linklings, 2007 is so passé edition
It’s been a slow weekend, with the whole family feeling a bit under the weather. We did make it for an ultrasound on Friday and found out we will be having a baby girl, which will be fun for Little Buddy. I spent Friday night and half of Saturday on my own with Little Buddy since my wife was doing things with her family. There’s nothing that makes you care less for doing “stuff” than hanging out with a toddler, for two reasons: 1, they are interested and excited about even the most minor things (oo! a bird!), and 2, they wear you out!
The big sports story of the weekend? Vinny Testaverde, one of my all-time favorites, announces his retirement. Oh, and the Patriots went undefeated in the regular season or something. I still don’t understand why the Giants left their starters in for the whole game since winning or losing affected nothing about their playoff seeding. Anyway, I am braced for a week of Bostoniacs crowing about their Pats. My response? Go Colts!
On to the links:
Text of Steve Jobs’ Commencement address (2005)
- This isn’t really your typical blog roundup link, but I thought it was a nice piece by Steve Jobs. I dislike Apple for a variety of reasons, but I admire this guy. He spectacularly flamed out of Apple and has triumphantly returned and done even better in his second go-round there. This is his commencement speech at Stanford in 2005 – nothing unusual, but an uplifting piece.
- A few nice thoughts. The title is quite true – your expectation of sucking causes the sucking in many ways.
Year-end roundup: Most loved and most hated posts of 2007 » Brazen Careerist by Penelope Trunk
- A good roundup of the year’s best at The Brazen Careerist, one of my favorite blogs. Penelope recently got fired from Yahoo Finance, which she discusses at length here. For someone who has done so many different things in her career, I doubt she’ll have much trouble landing on her feet almost immediately. She has a great book out, a popular blog and a startup in the works, so I doubt she’s going to miss Yahoo in the long run. I doubt she will miss the trolls in the comments there! You need a thick skin to write for Yahoo. Good luck Penelope!
Fecundity: How (not) to deal with pregnant people at Christmas…or really at any time.
- Fecundity has a few good tips on the care and handling of the femalus pregnantus. I don’t disagree with a one of them, having been through this once before. Being pregnant is tough, so anything the male of the species (or non-pregnant females) can do to lighten the load is a good thing!
Entrepreneurship at Casual Science
- Here’s someone who is thinking how to earn more than he spends: “I could take a vacation to Mexico and find some cheap guitars (true story, $5 guitars in Mexico). I think to myself: “Hey five bucks? These go for like $50-100 in the states”, so I buy four of them and take them back home. I could sell them for $50 each along with a nice story: “These are authentic Mexican guitars”. Who is going to go to Mexico just to save $45 on a guitar? Surely not me, I just went there on a vacation and stumbled across them. And $50 for a real Mexican guitar is a pretty good deal- they got those cheap crap guitars at Wal-Mart for about $100. So I sell the Mexican guitars and make $200…”
Prosper and Collections Agencies | Mrs. Micah: Finance for a Freelance Life
- Mrs. Micah has some concerns about Prosper, and mentions the debt collection agencies. I’m sure many of them are unethical, but frankly if someone has money that they legitimately owe me and won’t pay me, I’ll use any method that is legal to recover it. If you have money in a bank, part of your money is being lent out to people at ridiculous rates anyway. It’s not like Chase doesn’t issue credit cards. Prosper just cuts out the middleman in lending (and the overhead).
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Woot, girls rock! Equilibrium is restored in the Brip Blap household … congrats!
Good point. Lending or saving money is always fraught with risk, whether it’s investing or P2P. :-S
I’m sure that Vinny will be retired for the next 9 months or so. There’s not enough talent at QB in the NFL and he’d be one of the better options for at least 8 teams.
Congrats on the upcoming baby girl! Having had one baby (boy) already I’m not the least bit concerned about the sex of the next one since there are so many more important things to worry about.
Yes, toddlers are easy to amuse and are a lot of work!!
Mike
Maybe winning or losing didn’t affect their playoff seeding, but the Giants had to do everything in their power to stop them! Many people saw the Giants as their last hope, and I’m glad they gave it their best.
Congratulations on the baby girl on the way!
Congrats, Steve! That must be exciting. And Bubelah will soon have female backup in the house!
I’m sure spending a day aone with a toddler is nough to wear anyone out.
Best of luck, and thanks for the link.
Thanks for the congratulations, everyone! We’re having fun thinking of names now….
Oh, and as an addendum – the more I thought about it, the more I like (in retrospect) the decision by the Giants and the Pats to keep their starters in. Good for them. They didn’t mail it in – they gave the fans and the NFL what they wanted. They gave us a great game to lead into the playoffs and set the stage for what might be an historic accomplishment. So the more I think about it, kudos to Grumpy Bill and Coughlin.