Idealism at Its Finest

There was an article yesterday that was trying to argue that instituting a four-day work week would solve a litany of the world's problem. When people try to argue something like this (at least in the manner he does), I just have to wonder have they ever read anything about economics? But then again, that doesn't even begin to cover the logical hypocrisies littered over this article.

First the author makes the argument that we would drive less. For some reason this is split into eight different reasons that basically just cover the sam negative aspects of driving. And yet, when I think of the absolute worst traffic and congestion of the year, I think of the first day of three-day weekends. Furthermore, the less commuters there are, the less incentive and money there is to fund the infrastructure of public transportation which is one of the only real solutions to traffic and its associated problems (money, pollution, congestion, time spent in traffic, etc.).

He then naively postulates that people would suddenly work harder and skip work less during a four-day week even though their would be absolutely no incentives in place to encourage such good behavior! The idea that people would suddenly start spending all free time cooking, gardening, playing with children and shopping at Whole Foods if they only had one more day off is ludicrous.

My favorite parts though are where he argues how much money we would save! There would be less road work (ignore the fact that a lower GDP would lead to less tax money for roads), less money spent on daycare (ignore the fact that the parent is not working that day at job which undoubtedly would pay more than the money a daycare costs per day) and of course less money spent on consumer goods at Walmart (since if only I had Fridays off, I would never have bought a toaster and plates to eat on from Walmart this month).

Furthermore, what about all of the people who work for the betterment of mankind? The nonprofit workers, the scientists working on renewable energy, the doctors and nurses caring for sick people, etc.?

I am not quite clear whether the author thinks all people with days off spend them sitting on their hands at home spending no money or if he imagines that employers will pay their employees the same for a four-day week as they would for a five. The bottom line is that anyone who thinks a drastic reduction in number of market transactions would increase market efficiency needs to go read some Adam Smith. I will agree with his final point: an extra day off feels great!

A lot of the time investing can seem like quite a boring process. Well if you're a soccer fan, the next time you have some spare investing money around here's an option for you: "My Football Club", currently sporting (har) 50,000 members who are pooling their money together to eventually launch a takeover bid for a club.

As a soccer fan, I have to say this looks like a very fun idea. In fact, given the success outside of this country of the video game Football Manager, where one controls nothing in-game, only managerial activity, I'm surprised this isn't even more popular. This is particularly true as many fans are becoming increasingly disenfranchised from the sport with rising ticket prices, ridiculous wages, and billionaire owners going into debt buying championships.

This seems like a great application of Web 2.0 as owners will even vote online for team selection and other such activities. The fact that Manchester United, one of the richest clubs in the world is only tenth place in the voting for which club to take over is a good sign that the members are at least somewhat grounded in realism. Hopefully if and when the takeover happens, they will keep the same open spirit that the group seems to have now.

Unfortunately I think I'll have a hard time convincing my wife to spend $70 to buy shares in a TBD sports team right now. Perhaps I should just focus on applying to business school.

One of the most difficult tasks in this life can be building good habits, particularly when it is done autonomously. It's now become the cliche that fitness centers around the country are jam-packed the 30 days following New Year's only to have the numbers severely taper down thereafter.

I watched a fascinating BBC documentary called The Human Mind a few years ago that followed an otherwise normal person with a severe case of road rage as he attempted to shed this habit through various psychological techniques over the course of some months. The end result was failure--inferring that, as much as we might like to believe otherwise, significant personality change is extremely rare.

Still we all know 'that guy', the person who dug deep and turned their academic career around, the person who went from addict to clean and sober, or the person who lost a lot of weight and has kept it off.

So we continue to try to build good habits in hope that we can be an exception. Fortunately there are many of these people on the internet and along with them, some great Web 2.0 methods for tracking and psychologically reinforcing these habits.

To start off with here is a great article at Lifehacker about a great tip Jerry Seinfeld once gave to the blog's author (a beginning stand-up actor at the time). Some who don't know Jerry Seinfeld well might see him as somewhat of a strange person to take productivity advice from, but in actuality he is known in the industry as one of the hardest working comics. If you like the idea, here is a convenient year-long calendar to print off and follow your progress.

Some more advanced methods for of tracking include:

Sciral Consistency - A desktop solution for tracking tasks that need to be done every certain number of days. While a great product in the making, It was a bit too confusing at first and after putting in the time to learn it, I realized it needed a few more key features to be developed before I would use it on a regular basis (specifically the ability to schedule tasks you do a certain number of times per week or month).

Loopdo - A method for keeping track of your longer-term goals.

Everyday Systems - Similar to the Seinfeld method, it keeps track of daily consistence in practicing a habit through a color coded system.

Joe's Goals - My personal favorite, it has a unique method of keeping track of how often you do a variety of tasks and lets you put down a point system for the different goals giving you a sum total at the end of the day. After long-term use, you can even view charts of your success in keeping habits. A bit geeky, but fun nonetheless. It has a very intuitive design as well. Brings out the competitive spirit in me a bit, which in this case can only be a good thing!

Just after announcing their new line-up of ipods, Steve Jobs also announced a $200 price cut on the iPhone, released just over two months ago. In an attempt to appease those early adopters who had just purchased the iPhone for $600, Jobs offered a $100 rebate. The catch? It is specifically a $100 rebate to the Apple store.

Apparently this is not sitting well with those $100 gift certificate holders who view it as money going right back into Steve's backpocket. Now while I can understand their frustration that they are looking a bit like suckers, at the end of the day, isn't that what happens to all early adopters? Early adopters reap the benefit of not having to wait a small time period after a new technology is released in exchange for certain consequences. One of those main consequences is that new technology inevitably has a price cut not too long after its initial release along with increased possibility of buggy software like we've seen in some parts of Windows Vista this year or defective hardware as was seen in the Xbox 360's recently released driving wheel accessory.

More than anything, the ridiculousness of the complaints is that they should be happy they were given anything at all (though having perused the Apple store before, I can't recall too many items <$100). After all, basic price theory dictates that these consumers deemed the iPhone (for some reason) worth the $599. In fact in all likelihood, they probably valued it as worth more than that as they were so eager to dispense with their cash, even waiting in line or buying off ebay and craigslist. This reminds me, hopefully some of those worthless people who buy up stock in iPhones just in order to then resell it on Craigslist had overbought their supply of iPhones and got a bit of comeuppance with this price cut.

Although some people (probably myself included) might say there is already an overabundance of internet travel sites, what with Expedia, Orbitz, Travelocity, Priceline, TripAdvisor, Kayak (my personal favorite) and others, I believe there is a new one that deserves mention: Yapta.com. The basic premise is that since the prices of flights tickets can fluctuate in a seemingly random pattern, instead of conducting the headache of constantly searching for prices to see if a good deal has come up, you give your criteria to Yapta.com along with the price you are looking for (non-binding unlike Priceline), and Yapta conducts this search daily until it finds a flight that meets your criteria and sends you an email alert.

For me this sounds perfect since I live 5+ hours of flying away from both my wife and my own families and of course am buying at least a couple of pairs of tickets per year. This will do a great job of taking the stress out of the process.

A good idea probably is to combine this service with Farecast, a new Seattle startup that focuses on airfare predictions along with buy/wait recommendations.

Definitely should be using this soon as the holiday season approaches (my goodness is it really?)

An interesting list I came across:

Top Paying Keywords on Adsense
austin dwi	$66.89
austin dwi attorney	$58.30
san diego dui attorney	$54.56
houston criminal attorney	$47.44
san diego dui	$42.83
dwi texas	$40.89
dui attorneys	$40.19
dwi attorney	$39.90
dui attorney	$39.11
dui attorney	$39.11
dui attorney	$39.11
dui lawyer	$38.49
lawyer dui	$38.49
dui lawyers	$37.57
federal criminal attorney	$35.80
car accident lawyer	$35.67
dwi attorneys	$35.32
criminal lawyers	$34.19
new york criminal attorney	$33.95
auto accident attorney	$33.19
auto accident lawyer	$33.13
dwi lawyer	$32.31
dwi lawyer	$32.31
texas dwi law	$31.02

I find this interesting not as a tool for earning money on a website, but rather as what companies value a single lead so much and are able to turn such a profit on a single lead that they are willing to pay such an extreme premium on it. I think its safe to say where the overwhelming money is: law. Really though this should come as no surprise since everyone knows the lucrative nature of the law. If we analyze what specific type of law, we see that it overwhelmingly DUI lawyers--a scenario where the client is fairly likely going to use a lawyer anyway so the likely scenario is that the advertising is so high because the competition among DUI lawyers is extremely fierce.

