Oh, my. Oh my, my, my.

Want a giggle? Read all about celebrating the full moon in The Hundred-Acre Wood.

cool investment article

Chet Currier has a cool article on how bureaucracy screws up investment choices. Example?

The similarities, or differences, between two contrivances like 401(k)s and 529s have nothing whatever to do with the natural business of saving for retirement, college or any other purpose.

Both are artificial mechanisms, built out of legal rules and tax technicalities. Every element of them balances or counteracts some other proviso in the system of red tape. Otherwise there would be no reason for their existence.

Do free, informed people such as live in our society really need some ersatz "incentive" to save for their children's schooling or their own old age? [...] When bureaucracy sets out to help natural impulses along, it often has the perverse effect of dulling them by swathing them in a tangle of procedures.... Whether the intentions are good or not is beside the point.

The point of investing is to make money for yourself, not save on taxes or please the government.

Sigh.

I may have been hanging out with jw1776 too much.

The full article is here.

Lyrics quiz...

This is the kind of quiz I love. I got it from buzzwords. THe idea is to answer the questions using only lyrics from only one artist. buzzwords used Springsteen lyrics, so of course I did too, and I was also trying to avoid the songs buzz used :)

Now I'm wondering if I can do it using Chris (Gaia Consort)'s stuff. Some questions, like describing where you live, would be easier with Chris' stuff. Others, I don't know. Hm.

It's kinda long: decide if you want to see it...

( Read more... )

what a wonderful day

um.

I got to bed around 3am last night. Woke up at 8am due to the screaming screeching siren that passes as a fire alarm. Took me a good 10 minutes to find a robe & slippers; then I grabbed the cat, keys, and wallet and headed downstairs.

I was a bit relieved to find that I wasn't the only one wearing a robe. Even better, the next door neighbor's black lab is visiting friends (he's a friendly sort, and my cat doesn't quite know what to make of him). Turned out the sprinkler system for the parking garage had a problem - air in the line - and went active as a result, which triggers the alarm.

I was back in bed by 8:45, but I didn't get back to sleep til around, oh, 10. I woke up around 2, then again at 3. I considered just staying in bed all day, but finally got up again about 4 and had breakfast.

Oh, and Marty downstairs was hearing a shuddering noise from the sprinkler room (she lives right above it). So I went down to check it out, and ended up conferring with Harvey, one of my partners in crime condo directorship. We called the property manager about the sprinkler system (again) followed by chitchatting for an hour or so.

Then I realized it was 10pm, and came home to fix dinner.

Oh, and to help me have a better day, the big (3' by 2') framed abstract print in the entryway crashed to the bookshelf below it and then to the floor. It knocked the plant and everything else on the top shelf to the floor with it. Broken glass is spattered around and I won't be surprised if I get a complaint from the downstairs neighbor about the noise.

And we'll have fun, fun, fun...