friday blog-o-rama

You should see my apartment right now. I have big plans for today, plans that involve going to the laundromat and using the big washing machines to wash ALL my laundry. Usually I do my laundry here on the first floor of my building, and I end up washing just the things I need to wash (one load of lights, one load of darks). As a result, the bottom of my laundry basket is perpetually filled with at least one dirty set of sheets, a towel or two, and some random clothing that I don't feel an urgent need to wear. The backlog has gotten particularly bad lately, and I have no quarters, so I've decided to just haul everything to the laundromat, where there is a quarter machine and the aforementioned giant washing machines. There's also a TV; the last time I was there, shortly before I left for India, I watched most of an episode of Judge Judy.

Anyway, at the moment my laundry is just sorted into a bunch of big piles all over my apartment, and instead of actually implementing the laundromat plan, I've decided to procrastinate by doing some serious blogging. First, I'd like to bring your attention to the comments on my November 5th post, where you will see my very first "spam" comment. (It's like I have a real blog now!) I have some long-overdue pictures to post, as well as the final installment of my Portland trip series. And then, by special request, and because you know I love to do it, I will be treating you to an overview of the dynamics of international trade and finance imbalances, and how these balances are sometimes misunderstood or misinterpreted in political discourse, and why it bugs the crap out of me.

To begin with, here's a picture from when B was here (yeah, I know, that was in September) and we were being all touristy at Pier 39: