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Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Pure Gold

Gold is a cool and all, but I simply don't understand humankind's fascination with the stuff. All this fuss over shiny metal? I just learned a little bit about the alchemists, the "scientists" in the times before we discovered the periodic table of the elements who thought it was possible to transmute one substance to another. Everyone was rushing to find a philosopher's stone that could convert any metal into gold. Because urine was yellow, it was assumed that gold must be in some way an integral part of the human body. The alchemists boiled gallons of urine, and in turn discovered phosphorus. Gross but cool.

Our culture is no less fascinated with gold than any other. Financial annalists squawk about the price of gold, jewelry companies try to convince me gold is the only way to express my love, and there are numerous companies that try to buy or sell gold from the public. In general I am extremely wary of any offers I see on either TV or the internet regarding the gold market. Some businesses want to sell me gold, others want to buy my gold -- all of them seem shady. Truth be told, some of them are! Just gross.

Well, I must say, in the spirit of those Hilarious Antagonistic Email Exchanges I commented on some time ago, my hat is off to this guy. Just cool: