If I was a foreign nation, I’d look at America and point out that the penny is one of the most outdated ideas in modern history. It’s useless, more costly to make than its worth, a time waster, a mess, and an example of a society that is not progressive.

The Penny

I would never call you a bozo for buying BitCoin because the concept is intriguing. Unfortunately it’s backed by nothing. When currency is backed by nothing, volatility and uncertainty occur. What I don’t quite understand about Bitcoin is that it’s still measured in dollars. Your Bitcoin has no value. It’s converted into a US dollar. So the idea is that you have a digital currency, tied to the US dollar, that your trusting random exchanges with your money. Think about that. You give $1,000 of your hard earned dollars to an exchange. Some clown on their computer mines your transaction for a transaction fee that they earn. Let’s remember that there are hundreds of thousands of transactions currently happening and the ones that pay the highest transaction fees are being mined first. So if you aren’t paying much for the transaction fee, there is quite the possibility that you can’t sell when you want to. Beside that, you now have a wallet with bitcoin in it. You can’t go to the coffee shop and spend it unless they accept it which i’d guess 9 out of 10 don’t. So what can you do with it? You can gamble it on Bovada. You can hold onto it and hope the value goes up so that you can sell and get…US dollars. The idea behind Bitcoin was that there were no fees associated with using it but that’s all changed now that the concept is wide spread. Bitcoin has a place. Where that is, I don’t know. I do know that at $10,000 a BitCoin, and if I owned a BitCoin, I wouldn’t be surprised to see it go to $5,000 real fast once people start understanding that big money can leave at any time and kill the valuation. At that point, you don’t want to be left holding the bag. That’s why I see all these people predicting BitCoin can hit $100,000, how much BitCoin do you think they own? Feel free to correct my assessment in the comments. This was the most interesting comment I read about it, “in fact, one could argue that bitcoin’s rising valuation is just a bet that its most dubious uses—say, avoiding taxes or laundering money—will keep rising.”

Surveys show that the vast majority of bitcoin owners are buying and holding bitcoin to exchange them for dollars. Let’s be clear: If the predominant use case for any asset is to buy it, wait for it to appreciate, and then to exchange it for dollars, it is a terrible currency. That is how people treat baseball cards or stamps, not money. For most of its owners, bitcoin is not a currency. It is a collectible—a digital baseball card, without the faces or stats.

I wrote this intro about BitCoin because it brings me to the penny – the most useless piece of zinc on the planet. It costs 1.7 cents to produce a penny. Pro advocates, like the zinc manufacturers, argue that they keep pricing low because without the penny, rounding would occur. The penny also pays tribute to Honest Abe. Finally, they raise millions of dollars of charity with their penny drives. Start shaking your head now.

Here is a picture of how many pennies I have. #humblebrag

I’d guess there are about 500 of them. That’s 5 dollars worth of pennies that I’ve accumulated in 6 months. I haven’t used a penny since I was 10 when I was buying dum dum’s from Maple Glen Pharmacy. I can’t think of one time I would ever use a penny. All they are good for is getting stuck in my jeans and falling out of my pockets. There is no logical reason to keep them. It actually makes me irate when I see them lying around because the time it takes me to pick it up is actually negative EV. Time to bar the penny.

I’m going to give some thoughts that have evolved throughout my business career.

Day 1 – What’s an order?

Day 100 – How much money are we making on this order?

Day 250 – I see how we are making money, how can we make more money?

Day 1,500 – This advertising is working, how do we keep spending prudently?

Day 3,000 – We are getting a good amount of customers, but we have to stop wasting time on the wrong customers.

Day 4,500 – Fuck you wrong customer, we aren’t selling you.

I’m sure there can be about a thousand more revelations I could describe throughout my career, but this is where I am currently. I have been working the same job for coming up on 13 years and I don’t think this is too far off when you start learning what is important.

You can’t be successful selling a ketchup Popsicle to a woman in white gloves. Ketchup Popsicle? Narrowing down what industry you can be successful in, what products you can sell into that industry, and then who to sell to is the only way to see growth.

