Baby Finances

http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/3999881/ I just couldn't put up with bullshit like that.

A couple of my friends are just complete retards at planning. Like how fucking difficult is it to tell me where you are going 30 minutes before? So instead of doing that. I'm going to invite you somewhere and tell you I'll call you back and let me know we're going. That's fine. But if you are going to call me on the way - and then tell me there is parking where there definitely is not parking. And oh - btw - if I would have told you 30 minutes ago when we first talked that you could have just met me at my house and could have gone together... I hate driving in boston. I hate trying to find parking. I'm just not going to deal with it tonight. I don't have the patience or the time to deal with it.

If nothing else; I am skilled at the art of picking out tasty chocolate pieces. My favorite brand, by far, is Neuhaus. It's the german version of "new house." Therefore is pernounced pretty similarly - it's german - you just say it like it sounds. They are based in Brussels Belgium. There are very few stores stateside that have Neuhaus chocolates. There are only three Neuhaus stores. And a handful of other stores - typically fancy gift shops, specialty chocolate shops, and the like that carry Neuhaus chocolates. They're extremely good, expensive, and delicious. I can't eat hershey's or nestle anymore. I want the good stuff. Anyways, I've had this gift certificate for a local chocolate shop that sells Neuhaus chocolates for a while. The problem is they are only open during business hours Mon-Friday - and of course, they are never open on holidays. So it's been a difficult time to try to get down there and actually pick up some chocolates. ...

It all started at work a few days ago. It was about 4 pm. Time for tea and crumpets. Well instead of tea I was having delicious coffee. I however decided that my desk and papers would appriciate the coffee more than my tummy. Once I cleaned it up; I promptly decided that spilling everything that was left in my mug was the perfect thing to do in that situation. Most of which was directly over my amazing calculator that I've had since Freshman year of high school. I love that calculator. It's my baby. It's been everywhere with me. All over the states, different jobs, different classes, different schools, just everywhere with me. My TI-83 is awesome. It was also so gross that every key was stuck - and I had to exert some serious pressure to get the keys to register. It still worked though. It's pretty amazing what you can do to those things and they still keep on kicking. I always thought of the TI-89 as cheating. If it can do symbolic math and do a calculus...

I have to go get something mailed via registered mail tomorrow - with insurance. I guess I don't *have* to. But it would be bad, bad, bad, if it got lost for any reason. Really bad. So, I went to look up how much it is going to cost, effing $18.10 to mail something from Boston to Minnosota. Minnasota!!!! WTF? That's a lot of money to mail something. A normal letter is only $0.42. What the hell do they do with registered mail to make it cost so much? It doesn't look like anything other than a normal letter. It's two sheets of paper. Two! What do they do? Hand carry that shit to minnosota in their beater 1988 Dodge Omni? That's like paying a mid-level mail man for 0.5 hours of his time. 1/2 an hour! What the hell do they do for 1/2 with my two sheets of paper? Stare at it? Contemplate what's in it? Contemplate how they can charge more for sending two sheets of paper? I have no idea. It's truely perplexing. The people recommended that I send it...

Too much shit to do, not enough time. I hate reading really technical articles and that's what I really need to do tonight; but I'm avoiding it. Anyone wanna bring me a couple beers so that I can do this? I get to go talk to my tax guy tomorrow. Boo! Who wants to play taxes in November?!?!?! Not me. But I think it has the potential to save me money in the long term. It's mad annoying to deal with. Finances are way frustrating. Way frustrating. I need to do expenses again. Why is having money difficult?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zd8f9Zqap6U&feature=user Thank god that a president will finally freaking understand how the hell to use technology to effectively communicate. It's not hard to use technology - it just changes quickly and you have to keep up - otherwise you will be left behind. The only reasons people don't utilize technology effectively is that they either don't know it exists, can't figure out how to apply it to solve their individual problem, or are scared to try something new. The first two are semi-excusable in my book. The third is un-excusable out of a world leader. So happy that someone gets how people use the intertubes. I'm glad he's also taking steps to better communicate with the public directly. I think it's the best forum to help get rid of rumors - and the best way to motivate people as well. Get in their face and ask them to do something. Keep a watch out on how the new "New Deal" develops.

It was a rough night. I really was kind of hoping for a play that wasn't terrible. But it was. It was especially awful after seeing Wicked while I was in Chicago. Wicked was good. Really good. Highly entertaining - I would recommend it. I spent most of the play trying to entertain myself. Things like looking at the stage lights with out my glasses. Looking cross eyed - then only moving one eye to look right, look cross eye - move one eye to look left. Staring at random objects. I tried not to tap my feet and/or be to obvious or obnoxious. I watched the faces of other people in my row as they watched the play. Some people looked absolutely enthralled by the action of the play - others looked as bored as I felt. We even had to go to the cast party at a bar afterword. It was bad and annoying. I hate playing nice and interested in the play. Discussing my 'favorite parts' and talk to the actors about how they got into it and why they do it (pretty unsuccessfully ...

