During these many months, I had been watching with mild amusement as my wallet proceeded to explode, not with money although I have a new job, but with cards - TONS of plastic cards! Let me give you a tour of my wallet, recently paired down to: one credit card, bank card, BCtel calling card, driver's license, proof of Canadian citizenship, video rental card, Air miles card, SFU printer card, health card, social insurance card, two security cards - work and SFU, five business cards, and not to mention my organ donor card, vaccine card, eye prescription card, Great West extended Health insurance card and about $20 cash.

I encourage you to list the things you carry around with you and be amazed.

All of this suggests to me, and I would probably pay a couple bucks for this, that I should have one card that everybody can write their little bit of information onto and only carry two things, a card and $20 cash. To get anything off this card, they would need my memorized pin number which would make a successful mugging more difficult.

Back at Eddie Bauer, I was politely informed that their Interac machine didn't work, and so I used the old fashion method - my credit card (Were you thinking cash?).

Having a few things to finish up at work that Saturday, I biked to work, used my access card to get in and later that evening, came home to find a message on my answering machine from my bank (on a Saturday yet!) telling me I had left my visa card at Eddie Bauer. Frankly, I had not even noticed the missing card, and probably wouldn't have until I went to use it again, which would have been just as I was about to pay for a Hotel in Santa Clara, California during my upcoming business trip.

If I did have only one card, I would still have only noticed it's absence when I went to get into work - which brings to me to the conclusion that it makes sense to combine all these cards into one, but why stop there? Why not solve the original problem I had and combine all the cards and put them into a form I can't forget and can't get stolen? Insert all information into a chip and insert that chip under your skin! Hardly a novel idea, but the arguement is becoming compelling.

Ironically, it won't be prevelant crime, but convience that my future kids will have their personal ident chip inserted into their hand. Given that all their friends will have tatooes or peirced ears, it won't seem out of place. Five years ago I didn't see how inserting a chip into your hand would be logical, but more and more it seems like the "Right thing to do".

Of course the real issue I am leaving unexplored and perhaps will write about in the future is: Given computer databases and the inherent tracking they imply, how much freedom do we give up to governments and companies for convenience?