phone

in my freshman year of college i began dating a girl who was a very good friend of mine. she was everything to me. despite treating her poorly, i really valued being with her and she was my home. last friday night i came home late feeling like death. i then remembered with an incredible surge of dread that she was leaving for india the next morning. i lay in bed and called her. her voice made me think of all those nights during the summer after freshman year i would wait in bed late at night for her to call from los angeles. this habit led to at least one sleep-deprived financial statement analysis mistake at my PE internship, but it made me feel so happy and loved. it still does.

she's gone now.

welcome to the jong-il

"i make the purple bring the green"
- 50

this week the treasury announced the new purple and green five-dollar bill.



this new bill looks like a well-drawn weed leaf. i remember when i was a kid i thought to myself "the most outlandish combination of colors has got to be purple, orange, and green. i should avoid placing these three colors in close proximity." the government is an orange pumpkin away from making this the craziest bill in the world.

this is the first of (i'm sure) many measures designed to make earning a living harder for counterfeiters, and the first of (i'm sure) many measures that will take our currency closer to but not quite as far as other multi-colored currencies like the AUD.

who's the biggest counterfeiter of USD you ask? the democratic people's republic of korea, known to the layman as north korea. to clarify: motherfucking kim jong-il is the biggest counterfeiter of american currency. possibly the world's only remaining producer of supernotes (essentially indistinguishable $100 bills), he has produced at least hundreds of millions of US dollars. a year ago, $50 million in supernotes had been confiscated, which should give a picture of a fraction of his operations. Dear Leader uses this dinero to maintain north korea's only fleet of benzes, a 7000-car stockpile sitting in some warehouse in pyongyang. he is also rumored to annualize USD0.7M in hennessy expenses. the bastard.

what a guy.

extra credit:
the times
wikipedia

lazy sunday

cupcakes.

think i found a cupcake too. heehee.

there needs to be more street art in manhattan. more art in the subway stations too. there are so many things in new york that need to be improved. but, there's a really cool tiled street light on broadway somewhere between 6th and 10th streets. it merits a visit. i guess it's a start.

for the first time new york is starting to feel a bit like a prison. within the last year i've really enjoyed leaving manhattan to pursue new experiences on the road. maybe i am valuing sprawl more and more. maybe one day i will be a middle-aged bastard married to a short plain woman in the suburbs. then maybe the next morning i will wake up and find myself in the middle of a vast chest-crunching eckhart tolle fear and despair. or maybe i will be a middle-aged bastard married to a tall fantastic woman in one of the world's great cities and wake up to the same feeling. there is really no solution to my existential dilemma.

the end of summer

"pop music's hard work!"
- ralph wiggum

i'm in the real world. it's awesome. i don't feel like a different person but i've been transplanted into a setting of adulthood and i can feel it working a change in my outlook. i really enjoy my job and i foresee good things in the near- to mid-future. i can't stress how good it is to have capable and supportive people around me in all arenas. i have the weekends for relaxing and partying, so i haven't entirely left college experiences yet. but i am focusing myself intensively on a few main pursuits. they are my meditation.

journalist: so you really enjoy your hobbies.
me: yes. there is no greater joy in life than the development, practice, and perfection of a pursuit.
journalist: who said that?
me: guess.
journalist: i don't know. thoreau?
me: close. i said it.