Lazy Man and Money

Nine Thoughts (and Personal Finance Links)

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  1. Happy Holidays! – With everyone wishing happy holidays around Christman, I figured wait until the New Year.
  2. …And Happy New Year! – I’d like to say that I have a lot of revolutionary stuff planned for the next year, but I don’t. I’ve got a lot of small things going on – many of which should be transparent to you, the reader. On a more public front, I intend to start the year off just like many other blogs, looking over the year that was and setting goals for the next year.
  3. A Faster Lazy Man – One of things that I’m working on is creating a website that works even faster and is even more forgiving of errors. I’m becoming a little obsessed with the powerful cloud computers from Amazon Web Services. I’m already running a pretty powerful server, but Amazon is taunting me with an option that is roughly 30 times faster for 7.5 times more money. It’s almost the classic “super-size your drink an extra quarter?” question. I don’t know what I’d do with all that computer, except try to take over the world.
  4. … But Maybe Not that Much Faster After All – When I started making this list, I was fine-tuning things on my server making sure that I could put up new servers, install WordPress blogs, get the databases copied, and a bunch of other stuff as quickly as possible. In that process, I ended up accidentally taking my site off-line. However, the work I had been doing paid off in getting me on a fresh server in under an hour. That fresh server seems to be running twice as well as my previous one, so perhaps I don’t need to put out any more money for quite some time.
  5. Elfa Shelving Sale – I’m a big fan of the Elfa line at The Container Store. Currently there is a 30% off sale. If you are into organizing, it is certainly worth a look.
  6. A Frugal-ish Vacation in Maui – This past week the wife and I booked a week in Maui. We are renting someone else’s timeshare from RedWeek.com. When we looked into hotels, they were around $300 a night. We were able to get a place in Marriott for around $175. There was an opportunity to save more money, but we couldn’t be as flexible as we wanted on the days we were going.
  7. Lack of Television and News – Did everyone get as bored as I did towards the end of the year? It seemed like there were no television shows or news. In the past, I hadn’t noticed it as much. Perhaps I was feeling productive back then, but I didn’t have that productivity with me the last couple of weeks.
  8. NFL Thought 1 – It might not be the best team that my favorite NFL franchise the Patriots have fielded in recent memory (last year’s looked better to me). However, the rest of the AFC is poor or injured enough that the Patriots probably have the best odds of any playoff team of getting to the Super Bowl. I would include all the NFC teams. The competition is high in the NFC so only the Packers stand out.
  9. NFL Thought 2 – I imagine there are a lot of people in New England who have taken interest in the New York Jets collapse. Of course they may be a little consumed with the Indianapolis collapse. However, there won’t be joy in Mudville, New England without that Super Bowl appearance. Patriots fans have heard a lot about not winning a playoff game since 2007.

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Eight Things I Think (and Personal Finance Links)

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Since the rest of the world seems to think that Tim Tebow controls the universe, today’s things I think are all Tebow related. Perhaps that’s because I watched about 4 hours of Tebow coverage on ESPN, CBS, and the NFL Network. Thanks to my new media center for being able to record three programs at a time.