It seems to be a common statistic thrown around these days: CEO wages at big companies are increasing at a much faster rate than their workers. Personally, I have two minds about this. On the one hand there is the obvious shock at such statistics while one conjures images of greedy corporate bigwigs hoarding money and flying around in private jets while their Flynt, Michigan employees struggle without health insurance. While the coloring of this image might be a bit oversaturated, the reality of the gap in income is certainly there.

At the same time, I can't help but realize that we are in a free market. Assuming the company isn't some fraudulent natural resource monopoly a la Enron, the money it made was given willingly by customers, the CEO was hired freely by a board, stockholders or other authority group that deemed the person worth such a salary and the employees took jobs with full knowledge of what they would be paid.

Yet, do I really know what goes on behind the closed doors of executive and stockholder meetings? Is it safe to assume that it works like as an efficient market should, or is it really more of a good ol' boys network where jobs are passed around the elite as they scratch each others' backs? The more I read about George W. Bush's past and his current method for administration appointments (ex-roomates, family friends, etc.), the less confident I am that I do know what really goes on behind those doors.

Great news for me: I was able to find a job very quickly here in Washington D.C. (off of Craigslist of course). I am not quite sure why it seemed to be significantly easier to find a job here in D.C. than it was in San Diego. One reason could be simply the different job markets in the two areas. San Diego never seemed to be a great place to grow into a career. The job opportunities seemed to be very stratified into two groups: people finishing off their careers in high-level positions and unskilled workers (probably highly influenced by the large immigration numbers from Mexico). Of course, there were workers between these two groups, but that was always my impression; certainly it was no bell curve.

The other possible reason for this is that in San Diego I was dealing with the difficult dilemma most every recent graduate faces: getting experience without experience. Thus once I got my experience in San Diego, it was relatively easy to build on that experience in Washington D.C. Certainly my past experience fit in well with the job I have ended up at.

Finally, I have to admit, it could have simply been dumb luck. There are certain facets of this job that fit very extremely well with the experience that I was able to put on my resume so I have to accept the possibility that the occurrence of finding a job so quickly might have only been good fortune and I might very well not be so lucky next time.

Now that I am beginning to settle here in Washington D.C., it it time to come back to reality after some weeks of traveling and moving cities, and find a job. One thing I'm very thankful for is that in D.C., Craigslist charges $25 per job posting. This doesn't just pay for the running costs (and profit) of Craiglist, it discourages spammers and temp agency recruiters from posting a litany of fake jobs that get your hopes up before realizing the scam after a few emails and/or phone calls. Hopefully the $25 charge doesn't stop employers from posting jobs they otherwise might, but then again, the kind of employer for which $25 is is too much to pay for human resources, probably wouldn't be a great employer anyway.

Well this past week has been pretty crazy. With my wife going to Georgetown next year, we have finally had the week that I had been dreading for a long time. After we had reviewed all of our options for moving such as u-haul trucks, trailers, alternative moving companies, paid movers, pods, media mail and freight shipping, we decided that the best idea was simply to sell all of our furniture and everything else we couldn't fit into the car on Craigslist and then drive on over cross-country. Although there are of course some things I have learned from the experience, overall the entire episode went pretty well. Most of our furniture only took a small loss versus what we had paid for it originally (fortunately we had bought it all off of Craigslist in the first place). The small stuff was probably where we learned our lesson--we probably should have started selling it earlier, since most of it ended up being donated to the local Baras thrift store on the last day. But then again the Baras foundation seems like a pretty worthy cause so I guess really everything worked out fine!

An interesting new entrepreneurial opportunity someone is attempting: The PhotoViolationMeter. The concept is to revolutionize the parking meter industry by allowing such things as payment with credit card, automatic incremental payment by credit card while you're away from the meter, payment by phone, automatic phone call when your time is running out, wirelessly informing an official of a violation.

However I do wonder if this is entrepreneurship will be successful for they might have been a bit too trusting in the city governments that would be purchasing this. First there will be a rather large expenditure to outfit all of the parking meters with such devices. Furthermore, there will be a direct link to reduced city income if they give out less parking tickets. From the perspective of the city employee's union, they will likely lose jobs as this technology makes some of the more manual labor jobs obsolete. Who exactly going to pull the trigger on such an program? This could be case of not knowing one's customers well enough, but time will tell.

Visiting Disneyland and California Adventure park this week has impressed upon me the importance of branding and marketing. Like the previous time I visited the parks, I am befuddled by Disneyland's continuing supremacy over California Adventure in terms of popularity. From my view (and everyone else in my party), California seems clearly superior: Newer, faster rides, cleverer design, better food, alcohol served in the park, prettier and of course, less crowded. Still Disneyland has much more people in it and I even overheard someone coming out of California Adventure park saying they 'hated it' because of it 'hardly has any rides' which I can only think is a lack of marketing on California Adventure's part, because I simply can't see how that's the case.

I suppose the other possibility is that California Adventure fills a different niche, specifically age groups. Admittedly, we didn't have any young children with us who might still be captured by the 'magic of Disney' and thus would prefer the shows and all the different animated characters of the movies whereas we were quite happy to jump on fast exciting roller coasters and relax on the pier with a Karl Strauss.

Well I've finally 'upgraded' my Verizon phone that was on its last legs with Verizon's 'new every two [years]' plan. I'm almost a bit surprised at myself that I went with Verizon again when I can see several things wrong with them.
1) They're just plain expensive compared to many other plans
2) They don't have the most exciting selection of phones (3 to be precise)
3) I won't get the special deals for new customers that I could with other carriers
4) If I ever win the lottery, an iPhone will not work for it
5) Most annoyingly I think is the crippling software Verizon phones come with whether it be for ringtones, photos, mp3s or whatever else.

However, there is one area in which Verizon (at least according to Consumer Reports surveys) reigns supreme and that is reception. And I remember one particular summer living in an apartment where I did not get service and that was just unbearable. Even standing on a hill outside my house was awful where conversation where constantly interrupted with static.

Also with a $5 usb cable off of ebay and BitPim software I am able to bypass some of the ridiculous restrictions Verizon put on it.

I came across a pretty shocking video today which demonstrates how companies are attempting to post advertisements for job openings in local papers in hopes that they will not receive applicants and therefore be allowed to hire a much less expensive foreign worker through an H-1B visa. In fact, they are not just hoping, they are actually hiring experienced lawyers to tailor job advertisements to succeed in that aim.

When you think about the economics of it all and the prevalence of unethical behavior in the business world, this shouldn't really come any great surprise, but it's still very interesting to see it right there on video. From a prospective employee's standpoint, it does leave one in quite a conundrum as to what field to enter. With outsourcing, at least you could try to enter a field where they need works in the flesh, but if they're importing foreign workers into the country without even looking at domestic applicants first, it doesn't seem to leave much hope for us American workers. I guess the answer is to rely on networking as much as possible, don't end up in the ocean of anonymous job applicants.

Although I have been sufficiently scared into most likely never entering the business world of food and beverage service, I think I have stumbled upon a niche in San Diego recently.

