The reason I mention it here: my friend (the male) asked my opinion on how much to spend on the engagement ring.

Having purchased one myself two years ago, I had to go through this same decision process. And having a engineering background, I had a very exact answer for him.

Minimum Price of Ring = 7,000 + [(2,000p + 100s + 1,000r)(y)(m)] / 3f where r is >= 1.

He didn’t like my answer very much since he was never good at math, but then I explained it to him.

In this day and age, I think $7,000 is the least someone should spend. If you think you should be spending less, then you shouldn’t be asking my opinion on how much to spend. You’re not looking for a real answer, you’re looking for someone to justify your choice to be thrifty.

From here we add on what I call the penalties or rewards for the life you’ve led thus far.
p = number of previous engagements which cost you an extra $2,000 per engagement.
s = your promiscuity scale, i.e. the number people you’ve slept with. This isn’t really a penalty but more of an amusement tax.
r = number of previous SERIOUS relationships. Basically the people you almost asked to marry you or at the very least you still think about when you have “alone time.” If this happens to be zero, then you must put 1 in honor of your mom.
y = number of years you have been dating the girl rounded to the next year. So if you’ve only been dating for 4 months (not sure why you’d get engaged that fast, but…) then you would count that as 1 year. If it’s been 1 year and 2 months, then that’s 2 years, etc.
m = age of guy buying ring
f = age of fiancee to be.

After explaining everything, he seemed to understand the math, but still exclaimed, “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Nope.” Because it works. Here are some examples:

A “good boy” who has never had sex, no previous engagements, no serious relationships and is so excited to get married that he proposes within the first year and is marrying someone his own age…

Minimum Price of Ring = 7,000 + [(2,000*0 + 100*0 + 1,000*1)(1)(30)] / (3*30)
Minimum Price of Ring = 7,000 + 30,000/90
Minimum Price of Ring = $7,333.

Now let’s say you’re someone like Hugh Hefner marrying one of your ladies…
Let’s make previous engagements 5, past sexual partners 3,000, serious relationships is 1 (for his mom), years dating is 3, his age is 85 and her age is 21.

Minimum Price of Ring = 7,000 + [(2,000*5 + 100*3,000 + 1,000*1)(3)(85)] / (3*21)
Minimum Price of Ring = 7,000 + [311,000 * 255] / 63
Minimum Price of Ring = $1,265,810

How Hugh got away with buying a $90,000 ring is beyond me. It’s probably one of the reasons she called off the wedding.

So now for my friend…

Previous engagements = 0. He’s off to a good start. Sexual partners = 50… not bad but that’s a $5,000 tax. He seems to think it was worth it. Previous serious relationships = 2, which I think is average. Number of years dating fiancee-to-be = 5 which will hurt a bit. When you start to get above 3 years, you’re going to feel it in the wallet. His age = 32 and her age = 28.

Minimum Price of Ring = 7,000 + [(2,000*0 + 100*50 + 1,000*2)(5)(32)] / 3*28
Minimum Price of Ring = 7,000 + [(7,000)(5)(32)] / 84
Minimum Price of Ring = 7,000 + [(7,000)(5)(32)] / 84
Minimum Price of Ring = $20,333

He was expecting something a little cheaper. I told him if hadn’t waited 5 years to propose he could have saved some dough. At 3 years, it would only have cost him $15,076.

Now you’re probably wondering what I spent on my wife’s ring. The answer is NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS. This is my blog – I set the rules. Besides, I don’t need you running reverse calculations to figure out my sordid past. I will tell you this, I spent more than the minimum required according to my calculations… and making Anna happy was worth every cent and more.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F83C4upLNIs

Or check out his other article/video.

According to studies, over 71% of U.S. wealth is concentrated in the hands of only 10% of the population, with the bottom 40% of the population owning less than 1%.

I’m an artist, so believe me, I’m in the lower range of American earners. Recently, I was faced with the age old question, “How the hell do I pay my fucking rent?”

I had no ideas, no plan, no job prospects. So, just like Oprah preaches with The Secret, all I needed to do was put my thoughts into the universe, envisioning myself with money, and I would get what I ask for. So that’s what I did. But JUST in case The Secret didn’t start the money rolling in, I proceeded to sack my office hoping to find some shit to eBay.

