linklings, shock the monkey edition
I recently saw “Growing Up On Tour“, a documentary about Peter Gabriel. I’m no huge fan of Gabriel – like everyone else who grew up in the 80s I knew his big hits – Sledgehammer, Red Rain, In Your Eyes and so on. But I like his music well enough. He’s one of those guys who drifted out of the mainstream although he seems to still fill up arenas.
He looked much older, of course – bald, gray beard, heavier. But what struck me about him was how enthusiastic he still seemed to be about music. After touring and writing and playing and so on endlessly for probably 40 years, he radiated enthusiasm for his “job.” He also balanced his work and life, bringing his whole family – including a little baby – on tour with him. So although one might be quick to dismiss all of that – “he’s rich”, “he has lots of help”, etc. – it’s just one more source of inspiration to me that it is possible to have a fulfilling career that’s interwoven with one’s life and family. It’s worth watching – if you have the Documentary Channel I believe it’s on again soon.
Here are some bits I picked up this week, from The Money Writers and others:
Blockbuster Total Access free trial: I have Netflix, and we don’t have a Blockbuster nearby, but if we did I’d give this a shot.
EverBank Offers Better Rates: 4.76% Intro APY: I think we’ll see rates start edging back up a bit – here’s a good example.
And speaking of higher rates, WaMu Free Checking’s high APY may be worth checking out. And by high, I mean high, dude.
Is There a Cure for the Economy? The Spending and Saving Catch-22: This is a good question: by fixing my coffee at home and using the office coffee sludge at work, am I a bad American because I’m not upholding one of the shining titans of capitalism, Starbucks? My answer: everyone gives mouth service to capitalism and no-one wants to LIVE capitalism. I buy sassy buffalo chicken tenders at Houlihan’s because I can’t duplicate that stuff at home. I CAN duplicate coffee swill at home. Starbucks sells me convenience at a high mark-up. Let it die. According to Yoda, “there is another”. Maybe we’ll have Tim Horton’s everywhere in the States in 10 years.
From the Front Lines: Investors Selling Stocks in Favor of Fixed Accounts: I would commend this post, except that I understand human behavior. Think long term, think cause-and-effect, think patience. Eh, screw it – Kudlow says sell, drop my stash, baby! Really, invest and forget. I like to think I’m in the .001% of people who really understand investing but I think – and I waver on this – that I’m in the 99.999% that ought to stick to index funds and a grinning-Joker-like confidence in the stability of the US economy despit having a madman at the helm for the last eight years.
How to Improve Your Credit Score: And let me guess – you want to improve your credit score, don’t you? I could probably even stand to improve mine, even though last time I checked it’s up there.
10 Step Plan for Debt Elimination: Please, please, please – if you have any debt read this and follow these steps. Common sense – pay off high-interest balances first and squeeze back on your squeeze-ees.
Long commute causes buyer’s remorse: how gas prices are affecting life in the exurbs: It was bound to come. Let’s hope that one of the positives to come out of the rising price of gas is a more sensible urban policy and more sensible choices by consumers about sprawl. I know it’s going to be painful for people who already made a choice to sacrifice proximity to cities in exchange for more space, though.
‘WALL-E’ and Shiller’s new ‘irrational pessimism’: This isn’t a blog post, strictly speaking, but a very insightful piece from Marketwatch. Is Wall-E just fantasy, or is it a chilling prediction of where we are headed as a world…
Overnight Success: Hunter points out that overnight success is often the result of a long struggle. Even lottery winners usually don’t win on the first ticket they buy in their life, after all.
Seven Traits of Successful People: I think #1 is far and away the most important – it’s certainly something that I lack that handicaps some of my efforts.
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Thanks for the link, Steve. I remember one lottery winner who won on the first ticket she ever bought, but to call that a million to one shot would be a huge understatement. And of course, these extraordinarily rare overnight successes usually lose it all anyway.
I don’t understand the “Seven Traits” link. Is it in strikeout font because the link is broken?
Steve, thanks for the link. The post will be re-published tomorrow. It was scheduled during my vacation and it wasn’t quite ready…a blooper.
@Hunter: Yeah, it is broken – see Pinyo’s explanation. I’ll correct it once it’s up on Moolanomy again.
Thank you Steve
Peter Gabriel also left a popular group, Genesis, to go out and do his own music. And he did it successfully. He’s also been active in humanitarian fields as well. What I’m saying is he isn’t your normal rock musician!
I really hope that we all still love writing that much in forty years XD Here’s to success!
It’s was his song about Steven Biko that got me interested in human rights and social justice.
Many things to comment on here . . . I have BlockBuster Total Access, with a BB store seven minutes away. I still use the mail-in all the time; just stopped driving to the store . . . WaMu’s the next to go under, you know . . .
I’m just not sure I buy the “exurbs are going to die” theory. People live where they live for a variety of reasons (family, schools, housing affordability, yes, even jobs; contrary to popular belief, there are many, many jobs outside of the central city), and I’m not sure the doubling of gas prices are going to make many move. There are many factors of life with more elasticity than where we have planted roots. I see more gas-efficient cars, carpooling, and telecommuting coming before I see a mass exodus from the exurbs. This opinion comes from someone who works primarily from home, incidentally.
An interesting story from the days of cheap transportation: In the 1980s, the now-defunct Digital Equipment Corporation had about two dozen facilities scattered about a three-state area in New England. To facilitate employees traveling between facilities, they had a helicopter fleet dubbed Air Digital, which even had its own gate at Logan Airport. At its height, Air Digital was the ninth-largest airline in the US in terms of flight operations. Those were the days, weren’t they?
“had a helicopter fleet dubbed Air Digital” — that’s why they are defunct ;o)
Hubris is surely one of the reasons they are defunct, Bubelah.