Day 2: Dumb, Dumber, and Dumerest

I was worried about not having something to write about, but then I read CityWendy's latest post.

It got me thinking about the things that people do in the name of making money.

Being a fan of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and having read the "Trilogy in Five Parts" several times, I read Wendy's post and immediately thought of the part of the story when the main characters discover something very disturbing about how the earth was populated.

Apparently several spaceships were filled with hundreds of people with all sorts of white collar beaurocratic jobs. The people from their planet had decided that they didn't need beaurocrats anymore and figured that that the best way to get rid of them was to tell them that their planet was going to be destroyed, and that they had been chosen to travel via spaceships to a new world so they could prepare it for everybody else. Convinced that they were absolutely necessary to help things run properly, they happily got into the spaceships and allowed themselves to be put into suspended animation until they arrived at their new home. Of course, there was no new planet.

Unfortunately for the earth, their ships crashed there, where they woke up, and proceeded to hold meetings about what to do next. One of their meetings was about what to use as currency. Some argued that leaves would be great currency, since they were all over the place. Others disagreed because with so much "money" growing on trees, it would have no meaning, to which a third group countered that if they burned down all of the trees, their leaves would be worth more.

This book is ridiculous, but I still love it.

It's a work of fiction, but we definitely have jobs out there that don't make sense to me at all.

For example: the people who stand around watching the hundreds of travelers stream in and out of the Underground stations here in London. Today there were 7 workers all standing around, watching us intently for... ah hell, I have no idea. I think they spent more time standing there looking important and suspicious than actually doing real work (unless that IS their work).

Employment agencies and Flat-finding agencies are other examples of this silliness. I'll never understand how our society has managed to make it impossible for people with good qualifications to require one of these agencies to find themselves a job or a place to live. We have no choice either - you need their services now if you want to find a place to live in London that's decent. Employment agencies find you work, then take away part of your paycheck. The people who work in these places "find" you jobs - at your cost and the cost of the company looking for you. They are the ultimate 'middle-man' and make tons of money just be being there.

Maybe I'm just bitter because I have no money right now...

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Then you've got the Reseach Companies who employ people to tell us things like:

• Most brides take 7 to 12 months to plan their wedding
  
• An average cob of corn has 800 kernels in 16 rows
• The average lead pencil can draw a line that is almost 35 miles long, or be used to write about 50,000 words
  
• Eating too much junk food will make you fat / unhealthy
• Exercise is good for you
• Women talk more than men
  
• Global warming is because of pollution
• Blue-eyed men prefer blue-eyed women
• Being unmarried can shorten a man's lifespan by ten years
• In New York City, approximately 1,600 people are bitten by other humans annually.
• The average person: falls asleep in 7 minutes, laughs 15 times a day, and drinks 16,000 gallons of water in their lifetime
• The size of a raindrop is around 0.5 mm - 2.5 mm, and they fall from the sky on average 21 feet per second.
• Approximately sixty circus performers have been shot from cannons. At last report, thirty-one of these have been killed.
• On average, there are 333 squares of toilet paper on a roll.

Forget teaching! I'm gonna make money counting stripes on watermelons or how many varieties of snowflakes there are. When I get tired of the snow, I'll move on to figuring out how many grains of sand are on the average beach...

Info courtesty of:
http://www.corsinet.com/trivia
www. amusingfacts.com
www.angelfire.com/amusingfacts
http://www.indianchild.com/amazing_facts.htm
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Keeping to the theme of wasting money, here is a list of things that I can't believe people actually have to pay money for:

* The privilege of driving on certain roads
* Listening to online radio stations
* To walk into a club
* International money transfers (as much as 20 British pounds if you go through a bank, yet the money changing place around the corner only charges 5 pounds)
* Owning a television (this does not mean cable - it's literally just for the TV)


And the absolute WINNER of the most ridiculous thing to pay money for:
* Using a PUBLIC TOILET (Yep, in London, it's a pound per pee)

I'm sure there are more examples, but I can't think of them right now.
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Another long day is over. Now I just need to get through Friday and I get a couple of days of rest to try and get over this cold I have that just will not go away. Plus I get some quality time with Jeremy and hopefully a good book.

Today the song being played in the Underground was "You're Just Too Good to Be True", which immediately brought a huge smile to my face (love that song) and once again I couldn't help but softly sing along as I made my way home.

I'm hoping to see Banjo Man (exactly what you're thinking), so I can get a picture of him rocking out in the tunnel with his funky instrument. I'll be sure to post it if he's around and I remember to pull out my camera.


Until tomorrow...