A friend has come to visit us who has a particular penchant for ice cream, and so we've been to Coldstone a couple of times the past week. I hadn't actually been there before but I knew it was similar to an old high school haunt of mine, Marbletop (now unfortunately named 'Mix' due to stupid copyright issues). However after visiting Coldstone a couple of times, I definitely noticed something was missing, and not just that I was no longer 16 and unable to go out to bars with friends. This place was corporate and I'm not one of those people that refuses to ever go to Starbucks based upon some sort of anti-large corporation principles; I mean that it has this feel of a fast food chain. The store had the stereotypical middle-aged manager serving you who was clearly unhappy to be working at a place like this at this stage in their life, all pre-made menu boards with names of sundaes right out of a brainstorming session of overpaid marketing managers and finally, uncomfortable space-saving plastic chairs all in the corporate red and white colors. I think San Diego could definitely use one of these create-your-own ice cream mix places but with some open dining space, comfortable chairs, nice music, soft lighting and a comfortable friendly atmosphere (one place near me that has this down very well is Claire De Lune, a local coffee shop).

Well if I ever do get an itch again to get into the restaurant industry, this is an idea that would probably let me lead a less crazy and stressful life than some others.

Last weeks at work are always a bit weird. You of course end up doing that “Keep in touch!” “Yeah, definitely!” thing with people who you’ve talked to for over three minutes maybe once or twice. As well you say how you’ll miss working here when in reality you’ve been counting the days down for a few weeks now (which has really made it drag out it seems, not sure if that was the best idea). It’s been a bit tough getting the constant question of ‘so what are you going to do? Do you have a job lined up?’ I can’t say I ever get this question from people my age. Without an extremely direct contact to someone actually in charge of hiring, these days you cannot possibly really have a job lined up for someone with skill level. Employers already prefer not to look at out-of-town candidates as it is because the unreliability of them is too often a waste of their time (canceled interviews, canceled job offers, etc.). When you’re looking for a job with a relatively low wage who will obviously not help with any moving expenses, trying to send in applications from here is as much a waste of my time as it is theirs.

I think its time to look for more education. I think its safe to say that an additional degree would have made the coming months much easier.

Although I still have trouble justifying spending the ever-increasing cost of purchasing movie tickets, sometimes it really is worth it. Most recently was the movie Hot Fuzz where the audience laughing hysterically together made it even more enjoyable. If its up to me, the only two movies I will justify spending that much money on are comedies and special effect bonanzas. Of course they also must be well reviewed at the same time. My current movie barometer of choice is IMDb, where I’d say <7.0=bad movie, 7.0-7.4=decent movie, probably a rental, 7.5-7.9=Definitely worth a look if the synopsis/cast fits my tastes and 8.0+=Should definitely consider seeing this movie even if it didn’t catch my eye from the synopsis/cast.

Unfortunately, this method of gauging movies is beginning to fall apart. Whereas a year or two ago, this was pretty dang accurate from the get go, lately movies can start out high and then slowly descend as 2nd and 3rd waves of people see and vote on it. An especially good example of this was the recent Spiderman 3 which began at +8.0 after a couple premieres and even into the first weekend, but then afterwards began a steady descent to where it now sits at 6.8 (which is a much more accurate rating in my opinion).

I can see two reasons for this decline: the paranoid cynic in me says that when millions and millions of dollars are on the line and more and more people use IMDb, studios would be stupid NOT to hire people to beef up those numbers in the beginning before they get pushed down by the floods of real voters with more accurate ratings. The less conspiratorial reason might be that the people seeing the movie opening weekend are the more rabid ‘fanboys’ who have such high expectations and love the story/actors/director/writers from the outset that they will end up loving and defending it to the bitter end.

If this current trend continues, I need to either abandon IMDb altogether as a rating system and use something like Rotten Tomatoes or else filter the movies I’m willing to see either making sure it was released at least 2 weeks ago or else be a movie not prone to these ‘fanboys’ by its nature (like comic book derived movies, sequels, or worst of all both). The problem is that for comedies, it is essential to see it while the audiences are still pretty big, though I suppose if you go on a Friday or Saturday night, you’ll still get that a couple of weeks later.

Instead of going to work this past Monday, the division I’m in was fortunate enough to go to a retreat instead. Apparently the previous year’s ‘retreat’ was sitting in a conference room for several hours listening to boring seminars. As a result, people upset by this decided to organize this year’s retreat in a much more enjoyable fashion.

The goal of the seminar was to improve our ‘communication’ skills which sounded very worrisome on the outset, but in actuality the talk was reminiscent of Psych 101 lectures i.e. pop psychology, which I at least always find entertaining. The topic was Multiple Intelligences. Basically, the idea is that there are different kinds of intelligences such as logic, musical, interpersonal, etc. and people have strengths and weaknesses (or ‘emptys’ as the politically-correct speaker asked us to term it) in each of the nine types. The justification for this lecture was that by keeping in mind how co-workers’ intelligences differed from our own, we could better communicate with them e.g. write an email to a verbal person, go on a walk with a kinesthetic person, do a powerpoint presentation for visual people, etc.

I was pretty sure where I would stand from hearing the descriptions of the intelligences before doing a self-evaluation of which type I was. Strongest in logic, weakest in linguistic (apologies to my readers) and the rest was all around the same, fairly high (though this is all self-evaluation so as long as you think highly of yourself…).

The most interesting part was watching my co-workers, particularly one who I have problems communicating with. Sure enough we had very different intelligences (her weakest was my strongest, logic), which probably explains some of the difficulty we have. Definitely something to keep eye out for when future difficult with co-workers inevitably arise in my career.

I feel like I’ve come across another one of those market niches where I can’t find much of any competitors and as a result, am likely being ripped off. Reminds me of wedding planning actually (not that I paid for much of that). The industry: pet shipping. By that I mean we are going to Washington D.C., want to keep our car (at least for the beginning), but do not want to subject our two (awesome) cats to a cross-country trip in a cramped car.

I guess it makes sense that there is not going to be to many competitors--I mean how many times in your life do you really come into this sort of situation? The market must be low and you have to have people in all destinations in all parts of the country. Still, it looks as if I’ll end up paying as much as I would for a regular plane ticket for a human in order for my 15 pound cat to catch a ride on the same plane in the freight section (at least I assume this is how it all works).

The price is so extravagant we’re starting to reconsider the cats-in-the-car approach, but we’ve heard some bad stories about this choice. There’s the potential for meowing/crying, cats crawling on the driver when you feel guilty about keeping them in the crate and of course, no litter tray. For the time being, I’ll continue to sell the solution of ‘cat stew’ to my wife. I mean seriously, $350+? What have they done to earn their keep? Cows and chickens would at least give us milk and eggs in the morning.

I swear at times it really does seem to be true that when one thing breaks, everything breaks. A couple of weeks ago I somehow managed to lose my phone, presumably slipping out of my coat pocket at a movie theater (that’ll teach me to shut it off rather than turn it to vibrate). Within a week, while I’m continuing some hope of finding it, my wife’s phone does not slip out of her coat pocket while she gets into the car and the shuts the car door onto her pocket, phone nestled snuggly inside. Suddenly her phone’s display is completely out and it holds a charge for one, maybe two minutes at a time.

In normal circumstances we would just take out losses and buy some used unlocked phones off of Craigslist or Ebay and pay the $20 per phone activation fee to Verizon. However, just as we’ve done this, we are now sitting a mere 4 weeks away from the end of our 2 year contracts. You would think that surely Verizon would have some sort of method of pro-rating if something like this happens so that you get, say 23/24ths of a discount off a phone, alas, this is not the case. Instead we are caught between a rock and a hard place and living in the stone age of *gasp* no cell phones! How ever will we cope?

My good friend is leaving her job soon and recently discovered that the job is being offered for significantly more than she is getting paid (roughly a 20% increase). Perhaps this might be expected if they were looking to hire someone more qualified/educated or if a number of years had passed and they needed to keep up with living expenses, however in this case she has transformed the job to include a multitude of different responsibilities since taking it on—so much so that the position is now going to have assistants (paid as much as she is currently)—a mere 1.5 years ago. In fact, the replacement will not even be given as many of the responsibilities as she is currently, instead giving some of the responsibilities to the new assistants.

