October 2008 Archives

Recently, we've been having a bit of a coyote problem. Last week, we lost a chicken to those dogs; they live on the far side of the golf course near our house. Suffice to say, when the feathers were found, we knew the animal was gone, and we all went on high alert.

Tonight, one of our cats, the female, Scout -- went missing.

I only noticed it right before I went to bed, 2:30am -- high hunting season for those creatures. It was not a good time to realize that she was missing.

I wandered around the house, I checked the kids beds again (and again), then I got a flashlight -- I'd go outside and shout for her. Sometimes, at our old house, my shouting would cue the cats to come bolting towards the house, out from under whatever bush or tree they were hiding, ears back, eyes wide -- running for their lives from the coyotes that used to live there. I figured a good shout would bring her home here just as well as it did back then.

Standing outside, I shouted her name. I did it a few times, with pauses, to try and communicate that I was still there -- that she could make a break for it. But nothing happened. I stood in the dark, beginning to unpack the bad ideas, the ones that you first try on with a skeptical mind to get ready.

I shouted some more -- then went inside. That's when I had a moment with my cat.

Boo, the male cat, looked at me with big eyes and immediately wanted to go outside.

At first, I was annoyed. "No, Boo, you are not going outside -- no way!"

I went to another door of the house and shouted, and he made a break for it.

Aaargh -- I thought ... great. Then I decided I was too bored and annoyed to care anymore -- if these cats wanted to go out and have this sort of trouble -- then ... no, no -- I did care.

So I went to another door, shouted some more, and headed outside again.

That's when Boo rolled up on the door, saw me, and gave me that stare. It's the "yes, idiot, we do know what's going on, there is a universal understanding between all the creatures in the universe, and you have to follow me right now" stare.

So, of course, I followed him. He ran off around the house. I followed. I figured as soon as I came around the corner, I'd startle him and I'd break out of my little fantasy, he's just a cat, and there had been no moment.

But he was waiting for me when I turned the corner, looking over his shoulder, and waiting.

"What is it, Boo? Where is she?"

He looked around in one area, sniffed a bit, as if maybe that made some sort of obvious sense to me; but of course I'm just a stupid hairless ape with no nose power -- so I was clueless.

He wasn't going to be deterred in the least -- he immediately turned and headed back the way we came. With intent. So I followed.

We came around the back of the house, and he considered going inside the door I'd left open. We went in for a second, but then I looked at him and gave him the stare right back -- "No, I'm gonna keep looking.", I said with my body and eyes.

So he turned around and walked right back out, rolled up next to me... we were a team -- the men of the house ... we're gonna find this cat.

I had the flashlight on, and we headed through the wooded alley behind our house, towards the back yard, he was never more than three feet from me, pacing me, checking corners, roaming out to the side, but not doing that standard "co-wander" thing cats do -- he was with me on this.

Just as we got to the back yard, I heard a mighty rustling, something big was running away from me. Could have been a raccoon, doubtful it was coyotes -- they sing too much. But this thing was big, it was crashing through the bush, and Boo had known it was there the whole time.

He'd actually intentionally lead me to it. Against his own better safety. In response to my shouting for Scout. He knew, he knew what to do, and he did it.

As we'd passed the door, he thought twice about going with me, but then decided to come with me -- and, knowing there was a monster in the back yard, he paced me anyway and we flushed this thing out together.

Then we were standing together in the back yard, me and my cat, owning that space, checking the corners with the flashlight, and sort of awkwardly pretending to each other that we hadn't just broken the sacred human/animal language barrier.

He checked some other places, never more than a few feet from me, never jumpy, never needy, never startled -- a co-searcher ... and then he basically suggested we head back to the front door of the house, since we'd done a full circuit and removed the danger -- which is why he'd directed me there. He knew she'd be safer now, now that he'd gotten me to scare the monster away -- a monster I couldn't see, only heard -- but he knew all about.

I looked around, shouted for Scout a few more times, and followed him to the door. We headed into the house. No meows at the door, no pacing to be let in -- we knew what we'd done, and it was time to get back inside. I opened the door, and he walked in with me.

I went to the food area and threw him a handful of dry kibble to say thanks... he seemed to appreciate that... now we'd wait -- he seemed strangely unperturbed after all that.

