RUINING THINGS FOR YOU BECAUSE I AM A PETTY, PETTY MAN...

Pick a number, double it, add 10, divide it by 2, then minus it by the number you started with. You got 5.

     Saw that on a Twitter post earlier today. Okay, Twitter limits your posts to a maximum of 140 characters so I'll forgive the improper use of math terms and grammar but what remains is not at all amazing. Have you ever broken it down before or were you content with the mathematical slight-of-hand? Taken in steps, it looks like this:

Pick any number:
Okay, let's go with a variable instead so that we may represent all numbers and not just integers including (but not necessarily limited to) fractions, decimals, irrational, and imaginary numbers. I choose the old standby n.

Double that number:
2n

Add 10 to that product:
2n + 10

Divide that sum by 2:
(2n + 10) / 2

Subtract from that quotient, your original number:
[(2n + 10) / 2] - n

The difference will be 5:
Wow! Amazing!

However, let's break it down as we go this time:

Pick any number:
n

Double that number:
2n

Add 10 to that product:
2n + 10
Take note that this is the last step given to the participant which cannot be simplified.

Divide that sum by 2:
(2n + 10) / 2
simplify:
(2n / 2) + (10 / 2)
n + 5
The purpose of the Step Four is to undo Step Two. With the appearance of the number 5, the step also reveals that to control this equation for any result, simply double whatever you desire to be the outcome. In other words, had you wanted 7 to be the resultant difference, you would require the participant to add 14 to their (now doubled) original number.

Subtract from that quotient, your original number:
(n + 5) - n
simplify:
5
The purpose of the Step Five is to undo Step One. You know, the one thing you actually did that the host could not anticipate. But had he done this right away, you would have caught on so, through the flourish of busywork, the host has successfully distracted you from this exercise's preordained conclusion, bestowing upon him the suggestion of clairvoyance provided that you, the participant, choose not to reflect upon it too deeply (or at all). One might also think of this exercise as an intelligence test of sorts based on how it is repeated to others. Did you change the addend in Step Three, or leave it at 10? Did you suggest tripling or halving the original number (and yours as well) in Step Two, or did you leave it at doubling? I'm sure you can think of many other ways one might manipulate this equation ;-)

The difference will be 5:
Not so amazing this time around, right? Now take this knowledge and have some fun with your friends!

AS THEY SAY, YOU CAN'T MAKE THIS SHIT UP...

     My Manager had some good unintentional one-liners last night. We have a man who occasionally comes in and buys much of our overstock for his community. I guess he's the buyer. I don't care what he does with it all. He arranges it all ahead of time with the Head Store Manager and I'm just the foot soldier who rings it all up...usually dozens of orders. He's polite, easy to work with, patient, and well-organized so I don't mind ringing up his orders at all. Oh, and he's an Orthodox Jew: something which normally would not be relevant to the discussion if not for the following.

     First of all, my Manager keeps calling this man "Vinny" even though his name is Ben and he continues addressing him as "Vinny" despite having been corrected several times. It's kinda cartoonish of my Manager, but I know he's not doing this maliciously: he honestly believes this is the customer's name and that is probably why it continues to amuse me so.

      The fun began later. Ben comes in on Saturday night to buy what he's buying and usually taking advantage of sales to boot. The only catch is that the sales end at midnight so I have to work quickly to get as much in as possible. This is where his organization pays off because I can get a lot more done than would normally be possible as a result. Saturday is also one of our busier nights so I'm sure my Manager doesn't like that I'm effectively off-register in order to attend to Ben. My Manager, perhaps a little flustered, asked that, in the future, Ben come in earlier or on another night entirely, suggesting Friday.

     Yeah, he actually suggested to an Orthodox Jew that he come in on a Friday night to do his bulk shopping. Believe me, it's not like you can't tell he's Orthodox. He's in the full, uh...uniform. Oy Gevalt!

