Deranged Dog Riches

Was in a mall pet store the other day passing time with my kids. There were four employees standing there each with a different puppy in their hands. Of course they wanted customers to hold and pet them.

I asked how much the golden was, "$1,309," the dude responded.

A bit later I asked how many puppies they sold there:

"Twenty to thirty per week,...."

"Wow! And they're all over a thousand bucks, right?", I inquired.

"Well over a thousand."

Boy do I wish I was on the other side of this business. They are selling $100,000 of puppies alone each month. Even after paying the clerks, the overhead, and for the puppies they must be making a killing. (And I'm sure they make a boatload on the birds too.)

I wish I knew the definitive list of lucrative business models when I was much younger and had wide open career options.

Instead, I was at an expensive Ivy League university learning about C+I+G+X-M and other useless sophistry.

She Can't Do Much From There!

On Mike Shedlock's blog, some commenters were teasing each other about the relative financial sense of the sexes. One guy artfully culminated the discussion:

"Behind every successful man there is a woman."

There are a ton of very successful and financially responsible women out there.

"Behind every successful woman there is an astonished man!"

And as Groucho Marx said:

"Behind every successful man is a woman, behind her is his wife."

Bravo!

Though I think Groucho should have re-phrased, "IN FRONT of every successful man is a woman, behind her is his wife."

Yeah, I could very well have put up one of these pics but I generallly aim to keep my blog current.

Human Personality Ain't Extinct, Yet

In the relatively boring social world of married couples....this seems like a pair that'd be fun to hang out with. It's their first dance:



13 million hits on youtube!

Then again, this couple could very easily be *too much*.

Plunder At Citigroup

Here's a damning article on Clinton's Treasury Secretary and more recently Citigroup's Robert Rubin.

His is a head from this Wall Street mess that should rightfully *roll*. But it'll never happen. The ruling statists will never indict their ideological predecessors.

Bun-Dusters And Their Carbon Footprint

Revealed: the environmental impact of Google searches

Performing two Google searches from a desktop computer can generate about the same amount of carbon dioxide as boiling a kettle for a cup of tea, according to new research.

And, as we all know boiling teapots foment hurricanes and direct them toward minority-laden cities!

One grand irony, as pointed out by a commenter on that ridiculous article, is that eco-saint Al Gore invented the globe-scorching internet.

Back to tea...

From one of my new books:

Bun-duster - An effete male who likes to go to teas and other similar mild social occasions.

What a great epithet! I am always excited to add weapons to my arsenal.

This is a word I needed last year to describe my metrosexual brother - whose carbon footprint will now have to be recalculated.

Where Is That Next Gold Rush Anyway?

One of the get-rich jackpots of the past decade or so was *domain-flipping*.

That's where you buy an internet domain like "captiousnut.com" for $10,000 and then you flip it for millions later on.

Actually, unclaimed domains are more like $10 apiece - or even less.

Anyone who discovered this gold mine early on must have made a fortune. [I don't know anybody, do you?]

I just found some blogger's compilation of the ten highest selling domain names:

10) Shop.com for $3.5 million
9) Korea.com sold for $5 million in January 2000
8) SEO.com sold for $5 million in June 2007
7) AsSeenOnTv.com sold for $5.1 million in January 2000
6) Casino.com sold for $5.5 million in 2003
5) Beer.com sold for $7 million in 2004
4) Diamonds.com sold for $7.5 million in 2006
3) Porn.com sold for $9.5 million in 2007
2) Sex.com sold for $11-14 million in January 2006
1) Business.com sold for $350 million in 2007

Re-scan that list. Apparently we inhabit a materialistic, alcoholic, gambling, money-chasing, lecherous society!

There must be more than a few people who cleaned up from flipping domains. Imagine, one insight like this and some spare change....and you'd never have to *work* again.

You could sit at home all day in your underwear, drinking macro-brews, playing online poker, ordering expensive gadgets, and enjoying virtual companionship from sites #2 and #3!

UPDATE - I just shorted WestCoastTom.com at $6.95!

I've elaborated on this post in - Domaining Gold.

Resume Drop

My buddy down here who's a real estate agent is doing a brisk business selling *bank-owned* properties. Of course Naples homes are going for peanuts so his commissions aren't what they used to be.

Anyhow, he's getting so many phone calls from prospective buyers that he's decided to hire an assistant. He put the ad out the other day, promising the generous hourly wage of between $8 and $12.

