The Easy-Does-It Quiz
Posted on March 5, 2015 by CHC   ᐃ ᐁ

The 100 Billionth Person presents The Easy-Does-It Quiz.  Answer these questions for a chance to win — get ready — 100 billion dollars!  That’s right, you can be worth more than Bill Gates if you answer these easy-does-it questions.  No annoying Will Shortz puzzles.  No ridiculous Survivor-style challenges.  Just a few easy-does-it questions and you can be on your way to winning 100 billion dollars!  Ready?  Here we go.

(Warning: these easy questions get a little tougher as we go along, so be prepared.)

1. Remove one letter from DOWNTOWN ABBEY, a massive church in the middle of a city,  to obtain the name of a popular British soap opera, without rearranging any other letters.

2. Remove one letter from CROWBOY, the famous Nova Scotia science-fiction character, to obtain the name of the traditional hero of the 19th-century American West, without rearranging any other letters.

3.  Remove one letter from GEORGE W BLUSH, a man who is easily embarassed, to obtain the name of a famous man who was not embarassed at all by his incompetent and arrogant presidency.  Without rearranging any other letters.

4.  Remove one letter from SKYDIVER, an insane man who jumps out of an airplane and hopes that his parachute works, to obtain the name of the insane man who jumped out and his parachute didn’t work.  Without rearranging any other letters.

5.  Remove one letter from BROKER, a man who promises to make you rich if you buy the stocks he recommends, to obtain the word that may describe your financial situation after you follow his advice.  Without rearranging any other letters.

6. Remove one letter from REMOTE, the device we use to control entertainment devices, to obtain what we should be doing instead of sitting on our asses hoping to be entertained.

7.  Remove one letter from JEEESUS, without rearranging any other letters.  Now remove another letter, and another, and one more, to obtain the name of an extra-wide shoe.

8.  Remove one letter from HOKEY-POKEY.  Now put it back in.  Now take it back out.  Shake it all about, then turn yourself around, to obtain what it’s all about.

9.  Remove one letter from MIN, to obtain the postal abbreviation for one of the states of the United States, without rearranging any other letters.  Since you are so smart and such a special friend, I know you will get this question right.

10.  Remove one letter from my MAILBOX and see if you get arrested.

If you think you have the correct answers to all ten questions, just follow these easy-does-it instructions to get your 100 billion dollars!  Write your answers on an 8″ x 11″ sheet of plain white paper, then scan the sheet, convert it to a PDF file and send the PDF file as an attachment to an ASCII text message to Bill Gates @gatesfoundation. (Important!  Make sure your message is no longer than 140 characters, otherwise it will crash his computer.)  If Bill Gates reads your message and thinks that you really need help, he may decide to send you 100 billion dollars!  Wow!

No need to thank me.  There’s no END in FRIEND here at The 100 Billionth Person.  Oops… well, there is, isn’t there.

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A Letter to My Shareholders
Posted on March 3, 2015 by CHC   ᐃ ᐁ

Warren Buffett, the second-richest man in America after Bill Gates, has once again made headlines with his financial folk wisdom, as dispensed in his annual letter to shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway.  (I think the man is a Democrat but you never know.  He is in favor of the Keystone XL Pipeline, whereas I am on the fence, and President Obama seems to be  playing cat-and-mouse with states’ rights of all things.)  Buffett donates a lot of face-time to CNBC, a network not exactly known for sharp-eyed criticism of American business, and he uses that forum to promote his company and his worldview.  I watched him on CNBC this morning and read his shareholder letter over lunch.  I admire Buffett’s philanthropy and appreciate his plain-spokenness, but I just can’t relate to capitalism in the abstract, the game he appears to enjoy the most.

All this is prelude to my own shareholder letter — written to you — but unlike Buffett I will make it brief.  Ever since I solicited subscribers to this blog, I have been painfully aware of the need to give you, my readers, something to make it worth your while to click the link and see what I’m up to.  This, however, has made me more cautious and less spontaneous.  It has made my posts longer, more substantial (though I have tried to retain some of the experimental flavor) and decidedly less frequent.  I don’t know whether this is a good thing or a bad thing.  Attention spans, after all, are a terrible thing to waste.

I write these posts not knowing who will read them, while imagining a personal connection with those of you who do.  I know, sort of weird.  Not as weird as the ending to Gone Girl, and certainly not as weird as Mr. Spindle — Neil Patrick Harris — in his underwear on stage at the Oscars.  But I do want to give you a reason to return and read the next post, and maybe the one after that, hopefully with a comment or interaction along the way.

This raises the distasteful notion of consumerism.  I have to compete for your eyeballs, your time and attention, against all of your other worthy pursuits.  Should I try to win the competition, or should I just write what I fancy and let the chips fall as they may?

My answer: I need to let the chips fall where they may.  After all, it’s not as if my writing longer posts has produced a spate of comments and scores of new readers.  If this is to be an enjoyable endeavor for all, I need the freedom to — on occasion — waste your time with my capriciousness.  This is a freedom Warren Buffett does not have and cannot afford.

Buffett advises his shareholders to stop worrying about day-to-day changes in the market and invest for the long term — 1o, 20, 30 years.  I have similar advice.  I ask that you read this blog for the long term.  Some days you will feel rewarded, and other days you will scratch your head.  But over the long haul, for patient readers, I think this will be worth your investment.  You can always change your mind and buy a share of Buffett’s company, Berkshire Hathaway, for about $220,000.  The choice is yours.  Thanks for reading.

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Thoughts at Large: 24
Posted on February 11, 2015 by CHC   ᐃ ᐁ

• Some people have hot-sauce bravado.  They make a big deal about the amount of heat they can take.  But I do them one better.  I put hot sauce on dry ice.  I abuse myself at both ends of the temperature scale.

• For a long time, I told people that I didn’t start growing up until I was in my 30s.  These days, I’m thinking I didn’t start growing up until I was in my 50s.  I figure I will approach my 80s with the thought that I stalled out somewhere around 60.

• Dogs are smart, man.  If I had a dog, I would name it Sandpaper.  That way, if it said “Ruff,” I know it would be talking about itself.

• Last Christmas, my daughter gave me a gift called Brix — a chocolate for wine.  Well, this evening, I was having some wine (I was having it, and I still am) and I decided to open up the Brix.  It is, as the name implies, a brick: an imposing one-inch by two-inch by four-inch block of dark chocolate.  It even comes with instructions: “Holding the Brix bar in place with one hand, insert the tip of a sharp utility knife to fracture Brix into bite size morsels.”  This is exactly what I want to do, hold onto a block of hard chocolate, grab a sharp utility knife and stab at it with the hand that just put down a wine glass.

• The first concussion one sustains playing football doesn’t make the rest more bearable.  So why do some people insist that every punishment of life makes you stronger?

• I have invented a new smartphone app.  It’s called Panhandler.  The free version displays a nagging ad that asks you to send me money.  You can turn off the ad by paying me $2.99 for the premium version.

• I am going to produce a new award show. The awards will go to the most useless things you can imagine.  Nominees for the first award include shaving, raking leaves, mosquitoes, network news anchors, and reading comments on the internet.  I call them The Britneys.

• Until now, I had an unwritten rule that Thoughts at Large should include nine thoughts.  Now that I’ve written down the rule, I’m going to stop at eight just for spite.  Nobody tells me what to do.

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