     The best (of course) is saved for last. My Manager calls for Security to come to the loading bays so he can witness what's going on. While Ben is pulling his truck to the bay, he explains to Security what is going on. He tells him that "Vinny" arranges all this ahead of time with the head manager and that he buys all this stuff for his community, but that he does it in an unorthodox way. I immediately looked at Security and remarked that I'm pretty sure nothing Ben does is done in an unorthodox way.

     We shared a good laugh over that...and I hope you did too :-)

ANALOGIZING DEPRESSION

     One way I can define my depression is that I have not only not had a weekend off in almost twelve years but that I also have not had to turn down any offers to go anywhere because of it.

      I've also noticed when things like Girl Scout cookies for sale come up, I am never asked if I want to buy any. I have never made a point to say I don't buy into such things, I just don't get asked. I don't even feel it's being done maliciously; more like, it never occurred to them to ask. I don't get asked to chip in for things like a going-away present for a departing long-time co-worker or to be involved in party planning (such as bringing a dish). I suppose some people might envy this particular problem, but it does get to me every now and then.

     Alone in a crowd.....

CERTAINLY NEW YEAR SO, UH...FEWER POSTS?

     Have I given up on posting to this blog, even semi-regularly? It's starting to look that way. I suppose I'll still update from time-to-time. It's not for a lack of things to write about though it certainly helped when I had a running theme like the "I Actually Like This Shit" music video series. Knowing I'd be back week after week until I had finished certainly kept this blog on my mind. Oh well...

      So what has the New Year brought already so soon into its tenure?

      I broke up with Costello on December 1st. The relationship just wasn't working in my opinion: I couldn't see any future in it. Costello, for some time, had begun feeling more like a friend to me than a girlfriend. She liked me more than I liked her and nothing I could do could close that gap, a gap which grew only wider as time went on. When she strongly hinted that she was feeling the "L-word" for me, I had to metaphorically slit her throat. I didn't like doing it, but it had to be done. I felt it would be cruel to string her along and for over a month by that point, I was already doubting our future. I offered her friendship and the offer, while genuine, was certainly something she wanted nothing to do with advising me to pretend like she never existed. Costello then applied the scorched earth tactic to all our digital connections. She had wanted me to take a picture of us for some time but we never got around to it, and it certainly wasn't from a lack of opportunities either. Now I have none, except for one with her coat appearing partially in the background. My first relationship is over; about 3½ months worth of one. Back to the drawing board...
     But then, as if seemingly by magic I have already become entranced by an unusually pretty customer of mine whom I had been seeing on a seemingly weekly basis. I had started noticing her before the break-up, but did nothing. She has this mesmerizing smile, you see. When I saw her again in December, I was (in my opinion as a shy man) crowded by my workplace friends who were encouraging me to ask her for her number but lurking far too close for my comfort (a range which can go from just a couple of feet to a seemingly infinite distance depending on just how much I am exposing my vulnerable side). Normally this is a non-starter: I never hit on my customers as a general rule. It's probably good etiquette though I'm sure my usual low self-esteem certainly had a hand in it.
     But this customer, this girl...she got me noticing her and believe me, that's certainly no small feat. I rarely pick up on clues so if I were feeling anything at all, she must be practically beaming them in my direction. After the "crowding incident" on December 17th, I decided that next time I would see her, I would at least get her name. Up until this point, she had been showing up once a week, usually on Thursday. However I would not see her again until just yesterday near the end of my shift. Again, she saw me and rather than go to a shorter line, she waited on mine. I got her name this time but pussed out on asking if she were seeing anyone. My rationalization is that I had wanted that shift to end on a positive note (shouldn't ask too many questions...mustn't get greedy!). She had dried paint on her hands and hair. I can only hope whatever she was painting was just for her and not for a place she's sharing with an as-of-now-unknown partner.
     I like how I work myself up for something that is entirely based on physical attraction at this point. And yes (and I say so surprisingly), I have no doubts that she is attracted to me as well. I hope to see her again soon and not another month from now. It'd be nice to start the new year off so right. It would certainly be a nice change of pace.

