We almost hit $1000!
I finally discovered how to see this site’s Blogathon sponsors, and in the process found some pledges that had gone unconfirmed until now. The final tally was 37 pledges for $964. Huge thanks to everyone who was able to sponsor:
Nathaniel Burbank
Sabino Arredondo (the best accountant in Canby, Oregon)
Vince at Investorial.com
Anthony Lewis
Dusty D.
PearBudget
Mom
Luneray (who is fond of dogs that have issues)
Maartje Tel
Amy Jo (who runs From a Corner Table)
John Petronis
Rachel Reynolds
Stacey Jennings
My Mother-in-Law
Liam
Foetry Guy
Kira Botkin
My aunt Virginia
Sal Mineo
Michael Hampton (the guy who started me on personal finance!)
HelpYourMoney.com
upNext Media
Amber (who chronicles her adventures with money at Yellow’s Green)
Rich Rogers (who is getting over a fear of flying)
Dokaben
Betsy (from My Whim is Law)
Tracy Omagbemi
Jason Weaver
Bill Hooker (from Open Reading Frame)
Nick Ferris (at Punny Money)
and five anonymous folks
If you made a pledge and your name isn’t listed here, please let me know. Also let me know if you have a web site you’d like listed with [...]

I’m going to bed now.
Blogathon is over. I’m proud of the money that you pledged in support of First Book. Your 32 pledges raised $658 to buy books for needy children. (It’s not too late to contribute, by the way.)
I’m glad I tried this. I didn’t know if I could do it. And it was a slog. I’m amazed that I lasted all 24 hours, that I was able to make every single post. (Some were better than others). But I doubt I’ll do this again next year. The type of entries required for an event like this just don’t match my writing style.
If I do participate in the future, I’ll change the terms from the default “one post every half hour”, which is just too quick for me. I’ll ask for sponsors based on a “one post per hour” rate instead. This should give me time to create higher-quality content.
For those of you [...]

Here’s where I’ve spent the last 24 hours:

This is the dining room table. You can see my Powerbook open and ready for use. To its left are a couple of books that I referred today. There’s also an empty bag of chips. (The salsa bowl is to the right of the computer.) Both mugs contained tea — one contained hot Thai tea, the other smoky Lapsang Souchong. Both are high in caffeine. I had a couple cokes during the day.
The most important thing in this photo, though, is my planning grid. It saved me. Originally it was filled with your questions and suggestions, but when I realized that wasn’t going to work, I wiped it clean and started from scratch.
This was more difficult than I had anticipated. I am very glad I changed themes at the last minute. Believe me, I would have preferred to answer reader questions and to publish reader suggestions, but [...]

Rob Cockerham at cockeyed.com (whom I’ve already mentioned twice today — he’s got lots of good funny money stuff), has a profile on the extraordinary price of dents.

In Early May, my friend Tim got into a car wreck. It wasn’t his fault. A gal popped out from between two stopped cars and put a large crease into his front fender. Luckily, the woman’s insurance paid for the repairs. Tim took the car to Cozz’s auto body in Sacramento. It took four days for the insurance adjuster to examine the car and authorize the repair bill, and 12 days for Cozz’s to perform the repair, including a perfect paint job. When the repairs were finished, the car was as good as new. The price for repair, which was paid by an insurance company, was $3,200. $3,200 is an awful lot of money, which almost no one wants to spend on auto body repair. Another use of that [...]

Fred Astaire - Puttin’ on the Ritz (1930)
Taco - Puttin’ on the Ritz (1982)

Puttin’ on the Ritz (annotations)
by Irving Berlin
Have you seen the well-to-do
Upon Lennox Avenue
On that famous thoroughfare
With their noses in the air
High hats and narrow collars
White spats and fifteen dollars
Spending every dime
For a wonderful time
If you’re blue
And you don’t know where to go to
Why don’t you go where Harlem flits
Puttin’ on the Ritz
Spangled Gowns upon the bevy of
High browns from down the levy
All misfits
Puttin’ on the Ritz
That’s where each and every lulu-belle goes
Every Thursday evening with her swell beaus
Rubbin’ elbows
Come with me and we’ll attend their jubilee
And see them spend
Their last two bits
Puttin’ on the Ritz
(Boys, look at that man puttin’ on that Ritz)
(You look at him, I can’t)
If you’re blue
And you don’t know where to go to
Why don’t you go where Harlem flits
Puttin’ on the Ritz
Spangled Gowns upon the bevy of
High browns from down the levy
All misfits
Puttin’ on that certain Ritz
That’s where [...]

Pennies get no respect. Their mineral composition fluctuates — they’re mostly zinc now, though they’ll return to bronze in 2009. People treat them like trash, often tossing them on the ground rather than keeping them. But some people know that pennies are treasures. Sure you can make spiders out of dollar bills, but you can build towers from pennies. BIG towers:

Kokogiak Media has created a fun exercise using pennies.
Visualizing huge numbers can be very difficult. People regularly talk about millions of miles, billions of bytes, or trillions of dollars, yet it’s still hard to grasp just how much a “billion” really is. The MegaPenny Project aims to help by taking one small everyday item, the U.S. penny, and building on that to answer the question: “What would a billion (or a trillion) pennies look like?
One million pennies don’t seem overwhelming. But one billion pennies seems like a lot. Ten billion pennies would line an athletic [...]