  1. Why the whole article about Tim Tebow? – As Chris Berman on ESPN Sunday NFL Countdown said (paraphrased), “I didn’t realize the Super Bowl was being played today.”
  2. Tim Tebow transcends football (part 1) – Saturday Night Live had a skit on Tim Tebow last night. That’s mainstream – not sports stuff. It is hilarious! Give it a watch here. Reporters from Japan came to New England to cover Tim Tebow’s opponent, the Patriots, this week.
  3. Tim Tebow transcends football (part 2) – My wife is looking forward to watching a football game. In other words, Berman is right, it must be the Super Bowl.
  4. It’s Gronk’s world and we are just living in it – While the football world is going crazy about Tebow, they are missing out on Rob Gronkowski – who is actually performing at a much, much higher level than Tebow. Short of Aaron Rodgers, he might be having the best season at his position than anyone in the game. This highlight shows it all.
  5. If the Denver Broncos win this “Super Bowl” (part 1) – Of course the media will go crazy – it already has – if the Broncos, and Tebow, find a way to beat one of the top teams in the Patriots.
  6. If the Denver Broncos win this “Super Bowl” (part 2) – Hopefully someone in the media will be a voice of reason and point out that the Patriots defense this season make any opposing quarterback look like Tom Brady.
  7. What else is there to talk about in the NFL? – The Packers undefeated run aside, the NFL seems to lack compelling matchups this year. For example, because San Francisco and Oakland play afternoon games, the early game out here in Silicon Valley is the 2-11 Rams and the 7-6 Bengals. Typically with no local connection the affiliate will play the “best” matchup. It is telling when they decide that is one team that has been terrible and another than has been free-fall for awhile.
  8. Final Thought on Tim Tebow – Tim Tebow to me is like a Kordell Stewart with charisma and super religion. Kordell Stewart was good enough to win with a good defense, and that’s what Denver’s defense has looked like. (Important Note: the Broncos haven’t played far below average offenses until this Patriots game since the Tebow run.) The other big difference between Kordell and Tebow is that Tebow tends not to make turn the ball over. The Broncos are going to need that today.

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Six Things I Think (and Personal Finance Links)

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  1. BensBargains Delivers me a great GPS deal – My mother wants a GPS for Christmas, so I went to look for a good deal on one. My first place is usually BensBargains, because you can click on just about any category and find a decent deal that hasn’t expired. It happened to have the brand she wanted with the features she wanted at $100 savings via NewEgg – a retailer that I had a Google Offer for $40 off (which I paid $20 for). By the time I was done with the coupon codes and discounts, I was out the door paying under $75 for something that was originally $300 (though that’s a very inflated $300 price).
  2. Subway and McDonald’s Eat-in Tax Solved! – I wrote about the McDonald’s Eat-In Tax more than 3 years and after having a conversation with a Subway employee got an answer – at least for California. If you choose to eat the food in the restuarant, you’ll automatically get charged tax. If you get it “to go”, you may get charged tax; hot food is and cold food isn’t. So at Subway meatball sub to go is taxed, but a cold cut combo to go isn’t – at least in California. But don’t go toasting that cold cut combo or the state will want more money from you. Now that makes sense…
  3. Technical Update – If you tried to visit this site yesterday and couldn’t find it, I apologize. In an effort to give you the best performance possible, I switched my DNS provider to use Amazon’s Route53 service, but I made a cut and paste error which took the site down. If you don’t understand what a DNS provider is, be thankful, you probably have something of more practical significance occupying that space in your brain. Go onto the next bullet. Still here? According to these DNS comparisons Amazon’s Route53 will save the average visitor a few milliseconds.
  4. Help with Dog Green Eye – Anyone have an easy way to remove green from pictures of a dog? I spent an hour on this last night and websites such as Picnik and Pixlr didn’t help. I tried to edit them myself, but putting a brown spot over the green looks even more fake.
  5. Open Sourced WebOS – I’ve been a big proponent of webOS for some time now. On Friday HP announced that they intent to open source. Later in the day (before any code was actually open sourced) a developer showed off an Android phone running webOS. I love where this is trend is going. Consumers should have more choice on their operating system, phone hardware, and carrier – and be able to mix and match them to suit their needs and workflow. (Of course phone hardware in some cases is tied to a carrier such as CDMA and GSM). In other relevant news, I noticed this article today, How Android is Not Really all the Open. Gives you something think about a few years down the road when you are choosing between Apple and Google, and, maybe, Microsoft. Just like how I run Firefox now, I could see myself running webOS.
  6. Tebow! – In what is becoming a common occurance in this space – Tebow! The Tebow magic this past week took a pair very long field goals from the Denver Bronco’s kicker. I didn’t catch much of a mention of that kicker on SportsCenter, but Tebow had half the show. How amazing is the Tebow story? My wife is actually interested in watching next week’s game against the Patriots. That’s the first Patriots game she’s interested in this year – coming from a near lifetime Bostonian who is a Red Sox fan. He makes people who dislike football watch. I’ll give credit for that.