     On the numismatic front, I still have not found the 2009-D Northern Mariana Islands quarter...now three years after its release.
      The mintages on the last two 2012 ATB quarters certainly rose significantly suggesting that the Statehood Quarter glut has passed. It was a shame too as when looking at the first three designs, 2012 was on track to have the lowest total mintage of possibly any year since clad quarter production began in 1965. But alas, it was not to be and I had certainly been looking forward to that. The fourth design, the Hawai'i Volcanoes, its mintage exceeded the mintages of that year's three prior designs combined and the final design of 2012, the Denali National Park, exceeded the mintages of all four prior 2012 designs. The total mintage for 2012 did not exceed the quarter mintages from 2009, but it certainly got close. I suspect 2013's mintages will be significantly higher still.
     As of now, the 2012 Acadia National Park quarter from the Denver mint, has the lowest mintage in the entire America the Beautiful series at 21.606 million pieces and the Chaco Culture National Historical Park quarter, also from 2012, has the lowest mintage for a single design at 22 million per mint. I guess that makes them the "keys" even though we all know many thousands of pristine examples have already been set aside by collectors so don't get your hopes up because examples from circulation will certainly never be worth more than 25¢.
     So far, the first three years' worth of ATB quarter mintages have totaled less than the mintages of the first two State Quarters. Using that series as a marker, the ATB quarters are still eating up Pennsylvania's mintage. If the rising mintages hold, then 2013 will certainly surpass New Jersey and possibly Georgia. The mintages only surpassed Delaware's, the first State Quarter, with the first 2012 design, El Yunque National Forest...11 designs in.

     Okay, I'm done blabbing for now...

STEAL THIS IDEA, part XIV

      Have you ever heard of Krampus? No? Well, he's basically Santa Claus's evil twin who kidnaps especially naughty children to bring to his lair for drowning, eating, or transport to Hell.

(read about it here for more details)

     My idea is for a slasher film featuring Krampus as the killer but instead of looking demonic, looking exactly like Santa Claus which would enable him to get close to his victims since they would let their guard down for Santa.
      I picture him riding in a sleigh pulled by eight flying decaying corpse reindeer (with glowing red eyes of course) reined with rusted chains and the sack on board would be filled not with toys, but with the many weapons he would use to kill his victims who are presumably on the Naughty List. The weapons could be Christmas gift themed if you must like a doll whose head once removed reveals a dagger (let's say).
      In the end, the Final Girl almost dies but is saved at the last moment by the real Santa Claus, who in the course of the attack would reveal Krampus's true form before dispatching him.
      The world's naughtiness could be what keeps the creature from ever dying permanently thus allowing for many sequels if need be.

      Given this creature's modus operandi, the cast should all be people who would be on Santa's Naughty List, even the Final Girl.

      Stupid holiday fun!

      Or you could play it as more a children's horror film and have Krampus with the same M.O. and disguised as Santa Claus. The film could feature several naughty children and one goody-two-shoes. The naughty children are kidnapped one by one before Christmas (perhaps taken via temptation by whatever form of naughtiness they symbolize - a Seven Deadly Sins for children). The goody-two-shoes makes a plea to Santa Claus who appears and together they rescue his/her friends and save Christmas.
     .....Unless you want to go all in and have the children be killed in which case the goody-two-shoes and Santa would have to work together to rid the world of Krampus once and for all.

PEOPLE AGAINST DOLLAR COINS ARE RETARDED

     Okay, I can't find a link to it, but in the December 2nd, 2012 issue of the New York Post, a brief editorial appeared to take a stand against switching over to dollar coins using the same retarded reasoning that I tend to come across. A Democratic congresswoman, Lacy Clay (D-Mo) is quoted as saying, "[M]en don’t like carrying coins in their pockets or their suits." Another NY state representative who apparently has not seen a dollar coin since the Susan B. Anthony Dollar, claimed that constituents had a difficult time distinguishing them from a quarter (not that I've ever heard this complaint regarding a dime and cent which are also nearly identically sized and differ in roughly the same ways).

    You also still get the occasional problem with "heavy coins" even though four quarters weigh more than a single dollar coin. In fact, four quarters weigh about as much as three dollar coins. Three times the value per unit weight!