Guess what. He received 50 resumes right off the bat - not from illiterate kids either. Many of the applicants even had their own real estate licenses. $12 per hour annualizes to less than $25,000 per year. One could make that at 7/11 or UPS, could they not?

Oh yeah, I guess only if those places were actually hiring!

[Anecdotally, I also heard that college kids home for that ridiculously long winter break had real trouble finding *seasonal work*.]

Enjoy It While It Lasts....Because It Never Does

I love chatting it up with the moms at the park....I get such rich blog material.

For instance, today I met a young lady down here in Naples. She relocated from the Midwest in 2005. Her husband was in "wholesale subprime lending" for Merrill Lynch. He's obviously no longer employed as that industry - and much of that firm - has evaporated. His wife said currently he is "in transition".

Hmmmmm.

They live in my little dream section of Naples - "Pine Ridge Estates".

Right now, there are 31 homes listed for sale there.

I will catalog them here in order of list price:

1st - $8,950,000
.
.
.
.
.
25th - $995,000
26th - $939,000
27th - $900,000
28th - $899,000
29th - $869,900
30th - $830,000
31st - $575,000

Not much on the *affordable* end, huh?

No job, an expensive house, two kids.....without help (mom and dad take evasive action!) this family could be in real trouble.

Even if this former Merrill guy paid off his entire house with windfall income, he's still on the hook for confiscatory property taxes, hefty *hurricane* insurance, and the 130k a year or so it takes to raise a family of four.

I learned waaaaay back, the hard way, that personal bull markets *never last*. The timeless quote is here at the 41 second mark.

And I feel really bad for those that will learn the lesson much later in life, when families and lifestyles are at stake. I look at my early career struggles as a blessing from above. I really do.

Of course I didn't always think that way!

The Miracle Of Birth

My buddy down here in Naples is, along with his wife(!), having his fourth child.

They just went to see it in "4D" which is described as "3D in motion".

For $150 they did so at the practice of a *retired doctor*. I don't have or remember the full story but supposedly this particular physician couldn't take watching couples opt for abortions after the sonograms revealed developmental deformities. The slight ones really ticked her off, e.g a missing finger. Again, I admit I know very little about what I am talking about here - but the above video is marvelous.

[I guess the gist is that the doctor is no longer in *diagnosis*.]

Marginalizing David Malpass

David Malpass is a perma-bull Moron who writes for Forbes. Here's an excerpt from his November 10th, 2008 column:

--Now that the Treasury controls Fannie Mae (nyse: FNM - news - people ) and Freddie Mac (nyse: FRE - news - people ), it could push mortgage rates down sharply to support home purchases. Instead, mortgage rates have been going up.

What kind of loaded gibberish is that?

Yeah, the Treasury COULD push mortgage rates down. To do that it would have to bid up mortgage backed debt across the board. Everyone would dump their bonds on the Feds and the private mortgage market would cease to exist. Taxpayers would take a (bigger) bath.

Offering up what someone or something COULD DO and then leaping to another *point* is to say nothing at all.

Sure, I could've punched the last guy who walked past me in the face, but I DIDN'T. Good luck extrapolating anything meaningful from that.

One has to presume that Malpass is advocating for the Feds to buy up a ton (more) of mortgages and force rates down.

So he's, most cowardly, advocating that Big Government SHOULD embark (further) down this disastrous path.

Now consider that the self-rebutting dope titled his piece "Containing Washington's Power Bulge"!!!

[Online it's titled "Curbing Washington's Growing Power".]

Allow me a minute a day an eternity to ponder how nationalizing the home lending market will retard the statists in Washington.

Malpass' drivel certainly ain't *analysis*....at best it's a wounded perma-bull's gripe.

The preppies at Forbes (and the National Review) repulse at the tack of people like Ann Coulter and scaty-mouthed bloggers like myself. Offend propriety and their panties all bunch up....

But they offend the sh*t out of Lady Reason - and have been doing so for years.

Inverts Banned From Naples Park

Well....not explicitly.

They banned their beverage-of-choice (upper right corner) - and in such a tropical climate such as Naples it's tantamount to an outright prohibition. Can you say literacy test?

With no verts there, I feel very safe taking my kids to this magnificent park....



....except for the alligators!

Seriously, a mere 30 feet from the playground.

