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Finovate, Pop Culture, and Personal Finance Links

May 9, 2011 by Lazy Man 2 Comments

The big news this week is that it is Finovate Spring. For those who don’t know what it is, it is a conference with a number of financial companies (usually start-ups) demoing their products. This is where the Mints get born for example. It’s a two conference, Tuesday and Wednesday, and I hope to live blog a large portion of it. I stress the word hope, because it moves along really fast. Demos are usually kept to some ridiculous time like 5 minutes when the projector is timed to shut off. Net Banker, who organizes Finovate, doesn’t mess around. There seems to be 64 companies presenting, though I noticed that a number are ones that you as a consumer are not likely to care about. One company who makes plastics for credit cards wanted to know if I wanted to interview their CEO. (I passed.) So that’s something to look forward to this week.

Before I get to the links, here are some pop culture thoughts. (I know that’s why you come here.)

  • Went to the Drive-In this Weekend – As part of a pre-mother’s day gift for my wife, I agreed to take her to see the movie of her favorite book – Something Borrowed. Like all movies at my drive-in it was a double feature. The $6.50 per person ticket included a viewing of Prom as well. I thought I’d give you a quick review – perhaps more so for other men who find themselves in a similar situation as I did.

    Something Borrowed – I was prepared to hate this movie. It had typical “chick flick” written all over it… and that’s really what it is. However, it moved fast enough and had enough little twists to keep me interested. Usually, I can pick out the character who is being the jackwagon causing all the problems. In this movie I found myself shifting the blame through the three major characters. The only problem I found with the movie is about halfway through I solved everyone’s problems by suggesting they all live in the house in Westchester together in a non-platonic Three’s Company. I received a dirty look from my wife for that comment. If you are a guy and getting dragged to this movie, keep your chin up, there’s a lot worse out there.

    Prom – Since this essentially came free with Something Borrowed, we figured it was worth it. My wife made the point that it should have been on television like High School Musical. The budget on IMDB had it pegged at $8M – which is next to nothing. For that you don’t get any A-list actors. We were hoping for the girls from Pretty Little Liars, but that didn’t happen. I can only guess the money went into the soundtrack, which wasn’t bad. The movie revolved around several couples and the trials and tribulations surrounding the high school prom. The couples aren’t friends and for the most part their stories are segregated with little overlap. Each story is something that you’ve seen in some other movie such as Say Anything or 10 Things I Hate About You. As a 35-year-old male, it wasn’t exactly my thing, but for the right audience it fills a niche. I should note, that if you happen to be a dog, you might like this movie. Our dog was glued to it for the first 25 minutes, which is the first time he’s watched any movie or television. Also, for the budget, it will make Disney money.

    Oh and for regular readers who thought that I’ve been hiding a child on them with the whole Mother’s Day thing, don’t worry. My wife is a mother to our dog, so I let that qualify.

  • Katy Perry’s E.T. Sounds Familiar – For the second week in a row, I’m writing about a Katy Perry song. That’s somewhat significant since I didn’t write about what I thought was her best song, the one about Las Vegas or the one that most people would expect me to write about, I Kissed a Girl. (Oh wait, I did write about that song.) I was in the car with my wife when her latest single E.T. came on the radio. I didn’t realize at first it was Katy Perry though I’ve heard the song before. I asked my wife and she confirmed it was Katy Perry. I then said, “Something’s familiar about this song. I’ve heard it before.” I just have an uncomfortable feeling about the song. I decided to do an internet search as see what I could find about it. It turns out that nearly a million other bloggers beat me to it and made note that it is essentially T.a.T.u.’s All the Things She Said. I’ll give you just one example of one of the blog posts that allows you hear both songs on YouTube.

Now let’s get to those links:

Money Writers:

  • Brip Blap asks is it possible to learn a foreign language as an adult?
  • Digerati Life presents bad investing habits that keep you from growing your investments.
  • Frugal Dad shares top 10 low cost ways to prepare your home for sale.
  • Generation X Finance says want to work from home? Consider direct selling.
  • Million Dollar Journey with stock chart continuation patterns – triangles and channels.
  • Money Smart Life goes over 5 ways to pay off your house early.
  • My Dollar Plan talks about how to save money on purchases while traveling abroad.
  • The Sun’s Financial Diary explains when making budget cuts look at the big items first.