This brings up the question—is this fair? Does the employer have a responsibility to increase an employee’s salary according to their worth? From a strictly capitalist standpoint, that is of course not true. Employer’s pay as little to their employees as they can get away with and employees attempt to negotiate a wage as high as they can get away with. However, the not-for-profit world is a curious one which has many unwritten rules, such as: often working unpaid overtime to keep everything running in the understaffed office, buying small supplies needed out of one’s own pocket, and of course there is an understanding that you will not be paid as much as you would for the same amount of responsibilities in the private for-profit world.

The more cynical part of me understands that this underpayment is probably due in large part to her giving notice that she would leave for grad school within 1.5 years almost immediately upon hiring. Normally an employer would have incentive to give raises to a promising employee in order to avoid losing him or her to another company. However, given the short timeframe and inevitability of her departure, that incentive was pretty much non-existent for her employer.

At the same time, knowing what I know about the non-profit world, I think this was probably also a bit of poor management. Keeping an employee happy is not just about preventing her leaving, but also because happy employees are simply better employees. Even if it’s just a sign of appreciation and encouragement, a raise after a 6 months to a year was in order. Perhaps the problem was the her boss just knew her too well—that no matter what she was going to work her tail off until the end.

Well after putting it off for quite some time, we finally got a laptop yesterday. This is also my first interaction with Windows Vista. Most of the press I’ve read has been largely negative e.g. it is overpriced, it is buggy, it is slow, it is not enough of an improvement.

Personally, I don’t think the overpriced thing is very warranted. Sure if you compare it to Linux it’s very expensive, but the hassle of finding compatible software for Linux is the same reason why I was so eagerly looking forward to switching from a Mac to a PC when I left high school. Since laptops have to come with an OS I had to buy something whether that be Windows XP or Vista Basic and the $40 upgrade to Vista Premium doesn’t seem that crazy for the additional tweaks it provides to the operating system. I imagine the people complaining about the price are the same people with BitTorrent running 24/7 on their computers.

I’d like to tell you whether it is buggy or slow, but right now I cannot give the opinion at all. This is because Dell has flooded my computer with a monumental slew of adware, spyware and demo programs!! Perhaps if I was more computer savvy I would know exactly which programs were necessary (such as those that need to run in the background for the soundcard, video card, modem, etc.) and which ones are completely superfluous, but I think that might take some time, unfortunately.

The final criticism is that Vista is not enough of an improvement over XP. From a first impression, I’m inclined to agree with this. When you look at past jumps from Windows 95 to Windows 98 to Windows XP, it just seemed like there was more there in the progressions. That said, there are definitely some aspects I do appreciate, such as improving on the nested menus from the start menu which I never liked dealing with before, the instant search function right on the start menu, the ability to click on a specific section of a file path in the explorer window to go to that folder, and finally, yeah, the (admittedly-gimmicky) way of scrolling through windows with Windows+tab keys is pretty neat.

I was intrigued when it was first released that Microsoft was about to unveil a ‘top secret’ product. I have to say though, it was a bit of a let down (as these revealings often are) when the Microsoft Surface was unveiled. First there is the problem with the orientation. Perhaps I am a bit biased due to suffering from whiplash this year, but there is a reason why computer monitors, television sets, chalkboards, mirrors and other objects you need stare at are parallel with your eyes. Who in their right mind would want to awkwardly bend over a table for an extended period of time. In what has become a very rare occurrence lately Tom Cruise had the right idea:

I mean, I know standing up is a passing fad these days, but is it really worth this hunching over?

In one of the main promo photos, they even have one of the models kneeling on the floor to avoid the hunched-over look:

But perhaps most importantly of all, what is the point? Since when did sorting through photos with a mouse (or alt-tab or arrow keys) become so cumbersome that I need to buy what surely must be a table costing thousands of dollars? Sure the technology looked pretty, but at the end of the day, all it seemed like was using your fingers as a cursor to select different windows and expand or reduce them and the part where you place something on the table and it connects is not much of an upgrade from current Bluetooth (or other) wireless technology.

It’s possible that maybe I’m looking at this too much from a home consumer perspective rather than a business perspective, but until I see some concrete actual examples of why this would at all practical, I’ll stick with my now horribly outdated flat-screen high-contrast high-resolution monitor, thanks.

Continuing on from my previous post of packing and moving is a resource I should really come back to in a couple of months at wikiHow: How to clean an apartment before moving out. I’ve definitely had some very interesting experiences in that awful situation that is retrieving your damage deposit. My first experience with this was with 4 college football-playing roommates who, in an alcohol-infused haze, decided to commemorate their victory over a division rival by writing the score on the wall in permanent marker and then signing their names underneath. Unfortunately for me, in another alcohol-infused haze they also got themselves kicked out of the dorm, leaving me to do all of the cleaning at the end of the year, including painting over their chef d’oeuvre.

My next house had a pretty hilarious situation where my roommate's fiancée, who had lived there rent-free for the past few months, put herself in charge of divvying up the cleaning responsibilities. Her solution? One person clean one bathroom, one person clean the other bathroom, one person vacuum the stairs, one person clean the living room and one person clean the kitchen. Anyone who thinks that sounds like a fair distribution clearly has never done the latter before leaving an apartment (think fridge, stovetop, oven, cupboards that had hardly been cleaned in 2 years, all with everyone's stuff still in them).

After that delightful situation was a summer apartment where I somehow managed to forget to clean the oven (though I thoroughly cleaned everything else). My landlord’s response? She kept the entire damage deposit, claiming she had to pay over $150 for someone (read: her friend) to clean the oven and the rest of the deposit she kept in order to replace the garbage disposal that I had requested over a month ago for her to repair! It was at that point that I decided to really do some digging into how Tenant Law worked and found, to my pleasant surprise, that at least in Seattle, they are written rather largely in favor of Tenants. So, with the law on my side, I waited 14 days for the legally-mandated itemized checklist from her, received nothing and wrote a letter informing her of this requirement she had not met. In less than a week I received 90% of my damage deposit back in a mailed check with no note attached.

My last painful clean-up job was with roommates who were an unfortunate combination of lazy, dirty and conniving (they were in charge of divvying the remaining deposit money and I still suspect they received a larger deposit back than they claimed before giving me my 'share').

Thankfully, now I live with my lovely wife and the only damage deposit I foresee myself losing will be due to a pair of mischievous cats who insist on breaking every blind they can get their paws onto!

Well, while I am still carefully considering which direction to take my career, whether that be business school or whatever else, my wife has decided to attend law school in Washington D.C. starting this August. This is great step for her, but the first step, moving cross-country, will be quite a difficult one. Our first reaction was to look into the classic U-haul approach. However, once we started to add up the costs of such a rental considering the enormous mileage we would need to pay for as well as the trailer we would need to tow our car with (my wife doesn’t drive unfortunately), we started to really contemplate just how much of what we have is actually worth. This of course doesn’t even cover some of the horror stories I’ve heard from sources regarding the reliability of these moving trucks and the nightmare that would be breaking down on a 100+ degree day in the middle of Kansas.

In retrospect, it was a very good idea from a financial standpoint for us to buy most all of our furniture used from Craigslist since now we don’t even need to consider the enormous cost of moving furniture across country. Now however, we have a very finite limit of what we can take (what we can fit into the car without putting too much of a load on the poor vehicle) and it is always amazing to see how many possessions one accumulates in such a relatively short time. Furniture is not the only item we will need to sell or give away through Craigslist. There are paint supplies, kitchen appliances, weight sets, camping equipment and host of other items that start to really add up. We would consider sending some possessions through slow shipping media mail or freight shipping if we had an address to send it to.

Another possibility to consider are these containers like Pods and Upack, but for now we’re just going to focus on achieving a Zen-like detachment from our possessions and toss them into the vortex that is Craigslist.org.

An old adage is that the best way to effect change is with your wallet. It's nice to see consumers of XM satellite radio following this often unheeded advice.

