a soulless CoinStar. Who knows where those coins get shipped? It really opens up possibilities.

      I used to seed coin rolls thusly as a kind of karmic thank you whenever I found something valuable to me in my till. Someone, somewhere has received some steel cents, wheat cents from 1909-1934, Indian Head cents, Buffalo nickels, Liberty nickels, and some Barber dimes and quarters. All well-worn, of course, but identifiable. I don't have the means to seed coins with considerable value. I've never seen them again nor have I ever expected to. Still, it's a nice thought wondering who opened a quarter roll and found a 1906 Barber quarter staring back at them. With the introduction of coin sorters in my banks, this has been very difficult to continue doing since these coins tend to get rejected as they are now underweight from being so worn.

      I just figure you're wasting everyone's time to purposefully spend valuable coins so obviously. Do it clandestinely and I think you'll achieve better results.

LINE OF THE DAY, part XX

From whatisbrain in this article on Gawker:

I feel like rather than using Schroedinger's cat to illustrate the principle of wavefunction collapse in quantum mechanics, we should update the example to "American retail store manager." While unobserved, the manager has the potential to be both simultaneously working and on break. When his boss goes to observe him, it is no longer possible for the manager to be in either of the two states, he must be in one or the other. He's either on break, meaning he is not attending to his duties, or he is working, meaning he is violating company policies. Either way, due to this act of outside observation, the manager is fired, just as a quantum system ceases to be a superposition of states when looked on by an outside observer. 

That is just beautiful :-)

SONGS THAT CAN JUST GO AWAY...

This might be a weekly post for a little while before devolving into a now-and-again one. Since the MUZAK player at work never goes off and the stations get changed frequently throughout the week, I hear a lot of different songs. There's a few songs I really like listening to (and trust me, it's a benefit to be working overnights - a time when the store is quiet and the music can be heard without difficulty) as well as some which I wouldn't normally listen to but can tolerate in the workplace setting thus expanding my musical horizons. And while the vast majority of the songs played I simply don't mind, there's a few which can simply go away. I might hate the song, but ideally, what I want this list to be is of songs which I know are technically good compositionally and maybe also lyrically but have (long since) become tired or otherwise frustrating to listen to from overplay. That's not to say songs I despise won't make this list, but I will try to keep them out.

The first entry I have for this list is "Shiny Happy People", a song which gets played on several MUZAK stations so it's hard to avoid. I think it appears on at least four of the stations played in the regular rotation our managers use. I don't think it's a bad song musically, but if I never heard it ever again, I would not feel as if my life were missing something. Embedding of the video has been disabled so click on the link below the one posted if you'd rather watch what R.E.M. released instead.

"Shiny Happy People" by R.E.M.

ODDS & ENDS

      I have a growing pile of discarded Facebook status updates that are no longer postable as the time for them has passed or they weren't funny enough or because I try to only post one depressing status update when I'm sad rather than like ten in-a-row over the course of a day so I don't worry my friends both real and Facebook-only.

      Here goes...

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT

      I see pussy hair is making a comeback in pornography. I approve.

ON AUTISM AND EUTHANASIA

      I have my opinions on this matter. Those of you who know me surely know them already. However, I was genuinely surprised to have found this comment thread online after reading another article on the abuse of an autistic kid on Gawker. The comment thread of that particular site was typical gamut of how autistic kids need more help/cures/attention/blah blah blah which then devolved into people related their experiences with autistics and the occasional appearance of a troll who invited heaping, uncompromising scorn upon them. But it again left me with the question, why can't there ever be a serious discussion about what to do with autistics (and anyone like retards, pyschopaths, sociopaths, the insane, etc.) who are (naturally) incapable of (independent) lawful participation in society. It seems any instance I could ever find was like those in the Gawker article: trolls.

      However, I did stumble upon this thread on aspiesforfreedom.com and was surprised to read a five page discussion about this subject. Yes, it did become heated at times but I was genuinely impressed that it remained a discussion bordering on debate into the matter. The thread (read here) clearly does not support euthanasia as an option but refreshing in that it led to an open discussion rather than the KILL THE HATER type flame wars that I usually encounter.