This is a scary time we are living in. Take all the shootings on the reg, Hollywood inappropriateness that keeps exposing itself, and overall madness that occurs on a regular basis. I’m not sure if this has been happening for the last century, and we all didn’t have cameras to record it, or if it’s the way the way society has evolved. This observation truly makes me scratch my head.

I have a 4 minute commute. It’s short, sweet, and simple. What could possibly happen in 4 minutes? I haven’t noticed this in past years, but I swear to god, people are trying to get hit by my car. They cross streets without looking both ways. Head down on their phone and crossing streets aimlessly. People expect you to see them and throw no caution to the wind. Nate Berger in college used to have the saying “don’t break stride”. I thought it was the epitome of stupidity. These people must know Nate.

Pedestrian’s are bad but biker’s are worse. They will ride 5 mph in the MIDDLE OF THE ROAD. I understand bikers who are trucking it, moving near the speed limit for a short period of time. These bikers I see nowadays are asking to get hit so they can sue. They WANT to get hit. There are only 2 things I can think of:
1) Life is so miserable they want to get hit so they can end up in the hospital, get taken care of and waste tax payer dollars, collect disability, and sue.
2) They have small brains.

Have I hit a person yet? I have not but it gets closer every day. The phone makes it bad. The lack of caring, or dirty intentions, makes it worse.

It was my birthday on Monday and I hid the notification from Facebook to avoid all the cucks wishing me happy birthday. Properly used, Sam? I don’t need recognition or well wishes for aging. I’m sure there are people out there who look forward or relish the praising from strangers for getting older, but not me. Recognize me for actual accomplishments by telling me you enjoy reading the blog or how I cost you hundreds of dollars betting on the Giants. That has meaning to me. Happy Birthday?!? That’s a clown remark.

That’s not to say that I won’t wish people happy birthday who I know still derive happiness from such an event. I honestly don’t give a shit if you did or didn’t wish me a happy birthday. I probably don’t know when your birthday is either so don’t feel bad. As you age you turn more into a scrooge because you’ve done it before. As you start to get tired of doing it, you put down others who aren’t tired yet. Pretty common I’d guess.

Lock that chimp up!

Figured I’d chime in on everyone and their mother coming out against some celebrity fondling their dong or beaver. There’s a major difference between a current event and what happened 30 years ago. This isn’t saying that what happened 30 years ago is ok, it’s that if it bothered you so much then, that was the time to speak up. Not now when all your trying to do is get publicity and make money off it with the “pain and suffering”. This is what seems to be happening daily because a celebrity toeing sexual harassment boundaries happened a million times over the time span of “celebrity”.

Celebrity Examples

Top 5 Movie of All Time

Andy Dick had this to say:
I might have kissed somebody on the cheek to say goodbye and then licked them. That’s my thing—I licked Carrie Fisher at a roast. It’s me being funny. I’m not trying to sexually harass people.

Of course I’m going to proposition people. I’m single, depressed, lonely and trying to get a date. They can just say no, and they probably did and then I was done.

Am I the only one who thinks that this is normal behavior from Andy? It’s not right, but what are you seriously expecting from this guy? You want to lock him away so it never happens again? Is this worse than shooting someone or robbing them? Keep it in perspective.

Moving on to Kevin Spacey

*His
What movie?

Kevin Spacey loves to meet straight men at parties and events, and use his celebrity to lure them to after parties where he gets them drunk and high, and then suddenly tries to blow them. He’s another Bill Cosby. He’s well known in Hollywood for harassing male staff on productions. And he famously made a false police report a few years back after he was assaulted by one of the many men he’s tried to blow. He picks his victims perfectly, because what straight man would want to be famous worldwide for accusing Kevin Spacey of a sexual assault? And the staff he harasses on productions are too afraid of destroying their careers to say anything. Kevin Spacey is a disgusting scumbag.

Another Spacey Story

Hitler of Kevin Spacey?

“I went up to order a drink and Kevin came up to me and put his arm around me. He was telling me to come with him, to leave the bar. He put his hand on my crotch forcefully and grabbed my whole package.”

“This designates ownership.”

