Various & Sundry: If there's a common thread, I don't see it.

I'm puttering today, which is wonderful. And the puppy is wrestling with one of the other dogs so I can sit here and blog, which is also wonderful. So let's see what's been piling up, here...

[By the way, if you're wondering where I get all this stuff, these are some of the things I tweet throughout the week.]

Since I started the week preaching about money, I thought this discussion on whether getting rich is worth it was an excellent companion piece. The answers from some very wealthy people are thoughtful, honest, and actually very tender.

Moving from money to peacemaking, the Pastor's Wife writes about how her husband, who had plans for establishing peace in  the Middle East, had a more difficult time of it when it came to pairing mismatched socks. Ironically, the one comment on this article so far is one woman's solution to not losing socks, which was rather missing the point.

I thought this plan to help WWII prisoners escape using doctored Monopoly games was mighty clever. I just wonder if any prisoners actually found all of the maps, compasses, files, and money hidden there.

Although this article is called The Science of Snobbery, what it really says to me is that we use all of our senses to draw conclusions about our experiences, and we are much more dependent upon context than we want to believe. I tell you one thing, I'm sure I'd be among those fooled if I were given a white wine with red food coloring in it. And another conclusion to draw: how and under what circumstances you present yourself makes a difference, whether or not it should.

The headline on this post was "Guy trying to call out 'Fake Geek Girl' gets destroyed."

The comments beneath the post suggest that many comic book geeks of the male persuasion are sensitive flowers who are hurt if you don't respect their geek bona fides when they don't know one obscure comic book character.

How interesting.

Lots of good obituaries this week, as always, because there are lots of interesting people out there. In particular, I liked the one I saw this morning for Spider, New York's Oldest Cabby, who died at the age of 94.

While it was unclear exactly when Mr. Footman first obtained his hack license, David Yassky, the commissioner of the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission, said it was “only a few short years” after the modern taxi industry was born in 1937, when the city’s board of aldermen first began limiting the number of hack licenses granted in the city.

That's a whole lot of city driving.