      I want to discuss this thread at length but cannot do so now for want of time to compose. I think it needs to be talked about more, just as a concept...as a genuine debate since it is clearly a one-sided discussion in the general media. It's a dark and uncomfortable subject, but I would like it explored, debated, and a compromise forged if only, just because...

INTERESTING IDEA...

From BK Phil on Gawker talking about Congressional redistricting. Currently I am in favor of creating districts which are either (50% Democrat/50% Republican) or (33% Democrat/33% Republican/33% Independent) in an effort to both promote ideological competition and reduce extremism. However, this commenter proposed this idea which I admit I find interesting:

Ideally, the districting should produce an elected slate of representatives that has the same percentage Reps and Dems as the overall state does.


How about each party putting up one roster of candidates state-wide. Each voter votes once for party, and once for a specific candidate. The parties win numbers of seats according to what percentage of the party votes they got, and within their own rosters, those individual candidates that got the most votes get elected?

I'm sure my solution has problems too. I remember studying this stuff in detail in college and the simplest electoral tweaks have a mass of related consequences. Fascinating and maddening stuff.

What do you think?

IT'S ABOUT TIME...

      Since my fantasy of Congress instituting a deflationary policy and changing the mission of the Federal Reserve to kinda-sorta re-peg the dollar to gold at $42.22/tr.oz. ain't never gonna happen, I read half-heartedly and half-annoyed that a Congressman (and four co-sponsors) have proposed legislation eliminating the paper dollar in favor of a dollar coin in circulation. This comes on the heels of another move, made not too long prior, to simply terminate the Presidential Dollar program altogether because over a billion of these coins (and the Sacagawea and Susan B. Anthony designs) are currently sitting unused in warehouses (not to mention hundreds of millions of half dollars). I can't help but think that this change of heart came about because Congressman David Schweikert, the bill's originator (and also a Republican), realized that terminating the Presidential Dollar program would mean that the nation would be denied its Reagan dollar in 2016 and they certainly couldn't have that! :-)

The full text of the legislation is here (enjoy your bore fest)

One of the steps involved would be the sequestering (and I'm guessing eventual melt-down) of the remaining Susan B. Anthony Dollars. They won't be demonetized, but they won't be allowed to circulate anymore either. This would make our oldest circulating dollars effectively the Sacagawea ones which started in 2000 and I can only imagine the wear and tear of the Presidential Dollars will causes many millions of them to lose their edge lettering and thus their date, mintmark, and motto(s) which will only ultimately help collectors of the future...nothing like a marked reduction in supply to improve upon the value of any collection.

While it would be nice to see the dollar coin circulating and it should circulate since its value is approximately what 4¢ would buy you in 1913 (the quarter-dollar being about a cent), I am of course annoyed that inflation has been allowed to take things this far. I know the elimination of the cent will happen in my lifetime. I wouldn't be surprised to see it happen the year after the Presidential Dollar series ends. Congress could just order Lincoln put on the $1 coin and simulataneously get rid of the ever worthless cent. I do hope though, that Congress will also start putting an end to these multiple design per year coins. Pick a design and stick with it for a generation! Whatever happened to tradition in this country?

The idea is that the paper dollar would cease production no later than four years after the passage of this legislation (just in time for the end of the Presidential Dollar series I believe). The remaining paper dollars could circulate but their numbers would diminish and after a year, would be turned over to the Federal Reserve System as banks acquire them for destruction (much like bills over $100 are taken care of now). The legal tender status of $1 bills would not be denied, but their circulation would be effectively ended (though I'm sure they will continue to show up now and again in circulation). I can only imagine this will do wonders for the $2 bill, whose life has been severely limited throughout the paper money era. I wonder if strippers will be happy too, getting $2 bills instead of a fistful of $1s?

That being said, this legislation does not go far enough in my opinion. If inflation must be accepted rather than fought, then three things ought to be added to this legislation to fully modernize our coinage system:

1) Don't allow banks to order quarter-dollars. Instead, force them to order "fractional dollars". That way, half of their order will be quarter-dollars and the other half would be half-dollars. If Congress is annoyed at the money being wasted warehousing $1 coins, what about the hundreds of millions of half dollars also being warehoused?