NRO - In Need Of A Laxative

The National Review and über-moderate Ann Coulter have severed their ties. Apparently she used to write a column for them. Now I've never read much of NR and what I have read never grabbed my attention. It seems like a bunch of old-school pontificators.

Here's NRO's Editor-at-Large Jonah Goldberg's column addressing the fissure. There's one part I want to highlight:

Ann also told the Post that we only paid her $5 a month for her work (would that it were so!). Either this is a deliberate lie, or Ann needs to call her accountant because someone's been skimming her checks.

It's really only one or the other? THIS is intellectual debate?

This just proves:

1) That the pool of Morons who don't get sarcasm is deeper than most think - AND not defined by her sworn-enemies.

2) That Mr. Jonah Goldberg needs to decompress at the nearest comfort station.

Ann probably got sick of the pansies at National Review. All by herself she's multiples bigger than it. Who the heck is Jonah Goldberg anyway?

So I don't blame her for bailing. Imagine having someone intellectually three notches below you nit-pick your columns. It's like wanting to break up with an unsatisfying girlfriend/boyfriend - you use any little excuse, any slight as a springboard to dump them.

I've about had it with these 'old coot', self-proclaimed conservatives. They sit around at black tie affairs and pontificate in turn. Their plan, their only plan is to attack the thugs with persuasion. No wonder they're losing.

How come there's no comment section after Goldberg's column? Are they still waiting on the technology?

Oh, I'm sure it's a *point of order* for the vaunted Editor-at-Large. This is what I mean about them being old school stiffs - much like the crew at Forbes.

Here's a little taste of Ann from this past week:

Reason #187 To Homeschool

Click here and watch the video.

By the way, I can't believe the *name* of that site I just linked to.

Childish Adults

Right now, Drudge has a headline up of Escalating Violence Among Adults At Chuck-E-Cheese.

The hyperlinked article used to have a youtube video of a fracas from one of the chain's Central Pennsylvania's restaurants, er arcades. The video was *pulled* by the owner. More likely there were lawyers involved sending threatening messages. And since the clip was gone I had to improvise with the pic above!

Anyway, reports of violence at Chuck-E-Cheese would hardly shock anyone who's ever been to one - particularly in non-suburban locations. I had a near *adult* violence episode last night that just about could be filed under this heading.

I had my kids at the Coastland Center Mall (yep, in balmy Naples!) real late (8:45pm) and they were running around like lunatics with the kids of a bunch of other malpracticing parents in the *Soft Play Area*. It's a *no shoes* and *no one over 42 inches* zone. Sure enough, some gigantic, clumsy pubescent made his way into the play area and started jumping, running, and climbing everywhere. My daughter is a full 24 lbs. - and that's when she's eaten, constipated, and has a stone in her pocket. It's one thing for her to crash into an age-mate, but it would be quite another to take a blow from some 100+ pound oaf. So I told the kid he wasn't supposed to be in there. "I'm just playing," he responded. I told him again and pointed to the sign; he sighed and walked out.

Sure enough some mother aunt grandmother caretaker came running in asking him in Spanish what *that hombre* said to him. She tells him to get back in there and play. He said it's okay, he doesn't want to. She starts screaming at him to get back in there. I stood up and told her that the kid was too big, wasn't supposed to be playing there, and if he knocked over one of my kids there was going to be a problem.

The woman walked away calling me a mierda. I considered calling her a *fat cheap ho* in Spanish but held back. This reminded me a little bit of an incident I had at Ana's Taqueria in Brookline, MA. There an undocumented burrito filler called me a cabrón whereupon I made a huge scene screaming back him. The Northeast isn't like California. The illegals up there are here to work, generally have little attitude, and are scared-to-death of whitey.

Attention ESL buttheads - The words you most want to use on us are precisely the ones we all can translate!

So after the potty-mouthed caretaker left, she went running over to her posse visibly complaining about me, the rules-enforcer. I thought, "Oh great", now I am going to have to deal with some tank-topped hombre and his machismo. That's all I want to do at 9pm at the mall after a long day with the kids.

Fortunately, for any would-be hombre, the posse was todas chicas. They walked by me muttering more indiscernible invective and that was the end of it.

So what set this incident off? It was apparently someone telling her kid what to do. I must have offended her *good parent* ego!

Okay, one search is all it took to find another clip of adult violence at Chuck-E-Cheese.

Magically Delicious!