Last week, radio shock jocks Opie & Anthony were 'suspended' for 30 days (and according to some rumors, possibly even fired) after a guest on their show made what XM deemed 'inappropriate' comments on the satellite radio channel that has until now prided itself on its lack of censorship. While it is possible that this was just a reaction to the recent uproar and eventual firing of Don Imus due to inappropriate over-the-air radio comments, speculation is abound that it was in fact due to the possible impending merger between satellite radio companies XM and Sirius which would need approval from government regulators who might not take kindly to the obscene comments made that detailed fantasies of sexual violence towards government officials.

While recently sponsors withdrew following the comments of a shock jock (Imus), in an ironic twist now sponsors and consumers alike are withdrawing following a parent company’s disciplinary response to a shock jock's comments. It is impossible to be completely sure of what caused this situation to be reacted to in a completely opposite manner than the Imus situation. Perhaps it was Imus' declining popularity, a different attitude of his audience, or even the specific subject of his comments (does our society have a higher tolerance for misogyny and violence than racism?). However the consensus seems to be that Sirius and XM's appeal has not just been its lack of commercial breaks or original programming that it also has proudly advertised, but perhaps most of all, its role of serving as a safe haven from the ever-reaching arm of censors.

According to recent data, sales of the Hummer H2 fell 27% last year which was preceded by a 22% drop the previous year. Is this it? Are consumers finally turning green? After its original monstrosity, Hummer came out with a reduced-sized model, AKA the H2. That still wasn’t enough and more recently there has even been the yet smaller H3. Is the impending discontinuation of these models a sign that consumers are beginning to be environmentally conscious? Honestly, I extremely doubt it. Just like recent radio actions, the only motivation that consistently moves people is money. I complain about $50 fillups at the pump, but that’s is a bargain compared to what these guys are paying each week.

So why am I so skeptical about people’s motivation? For the same reason Fox News is so popular or why some watch the Daily Show every night but no other news program or paper, or why the people in my office who watched An Inconvenient Truth in the break room during the lunch hour were people who already whole-heartedly accepted the theory of Climate Change while one of my co-workers, who was immediately disdainful of the movie because of it being with that “Gore” guy and believed Climate Change was really ‘more of a religious question’ sat at her desk.

My point is, people in this day and age only expose themselves to a specific segment of media with a truncated range of ideas. As such, only in extreme cases do people have a large shift in their beliefs and priorities. The people buying hybrids are coming from Civics, not Hummers. The people coming from Hummers are probably limiting themselves to bastions of efficiency like the Navigator or Explorer. Environmentalism (with the exception of protectionism) only really began in the last 30-40 years. Its going to take much longer than that before a real paradigm shift occurs.

I have to put the word out about a GREAT movie I saw last night that just came out: Hot Fuzz. I hadn't really hear anything about it until we decided to go see a movie and saw it was playing at the local theater. It had very good ratings from IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes so we took a chance and it certainly paid off! A lot of it is a satire of cop movies from the 80's and 90's, but it's much more than just that. I can't remember the last time I laughed so hard throughout an entire movie (though Borat certainly had its moments). I forget sometimes that although the price of movie tickets can be so expensive nowadays, the audience factor can be so great on a movie when an entire crowd of people is laughing together (the laughtrack effect--though I hate canned laughter on TV shows). So go see this movie in a theater while you still can!

So who else tried to make that argument in math class "How is this practical? When am I ever going to use this?" I know that I did and had fellow classmates who wholeheartedly agreed. Unfortunately for future defenders of this point of view, there is a clear cut example of just what math can do.

James Simons, a math professor and now head of a leading fund manager earned $1.7 BILLION last year. And this is not one of those cases of a CEO rolling in bonuses while the company flounders. His fund has earned upwards of 34% annual returns.

This scenario begs the moral question of whether these hedge funds (and other technical analysis traders) are contributing anything to the market which they profit from. They might argue that they are filling gaps created by market inefficiency while increasing the liquidity of financial markets, both of which can positive benefits. Federal Reserve chieftains of past and present have referred to it as 'greasing the wheels of capitalism'.

Others argue that it is manipulating wealth in a secretive manner to create more wealth while providing no good or service. It can't be said there is no argument in in this viewpoint---the methods are secretive and it is a process which leaves no tangible byproduct. It is interesting to note that the fund managers featured in the Alpha magazine report refused comment to the New York Times which might be an indication of their belief in how much water their defense holds...

When did we seem to just stop paying attention to these gas price increases? It somewhat reminds me of the casualty numbers in Iraq which were reported on a daily basis at first but then gradually slipped outside of the media's blinders. I know that some SUV or other large car owners probably won't be sympathetic, but my sedan was $1 short of 50 yesterday! We went out for dinner and a movie and the gas was more than both of those put together (even with these ridiculous $10 movie tickets nowadays)! I just looked around and apparently there are reports now that gas will soon be hitting $4 a gallon. Is there any end in sight? At least I can take solace when observing my English in-laws, some of whom pay upwards of $150 at the pump!

One of my current interests in my spare time is currency trading. I find the whole field of technical analysis of markets quite fascinating. One of the major characteristics of Forex (foreign currency exchange) is that the huge volume of the market creates extreme liquidity where one can buy and sell millions of dollars worth of currency in a matter of minutes. This 24 hour market holds many traders who make their living holding positions for just 3-5 minutes at a time, shooting for a small gain combined with the large leverage many brokers offer nowadays. This is why one trader who makes posts on some currency exchange message boards is beginning to stand out. "Jacko" as he is called, uses the single-minded strategy of only trading his favorite currency pair (the Euro/US Dollar), only in one direction and only at round numbers (1.3100, 1.3200, etc.) as well as the occasional buy on dips in the trend and 50% retracements.

Now some might be skeptical at first, saying that this is really just due to the bullish run of the Euro in recent years, but he is certainly no Monday morning quarterback, as you can see in a post he made last year predicting the huge run we've seen for over the past year.

He is a breath of fresh air among the day trading scalpers who make thousands of trades every year.

Having somewhat 'grown up' with the rise of the internet (I can remember computer labs devoted to teaching my classmates and I how to use it back in 1994), I can remember when it had an extreme biased towards younger people. As a result, your online persona never would really interact with the older generation. When Myspace, Friendster and Facebook initially came out, this seemed to be the case as well. However, as my generation has grown up and the internet expands to a larger and larger cross-section of society, this is certainly no longer the case.

Increasingly prospective employers are looking up their candidates online to gather more information on them which might not be known. This New York Times article from last year gives an example of a recent graduate who had been hearing no responses from job applications until he removed a satirical essay he had written online under his real name.

It doesn't just stop at jobs either. My wife, who recently has applied to law school, is part of an online community of fellow prospective students. Even at such a relatively small online community (at least when compared to mega sites such as Myspace), many suspect admissions committee members browse the site, connecting members accounts with their application, sometimes to adverse results if they speak ill of the institution or anything else inappropriate they might have said while under the mistaken assumption of anonymity.

Some tips when using an online persona:

1) Google your own name--make sure nothing that comes up (that you can have an effect on) puts you in a bad light professionally.

2) Keep online personas anonymous whenever possible. If you feel the need to put your last name there so that people can find you, look into making most of your info available only when someone has been confirmed as a 'friend' through the site (an option most social networking sites have).

3) If the above two options are not heeded, at least BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU SAY ON THE INTERNET

Sincerely,
Anonymous

Obviously an important question to ask myself when pondering attending business school is what job I want out of it? What type of job that an MBA will help me get is desirable. I found an interesting sample of some of these jobs that are recommended for twenty-somethings looking to begin their career. In other words, me. For if I don't find something in a listing of "Top 20 Jobs" that I would like, I should really reconsider what I'm heading towards.

Thankfully there definitely are some jobs in there that look interesting. The first one listed in fact, Product Manager, sounds great to me. Although it sounds like one of those jobs with a crazy amount of work, it looks like a job where I could be able to use my creativity, problem-solving and general business skills (which I assume will have been augmented after going through an MBA program.

Of course, all this is easier said than done. I imagine a job with that level of responsibility is rarely simply handed over to fresh grads...

