Buddy Can You Spare 001011001000111010011010011011000110110000110100100101100010110011101?

Remember money? I bet some of you used to get paid with real money just like I did. And I don't mean a cheque either - I mean real folding money and coins, right down to the last penny owed. I think the last time I was paid in real money was when I worked retail in Calgary. Every Friday afternoon we would form a long line and receive our pay packets from the payroll lady who sat behind a folding card table in the lunch room. Pay packets were kind of exciting to receive; little brown envelopes with your name on the outside and cash on the inside - actual legal tender in exchange for a job well done. Now there is a blast from the past!

But for the last few decades it seems that more and more of us have been getting paid with electronic currency, digital money or to call it what it really is - numbers. The numbers are assigned to our bank accounts and then we in turn assign some of these numbers to other accounts in other banks to pay bills or buy goods. Then if we have enough numbers left over we can merely swipe or wave a card to purchase virtually anything - even a cup of coffee and a donut at Tim Horton's.

This is not necessarily a bad thing but it makes one wonder how much real money there actually is in the world anymore. Does anyone know, does anyone really care? How about panhandlers - a segment of the economy that has traditionally dealt in cold, hard cash? Their way of doing business surely must be threatened as prices go up and actual money becomes increasingly scarce. The days of soliciting the public for nickels and dimes are surely drawing to an end - why just last week an ambitious fellow in the street asked me for $7.00. Now I ask you, who carries around that kind of cash - certainly not me!

But there is hope. How long before we see an enterprising beggar on the street offering strangers the opportunity to transfer him some funds on his laptop or cellphone? The technology exists today although few of us would have the confidence to actually participate in such a scheme. But I fear it won't be long until someone comes up with a handy pocket sized gadget for that very purpose. Think of the opportunities for an entirely new mobile device with clever names like the PanHandler, the BumBuddy or Heaven forbid - the iSwipe.

Ours is a fast moving economy built on innovation and ingenuity, so it is only a matter of time before we long once more for the good old days of the pay packet. And how we will wish that guy on the corner could still be satisfied with a couple of quarters.

Books 1

I love books. I love reading. Nothing pleases me more on these cold winter nights, than getting under the covers, putting on my special old man reading glasses and propping a good book in front of my face. Or in summer (remember summer?) reading out in the yard under a shady tree. I am quite fussy about my reading and will search for weeks for the right book - just ask Julie. It is usually a tense few days around here when I find myself between books. So I try to avoid this situation and keep a book or two ahead if I can. I have even been known to read up to three books at a time - one for bed, one at work and one in the bathroom. Wouldn't it be great to keep several hundred books ahead?

And that brings me to the tricky topic of electronic books and e-readers. One can now love reading without loving books and without even owning a book. When I first heard of electronic readers I was very keen on them but I have not seen one yet that I like. I will admit I have only seen a few, the Sony Reader and the Kobo - both of which to me just don't seem to have the right feel. The Ipad seems to come closest to approximating the real reading experience - you can actually turn the pages and I am sure Apple could plug in the sound of pages turning if they wanted to.

Believe it or not, I first read an "ebook" on my computer over 12 years ago. It was written by Mike Nesmith (that's right - one of the Monkees). He published the first five chapters of his novel "The Long Sandy Hair of Neftoon Zamora" on his website. To finish the story you had to buy the actual book so I ordered one and had it shipped - even paid extra to have it autographed. Pretty clever marketing for a Monkee. However, the first widely available electronic book for download was "Riding the Bullet" by Stephen King way back in 2000. In one day it sold 400,000 copies at $2.50 per download before the servers crashed. But it did manage to pave the way for the massive book publishing revolution we are seeing today.

I enjoyed reading both of these early examples of electronic books because they were well written and worth reading. What I didn't enjoy was reading them on a computer screen - hard on the eyes, hard on the back and not a very pleasant experience other than for the sheer novelty of it. I am curious and excited about eReaders but at this point I still prefer real books - and I know a time will come when that pleasure may become a thing of the past. Fortunately this won't happen in my lifetime. I don't think there is any need to start hoarding books at this point in time but the future definitely belongs to the electronic reader.

I guess my point is that these two formats can and will co-exist for the time being. Books are here to stay but I fear they may ultimately come at a premium. I don't own an eReader yet but I am sure I will in the near future - we all will. I can even picture myself climbing into bed on a cold night and firing up a chapter or two of Charles Dickens. Maybe I'll even have the book read itself to me.

Now if they can only figure out a way to duplicate that book smell...

Words

You may have heard about the recent controversy over a new publication of Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn which has had the offensive word edited so it can be taught in schools.

This issue rears its stubborn head every few years and I don't have much to say about it other than we all know the word. I read Huckleberry Finn when I was 11 years old and even though I was not the most enlightened youth I knew instinctively what Mark Twain was trying to do. I was more shocked by the way Jim was treated than by the word used to describe him - if you read the book you will know Jim and the word. And if you haven't read it - it's time you did.

If the new publisher of this book thinks they are "protecting" the youth of today from being exposed to the ugly truth that history reveals they better think twice. There are millions of copies of this book in print that are not going anywhere. And with the advent of new technology anyone can download the original version in mere seconds like I just did.

I suppose if this new version makes the book accessible to more young readers then perhaps it is not all bad. I personally think most readers can handle the fact that the book was written in another time and dialect. It has been said that there is no such thing as bad publicity so ultimately this recurring controversy only serves to promote more interest in this book which has been in circulation for over 100 years.

Mark Twain was no fool. He once said "Never let your schooling interfere with your education." I think any schools that choose to teach from the new expurgated version will be guilty of doing just that. I listened to a live radio show recently where they discussed this issue and took listeners calls. There were many comments but the best one was from a 10 year old girl who said she felt she should be allowed to read the book in the same way her father and grandfather did. Smart girl...

And now just to bring the matter up to date - here is another little digital donut for ya. You remember Dire Straits song "Money for Nothin'" don't you? It was a huge hit on radio and MTV and has become a mainstay of popular music. Well, the CBSC (Canadian Broadcast Standards Council) has just seen fit to ban this song from the Canadian airwaves due to the inclusion of an offensive word. I won't tell you what the word is - if you don't know you can find out for yourself. But not on the radio. Maybe they should just have the offensive word changed to "clampett" like Weird Al did in his satirical version which can be seen in the video below. Enjoy - and y'all come back now, hear?