     The editorial later mentioned bringing accumulated coins to the bank to cash in for bills. See, that's where the issue of dollar coins comes in. Coins weren't minted to be hoarded and cashed in periodically: They were made to be spent. The reason your coins fill up jars for days and weeks on end only to be cashed out at a later time is because they, the coins, have no purchasing power. Remember, a bottle of Coca-Cola didn't cost 5¢ "back in the day" because it was cute, but rather because the money supply was much smaller so five cents went further. The old song, "Brother Can You Spare a Dime?" referred to a coin with actual purchasing power (based on inflation, a dime in 1931, when that song was written, is worth $1.52 today).

     The fact is, our current monetary system contains several coins with negligible purchasing power. If you go back to 1913, when the U.S. government first started keeping inflation statistics, you'll find that a cent back then would be worth 23¢ today which suggests that the quarter today is our "penny" making the dime, nickel, and lowly cent far more a nuisance than useful. Our face-to-face transactions do not need to be more precise than the quarter-dollar.
     Thinking back on it, I have no memory of ever being able to use a penny in vending machines or for pay phones. My entire life of over 30 years, the cent has been "nummus non grata", so why have we kept it? I remember when ShopRite first started offering 2¢ for a reused bag back in 1990, laughing about the worthlessness of 2¢ to my brother even back then. Nickel vending machines existed briefly during my childhood for the tiniest of gumballs only but I don't remember them after 1983 or 4. Dime vending machines disappeared sometime around 1993 or 4.
     Cents, nickels, and dimes must be used in enormous aggregate to buy even trivial things. The average item value in a supermarket these days is about $2.30 (approximately 10¢ in 1913). That would mean the average item would cost 230 pennies, 46 nickels, 23 dimes, 10 quarters, 5 half dollars, or 3 dollar coins to meet or exceed that total. Justifying even quarters under this scheme is difficult but the first three coins? Forget it. They're not useful for transactions and more work than they're worth (by that I mean if you are diligent, you can cycle your pennies into nickels and nickels into dimes and so forth until getting a dollar again).

     And here, people complain about dollar coins which now effectively have less purchasing power than the 1913 nickel (approximately 4.3¢). There shouldn't even be five and ten dollar bills at this point either. But that is another argument.
     Back to the stupid Congresswoman's argument, large numbers of coins would not be carried in one's pockets if they were more valuable. In fact, they would be too valuable to be carried around like that. We only carry lots of change now because change, even in aggregate, cannot buy anything anymore and quarters are the only commonly encountered coins whose value adds up fast enough to be even minorly significant.

     It's our mentality about change that is wrong. This was also evident in the editorial when the author mentioned other nations' high value coins (Like Canada and Switzerland. In fact, I believe the highest Swiss coin is worth more than $5) but using the same "pocketful of change" mentality we now have instead of realizing that if we regularly carried coins with significant value, that we would spend them accordingly because they would not be nuisances weighing down and wearing out our pockets but economically useful like the coins of the United States used to be, y'know...back in the day.

     I hate inflation. I would rather a deflationary policy to improve the value of our money, but that's not gonna happen. The dollar bill needs to go (as does the cent, nickel, dime, $2 bill, $5 bill, and $10 bill). We need a more sensible coin and currency structure for this country.
     In my opinion, it should be three sets of three: Three base metal coins (25¢, 50¢, $1); Three appropriately-sized silver coins ($2 or $2½, $5, $10); and Three pieces of currency ($20, $50, $100). With the presence of debit/credit cards, bills larger than $100 would not be necessary. The purpose of using silver would be to raise the intrinsic value of the high value coins enough so as to discourage counterfeiting. The cent, nickel, and dime have to be eliminated and I say this as an ardent cent collector too...

     What do you think?

STEAL THIS IDEA, part XIII

     Just a quickie. I had this thought walking to work looking up at the dark night sky and imagining how terrifying it would be if the darkness were actually just the eyelids of some incomprehensibly large beast and watching the "eye" open before me, an impossibly gigantic iris and pupil staring down at me.

     I'm guessing this would be the kind of movie/show which ends badly for the protagonist.