From the department of I Don't Have Much to Do Because
My Wife Just Left Me to Join the Shriners:
A friend sent me a link to the site called Where's
George. I
thought I would check it out, thinking the George everyone
was looking for was either George Costanza of "Seinfield"
or George Papadapolis of "Webster."
Either way, I was wrong. At Where's George, you can
enter serial numbers of American dollar bills you have
in order to track them in the future.
Let's take a short minute (59.26 seconds) to ponder
this idea and realize it is perhaps the most ridiculous
thing to hit the Internet since Velcro.
True, Velcro didn't hit the Internet, but was unfairly
strapped to it a
while back. Anyway, I'm still surprised any person would
take even a long minute (60.56 seconds) out of the day
to type in serial numbers of dollar bills. Evidently,
some people have. At approximately 2:15 CST January
31, George said: "We now have 1,030,845 users who
have entered 15,227,413 bills, totaling $89,872,891
worth of U.S. currency!" I missed the press conference
when George said this, but the quote was on the site.
According to a
question posed on Straight Dope, there is approximately
$825 billion in U.S. currency available, which means
about .01 percent of it is accounted for on Where's
George. Granted, you can't enter coins, but still, this
is a small number. The Straight Dope answer also gives
a good example of how the U.S. economy operates and
how it could topple over at any given minute. Obviously,
if George Costanza and George Papadapolis were to become
Shriners, this would happen, but realistically, this
probably won't.
So a question still looms: "Why do all animal
crackers look either like a bear, a hippo or a camel?"
Another question would be, "Why would anyone want
to monitor a dollar bill anyway?" I guess if it
were counterfeit, I could understand, but other than
that, it seems slightly worse than a chain letter or
rye bread.
Having said all of this, Where's George is definitely
an interesting, unique and fun idea. The guy isn't trying
to make money or charge anyone. I guess I'm just having
a hard time believing so many people have time to enter
serial numbers, considering all the data entry positions
I see in the newspaper. And get this: You get paid for
those jobs!
Some of you may have seen a dollar bill with "wheresgeorge.com"
stamped on it. Supposedly that means the bill has already
been entered, but
unfortunately, the stamp is bad, bad, bad. It is illegal
to deface American currency. OK, OK, according to the
Bureau of Engraving and Printing, it's illegal only
if the bill is unfit to be reissued. I really don't
think anyone would want a stamp on George's face, unless
Kramer, Jerry or Elaine were to put it there.
If you get bored, and you have a couple of dollars,
you can do one of three things:
1. Go get some nachos.
2. Enter your bills and then get nachos.
3. Get your wife a new motorcycle helmet for those tricky
moves the
Shriners make during most parades.
Nine out of 10 Georges recommend No. 2. Unfortunately,
George No. 10 spent all his money on a new Fez with
a Velcro chinstrap.
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