I was cruising Publix the other day here in Naples (snowing up north again?) and I came across the above cereal. I just had to sample it because it was on sale for the bargain price of $1.69. When someone is selling at a loss, my instinct is almost always to take the other side!

My four year-old attacked his bowl the next morning like a, well, four year-old. He just fished out the marshmallows as we all did back in the day. I tried to convince him to *spread them out* a bit to no avail. When he was done, he got up and walked away from a bowl full of chocolate oats. I had to apply parental force to get him to finish up. The following day, he paced himself accordingly.

Let me just say, that this enhanced Lucky Charms is freakin' AWESOME. I inhaled a non-small bowl after dinner tonight for dessert. What can I say? I've got to get them out of the house before Mrs. C-Nut, aka the Sugar Nazi, comes back next week.

But how about my son not wanting to touch the non-marshmallows despite the chocolate coating? I ought to buy him a box of the old fashioned, *healthy* Lucky Charms and make him experience just how tough our life was back in the day.

Chocolate Lucky Charms should rightfully have received a mention on my previous post - Intergenerational Propaganda!

On Toys

Saw this at Toys R Us last night. List price is $184.99!!!

Who would buy this for their precious brat?

And how much freakin' money did these Star Wars movies make for George Lucas?

Every little Lego set for the movie is around $40 and the cheaper ones have six legos in them. My kid is going without.

I also saw at the store a motorized 2009 Cadillac Hybrid for $350. At that point it was time to leave.

[My kids have a motorized John Deere tractor that only cost about $40 at a yard sale - plus another $75 for battery and charger. It gets them from point A to point B just like the pricier Escalade. We drive clunkers in my family!]

If you think about the ideal product to sell, it would be anything for *rich* people.

After targeting the flush demographic, sell them an indulgence, sell rich people toys for their kids.

I asked the store manager at this particular Toy R Us how Christmas sales were....she said they were pretty good but her store was a company anomaly.

Note that people in Naples are pretty darn wealthy.

Will Durant wrote, "Those who cater to vanity seldom starve." Indeed.

By the way, I think I found where I want to live after I hit the lottery (a few times). I'd like to live in the Pine Ridge section of Naples.

Still Here, Trading

Though not really. I am hanging out with my shorts as long term disinvestments.

Yesterday I bought some SRS at 54.85 in my retirement account that I plan to sell at $1,000!

And today, in my working account, I got short the S&P 500 through the SDS. Bought it around 66.

That pic is for Kfell who requested a laugh. What a RIDICULOUS product!

I Must Be An Alien

It's getting embarrassing. Everywhere I go, I get comments from random women on how "wonderful" I am. Leaving the beach today some lady stopped me and said, "Can I just say 'you are a terrific dad'?" And that was after three others had preceded her with praise.

It wasn't like I was lying in the sand building castles with my brood. For the past three hours I had been constantly disciplining, scolding, refereeing, and threatening my two children as they moped and sulked their way about the crowded beach (after we just drove 1,600 miles to get here!). I doubt I smiled for an instant throughout! Neither today nor yesterday were what I would call *good* days at the beach. Apparently there aren't enough un-daycared age-mates here for my son to play with. How long before he's complaining, "Ah Dad, it's all 'old coots' here AGAIN,"???

Welcome to Florida, Little C-Nut!

It must be a rare sight, seeing a man minding two small children. Or perhaps women have such a low opinion of us men that any competent father is a sight to behold.

Yesterday at the beach some betty remarked to me, "I can't imagine my husband taking our two kids to the beach by himself....He can't do that. He's [hesitating]...he does other stuff....I hope."

I have no idea how to respond to these *compliments* which make me a bit uncomfortable. Say *thank you*? Why? For doing what I consider normal responsible parenting?

Believe me, I am no perfect parent. I yell too much. I'm too strict and too impatient. Tonight I had my son finishing up his math at 8:30pm with tears running down his face. I told him the slower he went the more pages he would have to do in his Kumon Simple Addition Workbook. My wife accuses me of *managing* my kids because I won't let them play with stuff (e.g. paint) that will potentially increase my workload. But a full-time parent has to think that way. My personal sanity is job one.

Getting back to the compliments, me, myself, and my ego....

So women trust men to run this entire overheated planet, and at the same time they think men so inept that they'll genuflect at a single work-at-home DILF who can deftly manage a poop explosion diaper at the beach.

