Interesting idea

Interesting… and a bad investment

Stocks, bonds or Steen? That’s a question that 19-year-old Ron Steen of Anaheim Hills,Calif., hopes investors will wrestle with.

In August, Steen put himself on eBay (Charts) to pay for his college education, offering 2 percent of all future earnings to the highest bidder, with a minimum $100,000 bid.

What with Steen having to average 1.5M/year until age 65 to match a 6% investment, I’m thinking he’s not going to have any takers. Bonus points for audacity, though.

Vino

Here’s a new idea (for me) for gift giving this year - wine! Now, I’m no oenophile or even a connoisseur, but in the under-$20 reds category, I’ve got some decent experience. Interestingly enough, wine.com has a category just for that (though they include whites too. Apparently, some people like it sweet), which makes my choices a lot easier.

We’re generally a shiraz/syrah house, but I’ve heard good things about the Folie à Deux Ménage à Trois Red ($9) and the Cantena Malbec ($18, 90 rating). Of shiraz’ I know and like, they have the Fat Bastard Shiraz for $11, though I can’t seem to find my favorite cheap deal find of the year, the Lindeman Padthaway shiraz 2003 (they don’t appear to carry Lindeman at all. Oh well) and that screwtop Pinot Noir $11 thing that was awesome but who’s name escapes me at the moment. Sigh.

Wine.com also offers glassware, of course, and they have their own most popular gift suggestion ideas as well.

Coming from what is essentially a teetotaler family, the idea of gifting alcohol on the holidays is new ground to me, yet appealing. This year, at least. And remember - a glass of red a day keeps the heart healthy!

Deals? Buy used and after market

I’m a huge believer in buying used things, particularly in areas where immediacy is not an issue and quality does not decline much, if at all.

Yeah, I’m looking at you, books. Textbooks, novels, hardcover, softcover, whatever. Used books markets are the greatest invention in the history of ever. The one I use? Half.com.

This is the least obnoxious banner they have offered (the others are all those lovely animated gifs. Woo.):

I think I saved over $300 last semester on ghostfinger’s textbooks by using half.com for most of the purchases (this was before I knew about Valore., so I’ll definitely comparison shop next semster). Anyway, half.com totally rocks and it’ll save you a bundle of money.

I’m a big believer in giving books away too of course, but iffen I’m going to be buying, the first place I looke is half.com. You can get CDs and DVDs on half.com as well, though I’ve been less successful for those products compared to its competitors (like Amazon marketplace) in terms of savings.

Comparison shopping

There are some things that the internet has made vastly easier, such as access to free porn, finding old classmates, and comparing prices for the goods you want to buy across multiple vendors.

One are where there is a market from the consumer perspective but not much from the advertiser/business perspective is automated comparison shopping. As a result, there are not a lot of valuable sites that perform this function and they are all almost entirely automated. Froogle is one example and Savings.com is another.




Savings.com particularly shines when it comes to finding coupons for items you were going to buy anyway. It's like finding free money.

They are branching out into mortgage refinancings as well. To the latter, I can't attest as to their service, but their rates look highly competitive. If you're in the market, give them a try.

Update: OK, apparently all of those (aff) links go to the debt consolidation or refinancing pages. Boo. Stupid affiliate links. Here's a direct Savings.com link.

One way to make money

Invest in pr0n

Wall Street is largely a boys club, a place packed with hypercompetitive tough guys proud to wear their machismo on their sleeves. Yet there’s still one investment the Street is generally wary of: porn.

That’s why Francis Koenig, a onetime Wall Street hedge fund executive now based in Los Angeles, believes there are riches to be made by matching investors with “adult entertainment” companies. He believes that plenty of people would back the industry if there were vehicles commonly available to do so.

Think of Koenig as a porn launderer. He makes it acceptable for the DAR to get a piece of some of that $12 billion-per-year smut money.

Originally posted at: http://cmoore.com/2006/11/10/one-way-to-make-money/

Music available on the interweb thing

No, really. And there's this place that is the leading music shop on the whole of the truck-filled tubular net doohickey, called eye-music. Now, I don't know why they call it that, since you listen with your ears, but that's what they call it so that's what I'm calling it.



iTunes has a better catalogue than its competitors, doesn't support reactionary social policies like W*l M*rt, and is American unlike that Russian pay-to-download site. Buy American! Buy iTunes!

Amazing fact! Music available on the interweb thing

No, really. And there’s this place that is the leading music shop on the whole of the truck-filled tubular net doohickey, called eye-music. Now, I don’t know why they call it that, since you listen with your ears, but that’s what they call it so that’s what I’m calling it.

Sure, Mondegreen is available for free download … but it’s also on the eye-music even without any videos! Isn’t that cool?

I gave it a look and it’s $1/song and $10/album (roughly). The best part is - you won’t get sued by the RIAA! Sweet!

Originally posted at: http://cmoore.com/2006/11/08/amazing-fact-music-available-on-the-interweb-thing/