This morning when I got to the office there was a "magazine" in our suite. I'm not positive but I think this is something distributed to all tenants. It's the kind of magazine where most of the ads are for luxury goods and plastic surgery. But since this is Portland in addition to the standard wine tasting and outdoor clothing articles, there are a million articles with the word green in them.

The U.S. mint hasn't had much luck getting people to use $1 coins so now they're trying to sell this as a green thing. Coins are durable and long lasting while paper dollars get old and cruddy and need to be replaced. We're supposed to run to the bank and ask for $1 coins.

Here's the thing: I like $1 coins. When I used to take light rail, every time I bought my tickets I'd get a handful of change in $1 coins. But the machines are crap and often would reject the coins but take paper money. Sometimes merchants would bitch and moan about the coins and when I started depositing them at the bank the bank tellers bitched about it, too. Good luck U.S. Mint.