I Like Grapes ‘Cause That’s What Tarzan Would Eat
The Bullet Points
- Finished Jay and Vicki’s Halloween Invitation. Not my favorite, but wait till Wednesday night - a surprise.
- Bragging, but I threw up the 115lb dumbbells on incline dumbbell bench press 5 times - after pushing the 110’s for 11.
- Got a Twitter follow from a cam whore. Porn is invading Twitter!
- Meeting at Webster today - maybe teaching some seminars on WordPress / Podcasting.
- I don’t have a yard to mow.
Flargin
The Bullet Points
- Spent Saturday Tilling my front yard. 2.5 hours of muscling that machine around pooped me out.
- Sunday I had to dig all that dirt back into place. Damnit.
- Cleaned the house.
- Went to dinner with in-laws
- Edited together a video and made a website for a friend’s Halloween party.
- In other words - didn’t really have a weekend.
- I want a weekend.
Aftermath is Science
Where’s the cash that I’ve been after?
The Bullet Points
- Not to look a free trial in the mouth, but can someone really get a good grasp of After Effects in just two days, Adobe? Really? Two days?
- Didn’t sleep well. Room was hot, may wife was tossing and turning… Rockstar Zero Carb for me.
- Kashi Vive probiotic cereal - I lost a few pounds. Neat.
- Nailed (I hope) an audition yesterday. Now they just have to hire me.
- Friday please go fast. Please.
I want to be a truck driver
Ask me if I’m a truck driver.
No.
The Bullet Points
- Sciatic nerve problems continues. Left leg isn’t working correctly and that makes it hurt - it’s a pain cascade!
- Remember when I mentioned that I don’t get a day off - well I don’t. One would be amazingly great right now.
- Had rough time trying to record a VO yesterday. Had to convey playful/sexy - that’s tough!
- Schnucks is a crappy store. No selection and their pharmacy sucks. ‘At least 30 minutes’ during ‘off’ times? You just count pills!
Hair Doesn’t Grow on Steel
The Bullet Points
- McCain is very creepy with the shuffling. He’s coming at ya like a zombie robot. I wanted to back away from the television.
- No clear winner in the debate, but I don’t think Obama lost any momentum. McCain may get hammered by the media for the “that one” crack, which would be unfair. But since I’m an Obama guy, I don’t know if I’ll feel a lot of sympathy.
- Can’t squat heavy anymore. Sciatic nerve problems confirmed. Crud.
- If I was Obama, I’d appropriate “that one”. As in, “Who is the one that can change this country? This one!”
- Got a good parking space finally toay. How early to I have to get here? Sheesh.
I drove here in a car made of chocolate
The bullet points
- Too busy yesterday to do this
- Got a wild nose hair that’s screwing me up completely
- Going to see the Doc today for mega back pain. I’m thinking it’s my sciatic nerve. Maybe he can just cut the bastard.
- Might be dangerous to say this but this is the beginning of day 3 without intestinal problems.
- Fox News is so biased and evil I can’t believe it. I can’t watch for more than a minute without disgust. One of their analysts actually said, “Obama met a terrorist and said ‘Let’s Party’”. I get that you’re Republican, but you don’t have to be repugnant.
That Sumbitch is Foobar
The Bullet Points
- An alien is still in my intestines. This makes it a week with one or two days reprieve from the worst of it. Good for weight loss, bad for everything else.
- Spent 2 hours on a 3 sentence VO audition last night. Really wanted to nail it. Nose stuffed up and after that long a time, I don’t think I did. Sad face.
- Friday.
- Some jerkoff complained to my boss that I use Gmail at work. So now I have to stop. Never mind that I over-deliver on everything and go above-and-beyond -always - I use Gmail. The gall of some people.
- Debate last night. Anyone saying Palin won is either deluding themselves or spinning so hard they’re going to puke.
It’s Time to Bring the Fire Down
The Bullet Points
- Went home early yesterday and napped for 2+ hours (after the new kitty got bored with trying to bite my face). Did a world of good.
- Managed to record 4 voiceover auditions. One of these days I’m going to book a gig. I hope.
- Had a hot breakfast at the cafeteria today. I’m a bad boy, but considering my illness yesterday and day before, not a lot of nutrition stuck with me. A few extra calories is fine.
- Talked to Deye Mofo yesterday. One of these days we’re gonna record some guitar.
