- Veteran’s Day – This Friday is Veterans Day. I’m certainly going to take a pause and reflect not only what the servicemen contribute, but their families as well. My wife just got back from what would be be considered a ridiculously short 2 week deployment and I was lost. I don’t know how anyone can handle months.
- Free Applebee’s for the Military This Friday – You are quite likely to find me at Applebee’s enjoying a free dinner. If you don’t like Applebee’s the military wallet has more free dinner options. On second glance of the list, T.G.I. Friday’s may be a better option since it is closer to us.
- Rolled over my 401Ks – I’ve had some lingering 401Ks with past jobs that I never got around to moving. Dumb move for me as the costs/fees associated with 401k are much higher than if I moved the money to a brokerage account and bought some index funds with low fees. To get the money invested right away I went with the ultimate in Lazy Portfolios – a split between Vanguard Total Market Index (VTI) and Vanguard Ex-US (VEU). I don’t plan on touching the money for a number of years, so I’m not diversifying with any real estate or bonds at this point. Thanks USAA for the 50 free trades. I won’t be needing them, but it’s saves me a couple of bucks off the top.
- New Girl vs. Whitney – The promos for each of the sitcoms came on at the same time. I put my horses in the Whitney camp and my put hers in the New Girl camp. I can’t expound, but for some reason my wife didn’t like Whitney from the promos. The laugh track and posing after a joke in Whitney is much too aggressive. However, there are a few jokes where I literally laugh out loud. There are the kind of jokes that I would retell and I never retell jokes. On New Girl, I don’t laugh. I feel uncomfortable for her – she’s just awkward. Sitcom watchers, please leave a comment and vote for your favorite!
- Jail Time – If I’m convicted of a crime and have to go jail, I am going to demand the Lindsay Lohan treatment. I think we need a new equal rights movement for non-celebrities. If you are going to let her complete a 30-day sentence in 4 hours, you might as well skip jail and hit her in the pocketbook.
- Shortest Retirement – Andy Rooney, that was a really short retirement. On the other hand not too many people are working at age 92.
- Talent TV – I don’t know if it already exists or not, but there should be a Talent TV channel that shows old episodes of Dancing with the Stars, American Idol, X Factor, So You Think You Can Dance, America’s Top Model, America’s Top Designer, etc. Then we should move all those to that channel so that we can get back to sitcoms on the main channels.
- “I Hate My Android Phone” – I heard this a few times over the last couple of weeks. A few times from friends… once by me. Simply trying to make my phone give audible sounds for text messages and phone calls, but not emails required going 5 or 6 menus deep in the email settings (not the Sounds settings as I would have guessed). Since I discovered that, I’ve hated my phone (Motorola Triumph) less, but I love my $25 plan on Virgin Mobile more. I have a dream that someday we won’t have to choose between our phones and phone plans.
- Carnivals – I was included in a few blog carnivals including the Best of Money Carnival and Carnival Of Financial Camaraderie
- Tough Patriots Game – The Patriots game Sunday reminded me of one of the most heartbreaking moments in my life. I have to admit that I was a quite depressed… until I realized that when a football game is a great source to a heartbreak that means that I’ve lived a very charmed life.
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LM, Whitney is where it is at! There was one episode where her boyfriend is drunk and I laughed so hard, I rewound it THREE times so see it again (oops, not sure if you “rewind” on PVR but you get the picture). My apologies to your wife but I don’t really find New Girl funny at all. I had high hopes for it but I was disappointed to say the least.
I completely agree with your “talent TV” channel recommendation, I would also like their to be a “Reality TV” station, like, IMMEDIATELY!!
Humiliated, I don’t know he pulled that scene off. It was great. I only rewound it once though.
There’s a Fox Reality Channel – check your local listings. I make a distinction between reality TV and talent TV because I like Survivor ;-).
Thanks for including my article in this post!!
I also vote for Whitney. After seeing the previews I didn’t think I’d like but ended up watching it anyway and being pleasantly surprised. I’ve only seen part of one episode of New Girl so I can’t say much about it.
The Jenny Pincher article is an ad for a newsletter. Have you actually read it?
I watch snippets of Whitney. Purely for aesthetic reasons, though.
AK, excellent point about the Jenny Pincher article… I didn’t think about that while I reading the article, because I considered Jenny a trusted source of information. My radar was down… I’ve removed the article from the links.
I will say that I get about 10 emails a month for newsletters that will make me money if I promote them. I hope you noticed that I haven’t pitched such products in my articles.
I mentioned in this article I focus on a couple of Vanguard Index funds. I think that is better way to go.
That said, I am considering the value of products that suggest that I “time” the market. I hate to admit it… it goes against everything that I believe in. However, I have an open mind and for the last decade the stock market (as almost any index, S&P500, Dow, etc) has been trading in a narrow range.
Hey Lazy Man,
Yeah, I’ve noticed that you don’t have product pitches, and that’s one of the reasons I was surprised to see that link there!
My main issue with these “time” the market products is that it is almost impossible to identify which ones are good, and how long they’ll be good for. Past performance is no guarantee of future returns. And frequently they have little to no correlation.
And then there is the question of motivation – if they are really that good and believe themselves, why not invest themselves – why sell you these tips for a few hundred dollars?
I wouldn’t necessarily call it “timing the market”, but I think it’s possible to take advantage of the emotions of investors to find good opportunities.
Emotions are one big factor (but not the only) that causes the market to be inefficient.