At the end of Greek class yesterday, the prof defended his evaluation of our English-to-Greek sentences by flatly contradicting the textbook and the lexicon. My great accomplishment for the day: I knew he was wrong, but I kept my mouth shut.

Rule of Life

You're not having fun until security shows up looking confused.

Questions About The Economy

Would Wall Street have any money if no one trusted faceless inhuman monsters (e.g. "banks") to invest their money? If Wall Street didn't have any money, would the rest of us have more of it? If we invested in ourselves (e.g. by acquiring and developing resources for production, by using extra income to buy time to develop our skills and learn to create value), would we be freer, more independent, more capable, more productive, and therefore wealthier? If we invested in endeavors we believed in, would the world look more like our dreams?

Bring on the Student Loans!

I knew the Department of Education had to be good for something.

One of the lives I wish I were living

is the life of this guy. He spent some years spending enough less than he earned that he can now live on withdrawals from his savings that total less than the interest (about 4%). He is retired, before the age of forty (except now for half an hour a day of copy editing), and spends all his time doing what he wants, and (this is the really cool part) what he wants is to volunteer his skills to add value to the world.

Every time I read this blog, I think about how inefficiently, slavishly, and selfishly I spend my time. Not that I want to accomplish anything as extreme as Jacob; I think setting myself up as a professional academic will have very nearly the same effects as would achieving complete economic freedom and then doing what I want. But I do want the level of self-mastery Jacob seems to have, instead of letting everything be dictated to me by outside demands (which in some cases include demands stemming from my past decisions, in case you were thinking of bringing up the Grackle as proof that I already have this self-mastery). I'm afraid of finding myself in the situation where I've worked to place and resenting the demands of the position (as I already often resent the demands of being a student) instead of living the life.

So, today, my focus is on bringing the love back to "love of wisdom."

puzzle

Why is it that when a candidate promises to change the way an entire nation operates, people get excited, but when an online social networking company changes the way their website looks, people get outraged?

An Exemplary Tale

Buggle blew out three diapers in a row yesterday. I blame the economy.

Yes, I will explain.

As you all know, now that Barack Obama is captain of the planet there is a tremendous[ly expensive] stimulus package in the works to heal the ailing economy. What you may not know is that the program actually started several days ago when Obama commandeered Sam's Club for three days (ending yesterday) and ordered them to distribute $25 dollar gift cards to all new members, effectively bringing the cost of joining Sam's down from $40 to $15. Now, as it happens, the Club also offers a "collegiate membership" with comes with a $15 gift card. Combined with the Obama Samulus Card, this made the membership free! So you see, I had no choice.

When I arrived at Sam's, at 7:45 last night, I was in a nervous, pessimistic mood, for reasons which I will explain perhaps tomorrow. So I was not too surprised when something immediately went wrong: the lady at the membership desk tried to tell me I had to choose between the two promotions. I thought about explaining to her that the power of Change could not be limited by her preconceived categories, but decided that she was a Hope-less case and went with pointing out that the ad didn't stipulate anything about not combining either of the deals with other Sam's Club offers. After I pressed this point for a few minutes, the lady seemed to give in. She alternated between typing secret information into a computer and consulting a colleague on the other end of the counter for I think about twenty minutes, then finally took my picture. I wish I could show it to you. Somehow she managed to take the picture so that I have two necks.

Well, the time came to pay. It was 8:17. I swiped my credit card and drummed my fingers on the counter relishing the thought of those gift cards--oh how close they were! But, alas, my credit card was "invalid." It turns out Sam's doesn't take Visa. Oh, and they close at 8:30. And their ATM doesn't work very well--which is to say that pressing the "ATM" button on their multi-function machine takes you to a screen that says "Assistance Needed for Service Error," until an employee shows up and helpfully punches numbers into it until it freezes completely, and then ten minutes later someone from accounting finally arrives and explains to you that it will take 15 minutes to reboot.

In trying situations like these, as Barack Obama relates in his memoir (the unpublished one), he always involves a manager. So that's what I did. And, you know, I think the manager of my local Sam's Club might be all right. She suggested that I run over to Wal-Mart and get a $40 gift card, which would be redeemable at Sam's, and promised that someone would let me back in through the exit. It all worked, much, I think, to the disappointment of my antagonist, who activated my gift cards with a resentful air, and as slowly as humanly possible. Now the checkout counters were closing. I had maybe two minutes to pick out a box of diapers and pay for it. I paid for my 234 Pampers and headed home.

I think you know how this story ends. Yes. They were too small. Buggle has magically grown to a size 3, and the 1-2 size diapers I ended up with in my haste--let's just say they suggest a speedo on him, and not dwell on the messier consequences.

But, you know, we have friends who could use two hundred small diapers next month. Spending two hours to buy a huge box of the wrong size diapers isn't a failure if it means you can do someone you care about a favor. And that's why I'm putting this one down as a golden mediocrity.