2) While they are at it, eliminate the $2, $5, and $10 bills as well (8¢, 20¢, and 40¢ in 1913 purchasing power respectively) and replace them with $2½ (it's a traditional denomination), $5, and $10 coins...probably of a silver or billon silver alloy because I feel such high denomination coins would be subject to counterfeiting if made solely from base metals. I mean, right now the "golden dollars" have less than 6¢ worth of metal in them. I would not be surprised if they too become counterfeited once the $1 is eliminated. This is a problem England has been dealing with for some time now.

3) Eliminate the 1¢, 5¢, and 10¢ coins from circulation. The quarter dollar is the effective "penny" now. All coins below it have no significant purchasing power except in bulk and God be with you if you try paying for your groceries with a jar full of change! The last time I remember being able to use dimes in gumball machines was 1993 (and I barely remember being able to use nickels in 1982-3). I think you could buy Ramen noodles for a dime in 1998, but even that was when they were on sale. Rounding purchases to the nearest quarter-dollar would have little impact on anyone's life. And it doesn't have to be for individual prices. Stores can (and likely would) round an aggregate total. States wouldn't lose much in sales taxation since they get paid in bulk too (and with electronic transfers, you can still have your precious cents).

      People would complain about the weight of "all those coins" but the fact is, you wouldn't carry that many coins in the first place since they'd be too valuable to allow to bulk up like that in the first place. You'd spend them long before they got heavy thus allowing the coins to do what they were meant to do in the first place...circulate. Yes, I would mourn the loss of the cent, nickel, and even the dime because the cents and nickels are the oldest coins you can readily find in circulation (1950s, '40s, and earlier) and because dimes are the most likely denomination to still have a silver one pop up on you every so often. But with inflation having ravaged the purchasing power of our money...what choice do we have? Holding on to ever more worthless coins is not something we should be proud of as a nation. Pretending like inflation hasn't happened doesn't make it any less so. It's pathetic to have such worthless bits of metal exchange hands every day. Give our coins some dignity and more importantly, purchasing power.

ADDENDUM: As far as political motivations go...how convenient that the dollar bill would be entirely phased out in 2016...just in time for the Reagan dollar and the ramped up production which would be necessary to replace the dollar bills in circulation. All speculation of course... :-)

UNION EMPLOYER TUG-OF-WAR

      I've heard it said before that the time for unions has passed and more disparagingly, I've heard it said that unions exist to get the most money/benefits out of their employers for the least amount of work. Now I don't think the time for unions has passed. It may even be arguable that we need them now more than ever given the record levels of corporate greed and the massive pushes for "right to work" laws in this country.

      Right to Work, for those of you who don't know is more accurately described as "Right to Fire". Basically, the laws state that unions can't force, as a condition of employment, you to both join the union and pay dues to it. This is the "right to work" aspect of the law. Superficially it sounds good, but it really only exists to weaken the position of existing unions and to make it even more difficult for new ones to form. Right to Work laws promote leechism in future employees. In others words, you get all the benefits of union membership without having to pay into them. I personally oppose such legislation on the grounds that I feel the relationship between employer and employee is best protected by overreach. That is, if either side goes too far with demands, everyone loses.

      Now, if I take the statement, "Unions only exist to exact the most compensation out of their employer(s) for the least amount of work," I would say that it stands to reason that the opposite is true: "Employers only exist to exact the most work out of their employees for the least amount of compensation." For me, it is that tug-of-war between such diametrically opposed forces that a balance might be found which will benefit both parties. I heavily support the idea of unions if only because one employee stands exactly zero chance against a far better-funded employer. Only together can they pool enough resources to be a viable threat through which they can demand concessions. It is an admittedly simple argument, but that's roughly where I stand.

     For me, unions exist primarily as a force for justice...not for society at large, but in the workplace. They are a safeguard against abuses and a protector of employee loyalty. They force the employer to follow procedures rather than (sometimes arbitrary) dictatorial proclamations. They force the employer to treat his employees with respect. I really don't get how people can be so against that. It always strikes me as odd that people rail against teachers getting free health care and tenure...they want to take those benefits away from the teachers rather than asking the question, "How come I don't have that?"