My Father Invented The Debit Card

He just didn't know it. Born in 1908, a first generation American, he lived through the depression and never wanted to owe anyone anything. He paid cash for every car he owned. He paid cash for the first three houses we lived in -- never had a mortgage til we moved to a town that was too rich for us.

He carried an American Express card, but mostly paid cash. When he and my Mom went on a trip, he would take several thousand (i.e. two or three) dollars out of his savings and send them

to American Express. Only then could he comfortably use the card on their vacation.

There you have it. The original debit card.

Forget those in vitro flashcards!

Get Juicy Juice instead. If your tired of shoving those little flashcards up your veejayjay (thanks Oprah), you can now wait for your child to make its appearance in the human world before you

have to start teaching him to read. In fact, all s/he has to do is drink Juicy Juice and it will be no time before s/he is at your bedside with a box of Cherrios trying to get "some cholesterol off you."

Nestle -- late to the water game, and I believe we have castigated them for it -- is now producing Juicy Juce that actually says "Brain Development" on the bottle.

Are they nuts?

Charmin-g!

The visual is a small piece of the header of sitorsquat.com

When I sat down to write this blogpost, I thought I was going to write about Charmin's toilet seat covers (5 to a pack) which I saw at the cash register at Long's today. Although I am not one who favors public restrooms, I cannot imagine carrying toilet seat covers around in my purse. Turns out a lot of people do.

So I went to research this unknown-to-me phenonmenon and found the Charmin sponsored site

wwww.sitorsquat.com ---a place you can go to find clean public toilets. Although this seems counterintuitive to selling toilet seat covers, I congratulate Charmin on one of the most ingenious community sites ever. You can : find a toilet . add a toilet.

Straight from the site: http://www.sitorsquat.com/ will help you find a clean public toilet on your mobile phone. Now that's an app I bet people are looking for!

Cool, Blue dog Democrat

Representative Patrick Murphy, Congressman from Pennsylvania, has taken on the task of repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." He has framed the argument rationally, and is taking some of the heat off the Prez by saying congress passed the law, congress must repeal it.

Anyway, I like the guy, and think he is crafting a very smart political brand.

Here he is with a great Hawaiian soldier, Eric Shinseki from Kauai.

P.S. He also knows how to use sports metaphors, unlike the point guard who passes the ball and takes herself out of the game.

How to spell Ironic

After all the news about plastic bottles and landfill issues, Nestle introduces a bottled water --- and gets a gold LEEDS certification for their building, pictured above. Nestle did a lot of things to make the building enviropolitically correct, except for the plastic bottle part.

Here's to your health ????? I(oh yeah, and "attractive" is evidently not part of LEEDs standards)

From Nestle's Website:

Key green features of the Arrowhead plant include:
• Water safeguards – managing the quality of storm water runoff.
• Water efficiency – reduce the need for irrigation by using native and water conserving plants; using low-flow, water-saving fixtures in bathrooms.
• Energy efficiency – high efficiency lighting, HVAC and controls.
• Moveable exterior walls – designed to deconstruct and be reused.
• Constructed wetlands – treat wastewater through natural biologic filtration before the water is recharged to groundwater sources.
• Pollution prevention – parking area is dedicated to bicycle, electric vehicle and carpool users; corrugated paper, plastic, product pallets and other materials are recycled.
• Non-toxic building materials and maintenance – durable, non-toxic materials were selected for the building, with consideration for the materials’ life cycle impacts on water.
• Resource efficiencies – recycled content building materials (over 50 percent as calculated under LEED) were selected for the building. Approximately 60 percent came from local sources, limiting long-haul transportation.
• Waste reduction – more than 75 percent of the building construction waste was salvaged or recycled.
• Indoor environmental quality – indoor spaces are enhanced by innovative space design and sophisticated controls that monitor and regulate interior temperature, humidity, lighting and air quality.