Are the broads flippant or are they right? Are today's fathers in fact categorically incompetent?

Or do all these compliments derive from my midriff?

The comments do seem to uptick when I'm at the beach!

Don't laugh. It's not just the women who are smitten by it. Here's an honest-to-God email I received the other day:

Wanted to tell you too that you have an incredible physique for -if I may say in a youth obsessed culture- an older guy- I am approaching 50 and work out and try to maintain fitness, and you are an inspiration-- keep up the good work.



Going to be 80 degrees again tomorrow.

What I like about this climate, and time of the year, is the early evening. You go to the beach, swim, or work out during the day, shower up, feel all rejuvenated and go out for dinner or a post-prandial.....and it's quiet and cool outside. The fresh air is amazing. Summer evenings up north are spoiled by biting insects that are few and far between here.

Not Really That Funny

Because it's essentially true. Though the bailout is hardly voluntary.

For example, when the government took over Fannie Mae, I believe it took over the all the company's liabilities. So the Feds will have to pay for the legal defense of former Fannie execs accused of....well, defrauding the government (and investors). My memory may be confusing Fannie with AIG here but that's just a detail.

Don't Miss It!

Damages season 2 starts tomorrow night at 10pm on FX. Set your DVR (and extend the time for 10-15 minutes as these FX shows sometimes run long).

It's got to be the second best show on television these days behind Lost.

Bailing Out The Agitprop Organs

I can hardly mind the political news these days. The bailout bonanza and effective nationalization of the entire economy is just too depressing to ponder. One of the latest iterations, bailing out newspapers is simply surreal.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Connecticut lawmaker Frank Nicastro sees saving the local newspaper as his duty. But others think he and his colleagues are setting a worrisome precedent for government involvement in the U.S. press.

Nicastro represents Connecticut's 79th assembly district, which includes Bristol, a city of about 61,000 people outside Hartford, the state capital. Its paper, The Bristol Press, may fold within days, along with The Herald in nearby New Britain.

That is because publisher Journal Register, in danger of being crushed under hundreds of millions of dollars of debt, says it cannot afford to keep them open anymore.

Nicastro and fellow legislators want the papers to survive, and petitioned the state government to do something about it. "The media is a vitally important part of America," he said, particularly local papers that cover news ignored by big papers and television and radio stations.

To some experts, that sounds like a bailout, a word that resurfaced this year after the U.S. government agreed to give hundreds of billions of dollars to the automobile and financial sectors.

Relying on government help raises ethical questions for the press, whose traditional role has been to operate free from government influence as it tries to hold politicians accountable to the people who elected them. Even some publishers desperate for help are wary of this route.

Providing government support can muddy that mission, said Paul Janensch, a journalism professor at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut, and a former reporter and editor.

"You can't expect a watchdog to bite the hand that feeds it," he said.

The state's Department of Economic and Community Development is offering tax breaks, training funds, financing opportunities and other incentives for publishers, but not cash.

"We're not saying 'Come to Bristol, come to New Britain, we'll give you a million dollars,'" Nicastro said.

The lifeline comes as U.S. newspaper publishers such as the New York Times, Tribune and McClatchy deal with falling advertising revenue, fleeing readers and tremendous debt.

Even as industries deemed too important to fail are seeking bailouts, most newspaper publishers have refused to give serious thought to the idea, though some industry insiders recounted joking about it with other newspaper executives.

"The whole idea of the First Amendment and separating media and giving them freedom of control from the government is sacrosanct," said Digby Solomon, publisher of Tribune Co's Daily Press in Newport News, Virginia.

Former Miami Herald Editor Tom Fiedler said that a democracy has an obligation to help preserve a free press.

"I truly believe that no democracy can remain healthy without an equally healthy press," said Fiedler, now dean of Boston University's College of Communication. "Thus it is in democracy's interest to support the press in the same sense that the human being doesn't hesitate to take medicine when his or her health is threatened."

Connecticut does not see trying to find a buyer and offering tax breaks as exerting influence on the press, said Joan McDonald, the economic development commissioner.

"It is what we do ... with companies whether it's in aerospace, biomedical devices, biotech or financial services," she said. "If a company is developing laser technology, we don't get into the business of what lasers are used for."

Connecticut's actions are not the first time government has helped newspapers. The U.S. Postal Service has offered discounted postage rates. Several cities have papers running under Joint Operating Agreements, created following the congressional Newspaper Preservation Act of 1970 to keep competing urban dailies viable despite circulation declines.