As I pay my taxes this weekend, numerous complaints about our insane taxation policies come to mine, but the following just seems like there could be no earthly reason to justify: why can we no longer file taxes online for free?? Starting this year if your household adjusted gross income for a joint filing is a hair over $52,000, you are no longer allowed to use a free filing service. So let's get this straight. I have to PAY, in order to GIVE MONEY to the IRS in a method that makes it EASIER for them!? By submitting my taxes digitally, the IRS gets to: handle less papers that take up physical space, they can easily crunch numbers for statistics, they can easily crunch numbers to determine whether an audit might be advisable and most importantly of all, it would cut down on errors on both sides since numbers are automatically calculated for taxpayers and automatically transcribed for the IRS!! I can only come up with two possible reasons why this policy is in effect:

1) Tax preparation companies such as H&R Block and Jackson Hewitt have spent a great deal of money and effort lobbying the Ways and Means committee and others.

or

2) The IRS is a bureaucracy like any other, i.e. they have an inherent bias to either grow or at least maintain the status quo. After all, it would be very likely that an increase in efficiency for them would mean a reduction in employees and budget.

Meanwhile, it seems all I can really do is cling to my pipe dream of the Fair Tax where this annual headache and waste of time would be abolished.

The now-infamous Aqua Teen Hunger Force bomb scare in Boston has brought to light the recent increase in guerilla and viral marketing techniques from companies. The move makes sense really when you look back at the evolution of advertisements. It began with the simple testimonial approach at the beginning with '9/10 doctors agreeing', celebrities telling you their product of choice, or fellow 'housewives' telling the audience what products work from them. Then around the 80/90s there seemed to be a move towards simply placing products next to sexy images (to the point where advertisers such as Budweiser were satirical of themselves in years to come). It makes sense that this gradual move towards subtlety would eventually result a new emphasis on Word-of-Mouth Marketing (WOM). I can't help but feel this really caught on with Ronco infomercials and his "if you promise to tell just 3 people..." sales pitches.

It's even got to the point where entire companies are devoted to increasing this WOM advertising, such as BzzAgent where consumers are paid to conduct WOM advertising among friends. Does this bring up an ethical question? Companies like BzzAgent claim that there is no condition that forces the product 'ambassadors' to give positive reviews--but is it not somewhat implied? When someone cooks me a free dinner, I don't give them an objective critique of their product. Heck, even at the grocery store where they are giving out free samples, I feel it impolite to say anything negative about the free food I was just given (as if the employee heating the product up in the microwave cares!).

At the end of the day though, as long as people are not being seduced into pyramid-scheme rip-offs or products dangerous to their health, does it really matter? If my friend subconsciously influences me to buy a diet Pepsi instead of Coke next time I'm at the vending machine, does it hurt anyone? (well besides Coca-Cola that is!). Perhaps the best argument against it is that we may be at beginning of a dangerous downhill slope?

Reading about successful business entrepreneurs, the lesson that seems to come through the strongest is that contrary to some public perception, having a successful business is not a easy path to riches, but one of tireless work, long hours, concentration, patience, and absolute commitment to success. Attempting to start one's own business with anything less than 100% commitment to the endeavor is the surest and quickest route to losing one's business, savings and mind. This is nothing new of course in the arena of entrepreneurship as we see in this old photo of an inventor selling his new "bulletproof" vest to the police department.

An interesting article in the BBC news today how a simple foreign accent can impart so much meaning to someone’s perception of a person, particularly in America. I was lucky enough to do a bit of traveling after high school and it was very interesting at the hostels how the Americans seemed enamored by British/Australian/New Zealand accents while the reverse didn’t seem to be true much at all. My theory is that its due to the overwhelming exportation of the American entertainment industry where other English-speaking countries are inundated with American accents to the point where it’s commonplace. Conversely, in America we only come into contact with the occasional accent in the media and it’s often used purposefully to add something to personality/character, whether the stuck-up Brit Simon Cowell, the friendly Australian Claire (Lost), the English gentleman Jude Law or the posh Robin Leach on Lifestyle of the Rich and Famous. This is where the article is particularly interesting when they interviewed a former real estate agent who used it to market a product to appear upscale which is not a rare occurrence when you think of everything from Lexus car commercials to even Sheba cat food!

I don’t like to mix politics into this blog too much but I feel like this is something any American should be educated about. Whether for or against the current action in Iraq, it is surprising how many of us (government officials included) know so little about the differences between Sunnis and Shiites (or ‘Shias’). This is a great summary of some of the primary differences between the two groups of people who we are fighting and/or helping over there. Surely a better education on this can only help general understanding of the issues often being discussed such as federalism, multiculturalism, secession, civil war, etc.

Time management has always been something that has plagued me, particularly when I was a student. Most time management advice I have read or heard has been mainly fluffy and vague. Recently, however, I came across David Allen and his Getting Things Done (GTD) approach. I’ve had a chance to read some of the stuff in his ‘free’ section (great that he gives away a fair amount of free advice instead of just teasers for his books and seminars) and in contrast to most of what I’ve read before, he has some great concrete advice such as exactly how he sets up and uses his PDA as well as specific categories he uses for organizing incoming work. Its some great stuff that I hope to learn better and try to incorporate into my day to day life. Certainly something that will come in useful should I go into business school and especially in a career in business afterwards.

This is the kind of innovative business where you're pulling for them to succeed. Pizza places seem like one of the most common small businesses to open. It seems easy--some dough, tomato sauce, cheese and cut up toppings and you get to charge 15+ bucks for it, right? The problem of course becomes that many see this and you get a litany of pizzarias opening up that all seem about the same regardless of whether they're chain or locally owned. Therefore its great when someone actually puts a little innovation into this somewhat-tired industry. The layout and functionality of the site looks great and so does the corporate culture. Hope they make it to the U.S. someday!

Well the Oscars have come and gone and I most definitely did not watch it this year you might think is strange considering I made a good effort to see most of the major movies leading up to it. Besides the fact that I wasn't greatly looking forward to Ellen Degeneres hosting (too bad Billy Crystal can't just do it forever), the movies this year have really been disappointing. With the exception of Little Miss Sunshine, I hardly cared much for anything in 2006 (Prestige is the only one I would add next to Sunshine). The Departed was a pretty unoriginal cop/mafia story that would look pretty sorry without its all-star cast. Babel seemed like it was just trying to fit the mold of a 'powerful-movie-with-a-message', but just seemed bland to me. The Queen was interesting at first since I didn't know what it was about and thought it was bold to do a movie on something so recent as that without the guide of memoirs or first-person narratives, but it somewhat bored me after a while since I knew where the story was going and nothing seemed to really grab my attention. I never quite felt in the mood for Iwo Jima, so I can't really comment on that, though it didn't seem like a movie I'd particularly love. The only war movies I've liked in the past have satirical black comedy thrown in.

It's certainly possible that I just missed the movies that I would have liked better. I still haven't seen the foreign films such as Pan's Labyrinth, the Lives of Others and The Science of Sleep.

Regardless, here's hoping 2007 picks it up!

Whole Foods has just announced that they've merged with Wild Oats. I always find this an interesting practice where companies are getting a little competition from another company so what do they do but simply buy them out. I better know "Wild Oats" as "Henry's", where I go to for the kind of items Whole Foods carries without the ridiculous markup. In the summer the differences in pricing between those two stores' produce is incredible--I remember them selling 7 lbs of oranges for $1 at one point. Hopefully Whole Foods will keep Henry's as it is and just leave it as filling a niche that their main store does not--the way that the Gap has Banana Republic, Abercrombie & Fitch and the Gap to bridge niches in the market.

No matter what though, at least I'll still have good ol' Trader Joe's!

Zillow's Report Card: Proceed with caution

Definitely one of the coolest Web 2.0 sites that can be used for business out there is Zillow. The basic premise is that it is a real estate service company which combines satellite data with value estimates of homes all across the country. Certainly not without criticism, but a recent article from the Wall Street Journal found that although it is surprisingly accurate most of the time, approximately 1 out of every 10 of these "Zestimates" can be woefully off by 25% or more. Still, as a ball park figure, it certainly can aid both buyers and sellers estimate the homes value. Furthermore, Zillow is always in development, having created a wiki recently with possibly more such tools in the future. As always though, a market comes down to how much a buyer is willing pay for the good and how eager a seller is to relinquish it. This is something a general algorithm will never be able to accomplish with complete precision.