- Debate tonight. I feel Biden should just shut his yapper and let Palin hoist herself by her own petard. Or maybe aske her specifically when MIGs have invaded Alaskan airspace since she’s been governor, or what trade missions to Russia she’s had. The answers are “They Haven’t” and “None” by the way. Google it.
869-Juga
The Bullet Points
- Had a fever last night. Very rare for me to be cold so when I shiver I know something’s not right. Feeling a bit better today, but MASSIVE headache and low-grade fever making work poo.
- Auditioned for my first two Voices.com jobs yesterday. One was for an online ticket service. The amount of syllables they wanted to get into 15 seconds was absurd! Not to mention the first sentence was nearly all plosives and esses. But I did it. I felt like the micro-machines man. Not as expressive as it could have been, but there was NO TIME for that! The other one was for a cartoon. Hope to get that one - it would be neat.
- No cardio this morning. Sleep better for illness.
- I wonder if I can find an empty office to sleep in today?
Want a Bailout? Really?
Just One Bailout Thought: As Congress continues to debate whether they are going to hand over $700 billion of your money to the wealthy who screwed up Wall Street and the banking industry, you will be relieved to learn that top executives of the bailed-out firms temporarily will be limited to a strict $500,000 a year in tax-subsidized income. Surely you receive $500,000 a year in tax-subsidized income, don’t you? Anyway, supposing we assume the bailout is required, here is what bothers me about the plan so far: Taxpayers don’t get stock, what they get is warrants that can be exchanged for stock, and nonvoting stock to boot. This means that once media attention switches to the next crisis that everyone will claim in retrospect to have seen coming, the Wall Street rich can quietly lobby to have the warrants never called, thus keeping the entire bag of gold for themselves. Even if the warrants are called, taxpayers get no voting positions — meaning the boards of directors of the bailed-out firms can do anything they damn please with taxpayers’ money.
A week ago, Warren Buffett rescued Goldman Sachs by injecting $5 billion in capital. Did Buffett bargain for warrants that can be exchanged at an unknown later date for nonvoting shares? No: He is not a fool. Buffett gave Goldman Sachs $5 billion in return for senior preferred stock, the kind that votes and also is more valuable than ordinary shares. That is to say, he used his money to buy something. Goldman can now employ the cash to fix its liquidity problems. The United States Congress and the White House should use the public’s $700 billion to buy something, namely senior preferred shares. Why are Congress and George W. Bush not simply following the road map laid out on this problem by the smartest investor of our era? Either Congress and the president are a bunch of blithering fools — or what they actually want is to insure the public’s money is never seen by the public again.
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Investment advice:
Follow this non-secret strategy that turns on buy-and-hold — buy-and-hold being the strategy endorsed by Warren Buffett. Place $100,000, the maximum federally insured amount, into a CD, to have some money that will always be secure; max out whatever retirement instrument you qualify for; ignore gold, art and similar investments that are volatile; ignore commodities options, short selling, derivatives and similar complex investments that often trip up even specialists; ignore anything that’s “securitized” (assets packaged into securities, there is no chance you can evaluate the underlying assets); buy real estate or real property only if your plan is to hold it for many years; place the remainder of your funds in a plain-vanilla 60-40 Standard & Poor’s index fund (one that invests 60 percent in blue chip stocks, 40 percent in corporate bonds and Treasury bills); buy that fund from any reputable investment firm open to the public; let the money in the 60/40 fund simply sit there, regardless of what’s happening in the markets. For goodness sake, don’t make frequent stock trades trying to “beat the market” — studies show that only about a third of investors and brokers who actively pick stocks do better than simply buying and holding the Standard & Poor’s. For goodness sake, hang up on anyone promising “confidential tax avoidance strategies” or “a once in a lifetime opportunity.” For goodness sake, never deal with any funds or money managers who say they use “secrets” or have “exclusive information.” For goodness sake, don’t purchase real estate, or any form of real property, thinking you will “flip” it. For goodness sake, don’t panic and sell just because the market is falling. If the market is falling, do nothing — at some point the market will rise. A few years ago, Buffett had his brokers calculate how Berkshire Hathaway would have done had the company not made a single stock trade all year, and merely held its positions. The answer was the company would have come out ahead. This paragraph contains all the investment advice most people will ever need. Send TMQ a one-third percent commission when you get a decent return and don’t lose any money.