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Ten Things I Think I Think (and Personal Finance Links)

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  1. Mini-Vacation in the O.C. – With my wife giving a presentation in the O.C. we’ve packed up the dog and drove down for a couple of days. We’re staying on Huntington Beach – a surfer’s paradise (I don’t surf). I’ve counted more than a dozen people who don’t wear shoes and about a half-dozen Lamborghinis – odd place. This is the stereotypical California that you see on TV, not the San Francisco/Silicon Valley one that I live.
  2. Shorebreak Hotel is great and terrible at the same time – I think I don’t know what this hotel was thinking. It’s extremely nice (perhaps one of the better bathrooms I’ve ever been in) and very modern. However, the “premium” Internet connection tops out at 1024Kbps (1M/s) and costs $10 a day. That speed makes it tough to watch YouTube videos – and forget about Netflix. (More thoughts on Shorebreak below.)
  3. Much Faster Internet Speeds at Home – I think buying my own cable modem and setting it up to use WPA2 encryption, really juiced up my Internet connection. I was having trouble passing 10MB/s and now I’m getting 35MB/s. It’s something to think about if you have a slow Internet connection at home.
  4. Putting the price of an Internet connection in perspective – At home I’m paying about $50 for 30 days at a download rate of 35M/s. That’s about 4.7 cents a day per megabyte of speed. With the $10/day rate for a megabyte of speed at my hotel, I’m paying 210 times what I paid at home if we were to try to make the services equivalent. I understand that hotel has to make a profit, but you’d think they’d at least have the option for a decent Internet connection at only a mere 10 times what I pay at home.
  5. Years Later, the Lexus Christmas Commercials still Irritate me – I think I’ll probably never get over those Lexus commercials that just encourage people to surprise their spouse with a $60,000 purchase. I wrote about it a few years back: Surprise Honey, I Just Added $60,000 to Our Debt. When the economy was going well, I thought it was irresponsible, in times like these, I just think the company is trying to create a bad image for itself. It’s getting to the point where the brand has such a negative image in my eyes that I might start thinking of less of people who choose to give them their business.
  6. $2 Meatball and Cold Cut Subs at Subway – I think one of the best deals this month is Subway’s $2 6-inch deal. It’s a perfect lunch size at around 400 calories on average. I haven’t seen Subway advertise this much in their stores, just a little $2 next to the items on their menu. I wonder how many people are going to make the mistake of paying $5 for the foot-long versions.
  7. Technology on Airplanes – I think that I loved this NY Times article about using cell phones on airplanes. Nicely written, good snark – wished my fingers did the composing of it.
  8. Valet Parking in Hotels – I think that this is one of my biggest pet peeves. I like to have easy access to my car in case I want to grab a bite to eat. I don’t want to have to wait 15 minutes and I certainly don’t want to have to pay or tip for the privilege of doing so. I can understand it being a necessity in some areas, like New York City, but here in LA where everyone has a car and it’s necessary, there’s no reason not to have free self parking for your guests.
  9. Tebow! – I think I don’t have to say anything about him, but I will. My wife was double parked in picking me up from the sports bar where I was watching the Patriots (when you live far away from your team, and have no DirecTV it is your own option). The Patriots game was over, and the Broncos were down by 3. I started to protest that I wanted to watch the end of the game, but I quickly realized I knew what was going to happen. I thought it would take overtime, but it didn’t. Tebow magic reminds me a little of the Red Sox in the Morgan Magic days.
  10. Movie of the Week – I think that I’m not very excited about Green Latern. My wife and I were about halfway through it when she fell asleep and we haven’t felt the need to continue to watching it. Perhaps later this week, we’ll fight through it.

