Two Things

I have an entry begging to be finished on a USB flash drive (it's up now), but I'm going to use up the rest of my lunch hour on these two things: Hunter S. Thompson and change.

Hunter

Every now and then a press release is done up in a way to gin up maximum attention. This morning, it was cardboard typewriter that came to one of my sister magazines to promote Starz's upcoming Hunter S. Thompson documentary Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride. Along with a screener and digital press kit, the typewriter included a Gilligan hat, aviator glasses, and a Dunhill cigarette with a holder/filter. Someone else claimed the typewriter, but I ended up using the rest of the props to inject a little gonzo into my editing.
Actually, it was interesting that while most of the people in the office groked the Hunter S. Thompson look right away, there were a couple of folk who asked why I was dressed up like Uncle Duke.

Change

During lunch, I went to the local branch of Chevy Chase Bank to use their no-fee Change Express coin counting thing. During Celeste's first year, I dropped some $374.62 in change aside; this year, I took the set-aside change and the 200-plus rolls of pennies that have been in the basement for years (long story short: I filled a 10 gallon carboy with pennies over the course of a few years; Evelin made me roll them; I never took them to the bank), the result was $499.73, along with a 10 pfenning coin, a German €0.02 coin, a 20 pence piece, a U.S. penny that someone cut an angel from the center, and a two-headed nickel. Of the total, $127.48 was from pennies.

Naturally, with all the change, I broke the machine. I noticed it was spilling quarters on the floor and the bank staffer who was nearby assured me they were just bouncing out of the reject slot. I turned out the quarter bag had split and it was spilling coins through the gap by the door. And one of the penny slots in the internal counter had jammed. They ended up needing to get a new quarter bag, and to replace all three penny bags, along with the nickel bag. In all, I had 37 dollar coins, 1,048 quarters, 574 dimes, 317 nickels, and 12,748 pennies.
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