The Internet Reacts

Adam Sandler With the Knee Grab

Is this that wrong? I don’t see it. The girl in this spot is WAY overreacting. He probably thinks she’s joking by the way he goes back to it. I honestly don’t even know what to think. It’s not like he’s getting sexual gratification and he’s a married man, so I’m not sure what type of moves he could ever be making in this scenario with people watching all around and this being a public video. This girl is someone who seems like they’d have no fun…ever.

Results

Rose McGown came out against Harvey Weinstein saying he raped her. He probably did based off of all the other people coming forward. How did that work out? Now she has a warrant our for her arrest on drug possession 8 months after it occurred. She says it’s a “load of horseshit” which I’m sure it is. 50 Cent said it best, “You shouldn’t throw stones if you live in a glass house, And if you got a glass jaw you should watch your mouth ,‘Cause I’ll break your face.”  This is how she dresses to award shows.

Harvey is a monster and I’d never side with his actions, but this comes to mind:

“The girl says “Oh uh-uh, wait a minute! Wait a minute! Just because I’m dressed this way does not make me a whore!” Which is true, Gentlemen, that is true. Just because they dress a certain way doesn’t mean they are a certain way. Don’t even forget it. But ladies, you must understand that is fucking confusing. It just is. Now that would be like me, Dave Chappelle, the comedian, walking down the street in a cop uniform. Somebody might run up on me saying, “Oh, thank God. Officer, help us! Come on. They’re over here. Help us!” “Oh-hoh! Just because I’m dressed this way does not make me a police officer!” See what I mean? All right, ladies, fine. You are not a whore. But you are wearing a whore’s uniform.”

Rape and sexual assault is wrong. Putting your hand on a woman’s knee during an interview can’t be a federal offense. If a girl put their hand on my knee, I’d be happy, not blowing my rape whistle. Coming forward after it happened is understandable if its pain that someone has placed on you and you’ve lived with years of anguish. What bothers me is the publicity. The people who are doing it for the wrong reasons are the problem because there are so many scenarios where you can say you’ve been sexually assaulted. I probably got drunk and wrote on Tinder to some girl that “I was looking for some action.” Is that wrong? Can written words be used against you? What if I said in person to some girl a revolting, advancing sentence? Now we’re toeing the line. And god forbid if I said that same sentence and touched her shoulder. What happens then?

Judgement and situational awareness have to be taken into considering when these types of accusations are being thrown around haphazardly. There are two sides to every story. If you’re at a party and get black out drunk, how much of the blame would you deserve for not being in control of yourself? To the people who read this and say that I’m taking this way too lightly, I get where you’re coming from. No one thinks this is a topic that shouldn’t be taken seriously. However, society is going down a bad path right now where lies and accusations rule the roost and I’m not sure how you can prevent that from happening. It’s probably been happening for decades, but with the internet and communication changing our world, be prepared for more of this to continue.

Twitter’s Search

I’ve written about this before so you’d think Twitter would fix it with enough influential people complaining. That was a joke for the people who take life too seriously. I like Twitter to stay up to date with the latest info from people I like info from. For instance, I like Evan Silva’s fantasy work so I’ll search him and see what podcasts or info he’s sharing. When I want to find his latest post, I’ll use the search function and type in E-V and his name will pop up and I’ll go to click it. Twitter than lowers his result and brings up other potential searches at the exact time I’m trying to click on Silva which results on me clicking on all news related to Evan Turner. It’s extremely frustrating because I KNOW this is going to happen yet for some reason I’m instinctively clicking on what I want as soon as I can. Please for the love of god, fix this.

Notifications

I’m a notification Nazi. I know we’re not supposed to use Nazi in today’s age, but find me a better N word that goes along with what I’m describing. Outlook is probably the best example, but I notice it with SnapChat too. My # of notifications has to be 0. When I see a text message and don’t click on it and it still says 1, I get annoyed. I’ll go back in and get it to 0. This is because my brain is wired so that I’m not missing what’s being sent to me. It’s a sense of responsibility that I respond to people who are trying to interact with me. Now you know that if I don’t response it’s either 1) I don’t know the answer 2) I don’t want to respond 3) I don’t know how to respond. This can obviously get annoying as you can feel that you’re at the beckon of your phone, but in today’s age, that’s the way it is. The reason I’m writing this one is because I have a notification from Team SnapChat that I don’t give two shits about. Since I won’t check it, it won’t go away. Now I’m annoyed. So go be a loser and look through my apps and find something incriminating.

