We are coming up on what we Americans call the Holiday Season. And it is a season: not just one holiday, but a joyous period in which every day is special. A few of those days don’t have names yet, but I am sure that in time that gap in our culture will be filled. Here’s a rundown of the next week or so.
The traditional fun begins with Travel Nightmare Wednesday. Observed the day before the last Thursday in November, this holiday is celebrated around the nation by crowding into planes and spending quality time with loved ones inside cars crawling along interstates.
Then comes Thanksgiving, when we solemnly thank the Almighty for football and giant balloons in the shape of cartoon characters. Some families also give thanks that once again they deep fried the turkey without burning the house down.
Things pick up a bit with Black Friday, a holiday that celebrates the simple pleasures of buying stuff. Traditionally, it is observed by talking about how everybody else is going to the mall that day and recounting how it is traditionally the busiest shopping day of the year. It is not, nor has it ever been. That honor usually goes to Most Busy Saturday, which falls this year on December 19th.
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I don’t see why West Coast playoff games can’t start at a reasonable East Coast time. Sure, a start at, say 4pm LA time would reduce productivity out 
there in the late afternoon, but all of New England are zombies today and there is another game tonight starting at 9:30.
So no post, just a few thoughts from my sleep deprived brain.
Obama Wins What?
It took a long time for me to process the news of the morning. I kept blinking and trying to focus on the screen better, because obviously I was still not fully awake.
I’ll be the first to admit I can’t think of anybody else who deserves a prize for peace this year. But seriously, Obama? For giving us hope? And bravely taking a stand in favor or nuclear disarmament? For real? To their credit, the folks in the White House are obviously just as head-scratchingly stunned as the rest of us.
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I’m going to take next week off. I will, in equal parts, be enjoying the end of summer and catching up on a few things I promised to get done by September. Next week will be "Best of Frank" reruns. I’m sure several of you haven’t yet worked through the entire back catalog of posts anyway.
In the meantime, I thought I would clear off some links and topics I’ve been meaning to get to, but am now willing to admit that I won’t.
A while back one of my best tipsters sent me a link to this really rather bizarre post on Mint.com’s blog written by Chris Larsen, CEO of Prosper, which claims to be "America’s largest peer-to-peer lending marketplace." It’s about his apocalyptic view of the near future in which the middle class disappears and we are left with a tiny elite of super rich and the poor, who will be employed primarily as members of the elite’s household entourage.
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Last week Fivecentnickel had a post on how to Avoid Lifestyle Inflation: Create an Artificial Sense of Scarcity. Basically, the idea is that you need to hide your money from yourself so you won’t spend it.
Out of sight, out of mind. If you don’t see the money sitting there every time you check your accounts, you won’t be constantly reminded of its presence, and you won’t be tempted to spend it.
This is a fairly common idea. The Automatic Millionaire series, for example, is based around it. But very little has been written, until now, on how to find that money again when you really need it.
For some people, the "hiding" of money is merely notional. They just open a so-called "savings" account at the same bank that has their checking account. But for many of us, that kind of hidden is not hidden enough. We need the money to be truly out of sight and mind. For us, the money must not be merely well hidden, but in a place we would never think to look.
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The traditional fun begins with Travel Nightmare Wednesday. Observed the day before the last Thursday in November, this holiday is celebrated around the nation by crowding into planes and spending quality time with loved ones inside cars crawling along interstates.
Musings | Frank Curmudgeon | 
November 20, 2009 12:59 pm | 
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