First Prize goes to Larry. Nearly all metals are through the roof right now.

I was out at a truck maintenance yard on Friday examining a cold-weather problem with a piece of equipment. Long story, short... my advice was to add 50 pounds of lead shot internally to a rotating part of this machine as a ballast. This is something our company has done successfully in some rare cases for many years and it solves a specific operational problem quite well.

The shop foreman looked at me like I'd lost my mind. He asked me if I knew how much money 50 pounds of lead would cost, especially for his fleet where a dozen or so units would need to be treated. He asked in a hopeful voice: "Can I use sand instead?"

Gold is over $900/oz and Platinum is so high that crack heads are sawing catalytic converters off cars in parking lots. Cats are the car stereos for a new generation of thieves.