Well guess what happened, folks. Not 2 hours later, I got what I wanted – in the form of Brazilian money.

I realized in that moment that Oprah and I had so much in common. She used The Secret and got a role in The Color Purple. I used it and found old Brazilian money. We’re both so blessed – we must be twins!

Anyway, back to the money… You see, I used to collect foreign currency. My dad went on many business trips around the world when I was younger, and he would bring back coins or bills for me from every country he visited. I happily stuffed them into shoe boxes or put them in photo albums. The other day when I was searching my office, I found all the money from years ago. I had Italian liras, British pounds, Israeli shekalim, Mexican pesos… the list goes on and on. But I realized my dad struck gold without realizing it when I found over $600,000 in Brazilian money.

I don’t know if you noticed in the scanned image of the money to the right, but there’s a $500,000 bill in there, right in the middle. Then there are two other $50,000 bills. With all that money, who cares about the $200 bill?! Not me! Immediately after uploading the image of the money for this post, I smoked the $200 in celebration of the other $600,000.

Ok, that’s a lie. I’m Jewish, of course I care about the $200.

And I don’t smoke.

A quick search for Brazilian to U.S. currency conversion showed that $600,200 Brazilian reais are worth $347,883 U.S. dollars!

That’s right, bitches. I became an instant hundred-thousand-aire thanks to my dad… and my being a pack rat. I called the nearest Amex travel agency to see how soon they could exchange the money and to make sure they had enough cash on hand to cover it. There’s no way I was taking a check. You can’t spread a check all over your bed and roll around naked in it, now can you.

The first question they asked me was if the money was new Brazilian reais or the old currency.

“Old currency?” I asked. Shit, there’s an old currency? The bills did look pretty old. I looked closely and saw these weren’t even reais, these were CRUZEIROS! What they hell are those?

I told Amex I’d get back to them as I had to do a little research.

WARNING: HISTORY LESSON APPROACHING
Although Brazil is known for churning out supermodels, barely there bikinis and awesome waxing techniques, it apparently is not known for churning out strong currency. Here’s a history on Brazilian inflation and its effects on the value of their money:

• 1900 – 1930: Money was called reis meaning “kings”.
• 1930′s: Money changed name to mil reis meaning “a thousand kings”.
• 1942: Currency had devalued so much that the monetary note changed to the cruzeiros, meaning “crosses”, at a value of 1000 to 1. i.e., they dropped 3 zeroes. You’ll be hearing that a lot more.
• 1967: Cruzeiro becomes cruzeiro nuvo and 3 more zeroes are dropped.
• 1970′s: While the Brazilian economy was growing at 10% a year, inflation was running anywhere between 15% to 300%.
• Mid 1980′s: Inflation peaked at 2,000%.
• 1986: Cruzeiro becomes cruzado (crusade). 3 more zeroes are dropped.
• 1989: Cruzado becomes cruzado nuvo. 3 more zeroes are dropped.
• 1990: To avoid confusion (is that possible?) the cruzado nuvo is renamed cruzeiro with no change in value.
• 1993: Cruzeiro becomes cruzeiro real. 3 more zeroes are dropped.
• 1994: Cruzeiro real becomes the real (royal), worth 2.75 old cruzeiros reais

A 1960s Cruzeiro was, in 1994, worth less than one trillionth of a US cent, after adjusting for multiple devaluations and note changes. The overall impact of hyperinflation: 1 (1994) real = 2,700,000,000,000,000,000 pre-1930 reis.

Conclusion:
$600,000 of my money comes form the 1990 batch of notes. The $200 bill comes from 1981 and therefore is worth much less. $0.000000073 USD to be exact. In all, the money I have is worth a whopping $126.840000073 U.S. dollars. That is if the banks would even buy it, which they won’t.

Fuck you very much, Brazil.

My only hope for this money is that it will be worth something as a collector’s item one day. Currently, I can sell them all for about $50 USD. Not quite what I need for rent.

As my father gave to me, so I shall pass it on to my offspring.

For rent, I’ll just have to trade in those British pounds I have. And at least my U.S. money is still worth something… for now.

