Pintmaster

Dear santa,

Please get me this remote control so I can get rid of the 3 remotes I currently have to watch TV. It is too much effort at the moment and I need life on the couch to be easier. Thank you,
Colin

Buy it for me here!

I got a postcard from Awards Verification Center - 2400 W. Pioneer Pkwy, Suite 210 Arlington, TX 76013 and found a hilarious post by a guy who went there just to mess with them. The company seems to be Silverleaf Resorts who also doesnt seem to respect telemarketing laws, got busted by the FCC and has numerous complaints at the Dallas Better Business Bureau (BBB)

I really like how this guy dealt with them. It never astounds me at how stupid American society is to aid and abett a company as corrupt and greedy as this one grow to a Market cap of 88 million. This should be a penny stock, not a $2 stock. These guys have 23 million in net income. This crap drives me crazy.

Edited 2006-01-16 - Here are some more links for your reference:

• Silverleaf Resorts - home of the scam
• Epinions user from 2000 (check out the comments)

Firefox 1.5 has been released. Download it now!

My friend Randy’s brother got his home office featured on CNET. Pretty crazy. I have no idea how he would concentrate with all those distractions.

Plan is going ahead as intended but not in this space

I am somewhere over the pacific ocean using Boeing’s Conexion service to connect to the internet. Speed is not bad! It is kind of cool to be able to chat with people from 37,000 miles in the air while flying over water. Way to go boeing!

Before we examine the how, we need to discuss the why

There are innumerable reasons you should take responsibility for investing your money. Here are a few:

• No one else cares more about your money than you do
  Your stockbroker may do enough to keep your business, but ultimately, their goal is not to put food on your table, but to put food on theirs. With a stockbroker, you will no doubt be advised to buy a highly diversified portfolio and make trades on market information. Well… think about why they would suggest this. They make a commission when you trade. If you have a flat trade fee, or a fixed fee per trade, it is in their best interest to have you trading often.
• It takes less time than you think to manage your portfolio!
  Spending as little as an hour a day, or a few hours on the weekends, you can stay alert and educated on your stocks. Depending on how much you are looking to invest, you may want to spend more or less time analyzing the company, but my recommendation is to find someone that you trust (not a friend, colleague or relative) and use their advice. I make my decisions based on a combination of The Motley Fool and Jim Cramer’s Mad Money. I pick these two because they are almost polar opposites as far as investing strategy. We can get into deeper analysis of this in a later issue. Even at an hour a week, you are more likely to give your portfolio time than your investment advisor with 40+ clients.
• Making your own trades saves you money!
  Trading online, you have the control. Not only is it cheaper (Scottrade is $7 per trade) but things also happen immediately. There is no lead-time between when you tell your broker to sell your shares and when she does it. So its really two fold – it costs you less to execute the trade and also can save you money by being able to buy / sell a stock while it is moving and not after it has moved.
• Superior Returns
  If as an investor, you exercise discipline in your analysis, patience in your investments, and restraint on your greed, I guarantee you that you will beat your bank’s savings account, the S&P 500 and any portfolio that your run-of-the-mill personal investment advisor will put together for you.

This is just a taster of more to come… Have I got you convinced that you need to take control of your money? If not, let me know!

It seems that a lot of people are uncomfortable investing in the stock market. They think it is too risky and they will lose their money… or they think that they simply dont have enough money to invest. They are wrong. I have made 20% gains on my Roth IRA account this year to date by making some educated guesses on investments. Others should be able to do the same and beat the S&P. I will fully disclose the stock purchases that I make and write articles about the various investments that I am looking at. Hopefully, I will even convince a few of you out there that you too can reap what you sow in the stock market if you invest with patience, guts and a little research.

Going forward, I am making a commitment to only write original content.