Tag Archives: printing

I’m putting the Chris back in Christmas

Guys, this year I want to put the Chris back in Christmas. I’m talking about my friend Chris. Chris, are you reading this? I’ll send you a link. I’m really sorry about last Christmas. My friends and I did this Secret Santa, you know like just amongst the friends. I picked Chris, and I thought it would be a really cool to get him a custom t-shirt, it would have said, “Christmas 2012” but “Chris” would be highlighted in red, and, “tmas 2012,” in green.

coldstonegiftcard

That’s what it was supposed to say, but the printers must not have read my order that thoroughly, because it said, “Christ,” in red, with the rest written in green. And yeah, I was so pumped, all patting myself on the back because I got the present done way ahead of time, seriously, like I had this thing mailed to my house not even a week after Thanksgiving. But I never opened it to check the order, so Chris’s surprise at the seemingly Christian themed Christmas shirt, it was identical to mine, because honestly that was the first I’d seen it.

And what are you going to do, start hemming and hawing about how, “I swear, I ordered this thing in advance, I’m really sorry,” no, I just went with it, tried to make it like a joke. But Chris definitely wasn’t into it. The shirt was way too big on him, yeah, I guess XL was the wrong choice, but I don’t know, sometimes you get a t-shirt from the Internet and they’re all way too small. Plus, you wash them once and they shrink up almost like a size and a half. But yeah, Chris put it on, I guess he was trying to be a good sport about it, but it looked terrible, he wouldn’t even be able to wear it ironically.

What sucked the worst was, Chris wound up picking me, and he bought me a second controller for my XBOX. I mean, one, it’s something that I’d use all the time, in fact, I use it constantly, to this day, it’s sitting right there on my coffee table. And two, that’s expensive, like fifty, sixty bucks, right? My custom t-shirt was maybe twenty-five with shipping. And even though I thought it was supposed to be more the thought that counts, apparently there was a fifty dollar suggested price tag, I don’t know, I guess I wasn’t paying attention.

And then on New Years Eve, whatever, I thought it would have been cool if we both wore our Chris-Christmas shirts because, yeah, I got one for myself also. But he didn’t wear his, so I didn’t want to take off my hoodie, obviously he was a little pissed about it. I wound up buying him a twenty-five dollar gift certificate to Cold Stone Creamery, but he didn’t say thanks or anything, he put it on the coffee table and “forgot” it when he left for the night. And then it was so hot in there, once he left I thought it would have been OK to take the hoodie off.

But it wasn’t until the next day, I went on Facebook and saw that I’d been tagged in a bunch of photos wearing the t-shirt. Chris had left a comment, but he must have changed our friendship settings, because I couldn’t see what it said, it only let me know that he had commented. So I called up my friend Cliff, I said, “Can you believe what Chris wrote on Facebook?” and he said, “I didn’t check, hold on.”

I waited for like a minute and Cliff said, “Well, what did you expect?” So he must have written something nasty, but I didn’t want to give it away that I’d been blocked, so I never did find out exactly what Chris wrote. And that was it, I saw Chris a few times that summer, but I got the impression that he wasn’t really interested in being friends anymore. And yeah, it’s not like we were especially close anyway, but we could have been close, a lot closer, if only I had double checked, ordered that shirt a size or two smaller, maybe included the Cold Stone gift card with the shirt.

So this year, Merry Chris-tmas, I’m putting the Chris right back, I got him a shirt, I made sure it was the right size, and yeah, maybe he won’t have it, hopefully he’s still not carrying a grudge, but I got him an Outback Steakhouse gift card just in case. And it shouldn’t be awkward, because I wasn’t even included in the Secret Santa this year, so maybe everyone will see my good intentions, they’ll let me back in for next year, they’ll say, “Wow, Rob really turned that around. What a good sport. And he didn’t even get anything in return,” so maybe they’ll feel a little bad, and they’ll chip in and buy me something for the New Years party. Maybe. Whatever I’m not expecting it, and if it doesn’t happen, whatever, it doesn’t happen. But it would definitely be a nice gesture. Merry Christmas everybody.

New hundreds

They just updated the hundred-dollar bill. It’s got this holographic strip on the front, Ben Franklin’s profile is a little bigger, and on the back there is a giant 100 printed at the end. I hadn’t heard that the hundred was getting a makeover, but I never hear about these things. When new currency is rolled out, it’s like it’s done all at once, there’s never any forewarning.

new hundred

One day it’s old hundreds, and the next day I’m at work and someone pays in cash, and I see the new hundred, I immediately recognize it as something different, but I don’t question it, I’m not like calling out to my boss, “Hey boss, is this a new hundred? Is this a real thing?” no, he’d be like, “Rob, please don’t waste any more of my time than you have to, OK?”

I just think it’s crazy because, what’s stopping someone else from making their own new hundreds? You know, besides federal laws and stuff. I’m just saying, if you’re going to make counterfeit bills, wouldn’t it make more sense to make up an entirely new design and then hope that people like me simply won’t question anything?

And then the next day, I see more new hundreds, every time one of my coworkers gets a new bill, they’re like, “Oh my God, a new hundred. Did you see this?” and in my head I’m thinking, do you really have to announce that? Who are you talking to? But then I remember my reaction the first time I saw one, I think it was identical, I held it up for whoever happened to be standing next to me and I was like, “Ooh, look at this.”

How much longer is paper currency going to be a thing? Don’t get me wrong, nothing in life feels better than having a gigantic wad of rolled up cash bulging out of your front pocket, but I can’t really foresee where it’s all going to go. I’m talking, each upgrade in bills has featured some cool new technology. When I was a little kid, it was those cotton strips only visible when held up to the light. Then watermarks, gold foil, now holograms.

Why the need to keep changing the money every few years? I’m guessing that it’s all an effort to stop counterfeiting. Which, since the US dollar is basically the global currency, it’s got to be like the Holy Grail for every nefarious criminal operation. As sophisticated technology becomes more and more accessible to everyone else, you’ve got to think that eventually the Treasury is going to throw its hand up in the air and admit defeat.

And what are they changing, really? It’s all minor, cosmetic details. I say, if you’re going to change the money, we should like really change it, get all of those old Presidents and whatever Ben Franklin and Alexander Hamilton were and replace them with some fresh faces. Obviously the Republicans are going to want to put Reagan on everything. They’re still pissed off that FDR got the dime.

But what about maybe some novelty currency? I remember when the second Fantastic Four movie came out, some marketing company got in trouble for making a bunch of quarters with the Silver Surfer on the back. You can check them out on Ebay, I think they regularly fetch pretty high bids. But why does it have to be mostly Founding Fathers? Maybe we could put Bryan Cranston on something, you know, to commemorate the last time that our country was united over anything, in this case, everybody loved Breaking Bad. And then we could put Walt Jr. on the nickel, Hank would definitely make a great limited edition fifty-cent piece.

ff quarter

Nah, let’s just wait, fifty years from now, it’s definitely going to be Obama. Who do you think is going to lose their spot? If I had to guess, I’d say Andrew Jackson. That guy is always looked to as a badass, but more and more, history is showing us that he was super racist and a little too bloodthirsty.

Finally, every time they introduce new money, it always starts its way with the hundred, then trickles down to the fifty, the twenty, the ten, the five, and then nothing. Come on, don’t you think it’s about time we had a new one dollar bill? It’s the odd man out here. You never see old fives or tens anymore, but every single dollar bill looks like it’s out of a time machine. Maybe the cost isn’t worth the trouble, but I say, let’s just do it, let’s make a new one-dollar bill. And let’s put Obama on that one also.