Recently Wal-mart executives (ironically joined by union leaders from other parts of the country) made a public call for Universal Health Care to be offered by the state. Naturally, given the general public perception of Wal-mart's altruism, many are skeptical of the multi-national corporation's true intentions. Certainly it can't be ignored that getting taxpayers to fund their employees' health care benefits would save the company billions of dollars--perhaps even increase employee productivity among those who are not covered by the health plan (over half). Perhaps this is being a bit too skeptical though. I do think Wal-mart gets a disproportionate amount of negative attention simply to due to being the biggest of the retail superstores since it makes them the most cost-effective for advocacy groups to target. I must agree with them however, the current plan of depending upon employers to give health benefits is certainly not working fantastically, with 45+ million Americans uninsured, with Wal-mart being a prime example of this.

When searching for a used car to buy last month following getting rear-ended, I decided to subscribe to Consumer Reports Used Car Buying Kit, which although seemed quite expensive ($24) was probably worth it in the end given how much money was being spent on the car itself. I must say the website is very useful. From the Buying Kit, I went from being very sure I would get a used Nissan, to finding a Toyota Avalon that I am very happy with yet I knew next to nothing about the Avalon model before seeing it as a recommended car on the website. Not only was the Kit extremely helpful, but the website itself is very useful for other random consumer reviews such as: hefty being superior to glad, Trader Joe's dishwasher detergent being very good, Wal-mart's laundry detergent being easily the best buy and Sears' vacuum beating out the much fancier and expensive Dysons. I doubt I'll keep up the subscription, but I think I might print out some of these reviews while I can...

In what is probably unsurprising news to those of us at the pump, Exxon Mobil recently reported the largest annual profit in U.S. history, $377 billion (beating the previous record that was held by none other than Exxon Mobil with $370 billion the previous year). Alongside them Royal Dutch Shell set a personal best as well this year with $25 billion.

Now I am someone who respects a company with a sound business policy that satisfies customers and makes huge profits, but this is just an antitrust robbery! How else can a company make these sorts of achievements while really doing nothing to improve the way they do business? There has been no significant raise in demand for their product, yet they thrive. Obviously I'm not the only one to be a bit shocked by all this, and yet nothing continues to be done. Given the current state of affairs, it seems like an alternative product or perhaps a cut in demand for oil seems the only way Exxon Mobil et al. will cease to continue setting records at the expense of frustrated consumers.

I continue to ponder what to do with my career. I do know that I need to move my career forward somehow seeing as I want to eventually support a family, but right now I’m unsure as to ‘how’? Paying rent, bills and all other expenses at the same time as attending business school seems like so much to take on right now. I’ve had many people further in their careers warn me about the perils of taking on a huge student loan. The only solution I can really see is attending an online business school while working full-time, which seems like a lot, but could definitely be the best available option. Simultaneously I’ve been looking at learning day-trading which just from the outset, is a tidal wave of necessary knowledge and potential risk from my current perspective. Then again, I suppose going into the business world always presents significant risk as is the case in any open market. Right now I will continue to look at both options for the future, studying for the GMAT and reading up on technical analysis and hopefully come to some sort of decision.

Or who knows, maybe some day I can do both 

Easily one of the biggest stories in the world of business today is Microsoft's impending release of Vista . Those of you who read my previous tirade against Apple's business practices might assume I am happily anticipating this release. However this could not be further from the truth.

Reports are that Microsoft worked extremely hard at this upgrade, pouring in billions of dollars, but what really came out of it? Rounder corners? (Isn't that what XP did?) Translucent window edges? (Who cares?). Certainly one thing it is reported to do well: eat up an enormous chunk of your computer's available RAM.

Right now as I use XP, I don't really see anything I 'need' from an operating system. What I love about windows is its compatibility where millions of people around the globe develop great freeware that I can use with XP. I need something to find files instantly? Download Google Desktop Search. I like Mac's visually appealing program launcher on the bottom of the screen? Download RKLauncher. Don't like Internet Explorer? Get Firefox and the tons of compatible extensions. There's even a Windows XP Vista theme that has fooled some people into thinking its the $200+ new operating system.

Still though, people will upgrade to upgrade, businesses will tack it on to their ample IT budget just like they did with flat-screen monitors in what seemed like increased DRM ability that Micro$oft has its eye on, Vista being a bit of a Trojan Horse.

Really though, this is still mostly speculation, though one thing I feel comfortable speculating is on Microsoft's current business model allowing Vista to make them a whole lot of money.

Update on the car crash-

Well over a month later and this car crash business is still affecting us. I've been driving around in a rental car for a few weeks now- finding a new car has not been easy. After paying for a consumer reports package on how to look for a new car I have been searching through the different models looking at reviews, recommendations, and blue book values.
My priorities were: good gas mileage, low road noise, enough room to cart things about (not a 2 door car), relatively safe and not too expensive to maintain. Then of course my budget- $3500- $7500 (I received $3200 for my totaled car)

So firstly I was looking at Camry's and Corollas, both highly recommended as reliable on consumer reports, easy to maintain being so popular- easy to get parts for etc. I had actually got as far as deciding on a specific 2000 Corolla a few days ago (I was loving the gas mileage in these times of Global Warming.) When I drove it however, it really did just feel a little too small- it just didn't feel safe- particularly as I now know what it is like when an SUV hits a much smaller car. After weeks of research and looking at cars I felt back to square one. Still with the rental car at $35 a day I knew this was no time to give up for a while and today I can report good news!

I DID finally buy a car! It is a 1998 Toyota Avalon with 100k miles. Its a few more miles than I was hoping for, but apparently they run as long as Camrys (~250-300k) since they have the same engines. It also has more room in the back/trunk and they say it gets great gas mileage--30+ on the highway. Also I managed to pay a little over $1,000 less than for the 2000 Corolla (with 83k on it).

So yay- our Chiropractor appointments still continue but we do have the car part out of the way!

A recent big piece of news from the business world was the iPhone. On January 9th of this year, Steve Jobs unveiled what had been strongly rumored by salivating Apple fans. I must admit, I come from a bit of a bias having quite a distaste for Apples. Although I grew up on them, and can see some of their benefits, overall I hate their business plan.

Now that's a strong word, but I'm surprised its not a stronger sentiment among consumers (Apple seems to be growing quite well since Jobs' resurgence and the emergence of the iPod). I'm surprised that more consumers aren't taken aback by Apple's attitude of forcing their customers to use their hardware only as Apple sees fit. At first it was restricting software for the Macintosh computer, then it was the dreaded iTunes music service on the iPod (I particularly dislike how it is impossible to have a subscription service) and now, in a similar attitude they are not allowing the future customers of the iPhone to install software on the Mac OSX that the device is running as well as forcing customers to use a specific phone service, Cingular instead of the current preferred carrier (where I live currently, for example, Verizon has much better service).

However, even with my problems with how Apple does business, I must admit, it does look pretty amazing.



I just hope there's some truth behind the the rumored "Googlephone" or else I might find myself betraying my business principles!

The first step of starting your own business is an idea. Something about your business must be original in some way, correct? It might be something as plain as a location for a franchise store where there is a market niche, or it might be a revolutionary technology. I have yet to come up with anything ground-breaking for sure, but I thought I'd put out an idea I had to my readers. Feedback is of course welcome.

From what I've seen, there are people out there who might have no problem drinking a $2 Charles Shaw alone, but would feel awkward putting it out for guests. Yet these same people might not want to shell out the $10-15 a bottle or more when sering at their house to their 20-something year old guests who can hardly tell the difference beyond seeing an interesting label from a respectable locale such as Napa, Chianti or Bordeaux. This is where my product would step in. For a relatively low price, we would ship stickers of fictional yet exotic-sounding wines that can be easily applied onto any bottle. Sounds shameless, but in this age of anonymous online ordering, I believe there's a market!

