Friday Night Miscellany

Hola darlings! It's Friday and the start of a three-day weekend the 'unofficial' end of summer - Labor Day weekend. The weather promises to be great - warm and sunny during the day (and NO rain), in the low 60's at night, perfect for sleeping with the windows open (as long as the critters don't wake me up at 3:30 in the morning with their antics). I rushed home tonight and sat out on the deck for an hour, throwing peanuts to the squirrels, it was so nice out! This year's group of baby squirrels are now venturing out of the nest. They are so cute! Fully developed and fully "furred", and their tails are as long as their bodies, but they are small compared to the adults! This year's big nest in the back yard produced three pups. They haven't yet explored the ground - leastwise as far as I could see from watching them for scant minutes, except for one yesterday who went all the way to the base of the big Chinese Elm to grab a small peanut. Fridays are treat days on our floor at the office, and I always look forward to them, although of late I've been awfully disappointed in what people have brought in as offerings. Yuch! Today the offerings looked okay, but they were "low fat" and "health-conscious" - meaning they taste like icky-poo. I passed. The whole point of having a treat day is to get TREATS - not diet crap! This did nothing to help my disposition. I bitched about people bringing in health food instead of FAT FOOD THAT TASTES GOOD! People want treats that melt in the mouth and taste good, not taste and feel like cardboard! People who know me ignore my grousing but I had a go at a new girl from 15 - ha ha! She left the kitchen looking terrorized, and I felt better. I am an evil person... I always grouse in the morning. In fact, I'm generally intolerable until about 11 in the morning, and most people don't even look at me, avoiding eye contact at all costs, let alone talk to me. I cannot stand those cheery people who go about beaming at everyone first thing in the morning - well, actually, I can't stand such people any time of the day, but particularly first thing in the morning. I want to strangle them. Some day I might strangle one - in the elevator - on the way up to the 16th floor at the office. In front of witnesses. That should stop that cheery "good morning" nonsense around me once and for all! Take a lesson, people. Don't be cheerful around Jan in the morning, and bring good-tasting FAT TREATS to the office on treat day. A new book is out on "gut instincts" - by Dr. Gerd Gigerenzer, Director of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin. I don't know about the book, but the interview at the New York Times with Dr. Gigerenzer is quite interesting. I disagree with his comments about the "average Joe" investor, though, who (so the good Dr. says) has done better investing with his/her "gut instinct" that many Wall Street experts. Think about it - these people aren't going with their "gut instinct" - according to the Dr.'s own words they are buying stock in companies with whose names they are familiar, and that has nothing to do with "instinct." Once they buy these stocks, they hold them, and won't sell even in a panicky market like we've experienced recently in the US, because the owners of those shares have confidence in the name of the company. Therefore, the stocks of those companies tend to hold their value better than the rest of the market, because the mom and pop holders of 100 odd lot shares all around the country, which account for millions of shares all tolled, are not panicking and are not selling. It then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that the shares in those companies will maintain their value even in down markets - DUH. Pyramids have been in the archaeological and/or esoteric news a lot recently. Bringing some rationality back to the discussion, Egyptologist Margaret Maitland explains why aliens did not build the pyramids. Thanks, Maggie, I needed that! China is dying from its own pollution. Well - DUH! Not just hundreds of thousands of people each year, but millions. Don't drink the water - don't even touch the water - don't get within 50 feet of the water, actually - and for sure don't breathe the air - or eat the food - or handle any product manufactured or grown in China. Yikes! Better yet - don't be born in China if you have anything to say about it (most Chinese people don't, unfortunately). The Communists have come up with a new form of population control - polluting it's own citizens to death. Dead people don't have babies. A couple more years of this, the Chinese Government will be importing people from Mexico.