IPhone 10 Face Recognition

Sorry in advance, Evan. I’ve been reading that the latest IPhone 10 will have face recognition to unlock your phone. This means that instead of typing in a password, you look at your phone to unlock it. Here is my reaction (if I were a girl) when reading this feature:

Aside from thinking that password protecting is complete waste of time, and probably more detrimental than positive (unless you’re hiding dick pics or two timing), having my face unlock my phone sounds 100% useless. Why do I need this? I can’t think of 1 scenario in the last decade where someone has had my phone and used it against me. First of all, people I don’t know never have access to my phone. I’m also one of the drunkest people out there and my phone doesn’t randomly get lost where some evil person is going to steal it and then use all my personal information against me. Now you can call me an idiot for not locking my phone, but in all seriousness, if it hasn’t happened 1 time in 10 years where I’ve wished I’ve had this feature, why would I need it now? I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m in the minority here. I also think insurance is a ripoff and taxes pay for politician’s yachts.

Last night I got a taxi from 13th and Chestnut to 3rd and Brown for $8.00. The taxi driver was expedient and a professional driver. The car was what it was. This was after paying $8.76 to go from Kenshin Asian Diner (3rd and Spring Garden) to Smith’s (19th & Market) in an UberX that smelled like cat urine. I know this will come as a shock to some people, but I’m almost starting to lean towards taxi’s and here’s why:

• 

  ’16 Stats

  I can’t say for certain, but it does feel like the taxi’s have lowered their prices. I have no data to back this up. The chart to the right, made in ’16, shows considerably higher fees for taxi’s.

• Taxi drivers are legitimately better drivers. I’ve been in contact with more Uber drivers who are fresh off the boat who don’t even know what side of the road they should be on. Exaggeration obviously, but a random civilian vs a “driver” is noticeable to me.
• Getting into a taxi is easier than calling an Uber, especially in Center City. Calling Uber’s in crowded areas can be a nightmare. Jumping into a taxi takes 2 seconds.
• Watching the Uber driver get to me is absurd. There will be 10 cars on the map, I confirm the ride, and then the guy who accepts is 6 minutes away and traveling in the wrong direction. Standing like a shithead waiting for an Uber is up on my list of not fun things to do.
• They have added the “tip” function into the Uber app which I’m not sure is good or bad. It was cheaper because you didn’t have to tip.

Another reason I wrote this post is because you don’t know that driver’s mental state with Uber. I had a ride to the airport last week with a guy who has given 3,500 rides and he told 1,500 have been to the airport. He was driving up 2nd and got to Market, right where the entrance to 95 South is, and he drove passed it, made a loop around whatever hotel that was, came down Front, and then got onto that entrance. If you’ve given 1,500 rides to the airport and don’t know where that entrance is, there is something wrong with you. He was a nice guy with a 4.9 rating but he must have been on crazy meds or was just plain nuts. He kept talking to me about the 1981 Eagles team that went to the Super Bowl like I knew what he was talking about.

This isn’t an Uber bashing post or a Pro-Taxi post. It’s to point out that there is a place and time for both services. For people who rave about Uber, I’m sometimes not sure we are using the same service. I tend to get along with Taxi drivers as well so maybe I’m a bit biased to how bad people perceive the Taxi to be. My Uber rating is 4.7 which is an internal self measuring device that carries no real world rate. What’s yours?

I must be coming down with dementia because I’ve had this bizarre brain blip where I can’t remember if I did something. For instance, if I put shampoo on, I’ll put the shampoo down and then immediately wonder if I’m on to the conditioner phase. This happens with deodorant all the time with me. So I end up going through twice as much product because I’d rather be safe than sorry. It makes me feel like a total bonehead and I wouldn’t compare it to OCD, it’s a mental lapse. Anyone else have this problem?