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Ten Things I Think I Think (and Personal Finance Links)

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  • Grocery Store Thanksgiving – I think that there’s tremendous value in going with a prepared dinner from a grocery store. Our local Safeway store had a $40 turkey dinner that included stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy cranberry sauce, etc. Since it was my wife and I and some other friends who didn’t have local family there wasn’t a “tradition” to uphold. Everyone agreed that it was a great meal, but my wife who loves to entertain, was most excited about being able to enjoy the holiday instead of putting 100% of her attention on making sure that there were no hosting hiccups. I enjoyed being able to watch the football game instead of having to help with the preparations.
  • More Cable Box Fees Commentary – I think that if you were interested in how how I ditched my cable box fees last week, you might be interested in a few updates I made to it. The product I bought turned out to be a bust, but another product (SiliconDust HDHomerun Prime) went on sale. I bought that one and I’m getting the cheaper version. If you combine it with the Google Offers deal today for $40 at NewEgg for $20 you can save probably another $20 (it should stack). Even if you aren’t interested in that particular gadget, the NewEgg deal is a good one if you like electronics.
  • Social Deal Sites Comeback – I think social deal sites like Groupon and Living Social are making a comeback. Interest in such sites have been waning because the deals aren’t so hot and the type of items can get repetitive (I’ve been offered a billion deals on massages for example). There’s the aforementioned NewEgg deal. However, I’m more excited to for the Groupon deal this weekend that offered $20 worth at Old Navy for $10. Old Navy has good prices on jeans and they fit me well, so I’ll make a frugal purchase even more frugal.
  • Gift Card Bonus Deals – I think that I love this year’s new gimmick to get me to buy gift cards. Taco Bell and Panda Express are restaurants in my area (perhaps nationwide) offering a free meal when you buy a gift card of around $20. Typically that comes out to a $25 value for $20. If you buy that with a credit card that gives you rewards and you can get almost 30% off. In the case of Taco Bell, you could combine that with their Fresco Menu for a relatively healthy meal for a low-low price. Readers, I’d appreciate it if you’d drop in the comments if you’ve seen this at other establishments.
  • Small Business Saturday – My wife and I participated in Small Business Saturday enjoying a good breakfast and getting a little holiday shopping done. We spent more than the $25 reimbursement that AMEX was offering, but supporting a local small business is worth spending a little extra money on.
  • Movie Review of the Week: Twilight – (Note: Some minor spoilers here…) I think I might have to put Twilight high on my top 5 worst movies ever list. Off the top of my head only The American comes close to it. My wife and I saw this movie this past Friday night. Much of the movie consisted of two characters (Edward and Bella) staring at each other making odd faces with little meaningful dialog. There wasn’t much of a conflict in the movie – the “bad” characters had been good in the previous movies and they seemingly had no motive to be “bad” in this one. The conflict was interrupted just to make sure that audience wasn’t subjected to any actual action and the movie ended. I realize it was only part one of two, but Harry Potter pulled it off and had two interesting movies. The next day, I introduced my wife to the Vampire Diaries and she said it was million times better. I wasn’t surprised, there is more action in any ten minute slice of the show than Twilight, and it’s not like I think that the Vampire Diaries is that great of a show.
  • Television Review: Once Upon a Time – I think that one of the better new shows this season is Once Upon a Time on ABC. I had thought it would be gimmicky with the fairy tale premise, but it works. It’s well worth catching up on Hulu. Give it a couple of episodes, I think you’ll thank me.
  • The Legend of Tebow – I think the buzz around Tim Tebow is one of the most enjoyable moments in the NFL season. The guy can’t throw a football ten yards without it bouncing a couple of times (I exaggerate slightly), but because he keeps winning everyone loves him. No one is giving the Bronco’s running game and their defense credit for the wins. I’m caught up in the ridiculousness of it and find it entertaining. So I’ll feed into that an spread rumors that Tebow can turn Gatorade into wine.
  • New England Patriots Defense – I think that it’s interesting how they can be the worst of defenses and the best of defenses. Okay, perhaps they aren’t the best of defenses, but they are 11th of 32 in giving up points which is pretty good. They’d be top 10 if not for giving up a garbage time score yesterday. At the same time they are 32nd in a 32 team league at giving up yards. I think a whole region of the country has enough radio talk fodder to keep it busy for the rest season.
  • One Edelman to Rule them All – I think that, despite the off-field actions, I’d take one “unknown” Julian Edelman over a dozen Tim Tebows. Edelman was drafted out of college as a QB and that is one of the few positions he hasn’t played in the NFL. It’s not often in today’s game that a player plays offense, defense, and special teams as he does. So many athletes won’t play this or play that and I commend him for showing that he’s not only willing, but able to do anything to get on the football field.

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