But the press is not the same as other businesses, said veteran newspaper financial analyst John Morton. "You're doing something that has a bearing on political life," he said.

Marc Levy, executive editor of the Herald and the Press, said he would not let gratitude get in the way of reporting on local political peccadilloes.

"It's the brutal reality," he said. "You'd say, 'thank you very much for helping me with that, but now we have to ask you about this thing.'"

Now don't misunderstand me. What's surreal about newspaper bailouts is not that they're being contemplated....it's that they haven't happened already.

And that the Morons of Big Media currently fancy themselves *independent*!

People *support* PBS by writing checks and buying over-priced DVDs from them, right?

I, and probably many others, would directly support a newspaper in the same manner if it were actually holding the slimy pols' feet to the fire. The idea that newspapers are critical of the government, that they are independent watchdogs couldn't be more science fictional.

Newspapers will get some money. Count on it. The good news is with Obama's inauguration imminent, the New York Times won't have to make a phony conversion into a *bank holding company* to get funds - a la Goldman Sachs.

Intergenerational Propaganda

THE SPOILED UNDER-30 CROWD!!!

If you are 30 or older you will think this is hilarious!!!!

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were. When they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning...

... Uphill...

BOTH ways

Yadda, yadda, yadda

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up,
There was no way in hell I was going to lay

A bunch of crap like that on kids about how hard I had it

And how easy they've got it!

But now that... I'm over the ripe old age of thirty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today.

You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a damn Utopia!

And I hate to say it but you kids today you don't know how good you've got it!

I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have The Internet.. If we wanted to know something, We had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalogue!!

There was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a letter, with a pen!

...Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox and it would take like a week to get there!

There were no MP3's or Napsters! You wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the damn record store and shoplift it yourself!

Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ'd usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up!

We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal, that's it!

And we didn't have fancy Caller ID either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your mom, your boss, your Bookie, your drug dealer, a collections agent, you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

We didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like 'Space Invaders' and 'Asteroids'. Your guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination!! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen forever!

And you could never win.. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE!

Sure, we had cable television, but back then that was only m-net And there was no on screen menu and no remote control!

You had to use a Little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your ass and walk over to the TV to change the channel and there was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I'm saying!?! We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little rat-bastards!

And we didn't have microwaves, if we wanted to heat something up we had to use the stove .. Imagine that!

If we wanted popcorn, we had to use that stupid Jiffy Pop thing and shake it over the stove forever like an idiot.

That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled. You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1980!

Regards,
The Over-30 Crowd



If the pics don't ring a bell....click here, young'uns, 'old coots', and 'old bags'.

Naples Getaway

Check out the library at my rented condo. I rotated the image for the laziest of my readers.

When I first called the owner of this condo, I noticed a 917 phone number. A New Yorker? I learned that this 40 year old gentleman left the Big Apple after 9/11; got out of the "market data" business; and moved to Florida to "invest in real assets".

So I guess these books were the artifacts of past trading endeavors. A lot of traders who quit go into related fields like "market data" or peddling trading software. One thing about New York is that just about everyone up there dabbles with trading to one degree or another - that's in contradistinction to the rest of the planet. Heck I can walk through the entire airport in Boston - IN BOSTON - and not find a single bar television tuned to CNBC. And Hawaii.....forget about it. They don't even carry CNBC in some very pricey hotels.

Alright I'm rambling. I am so out of blogging mode not having had much time in the past 3 weeks to sit at my PC. And now I'm here in Naples working off a laptop with the most annoying of all technological innovations - the touch pad mouse. Whoever invented that should rightfully be in line for public stoning. I'd put him just behind the sonofabitch who invented women's flannel pajamas.

Now getting back to Naples.

The first 5 days here have exhausted me. We've been to playgrounds, a water park, the Naples Zoo. We've strolled around Fifth Avenue, shopped, seen friends and family, and just flat-out worn ourselves out. I may need to go back to *work* just to catch my breath.

Speaking of *going back to work* I am delighted to hear that I missed a foot of snow on the South Shore of Boston last week. What's that? Three feet total in about two weeks time? It's so warm here that I had to apply sunscreen twice today. Actually it's not really warm. It's as cold as Naples gets, January that is. Highs around 77 and down to 52 or so at night. My body is in shock from this relative warmth. And I am seriously questioning whether or not I could live here when it's a heck of a lot hotter.

