Half-demolished Kitchen of the Soul

Counting chickens again

About a year ago there was a strong possibility I would be going to China to shoot a video at a factory. I was getting all excited about it. I bought books about Shanghai. I read up on visas and inoculations. The trip never happened. The client got flakey.

Now there's another possibility of going to China to shoot a video. For a different client. This one looks far more iffy, though. So I'm trying not to get my hopes up.

(Gee, once I get on that side of the planet I might as well go other places. Vietnam... Thailand... Malaysia... Indonesia... Papua New Guinea... Australia... Stop it. Just stop it.)

That full feeling

Since I've cut way back on the amount of food I cram in my face, I've discovered the joy of fullness in other things. A full gas tank. A closet filled with clean laundry. A full work calendar. A full night's sleep. 

Dumb experts

...during the late, great credit bubble, an Era of Cheap Money devolved into an Era of Dumb Money, and then into an Era of Dumber Money. The culture of Wall Street and the rise of the shadow banking system spawned reckless, largely unregulated lending, borrowing, and trading, a financial culture that preferred short-term fees to long-term gains, and that confused liquidity (access to other people's money) with cash on hand. Looking back, the investors who believed the stories told by Madoff and Stanford—that they could deliver steady, positive, market-beating returns in any type of climate, despite the manifest failure of virtually every other money manager to do so—were obviously foolish. But our best financial minds also spun tales and theories with great assurance, making seemingly irrational and unprecedented activity seem completely sensible.

That's from and article by Daniel Gross, author of Dumb Money: How Our Greatest Financial Minds Bankrupted the Nation. 

I'm a financial moron but even I suspected the business world had long ago sacrificed long-term interests on the altar of short-term profits. It's the natural byproduct of a system dedicated to making ever greater profits—at ever greater speed. Steady, modest growth is for losers. If profits made over years are good, then profits made in minutes are exponentially better, right? Particularly if you can string a whole bunch of those minutes together for years. Well, at least until you've pumped dry the well of prudent profits and have to resort to increasingly dubious methods.

Gross goes on to relate how the Big Financial Minds convinced us ordinary people it was really smart and safe to assume huge mortgages. Hey, credit was cheap, housing prices would only rise, wages would rise, and financial institutions were eager to buy debt. Your home is a smart investment, they said. You aren't going deeper in debt, you're investing in your portfolio. Yeah, that's it. Oh, and be sure to take some short-term profits with home equity loans and the like. Because that's really smart.

It's out and I didn't even know it was in

Music Video Monday: Bob Seger

Oh, duh

I was watching Things We Lost in the Fire last night. It had been in my Netflix queue for months and I had forgotten whatever it was I had read about it that made me order it. And I didn't pay attention to the opening credits.

As I watched I thought, "The woman playing Duchovny's widow is doing a really fine job. I wonder who she is." It wasn't until I took the DVD out of the player that I saw her name. 

Halle Berry. 

What?

I put the disc back in and watched some scenes again.

Oh, wow, now I see it. I guess it was that she didn't wear much makeup and that she looked sad most of the time.

I love movies with actors I don't know because I can get into the character instead of thinking, "That's ______________ playing a role. The next best thing is known actors I don't recognize. Heath Ledger's Joker was so cool because he disappeared behind the makeup. In last night's movie, Berry disappeared (for me) because of hardly any makeup (except to make her look mournful).

Watching left-handers creeps me out

And I'm left handed.

Obama has a sever case of lefty hook. It looks so weird, even though my hook is almost as bad.

But left handed pitchers, quarterbacks, golfers, bowlers or whatever also look odd. That's because we usually see right handed people. They become "normal" to our eyes. Even when the TV camera is behind the thrower, so his left is on my left, something in my brain says, "How can he possibly do that? It looks so awkward."

Good strategy

The Republicans on capitol hill have decided their strategy for rebuilding the party is to Just Say No to whatever Democrats might want. It's about the only way they can keep from being totally irrelevant.

A new poll by AP/GfK reported the president's approval rating is 67 percent. Congressional Democrats are at 49 percent. The Republicans, 33 percent.

Sixty-two percent say the president has cooperated sufficiently with Republicans. Twenty-seven percent—less than the GOP base— say Republicans have cooperated enough with the president.

Keep at it, Republicans, and see how relevant you are next election.

Swedish invasion

There must be enormous unfulfilled desire in the Charlotte metro area for flat-pack furniture and stylish home accessories, because yesterday's traffic report said there were major jams on roads leading to the IKEA grand opening. Full parking lot, lines down the street, vehicles filled with products the new owners couldn't pronounce.

Well, it beats driving to Atlanta or the DC suburbs. Or having your ex-wife or sister pick something up for you where they live.

Down for the count

I wrapped up work at about 4:30 yesterday, puttered around the house for about an hour, had a sandwich and thought, what the heck, I have nothing that needs to be done, I'll just curl up in bed and watch some TV. I started to nod off around 7:30. Fully clothed. I decided to just go with it. I turned off the tube and...

I roused to consciousness at 11:15 feeling deliciously thick and groggy. After wallowing in it for a few minutes I dragged myself up and got undressed. Ordinarily that would keep me awake for an hour or so, but I sank way back down to Slumberland almost immediately.

I think all the weeks of long hours and anxiety about deadlines and satisfying difficult clients finally caught up with me. Dude, you need to seriously chill, said my body.

I still didn't want to get up when I finally came up for air at 6:27. But there were a couple of things to finish up. With any luck I should wrap things up this morning and get to start the weekend early. Ah, an actual weekend off. With no dread of impending Monday.