Top PF Posts:

  • Free Money Finance on how to win friends with coupons.
  • The Smarter Wallet wonders should you buy an existing blog (as an online business)?
  • My Journey to Millions on using MicroMaximus to optimize reward checking accounts.
  • Mighty Bargain Hunter on how to live like the Duke and Duchess without the royal bank account.
  • Bill Eater with four ways to save on apartment living.
  • Money Ning posts how much is too much to spend on a pet?
  • Girls Just Wanna Have Funds shares 4 reasons why I don’t utilize extreme-couponing.
  • Len Penzo is evaluating the pros & cons of 4 common car loan alternatives.
  • Almost Frugal offers up some frugal wedding ideas.
  • Not Made of Money gives 5 tips to help you beat food price inflation.

Filed Under: Links Tagged With: Finovate, katy perry, Prom, Something Borrowed

Amazon Outage, One24 Legal, Boston Sports get an Easy A

April 24, 2011 by Lazy Man 6 Comments

Those of you who visited my site this Thursday may have been disappointed to find my site unavailable. Well, Amazon had a huge outage for it’s hosting services. Just a month ago I moved to using Amazon. As usual, I have the worst timing.

I received a follow-up email from One24’s lawyers regarding their threat to sue me for defamation. It was a little unusual. In it, it made the assumption that I “know” One24 is not a pyramid scheme and that I’m trying to hurt their business for my own gain. It’s as if they didn’t read the article. It consisted of extensive evidence from the FTC explaining how MLMs in some cases can be pyramid schemes along with analysis of how One24 fits these FTC guidelines. I think it’s clearly a scare tactic and will treat it as such. I did offer to correct my article if they point out any specific statements that have been proven to be false. I am a reasonable person trying to educate consumers. Read my One24 article here.

I saw Easy A on DVD with the wife the other night. I had seen it in the theater and liked it just as much on DVD. One part that I found particularly interesting was how Emma Stone’s character, Olive, received a greeting card that plays Natasha Bedingfield’s Pocketful Of Sunshine. She makes a face like, “What a horrible song!” when she firsts opens it. However, over the weekend she’s fallen in love with it, singing along. I’m living this in real life with Katy Perry’s Firework. I mean it has some of the most imperfect rhymes imaginable and yet, it has wormed its way into my head.

The Boston Red Sox started off the season 2-10 – a shocking start for a team that 42 of 45 ESPN analysts predicted would win the World Series. This put more of a damper on the month for me than getting my taxes done. However, they’ve won 7 of their last 8 games behind incredible starting pitching. In addition the Boston Celtics have started the series 3-0 against the Knicks. As I type this both teams are playing and leading in the stages of their game today. Both teams have really ignited that light and let it shine. You can watch a game without going “Oh, oh, oh” at their colors bursting.

Enough with the off-topic stuff, here are some personal finance articles from the last week.

Money Writers:

  • Brip Blap on chinese water torture.
  • Digerati Life explains what to do when you’ve got too much debt.
  • Frugal Dad asks anyone planning to downsize car because of gas prices?
  • Generation X Finance explains how to keep eating well on a budget.
  • Million Dollar Journey posts children and capital gain in cottage country.
  • Money Smart Life presents 12 steps to improve your credit score.
  • My Dollar Plan blogs about eliminating preexisting conditions in health insurance.
  • The Sun’s Financial Diary says seek wise counsel to save.

Top PF Posts:

  • The Smarter Wallet discusses the negative effects of social media on your job.
  • My Journey to Millions writes be careful when picking a mutual fund based on its name.
  • Free Money Finance goes over how to decide whether to drive or fly.
  • Get Rich Slowly talks rebalancing your investment portfolio.
  • Money Ning shares how you can get your concert tickets for a steal.
  • Simple Dollar on financial stress and how to plan against it.
  • Scott on MONEY posts how to get a loan following bankruptcy.
  • Mighty Bargain Hunter shares two keys to spending financial windfalls wisely.
  • Money Crush says successful people are in it for the long haul.
  • Saving Advice shares the truth about Extreme Couponing.
  • Not Made of Money gives three tips to maximize your retirement plan.
  • Budgets Are Sexy asks should only poor people shop at thrift stores?

Filed Under: Links Tagged With: Amazon Web Services, easy a, katy perry, One24

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