Anna found Daisy in Chinatown, Toronto. She was undernourished, had ear mites and a bad gash on her nose. Anna took her, cleaned her up and made her a part of the family. You’d think she’d recall her rough street walking days and be thankful for every day she gets to lead a life of leisure. Au contraire! Now she acts like show owns this place and everyone in it. And you know what, she pretty much does. Here’s a short list of what she’s done and continues to do:

1) Daisy loves to eat plastic and cellophane until she throws up
Everyone has their vice.

2) Daisy loves to run outside and eat grass until she throws up
Ok, she has two vices. You’re probably wondering why we don’t stop her from going outside. If you saw how much she enjoys the outdoors, you’d let her out, too. I’d rather clean up the puke than see her unhappy.

3) Daisy doesn’t clean herself so well after she poops
This one might be because she’s a few pounds overweight. We’ve put her on a diet, but until that kicks in, we have to cut her bum hair once a week to make things more comfortable for her.

4) Daisy knocked my hard drive over and killed it
This happened when Anna and I first started dating. So I played it cool.

5) Daisy spilled red wine on my laptop and killed it
This happened later in Anna’s and my relationship. I wasn’t as cool.

And for the piece de resistance. Or perhaps I should say the PEEce de resistance…

6) Daisy pees in 6 different parts of our house!
The carpets have been replaced and we’re FINALLY ready for house parties again, but we have to keep a close eye on her. Honestly, we can’t take our eyes off her EVER. If we do, she is sure to pee somewhere again.

Don’t worry, she isn’t sick (we took her to two veterinarians), but it actually would be easier if she WAS sick. That way we’d give her some meds and the problem would go away, done deal. But now we’ve got a behavioral problem which is much harder to deal with.

It started soon after we moved to our new apartment in December, 2008. Daisy had never done anything like this before, but she’s obviously a “pro” because when she started peeing, she started full force. At first only I could smell it, near the workout room in our apartment.

I foolishly suggested the odor was from Anna sweating when she ran on the treadmill.

I was quickly informed by words and the insulted look on Anna’s face that no amount of her exercise could ever produce any type of foul smell. She then told me I was probably smelling my upper lip. We’re very mature in our family.

Soon Anna started to smell it, too, and we figured out it was cat pee. We didn’t know which of the two cats was doing it, so we laid a trap. We put down plastic bags where we found the pee and we set up a camera. Yup. we had to spy on our cats. We felt a little dirty doing that, but it had to be done. And it’s not nearly the dirtiest thing we do.

After one night, we watched the tape back: Daisy come up to the camera, smelled it, knocked it over and then the battery went dead. We’re obviously not pros at this.

The next day, as I was setting up the camera again, the craziest thing happened. Daisy walked in the room, looked at me, smelled the floor, turned and peed on the bag. Right in front of me! No friggin’ shame. Not trying to hide a damn thing. It broke my heart.

The next seven months were filled with plans, schemes and cleaning products.

Here’s some of what we tried, including the costs.

1. Two vet visits. $600.
2. We bought a truckload of Urine Off. It’s a cleaner with enzymes to break down pet urine odors. It usually works, but you have to use a lot of it over time. Approx. $100.
3. We also tried an industrial cleaning service $150.
4. We found out the carpet was too far gone and then had it replaced. $400.
5. We went away on vacation, she peed on the carpet more so we bought more Uring Off. $100.
6. We bought the book, Twisted Whiskers. Notice a resemblance here? $13.50.
   
7. We bought a room divider at Pier 1 to keep her out of the breakfast nook. $200.
8. We bought another room divider at Home Depot to keep her IN the living room when we’re both in there watching TV. It’s really a garden fence, but it’s the only thing that will fit in the space. $30.
9. We bought her bladder medicine and herbal remedies. $75.
10. We bought soothing lavender diffusers. $75.
11. We hired a cat whisperer to adjust her aura and to realign the energy balance in our house. $100.

GRAND TOTAL: $1,843.50

This got me thinking…

Per pound, the Million Dollar Baby was worth $5,882, assuming she weighed in at 170 lbs.

If you add up the money for vet visits, food, litter, toys, etc. and multiply that out over Daisy’s expected lifetime. Then add in all the damage she caused and the cost of the peeing fiasco, you know how much she’s worth per pound?

$5,863!

That’s right folks. Daisy is the Million Dollar Baby!

And she’s worth every penny. Damn you, cockfog!