I did one more tour of the house, then went and closed the door I'd left open near the alley. I noticed that the motion-sensor light was still on, so I shouted once more.

A few minutes later, Scout appeared out of nowhere in the dining room.

Boo seemed to think that was good enough. I pet her for a minute or two, he sat and watched. I think we'll likely all go back to pretending we don't understand each other. But it was nice to have that moment with my 10 year old friend.

Money is fake. Get that through your head -- it's not real, it's hardly even paper these days. Money isn't real -- it's credit.

You take your money, put it in a bank, they make a record of it -- based on the trust that they are accurate -- you have credit to purchase things up to the amount you have stored in the bank.

If they bank believes in you, it offers you money from the future of your life so you can buy bigger things now. That's what you think of as credit, but is just monetization of your existing credit bearing ability.

Now, if you take money from you in the future, it's a pretty dumb thing to spend it on things that don't retain value. Like just about everything in your house, your car, and everything you consume. If you're robbing yourself from the future to buy things that don't retain value -- you're basically making yourself poor in the future.

See -- you can't make more than you're going to make in your life -- that's the limit. Everything you will ever make is what you'll make. So, if you take $1,000 from next year and eat it now, next year, you'll be $1,000 behind.

PLUS, you'll have to pay the people who pulled that time warp for you -- that's interest. So, not only have you taken that money from you in the future, you're also taking money from you again to pay the people who lend you that future funding.

So what can you put your money INTO? There's only one thing you should put your money in -- PAY ATTENTION ...

Things that retain value. That's it. Everything else is noise.

What kinds of things retain value?

A house, for the most part, even with this crisis, retains value or will recover value after the crisis is over.

Real estate, raw dirt of the Earth itself -- retains value.

Stocks in stable companies retain value.

But how, Malcolm, do I find stocks in stable companies? Well, that's the trick isn't it?

Squint into the future -- what companies will most likely still be here? Coke? IBM? Google? Who knows -- that's up to you ... but when you put your money in those things that retain value ... you don't lose it.

The trick is to find those. Not big mondo super stocks that will grow and make you rich -- just ones that won't tank.

...oh, and btw -- stop taking money from your future -- leave it there -- you'll need it.

Aaarrgh ... you'd think it'd make a lot of sense. Take the coolest guy ... put him in a cool place, surrounded by sexy stuff and excited challenges -- add a little life-threatening danger ... and before you know it, you've got a ratings hit.

But when the Fonz stood in California surrounded by beach, preparing to jump the shark ... it was the beginning of the end... an end so great that we all know it now as the term for turning the cool up so loud that everyone suddenly realizes you're just Henry Winkler on water skis.

I'm looking at Apple these days and frankly I'm tripping out a little.

We have the cool guy in the black turtleneck ... surrounded by iPhones, iPods, genius bars and petulantly computer literate kids selling his stuff -- and he goes and decides to go for broke.

He slaps the Macbook line on one foot, the Macbook Pro line on the other, grabs a rope behind Richie driving the Macbook Air speedboat and goes for broke to jump the dangerous economic disaster -- because he's the Fonz ... he can do it.

But you know what? Even if these new machines sell -- they're ugly as hell and basically just suck.

Apple's taken a beautiful set of monochromatically tuned computers and turned them all into a single set of black on silver garbage blocks of solid aluminum -- with the only seeming saving grace being that the MBP has dual video engines in it.

That's it.

As a constant buyer of Apple hardware -- I'm annoyed to the point of walkaway that they'd opt to radically veer from their successful lines and try this arrogant garbage.

The new lines are ugly. They are mandatorily glossy screen (goodbye, working under flourescent lights, the sun, near windows), and taken AWAY their signature statement -- so easy we only have one button.

Instead, they have "no button" ... oh wait ... yes there IS a button -- it's just been swept under the rug of a flat trackpad ... it's not even tap -- it's an actual clicking button without edges or physical features of any kind. Ooooh, that's impressive ... almost like making ALL the doors on a line of cars without handles. Sure is sexy, until you try to use it.

Pathetic.

Dear Apple -- please don't jump the shark -- we're all sorry ... we'll go back to buying more stuff -- please stop listening to whatever new division or division head has drawn you down this almost Microsoft-ian tone-deaf line of design.