Alright I could. Though I would disappear from May-August, probably up to the Hamptons, if I was wealthy - independently OR dependently!

If you know Naples, I'm a block south of Vanderbilt Beach Road, right at Tamiami Trail. The condo is twenty years old - that's ancient for Florida. The doors and windows don't shut flush so we've had a few gecko incidents. Either I've gotten slower (not likely) or those little buggers are fast. I spent fifteen minutes capturing one the other afternoon on orders from Mrs. C-Nut. Between the little lizards, the dead bugs everywhere, the dirt (vacuum doesn't suck), and some odd screeching birds/raptors nearby, I'm quite sure my weak-stomached MIL wouldn't last down here. The Ritz-Carleton across the street would be beckoning.

This guy who bought this condo just has to be taking on water. Zillow didn't reveal the price he bought at but I can do the math. These places as seasonal rentals just make zero financial sense. At best he was getting $3,000 per month for the season. So that's $9,000 for January, February, and March. But then what? How can you rent a place for 9 months in the off-season? And what could you possibly get? My local realtor buddy tells me that at best a rental like this would bring in $800 per month. So assume that best case scenario - $800 times 9 months for another $7,200.

Those numbers don't total up too poorly. $16,200 of rent would approximately pay the bills (mortgage, HOA, and taxes) for about a 200k condo.

Surprise, surprise. The condo owner has it listed for sale at 199k.

Now here's the problem. The *best case* scenario is a long way from today's reality. He only received $2,000 for rent this January, AND it's currently unrented for February. So when you reduce the annual rent by $1,000 + $1,000 + $1,000 the *fair value* of this *investment*, at today's 6% mortgage rates, drops by $40,000.

[Remember, at 6% rates, every $100,000 of house costs about $600 per month. In the example above, I divided $3,000 by 12, got $250 in lost monthly revenue.]

So now the break-even value has fallen to $160,000. I could chop it further quite easily by lowering the 9 month rent total, adding in upkeep, cleaning, the time/cost of managing it, furnishings, rising taxes, etc. And who the heck wants to own any asset who's best case scenario is merely covering the expenses? Remember that land is essentially unlimited in Florida. There are condos still popping up everywhere. What will happen to the value of this *dated* condo when mortgage rates hit 8% or higher?

This condo only begins to make sense as a seasonal rental at a value near $125,000. As a buy-and-inhabit it may be viable closer to $150,000.

Again, these condos went for $88,000 twenty years ago - at the peak of the last real estate bubble. I've learned from the neighbor that the original owner ended up in foreclosure.

Imagine that! Imagine losing your shirt on a mere $88,000 *investment*. Will this unit foreclose again? Stay tuned!

Rambling over. Time for bed. Have to take the wife (and sleeping kids) to the airport tomorrow at 4:45 AM. The cabs and shuttlers want $80 for the short jaunt.

I won't give it to 'em on principle alone.

Happy New Year Jabroni!!!

So yesterday I complained about Happy New Year wishers....

On that subject, I want to point out that the South Philly gumba will wish you a Happy New Year most enthusiastically.

In fact, even if you don't see your gumba until March of the new annum....he will STILL belatedly wish you one big fat Happy New Year. For some queer reason they are really into it down there.

Speaking of queerness....don't mistake the Mummers for these types. They are the manliest of men even if clad like Key West Halloween prancers.



The annual New Year's Mummer's parade is the raison d'être for what is probably the last of the urban social clubs active in America.

"Honey, I've got string band practice at the club,..."

The Irish and Italian wives of South Philly have had to endure this line, this ruse, for decades.

Practice for next year's performance starts.....next week. Seriously.

Worthwhile "Forward"

Most of the American populace thinks it improper to spank children, so I have tried other methods to control my kids when they have one of 'those moments.'

One that I found effective is for me to just take the child for a car ride and talk.

Some say it's the vibration from the car, others say it's the time away from any distractions such as TV, Video Games, Computer, iPod, etc.

Either way, my kids usually calm down and stop misbehaving after our car ride together. Eye to eye contact helps a lot too.

I've included a photo below of one of my sessions with my son, in case you would like to use the technique.

Sincerely,
Your Friend


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Christmas Gifts

I am more than halfway through one of last year's Christmas gifts - the Life Application Study Bible. I'm almost through Isaiah.