I've had diner tonight. But I'm still starving. It's like I didn't eat. Given the fact that all I had for breakfast was a Venti triple non-fat carmel macchiotto and then a chai tea latte in O'Hare - that might be why. But the problem is - I had dinner. I had a huge bowl of ramen. But it feels like I didn't eat. I'm not sure what chemical reactions or wahtever go on in my tummy - but I'm still hungry. What is my problem????? This week was great and aweful. I can't wait to get back to work. I have a ton of AWESOME ideas after this conference. I also am amazed once again by people's stupdity. I shouldn't - but I am. Fucking retards. I'm drunk - and having more beer. I think I'm going to stay up and watch a movie - and maybe drink some more. My favorite person to drunk dial is not drunk dialable - which blows. Whatever. Loser. It's time for some drinking and movies baby!!! Hopefully I'll sleep tonight. I didn'...

me : i want a digital piano 9:33 PM Little Bro : I want to stab hobos me : why? 9:34 PM Little Bro : it is good, clean fun me : i just want a keyboard that feels like a piano when i practice it's not really clean neither the stabbing or the hobos are clean Little Bro : it is when you ducktape the knife to a pole 9:35 PM me : how is that going to stab? it's like not going to do anything Little Bro : what? you must be doing it wrong me : probably 9:36 PM Little Bro : http://www.engine001.com/ community/resources/pole- knife-WEOCZp.gif 9:37 PM me : that's not a poll - that's a stick Little Bro : dude that was the closest example I could find in 30 seconds a knife pole is totally good for stabbing 9:38 PM me : yeah - but polls are rooted in the ground sticks aren't Little Bro : not all poles me : are you going to fly the hobos up and drop them on the poll? 9:39 PM Little Bro : dude poles != in ground me : mmmhmmm Little Bro : ok, what abo...

So - I've been trying unsuccessfully to roll over my old company 401K into a new IRA for a while now. My new place (Schwab) has been absolutely amazingly wonderful. Their customer service rocks. Rocks. There are phone numbers all over their sight - and they direct you to the right people. Schwab says to call them if you need help... so I did. The guy I had - George - was awesome. He tried all the same stuff I did - tried other numbers that he got to get a hold of my old place. He was really persistant - like way more than I was. I had called the old place's stupid automated number a million times but couldn't get the stupid pin number that I needed. I have no idea what my pin number was - or if I ever got one. I just kept going in circles. George figured out that if I got to the right menu - I could get a new pin mailed to me. That was way genius in my book. I was so frustrated by the fact I couldn't talk to a person. George even closed a second IRA account...

http://video.yahoo.com/watch/3701006/10181648

If you haven't read this yet you should: http://www.newsweek.com/id/167581 Newsweek did a very interesting article about the entire election - from the primaries on out to election day. It's really long. Full of lots of information that wasn't highly publicized during the campaigns. It was extremely interesting about what they chose to include or not include. Along with some of the interesting things that were said. I think it gave the candidates a lot more personality than they have up on the political stages, and really humanizes them. It definitely makes some candidates look better than others - and some more organized than others. Extremely interesting read - though whicked long - it took me a couple hours to get through it all. Read it.

So we were out for dinner yesterday - and a friend of a friend came along who's a physical therapist. This one girl - being suprisingly similar to my aunt C-athy, went ahead and asked the PT about her doctor's diagnosis. Ummm WTF? It both shows your lack of understanding of the medical world - and it shows that you are a little rude b/c you are trying to solicit free medical advice. So, me, trying to disfuss the situation and not make the guy feel uncomfortable about the fact that there was no way he could answer that question - started asking rhetorical questions. Namely, why do people have hair on their big toes? I mean seriously. How is that useful? What does it do for us? One answer was b/c we came from monkey ancestors. But that doesn't explain why we STILL have hair on toes. Talking of body hair - it's really interesting to think about the type of body modification that societies participate in. In the US girls do things like shaving their legs, plucking ...

Confession: I haven't gone to yoga in a long time. Like months. I used to love it. I would like to sight two main reasons for this. A) After one session it felt like someone had told me there was no Santa Clause. I was just completely dissallusioned by the whole process. B) Yoga farting. I was going to hot yoga. Let me tell you - farts in a hot room do not smell good. They smell far worse when it mixed with the stupid aroma thearpy shit that they put in the air. So try bending over in some odd ass reverse triangle pose. Super sweaty - to the point were you have to wipe the sweat off your body so that you can do the pose correctly. You are held in an uncomfortable pose - and you are "breathing through" the discomfort. Then someone rips a huge SBD Yoga fart. I think Yoga farters are way worse than normal farters. I'll tell you why. Yogis in general have a better diet than the rest of the population. This means more fruits and veggies, therefore more fibe...

