Lazy Man and Money

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

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  1. Steven Wright Performance and a Financial Joke – I’ve been huge fan of comedian Steven Wright since I saw his first HBO special when I was about 10. I just loved the dry humor. I’ve probably see that special a couple of dozen times (it’s second place to Serenity on my all-time watched list. Last night, I got to see him in person for the first time. The seats were awesome (second row in a small theatre), and “relatively” cheap at $40 a ticket. I had 1985 Steven Wright in my head and I wasn’t prepared for the 2011 version. He’s still very much the same, but like anyone – they don’t look they did they 25 years earlier. The jokes weren’t quite as good as HBO special, but there were some good laugh-out-loud moments. I took care to note the one financial joke for this space: “24 hour banking? No thanks. I don’t have that kind of time.” The part of me that loved linguistics a decade ago just gets a mental workout during his routine. (Mr. Wright, if you are reading this, get some new web hosting. I would have linked to you, but your website was down.)
  2. Amazon Kindle Fire and Privacy Concerns – I mentioned it over at the The Soap Boxer’s on their Kindle Fire Review (check the comments), but I was surprised that no one brought up the privacy concerns of the new Amazon Kindle tablet. Well my own congressman, Ed Markey seems to be on the ball: Congressman raises privacy concerns over Amazon Silk. I like that he’s taking the extra step and not just letting Amazon allow people to opt out of it, but making sure they know issue and choose to opt-in. Too many times technology companies give the “opt-out” method to appease the people realizing that 99.99% of people won’t know to opt-out or figure out how to opt-out.
  3. Chase Sapphire perks at the Eater’s Choice SF Event – My wife and I ventured into San Francisco for a food truck event this weekend. I don’t know if food trucks are a big trend everywhere else, but they are big here in San Francisco. The event had the top 10 in the area as voted by the people. We got there knowing that my Chase Sapphire card was going to get us early entrance and a VIP seating area. Chase surprised us with better perks than promised. We got special menu items, a dollar off of most items, free “high-end” beverages (such as Coke in a bottle made with cane sugar not high fructose corn syrup), and a Chase Sapphire picnic blanket to bring home. I particularly liked the fact that there was a Bacon mobile. One items ingedients list was just bacon listed 6 times.
  4. Retirement in Focus – This week, the plan is to focus on retirement – specifically my wife and my own early retirement plans. I wrote about it almost three years ago: Our Early Retirement Plan: Introduction (Part 0). It’s time to re-evaluate and see where we stand.
  5. Cobb Salads – While on the topic of bacon, I have to say that the Cobb salad is my favorite “new” food. It’s not that new, but it’s new to me in the last year or so. It’s like they took everything I like and said, “we are going to actually make this healthy for you.” I’ve never had it with salad dressing – it simply is unnecessary.
  6. Craigslist Frustration – I’m 0 for 2 over the last week in getting a fitness item that I’m looking for on Craigslist. The items are sold out within a few hours from posting. The prices have been around 40% off of Amazon’s, which is pretty low to start with. I’d tell you more about the item in future weeks, but I really don’t need any more competition from my fellow San Francisco readers. I’ve got time and I’m going to wait for the right price.
  7. NFL Thoughts – I heard today that about 66% of America watches the NFL. This gives me a little confidence that I can put forth a few thoughts here. I’m content with where my favorite team, the Patriots, are. Given the 5-1 record, it “content” shows how spoiled I am now. It will be hard to see Tom Brady retire. While on the topic of great QBs, it looks like the Colts are in position to “Suck for Luck” as the saying goes. For those not into football, Andrew Luck is expected to be the best QB to come about in a decade and it just so happens that the Colts could replace what is arguably the best quarterback of all-time with the next great QB in a few years. In other thoughts, the locals are starting to fall in love with the 49ers. It’s almost like when the Giants won the World Series.
  8. World Series – Since the Yankees got eliminated, I haven’t followed a single game. It turns out that baseball isn’t all that interesting to me anymore when the Red Sox or Yankees aren’t involved. I can’t give a real reason – maybe I’m just more involved with my businesses. My pick for the series is Texas in 6. That’s not so much an educated guess, but it’s more of a wish. It would be good to see those Rangers fans get a title.
  9. Red Sox drama – There’s a lot of drama involving the Boston Red Sox of late. I’ve watched an average of 130 Red Sox games a year since I was 9 and I haven’t followed any of it. I guess Josh Beckett ate some fried chicken and everyone is up in arms. (Note: It’s actually a lot worse than that and it seems that people should be upset, but I’m in some seriuos denial and don’t want read the drama.)
  10. Financial Fixit Friday – I’m curious if anyone actually got any financial fix-its done this Friday or if it was just me. I got about 1/3 of the main things that I was looking to do. Considering my previous progress, it was very substantial.

And now for the personal finance links…

Top PF Posts:

Personal Finance Links: Levity edition

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I thought I’d have a little fun today and go with some humor. It seems appropriate since I missed posting this on the weekend. It’s not always my strong suit (which is why I don’t write a comedy blog), but every now and then, you have to do something a little different. Hopefully, it will cheer up your Monday.

One of my favorite quotes of the past week comes from former Red Sox relief pitcher Julian Tavarez. This is the guy who had one of the most jaw-dropping moments of sports history when Fox mic’d him up on July 22, 2006. He was talking with Jonathan Papelbon about his horses and how they had “sexy lips” like himself. Unfortunately this great moment is well documented on the Internet, but I can find the video or transcript anywhere. I put it up there with the Joe Namath, “I wanna kiss you” interview with Suzy Kolber and the Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction in the top 3 most outrageous sports moments I’ve seen live. I literally fell out of my seat laughing at all of them. I think this quote tops them all…

“Why did I sign with the [Washington] Nationals?” Julian Tavarez said on Sunday. “When you go to a club at 4 in the morning, and you’re just waiting, waiting, a 600-pounder looks like J-Lo. And to me this is Jennifer Lopez right here. It’s 4 in the morning. Too much to drink. So, Nationals: Jennifer Lopez to me.”

I watched Bill Cosby Himself last night (thanks Comcast OnDemand). It was (and maybe still is) one of my mom’s favorite comedic performances. It’s amazing to me that it’s 25 years old… and it still timeless. Well timeless except for the bit about the “beatings.” I think Jillian Michaels the only person on television who can still policatically correctly administer beatings? (As for the performance itself, I still use the “uphill, both ways” in everyday conversation.)

I’d still give Steven Wright the title as my favorite comic (narrowly edging out George Carlin). I have his HBO special from 1985 (or so) on DVD. Like Bill Cosby, it’s pretty timeless as well except for the bit about his learning to speak Spanish and his record skipped – so he can only stutter in Spanish. Jokes I still use too much in everyday life include:

  • “my typewriter types in pencil”
  • “I made a few mistakes” (when asked if he slept well)
  • “I couldn’t find my socks, so I called information” – I actually did this when I was little. I asked for the score of the Celtics’ game… They gave it to me.

Okay, enough of the fun, let’s go back to boring financial topics (cue the big groan):

More Financial Posts:

I owe some apologies to Trevor from Financial Nut. He tagged me to write about myself. I have done this numerous times in the past and still provide a bit of that once a week in this links post. I just think the tagging of people gets old after a few years… especially when it’s the format of “X things you didn’t about me” which I think I’ve done before.