Thursday, July 20

Money Money MONEY!!!!

For those of you who don't follow the life of Thomas P. Dineen to closely (which of course is the majority of anyone), lately I have been temping at a financial institution. Today, I received a Fed Ex to my department, and in it, was a handfull of Euros. Now I had not seen in person or handled a Euro since they have come out, (my last and only truip thus faar to ireland was pre Euro, about 13 years ago) and I was rather surprised. I see where people get the whole "Monopoly Money" initial reaction to these colorful sheets of paper, but upon closer inspection, they were really rather beautiful peices of coin.
I'm also surprised by the foil strip, which I imagine is a higher tech version of the plastic thread in american denominations above $10, but what surprised me the most was the varying size the notes had depending on the monetary value, increasing with that value. I wonder how my user experiance would be withh such a varying array of colors and sizes. Would it be simpler or more difficult. I admit, the standardized green-backs that we American's cling to can be confusing, especially with the more alcohol one consumes, and though not often, I have wondered, did I give that guy a $20 and tell him to keep the change... or was it a $50?!?! I do imagine having not only a size differential as well as color (or colour if reading on the other side of the pond) could be beneficial in that situation, but considering how dark bars can be, and how desensatized one can become from that much imbibing, it's rather mute. Don't they also say everything looks bigger when your drunk? or is that when your a child?
Irregardless, it was an interesting chance to break the mundane today by experiancing something out of the norm, at least in my sheltered life, and I think I may go to the main branch tellers and do a withdrawl in Euros, in varying denominations, just so I can keep soething exotic in my poket. Howevr useless it may be in this town.

Thursday, July 13

Presidential Dialects

Well, So here I am again, reading MSNBC at work today, and I'm checking out a story on Bush and Merkel's response to the current shellings and attacks between Israel and Lebanon. at the end of the first of two pages there is a quote by Bush regarding a slight that Putin had made against the Vice President, and in this response, bush says: "It was quite humorous, not to diss my friend the Vice President." "Dis", yes it is in Websters Dictionary defined as:
v : treat, mention, or speak to rudely; "He insulted her with his rude remarks"; "the student who had betrayed his classmate was dissed by everyone" [syn: insult, affront](
Source: WordNet ® 2.0, © 2003 Princeton University)

But how Stately is it of a President to use such a term when regarding a verbal assult from our Former Cold War enemy?

I don't know, I know I shouldn't expect much from the guy, but dangit, he is th PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES!!!!!!!!!

(So was Bush the Child we Left Behind?)

Monday, July 10

"Imperial Courts"

I read this Quote in a Newsweek article: ""It shows that the imperial judiciary thinks that, in addition to abortion, affirmative action and religion, war should be within its grasp," says John Yoo" and I had to take a double take. This John Yoo, A Berkeley law professor said the courts are becomming to "Imperial"? This in regards to a decision that the Supremem court made regarding how our president has overreached his power in the use of Military Tribunals in the name of fighting terrorism. The irony is causing me to make a scene at work!