Oh and no stealing! ;-)

Well apologies all for the lack of posts recently. I have been involved in a car crash and have been spending a lot of time dealing with the many repercussions that come along with such things. It does seem horribly unfair that even when you have done absolutely nothing wrong you still have so much to take care of. Insurance can only do so much.

The accident happened as follows: I was at a stop light which then turned green and I set off down the street, meanwhile a guy coming in the other direction decided to suddenly turn across our line making a left turn. Crazy behavior causing me to throw on my breaks all of a sudden. The big SUV behind us then ran into the back of our car.

Following the accident things didn't seem so bad, our body work in the back of the car was messed up, but the car seemed almost drivable. My wife and I both seemed fine, apparently no injuries. One of the craziest things was that the guy who turned across our lane causing the accident just drove away not stopping. Luckily we got his license and handed it over to the police. It appeared the lady behind us was to be full responsible however, she was very apologetic and exchanged details with us no problem. We sent the car into the shop and spent the remainder of the day in a good amount of shock, but otherwise fine.

Next day we awake and my wife's neck is killing her, she hadn't been able to sleep all night, my neck is similarly sore. We are advised to seek medical attention and have spent some good time now with a Chiropractor. The next brick to drop is that our car has been totaled. Weeks after spending $1500 on the clutch we are now going to be given just $3200 for our car- it's gone :-(
what seemed like a small accident has turned into a nightmare, with medical bills, neck braces, rental cars and many many decisions to be made. Life is suddenly a whole lot more complicated.

've been doing some more reading into technical analysis with the intention of eventually day-trading some of my investments. So far most of my reading has been establishing the base of reading price action—looking for trends through support/resistance levels, patterns such as triangles and wedges, and reversal signals such as heads-and-shoulders and triple-bottoms/tops. My understanding is that these are really meant to be side-additions when interpreting signals from tools such as moving averages and oscillators which I'm just beginning to get into now. There's a fair amount of me that's still a bit skeptical of the field of technical analysis, but I know that there are people out there who are successful at it, so why not me?

Wow, my recent Thanksgiving trip to Seattle has certainly made me question the idea of moving away from California for school. It was so so cold up there, and that is nothing to what it would be like in DC or New York. After a while I guess I have just started to take the San Diego weather for granted. It had been a long time since I had seen endless rain like that, so depressing. I swear it affects my mood. It certainly makes it more difficult for me to get up in the mornings, my 6.30 am mornings in SD are tough at first, but as soon as I pull open the curtains and see the bright blue sky I always feel ready to get up and go. Hmmmm I wonder if I will always feel like that? Anyway it makes the idea of an online or local education far more tempting when I head out of this city.

My new favorite site: kayak.com
I just love this site- the layout is wonderful, so easy to use. The flights are always the best deals around- such a refreshing change from Expedia et al. I love the way it just sends you to the correct airline's site. Mainly I love this site because I feel no need to shop around, I just use kayak and know that this is most likely the best deal there is and can stop looking. So many hours of time saved.

I recently spent the day kayaking with a lady who went to Harvard Business School for her MBA. She was showing me how many doors it has opened for her- she really has been able to have three very separate careers since that time, all doing very different things and all thanks to her time at HBS. This has lead me to a little more research on MBAs myself.

This article on 'What's an MBA really worth?' is certainly a little gloomy and suggests that skills learned in business school are not necessary to make one a business leader. The social networking they do concede to be important however, and point to Harvard in particular as offering a big leg up through the close knit ties you make as a business student.

An article in business week suggests however that an MBA is usually worth the costly investment (getting to over $100,000 in some cases). Or at least that most graduating with an MBA will have no trouble paying off their loans when they enter into thier 6 figure starting salary jobs (the article is not so clear as to whether the MBA is needed for such a career path).

This site offers some wise advise as to when to enroll in an MBA program- namely when ti is most necessary for your career. This is unlikely to be right after undergrad, but maybe important somewhere down the road in your business career. The site also mentions that an MBA really is important for getting into the top echelons of a business.

So conclusion- Getting into Harvard Business School or Wharton would be nice :-)
Otherwise it seems best to leave the MBA for a little while, get more experience, and make use of it when I really know what I need it for.

Currently I'm reading into day trading. At first glance, my 'too-good-to-be-true-so-it-probably-is' alarm went off. That was until I discovered the sheer volume of literature on the subject and the enormous population who participates. Right now I'm looking through what many consider to be the standard literaturen for the practice: Technical Analysis of the Financial Markets by John Murphy. Not exactly an all-night page-turner, but it is a very comprehensive introduction to Technical Analysis and day-trading. I plan to follow Murphy's book with a couple of other books on the mindset and psychology that is necessary for day trading. I've read from several different sources that this is a vastly underestimated necessity for anyone who looks to succeed in day-trading. Hesitation, second-guessing as well as over-confidence can be disastrous. Hopefully with a few books under my belt, I'll be able to gauge my confidence level and decide whether to invest the capital needed to begin trading.

Headed up to LA this weekend.
Saturday evening we stayed on Beverly Blvd. and went out to a Comedy Club to see Doug Stanhope, it was a lot of fun. First we had dinner at the club and were pleased to find out that all those who came for dinner had thier seats reserved for them, which meant we got a really top notch spot, right at the front.
The first act was a woman who was about the most unfunny person I could ever imagine. Her jokes revolved around premises such as- using Star maps instead of real maps and Canadians having free health care meaning they just go and have CAT scans for fun, if this wasn't enough she never expanded further than the premise of the joke. She just simply stated it in one sentence and moved on to the next one. Every time a slight courtesy laugh.
The following two acts were much better, although a little cheap in their use of almost purely offensive subject matter. This gets a laugh without any sort of cleverness and is, I think, a little lazy. Still Doug Stanhope himself was great, just long streams of consciousness, moving effortless from one topic to the next, often having five different jokes running concurrently and never seeming to be at all concerned that he was on stage and needed to entertain people. His humor was often smart and inciteful. It was a very fun evening.
Next day we headed of to Buena Park for a trip to Knotts Berry farm. After a very successful trip to Disney's California Adventure earlier in the spring we were eager for more theme park fun. Unfortunately we were a little disappointed. Knotts certainly had more roller coasters than CA Adventure. The Excelorator and the Silver Bullet being among the most fun, as well as a few others, but there was something just wrong about the park. After a morning of wandering around a little disparities we finally realized what this was- there was no theme. CA adventure is a wonderful celebration of everything great in this beautiful state, from the boardwalks of Santa Cruz, to the mountains of Yosemite, to the vineyards of Sonoma the diversity and beauty of the State is all included. From the minute you step in through the mini golden gate bridge to your trip down the fake Hollywood Blvd. You really feel that you are in California, even our beautiful State Poppy is celebrated.
Contrast with this a theme park whose theme is some mix between Peanuts, Pioneers, God Bless America and every tacky children's toy that can be sold at different stands. No thought has gone into the layout of the park, each ride seems to have just been plonked down wherever it might fit. The result is that the only time you really enjoy are the 50 or so seconds you spend on each ride. This isn't good enough.
Additionally the management of the park was poor, no single rider line, no fast track system and no comprehensive map explaining about different rides. The entertainment was hilarious and by far the highlight of the day. 20 kids all dressed up in the colors of the flag singing songs about our wonderful nation and how everyone else in the world wants to live here- really great for the international tourists that was. Worst of all there were maybe 2 drinking fountains in the whole park- not fun in Southern California.

All this got me thinking that the tempers business is really quite fascinating, the difference between an excellent and a really poor job being manifested in so many ways. I've spent the whole day reading Amusement today and the IAAPA ( International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions) . I've even found that you can study themeparks. Maybe I will have to think about doing my MBA with a focus on themepark management, I think it would be fascinating to work one up from mediocrity like Knotts to something really great,