This year I got a few more books including:



For moi?

I received three more books in this bundle from my Brooklyn Heights uncle. Another title was Dimboxes, Epopts, And Other Quidams - Words to Describe Life's Indescribable People.

My wife got me a winter hat - and that's it!

I told my mother, who usually buys me all sorts of little crap, that if she bought me ANYTHING at all this year (not even a toothbrush) that I would not let her see her grandkids, ever again.

So what does she do? She omitted the trinkets but had my father give me a $100 gift certificate (supposedly from him) to REI. Do y'all know that store? It's a high-end outdoors store for Cambridge trust fund kids. It's got $70 walking T-shirts and whatnot.

I went into REI the other day to try and spend the money but couldn't find one item in the entire store that I fancied - not even a pair of socks. What a waste! Every penny my parents blow now I will have to cover in their dotage. Remember it's not just me; I have three siblings who're eager recipients.

Again, my parents think themselves *rich* because they've got pensions and Social Security money in the pipeline.

But I know I'm *poor* because I have no such financial backstops and because I know I am going to have to pay for theirs one way or another - directly or via confiscatory taxation.

M.I.A.

Mrs. C-Nut has gone missing.

She left for the Miromar Premium Outlet Mall here in Naples over 3.5 hours ago.

Should I call 911 or Visa?

Illiterate Altercating

I already knew the story, but I asked Wilhelm again about he, Shaun Phillips and Rivers taunting Cutler from the sideline in last year's Dec. 24 game against the Broncos.

"Jay Cutler, being the guy that he is, made some shrewd comments to SP and myself," Wilhelm recalled of the in-game dialogue. "Brandon Marshall was making comments throughout the game. All these comments are being made, and they're not making plays. Yet they're the ones going home, and we're preparing for our playoff game. It was essentially a wave to him good-bye and hopefully have a great offseason."

Only a football player could think a *shrewd* comment pejorative!

Matt Wilhelm probably thinks the word connotes some amplified level of rewdness rudeness, I guess.

This reminds me of one of my past nicknames. The FOBs at math camp (back in 1991) started calling me the *Shrewd Bostonian* because of the lot of us, I was the only one proficient in spoken English. [Yet they all had 750+ on their verbal SATs.]

And it wasn't long before the moniker was extended to the *Shrewd, Lewd, Crude, and Rude Bostonian*!

I Am Legend

I was up late one night last week and caught I Am Legend on HBO. Despite its stupid title and premise, it was a decent, watchable film. I give it 3 out of 5 stars.



Note its plot was a rerun of 28 Weeks Later - see my prior post.

Word of warning, don't click on youtube's "alternate endings". They are sophomoric pranks - not studio product. Though I have to hand it to Taylor's age-mates....they really got me on this one.

Arrived!

We left on Monday night and drove the 1599 miles in just under 48 hours. Needless to say, I am wiped right now.

I rented a 1,400 square foot condo about a mile from Vanderbilt Beach in Naples. The advertised cost was $2,000 (allegedly down from $3,000) for the month of January. The *extras* - taxes (10.5%!), cleaning, internet, and utilities were supposedly going to come in at another $450....so I pushed back, and got the owner to cap me at $2,200 TOTAL for the month. I had to have SOME leverage in this economy and seeing that as of December 29th the condo was unrented, right?


So while it was near 0 degrees with the windchill in Times Square for the ball-drop last night....I was sweating my boys off down here in Southwest Florida!

Of course the first thing you do in Florida is go to Publix, the supermarket chain, and stock up. Their Key Lime pie is an automatic. Last night we also dined in the lounge at Buca di Beppo. The photo-art on the walls there is borderline pornographic. I was mortified. (I didn't realize Buca was a nationwide chain until I just hit their website. The Northeast is relatively chain-free which can be both good and bad.)

Mrs. C-Nut made the drive down as well. She'll be here until Monday before jetting back up to the dank, dour, and frigid Northeast. Then she'll be back for a long weekend on the 16th and for a full week at the end of the month before the depressing ride home. (Unless I can coax an *extension* out of her!)

Alright, I am still getting settled here. My blog output should be back up to 100 posts this month because, when it's just me, the kids are in bed at 8pm.

By the way, if you go around wishing people a *happy new year*, you belong in my Automatic Moron department. What a stupid *holiday*! What a stupid thing to wish people!