The other day I was told that most blogging is pretty much about linking to things other people have written. I’ve got to get to a meeting now, so I’m leaving you with these:
I am so losing my office Oscar pool
There was an Oscar pool stuck under my office door this morning. It reminded me once again that I have no life.
I have seen none of these movies. None.
I have not seen Atonement. Or Juno, Michael Clayton, No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood.
It’s not that these films don’t appeal to me. I would like little more than to pay …
Trivia Night! answer
On Monday, I asked:
What is almost always the top-selling item in any grocery store?
The answer: bananas. Way to go, comment-poster tomsteuber!
What’s really wild is that tomsteuber is also correct that bananas are the top-selling item at Wal-Mart (as measured by dollar sales). And Wal-Mart, as you may or may not realize, is not only …
$100 a barrel oil, here we go: Part II
One thing people tend to care about a lot when oil gets really expensive is what happens at the gas pump. Gas prices broadly follow the cost of crude, but there’s a lot more that goes into how much a fill-up sets you back. I called up Oil Price Information Service (OPIS), a group that follows fuel costs, and asked them to send me some …
Work at home + high-pressure career = happiness
It sounds like the arithmetic of a delusional person, right? It’s real math for a Chicago couple called the Mayvilles. They’re profiled today in the McClatchy newspapers (I read the piece in Rochester, Minn.’s Post-Bulletin), in what for me was a really uplifting, informative story about people making work work.
The Mayvilles have two …
$100 a barrel oil, here we go
Big news today in commodities: crude oil closed above $100 a barrel for the first time ever.
In the days that follow, you’re going to be hearing a lot about what OPEC will do when it meets on March 5, and maybe some more about Venezuela’s president threatening to cut off exports to the U.S.
Let’s all just remember a few things by way …
I’m ready to fire my parents
In the olden days in my home country, it’s said that poor families used to practice elder-dumping. There was even a designated dumping ground they called the Obasuteyama: literally, Granny-Dumping Mountain. (Don’t believe me? Watch the 1999 film Ikitai.)
I’m ready for a trip to Obasuteyama. With both my parents.
Here’s the situation. …
Correction alert to Asian voter story
A very nice but very distressed gentleman named Ted Fang called me to let me know of a very big mistake in my Time.com story today, “Does Obama Have an Asian problem?” It’s this: his magazine, AsianWeek, not only didn’t endorse Clinton, but it endorsed Obama—on its cover. Ouch. Please read that story here. And Ted, once again, my …
Why we do the stupid things we do
It’s hard to swing a dead cat without hitting a behavioral economist these days. In case you’re one of those people who only reads this blog for the trivia, and you don’t normally follow economics, I’ll explain. Neo-classical economics (i.e., what you learned as a college freshman) assumes that individuals are rational and act in their …
Working parents must report bad nannies
Just read this forum on WSJ.com in which a working mother says she reported what she saw as the troubling behavior of someone else’s nanny. The woman, who says she works in a building with a large common space where nannies and their charges often gather, noticed one pair in particular:
As I watched, the nanny ignored the child, a
…
Now is a sucky time to go for a media job
According to Advertising Age, employment in the sector is at a 15-year low. Take a look at their chart:
Adage.com
Ad Age minces no words: “Get out of media,” writes Bradley Johnson.
U.S. media employment in December fell to a 15-year low (886,900), slammed by the slumping newspaper industry. But employment in
…
Does Obama have an Asian problem?
For answers, I’m directing you to my story posted this morning on Time.com. How’s that for a quickie post.