Two interesting items in the Business pages of the Seattle Times today:

Foreign Exchange: Dollar Falls against Euro
The Associated Press reported that the U.S. dollar is now $1.3548 against the Euro ($1.35 = 1 Euro). Typically, since these used to be comparable currencies, the ratio was roughly 1 to 1, but now the gap is obviously increasing. Without being a professional economist, but with a pretty good background in basic economics, I’d say that this will spell trouble for the U.S. economy within the next year or so, especially if the U.S. dollar continues upward against the Euro. In broad strokes, this will affect foreign trade, and may force countries other than Cuba and Iraq to switch to a monetary standard that measures against the Euro. Both Cuba and Iraq have done this in the past — it will probably happen again.

Semi-related tangent: to my knowledge, any third world country that has switched to the Euro as a monetary standard has been targeted by the U.S. for terrorist actions.

Washington State Minimum Wage Rises
The Seattle Times reports that Washington State’s minimum wage goes up to $7.35 on January 1, making Washington the highest in the nation for minimum wages. Note: yes, that sentence is awkward, no, I don’t care.

This is important — though perhaps not positively important. The negative aspect is that companies will have to pay more to operate in this state, despite the clear positive benefit to Washington’s population. Ach, conundrums.

It’s much easier to be prolific in blog postings when you actually have time to be prolific.

Amanda and me left Olympia on the 18th after having breakfast at the historic Spar Café on 4th Avenue downtown. Sitting on Olympia’s heritage register, the Spar has a very eclectic old-town feel. The service was abysmally slow, but the food was good and the environment cozy. It’s an odd combination of a building, housing both an eatery and a tobacco merchant within the same space. We also stopped by Orca Books before getting on I-5 and coming home to Snohomish. I had a few packages waiting for me, most of them my class books. The only book I’m missing for next quarters class is one that my faculty hasn’t even decided on yet: I’m still waiting on the edition we’re using for James Joyce’s Ulysses.

Since we got back, I haven’t done much. Amanda went back up to Bellingham on Sunday, so I’ve mostly been relaxing with my cats and trying to get some stuff done. Not much progress in that arena, but it is a break, after all. I have been looking into graduate programs for an MFA in Creative Writing, and have requested some information from, of all places, the University of Iowa. We’ll see what they send. I had that information mailed to my apartment, so I won’t see it until we go back on January 2nd. Hopefully, my former roommate will be moved out by the time we get back. The University of Arizona has a very honest assessment of what people looking for an MFA in Creative Writing will go through in today’s job market.

I started using Netflix on November 21st, and thought it might be appropriate to provide a review. I’m using their three-out-at-a-time program ($19.50/month as of account activation, dropping to $17.99/month at the end of my current billing cycle). I figured this might be cheaper than trying to rent all these movies through the local Blockbuster. I’ve managed to rent quite a few movies this month:

Overall, with 11 movies rented during this time period, the cost comes to $1.77 per DVD rented, much cheaper than Blockbuster stores (which averages $3 to $4 per rental, if not more). Overall, the service is great, and due to the closeness of the nearest Netflix repository — which, for me, is in Tacoma, about 30 minutes north — I get my new DVDs the day after they ship. Great service, highly recommended.