Shopping for pain reliever on a recent sunny morning, Ulrike Berger giddily counted her coins and approached the pharmacy counter. She had just enough to make the purchase: 31.09 deutsche marks. "They just feel nice to hold again," the 55-year-old preschool teacher marveled, cupping the grubby coins fished from the crevices of her castaway living room sofa. "And they're still worth something." Germans have yet to give up on the euro. But as Europe's debt crisis rages on, many are indulging their nostalgia for the abandoned mark by shopping with it again—and retailers are happily going along..."Everything about the D-mark is nicer—the look, the feel," Dorothee Reess, a retired secretary, said. Indeed, compared with the euro—which deliberately avoids images deemed too national—the mark bears elaborate portraits of German writers, artists and scientists, from the composer Clara Schumann (on the 100 mark note) to the Brothers Grimm (on the 1,000 mark bill). The euro, on the other hand, "is more like a big stew with every vegetable," Ms. Reess said. "Some of them aren't so tasty." Others cite a more mundane reason for so many lingering marks: Many Germans, renowned as savers, squirreled away so much cash that they simply forgot where they put it. In Gaiberg, customers arrived with marks found under washing machines, in dusty record album covers and old purses, even in a couple of shoe boxes unearthed in a church rectory closet. "I couldn't fathom how people could just leave money lying around," said Gaiberg native Helga Weis. That was before she prodded her husband, as their 50th anniversary approached last year, to finally get rid of his wedding suit. A last check of the pockets uncovered an envelope with nearly 300 marks, a long forgotten gift Mr. Weis had tucked away at the reception that day in 1961. Five decades later, the rediscovered cash was enough to buy the cakes for their anniversary celebration from Gaiberg's mark-accepting bakery. [WSJ]
Swamped
Summertime, and the livin' is easy. The NBA is through its first round of playoffs, there hasn't been a college board of a hundred games in over two months, and football is so far away that HBO still has a casting call out for Hard Knocks. Baseball's the main attraction, and baseball bettors are gentlemen and so old school the periodic table only has about 50 elements. How did we get here? It was one of those darkest-before-the-dawn moments, that moment that feels like it's darkest-before-it's-totally-black. I strolled in on the last day of the NBA regular season, a Thursday, fashionably late. He asked me where the hell I had been. I always show up late on summer Thursdays, and leave early. There's little baseball, and little else. But Faithful Assistant pointed to a screen and said “I'm fucking buried on the Wizards game”. The Washington Wizards are a bad basketball team. They were matched up against the Miami Heat, a very good basketball team. The Heat have LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and that guy who Shaq said looks like Ru Paul. Except the market said the Heat didn't give a flying fuck about that game, and the Wizards were 8-point favorites. I asked him if maybe the Heat were the favorites. No, said Faithful Assistant, it was the Wizards. And our clients, all of whom fancy themselves smarter than the average bear, had bet $25K on the Wizards, -7.5, -8, -8.5, -9.5. So dump it, I said. We can lay off 50K with one phone call, usually more. “I can't. He's got jury duty.” What was this world coming to, bookmakers being summoned to sit on juries. So I told him to keep calling every half hour or so. In the meantime I'd handle any more Wizards bets myself. They kept calling for the Wizards. Over and over and over again. The market was -8, and I was dealing it -10 and getting buckets of abuse. “-10? Get outta here. ESPN says they're -8.” I quickly broke my clientele into two groups. The clients I didn't care about, I told them “OK, fine. Call up ESPN and give them your bet.” Some of them screamed. Several questioned my parentage. Most of them laid -10. My better clients got better treatment. I explained how the book was hopelessly one-sided and my layoff guy was “in court”. (I let them imagine he was the guy in the orange jumpsuit, not somebody who would be leaving by the front door.) I took their bet at -10, but told them that if and when my guy came through, I'd call them back and give them the -8. They thanked me like I was doing them a favor. Great. The first people who weren't angry all day. The pros called too. One nibbled on the Heat +8 at even money, but the rest passed. Court let out at 4:30. My guy didn't make the jury: something about his wife's job getting in the way. He took our bet for all we could eat at -7.5 and I started calling the clients back changing their -10 to not -8 but -7.5. People were thanking me as if I'd given them a kidney. Faithful Assistant's quick tally when the game tipped off saw him scream “We cannot lose!” I pointed out that while we would indeed win money, that wasn't the same as being invulnerable. For the sake of peace, love, and client happiness, we needed these lowly Wizards to win by a pile. Happy customers keep coming back, and there'd be no talk of conspiracies, fixed games off funny betting lines, and so on. The Wizards rolled. Up by 25 at half, they cruised to a 34-point win. The Heat played their B team all night. (The Tepid?) No LeBron, no Wade, no Ru Paul, no problem. The clients were ecstatic. One of them even sent us flash-frozen steaks. It's actually helped us change the summer baseball operation. Now when people call up looking for a team at such-and-such a price, if we don't have it and they're willing to leave the order open, we take the order and call them back when we fill it. A good client now calls us his “betting con-au-pairs”. I think he means “concierges”, but I don't speak French. Whatever. It's working out.
What If Mark Zuckerberg Wore A 3-Piece Suit And A Monocle To The Facebook Roadshow?
What if Mark Zuckerberg wore cutoff jean shorts and a mesh Hawaii 69 football jersey to the Facebook roadshow? What if Mark Zuckerberg wore a Mr. Peanut costume to the Facebook roadshow? What if Mark Zuckerberg wore a tuxedo tee-shirt to the Facebook roadshow? What if Mark Zuckerberg dressed as Robocop for the IPO roadshow? What if Mark Zuckerberg wore Crocs to the Facebook roadshow? What if Mark Zuckerberg entered the roadshow as a member of the Lollipop Guild? What if Mark Zuckerberg wore Capri pants to the Facebook roadshow? What if Mark Zuckerberg wore a wetsuit to the Facebook roadshow? What if Mark Zuckerberg wore a Lacoste polo with an argyle sweater wrapped around his neck to the Facebook roadshow? What if Mark Zuckerberg wore the Hannibal Lechter mask from Silence of the Lambs to the Facebook roadshow? Would things have turned out differently? If Zuckerberg had left the hoodie at home? One guy says yes. "I felt that had Mr. Zuckerberg worn a jacket instead of a hoodie (showing them that he respected them enough to "dress up"), he would have made a statement to them that he cares about their needs, and will act in their best interest. He chose not to make that statement, and the current share price demonstrates that investors have chosen not to support Facebook shares. All of this is iterative. Had Facebook issued 10 million shares instead of 421 million, the stock would probably be much higher. However, had Mr. Zuckerberg worn a jacket and reassured investors that he is aligned with their expectations, perhaps more people would be stepping in to buy now." So...yeah.