On the way home from work I was about 6" away from getting hit by the front end of a car. I took my normal route as always. At the first light that I had to navigate - it has a rather interesting traffic pattern. It's a T shaped crossing. So cars have to turn either right or left. I continue walking straight across the street before turning. When the light turns green - this allows cars to turn right and left and at the same exact time pedestrians to walk straight across the street. This only disrupts traffic turning right. There is no right on red. Of course some car doesn't understand that A) Pedestrians get the 'walk' signal at the same time cars are allowed to go B) Pedestrians ALWAYS have the right of way in Mass and you aren't supposed to drive across a walkway when any pedestrian is in the crosswalk. Yeah - some guy didn't understand that and almost hit me. Then he has the odassity to roll down his window and tell me that he had the green li...

It's pretty effing awesome the way young voters turned out. Check out the numbers: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27562023/?GT1=43001

I rarely have dreams. I'm not sure what is wrong with me. When I do remember my dreams I don't usually have people in them. The last two nights I have dreamed of people. Two nights ago one of my friends and I were hanging out in a 70's style kitchen, and he was naked, and telling me that we couldn't be friends anymore. It was really really weird. Last night I had a dream that Barak Obama was in my kitchen eating apple pie. Strangely enough it looked like the same pie that I made a few days ago. He did not like my pie. I liked my pie. Weird. What is wrong with me? Who dreams about crap like this? I have to admit that I was really disappointed that stocks didn't go up yesterday. I was kind of expecting the rest of the world to go up after the electoral vote sweep of Obama. And the US to follow. Unfortunately month end numbers were out and that pushed people's fear button and they dipped again. It's so frustrating that these markets are just ruled ...

I had such an awesome day yesterday. And I made some awesome dinner. And someone awesome had a crazy huge victory. I feel like the smartest man in the room won. Which - as long as his motivations align with the rest of the country - which they seem to be I think we're all good. It will build confidence in the US from our neighbors. I hope he can motivate young people while he's in office in the same way that he motivated young people during his run. I also had a rocking dinner. Pasta with a spicy italian sausage bolognase sauce. It was delicious. Delicious. I love spicy pasta, and I love sausage. That's right - I said it - I love sausage. Anyways... Hopefully I'll be able to concentrate on other things at work today other than politics. Hump day people.

Can I just comment about how happy I am that Mass decriminalized the hashish?? Get your hash in mass! We also kept state income tax. The abortion bans all got defeated. The casino in ohio got defeated (not a bad thing), Michigan allowed medical hash. It's a very liberal election as far as the reported results. We won't really know for sure until tomorrow morning. It's been a really energizing day to be an American.

Eerrily - I rarely have dreams. Like maybe twice a year or so I have dreams and I rarely remember them for more than about 10 minutes. I had a dream last night. (No this is not like Martin Luther Kings' I had a dream speech...) It was creepy in a gross disgusting and why the hell am I dreaming this kind of way. I was at a vet. There was a small dog that had been there for a while. I'm not sure if it was my dog or someone else's. The vet and I then watched this small dog take a tremendous crap. Like the crap was just as big as the dog. However, it wasn't like a normal crap. It crapped ground beef. The dog had like a really hard time getting it out - and the vet said that all the strings of ground up beef were getting tied up and it made it harder for the dog to pass. It wasn't just ground beef - it was raw ground beef. How the hell would raw ground beef get caught up? I just remember staring at this bob evan's breakfast sausage tube size. Freaking hu...

Im wathcing mythbusters and they are trying to bust macgyver myths. It is the best episode ever. Absolutely hilarious. If you are watching tv right now. Which I know with the time change and the fact that it is now crazy dark outside that you are all in fact warning tv right now. Turn to discovery and warn this shit. Absolutely awesome. I forgot how awesome tv can be. Well it's either this or Paris hiltons bff. I'm going with macguyver. They definitely just picked a lock. I need to learn how to pick locks. So awesome.

Are ETF's a good idea? In my whole trying to get my financial life organized I've found some information about ETF's and I'm debating about investing in them. I'm a little confused about the benefits over buying shares in an ETF rather than an index mutual fund. It seems like there is more expenses in terms of purchasing an ETF over a standard index mutual fund. They are also bought and sold like typical stocks - which doesn't that mean that they can eventually be traded at a higher price than what their base stock value is? Maybe that's not true - but if it is - that's a little scary to me and it seems like the same thing that happened with the current mortage crisis. I'm just not sold on that there are any pros that make it make better sense than an index mutual fund. Is there something that I'm missing?

Now this is dedication to your commitments.

Does anyone have any suggestions for the use of ground turkey other than turkey chili or turkey burgers? I was thinking perhaps turkey tacos... or maybe turkey stuffed peppers. I really have got nothing other than that. Maybe burritos with ground turkey? It's really frustrating. There's not a lot that you can do with it. I guess it's the same as ground beef. I'm just not so much a fan of ground beef. I'm also jonesing for some three bean casserole. I love that stuff. I can never really make it the same way as my mother though. It's very frustrating. So the other day at work were were reminiscing about our first cars. There were the typical station wagons and civics. Then there was me. I'm sure a lot of you remember my first car. The souped up golf cart was awesome. I was like the only one of my friends that knew how to drive a stick, the steering wheel shock like crazy when you hit 70 miles and hour - once you got up to about 75 it was find ag...