Justin and the U.S. Dollar
posted at 6:56 pm
on Jul. 8, 2007
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Justin came over last night and we went to The Eatery. I’ve put off blogging about him and Sue recently, because it’s a sad story.
They’ve decided to move back to New Jersey, to be closer to family and because Justin got transfered to a better job within Nokia. They’ve found a nice house to rent near White Plains, and their son is going to have lots more space to play.
Sue’s also expecting again, and they’re thrilled about this. The move’s totally paid for, and so far everything’s gone swimmingly.
Oh, whoops, I didn’t say who the story was sad for: it’s sad for ME! It’s sad for Susie and I both, actually, because they were good friends who are now moving along, taking another route in the stream of life. Our farewell dinner with them was about two weeks ago.
I feel irrationally responsible for their leaving: I know didn’t do a very good job in keeping in touch with them over the last year or so. We saw them only rarely. And sure, they probably would have moved anyway, and it’s not like we would have been the deciding factor or anything, but I do firmly believe that when you find good friends, special people in your lives, you have to work hard at keeping those people around. Long-time friends are more valuable than anything.
And Justin will be the first to deny this: he’s virtually an honorary Canadian in how much he’s willing to forgive and be graceful about. Also, we’re looking aftre his cat this week so he has to be nice to us. 
* * *
While Justin was over, we talked about our house selling in Pasadena, and about the U.S. exchange rate, which I’ve been aware of but not actively monitoring. I just didn’t want to know, you know? But Wikipedia tells all, and I found out that Friday, July 6th was the lowest the U.S. dollar’s been against the Canadian dollar in 30 years (and that’s not the first time in the past 30 days a new low has been set). Ack!
For some perspective on how this U.S. dollar meltdown is hurting us, if our house in L.A. was worth $100,000 Canadian on February 1, it’s now worth only $88,000 in Canadian funds.
Furthermore, Hop Studios has many U.S. clients. If we had to work 20 hours for U.S. clients to pay for our Vancouver rent in February, we now have to work 23 hours to pay the same rent. We’ve essentially just had a 13% pay cut. I understand now why my Dad always used to watch the Nightly Business Report on PBS—his business was totally affected by the U.S. exchange rate because he bought his product from the U.S. and sold it to Canadian dealers.
I’m hoping and praying that the U.S. dollar doesn’t continue to flounder vs. the Canadian dollar, but the truth of the matter is, that so long as the U.S. housing market continues to slow, they’re going to try to buoy their economy by making their goods more affordable to other countries. And as long as oil keeps increasing in price, Canada’s dollar’s going to go up, UP AND AWAY, all other things being equal.
* * *
I made an avatar of myself on the Simpsons Movie site. Their marketing so far has been brilliant, absolutely brilliant. I’ve heard it go from “I hope this doesn’t suck” and “this show has jumped the shark” to “I can’t wait to see this movie, it looks amazing” over the past six months. And the amount of publicity they’re getting out of the kwik-e-mart conversions is astounding.
This weekend, I saw Transformers, and was suitably impressed despite the flaws of the film. I mean, robot helicopters fighting robot trucks? That’s awesome. Who cares if they basically forgot about 3 plot lines including several of the evil robots that just kinda ran away and were ignored for the rest of the film? Who cares if an all-out battle between alien robots and fighter jets and marines that essentially destroys several city blocks of L.A. is purported to have been ignored by all major media and successfully covered up by the U.S. government.
Like I say, they blowed stuff up real good, and there were enough funny moments to keep you distracted the whole two hours. Bread and circuses.
