It's Monday

And we all know what that means. Time for another MOTW, Manager of the Week. When you work for this next manager you never have enough information or assignments. The best thing you can do for this manager is teach them how to delegate effectively.

MOTW: Do-It-Yourself Manager

Never delegates anything and has to be involved in every single task, project and meeting. These managers tend to either slowly burn out or spontaneously combust depending on their level of tolerance.

The tyrany of political correctness...

Bill Whittle explains. Watch the whole thing.

Weekend Haiku

Moonlight slanting
through the bamboo groove;
a cuckoo crying.

Basho (1644 - 1694)

The most powerful banker you have never heard of

And he works for Citi. He is a top advisor to Uncle Vik. Here is a guy who wields a ton of power but still manages to fly under the radar. An attorney by training, his duties are largely administrative, but he still holds sway over a lot of top level decisions.

How Facebook ruins friendships

This is an interesting article which explores the conundrum of social networking. For sure there has been a benefit from these tools and sites, for instance getting in touch with long lost friends from your past or getting fast status updates about an ill family member or friend, but what about the darker side? What about the envy, the narcissism, the TMI (too much information factor) or the emboldening braggadocio of others as they sit at a keyboard and not face to face with you? From what others are writing out there it seems that there is a bit of "Facebook Fatigue" beginning to surface.

One money quote from the article is this one. "Gwen Jewett, for her part, is sick of meal status updates. "A few of my friends like to post several times a day about what they are eating: 'I just ate a Frito pie.' 'I am enjoying a double hot-fudge sundae at home tonight.' 'Just ate a whole pizza with sausage, peppers and double cheese,'" says the 49-year-old career coach in suburban Dallas. "My question is this: If we didn't call each other on the phone every time we ate before, why do we need the alerts now?"

Indeed.

Don't forget about Free Chocolate Friday

Every Friday from now through September you can get a coupon here to get a free chocolate product from Mars. Dubbed the Mars Real Chocolate Relief Act, it provides a coupon for your favorite Mars product. This includes Snickers, Twix, Milky Way or M&M's, among others. Every Friday it is valid for the first 250,000 coupons ordered.

Failed banks

By the numbers. One big worry is how much is left in the F.D.I.C.'s insurance fund to pay for failed banks. The other is how many more banks will fail and need rescuing? This article quotes analysts estimating that 150 - 200 more small banks could fail this year.

Abusing the drug propofol

I have undergone surgery a couple of times. I do not know whether I have been given propofol or not. With the recent preliminary finding by the Los Angeles coroner that singer Michael Jackson died of an overdose of propofol there has been some attention given to the drug. What is it, what does it do and most importantly, who abuses it? This blog has some answers to those questions.

The State Department suspends Honduras visa service

Remember the old story about the slighted child on the playground who says something along the lines of, "Fine, then I'll just take my bat and my ball and go home." The Obama government is acting like that petulant child. Instead of allowing Honduras to make its own decisions and accepting them, it continues to try to pressure Hondurans to bend to American will. The latest is this visa suspension business.

I've said time and time again on this blog, this is an issue for the Hondurans to manage and they should not have to deal with interference from the leadership in any country, be he named Obama or Chavez.

Citi taken for a ride

Citigroup lent up to 74 million dollars to a fraudulent political fundraiser named Hassan Nemazee, chairman of Nemazee Capital Corp. Nemazee was charged with using phony documents to trick Citigroup Inc. He used fake addresses and phone numbers and claimed he had millions in collateral when in fact he had no such thing. Good to see that Citi's much heralded new risk management structure is effectively engaging in its due diligence to protect the taxpayers' investment of 45 billion dollars.

Where was Compliance and Control?

A Citigroup sales assistant has been fired from Citigroup for stealing up to 850,000 dollars from "vulnerable" clients including widows and her own father. She used the funds to renovate her home and invest in real estate. That must be a rather fancy home and some prime land.

Cocaine tourism?

You read that right. This is a cocaine bar where cocaine tourists go to indulge, but you have to travel to La Paz, Bolivia to check it out. I have been to La Paz in the past on business, and no, I did not check out the cocaine bar. In fact I didn't even know it existed until I read this article.

A change at Wikipedia

I link to Wikipedia quite a bit on this blog so I thought I should post this piece of news about the online encyclopedia. Although it has been doing it behind the scenes in certain cases for quite some time now, there will be a change in the way Wikipedia treats the editing of articles about living people. It has publicly announced that it will start imposing a layer of editorial review to these articles to reduce the amount of misleading or false information included in them. This had been in the works for quite some time now.

A quote from the article, "We are no longer at the point that it is acceptable to throw things at the wall and see what sticks." MICHAEL SNOW, chairman of the Wikimedia board, the nonprofit in San Francisco that governs Wikipedia, on steps to impose editorial review on articles about living people.

A second term

It's official. Daddy is being reappointed as Fed Chief. He will have to be confirmed.

Annoying Facebookers

Facebookers, is that even a word? Anyway, here is an article about the 12 types of most annoying Facebookers out there. I must say, I have run into virtually every one. In fact I am the lazy one who never updates his status so I guess in a way I am closely related to The Lurker. I guess if Facebookers annoy you that much, just don't log on or better yet, don't even sign up.

A casual round

It has been quite a while since I put up one of these posts but my physical therapist gave me the go-ahead to play a round of disc golf this past weekend so that was exactly what I did. I played a casual round with a reduced Sunday group yesterday and was pleasantly surprised. The course was in a configuration where the pins were mixed, some long and some short. I shot a round of 50, or 4 under par with 5 birdys, 1 bogey and 12 pars.

I could not believe that I shot as well as I did considering that my shoulder is at about 80 percent of its normal range and that I hadn't played in almost 3 months. The weather was perfect and there was not a breath of wind so that helped. It was a lot of fun. Hopefully I will be back out playing more often now since I did not feel any additional pain from the round.

It's Monday

And we all know what that means. Time for another MOTW, Manager of the Week. Every company has at least one of these. The trick is not to work anywhere within his/her periphery. If you do find yourself in this unfortunate circumstance, incorporate a strategy whereby your output speaks for itself and is in no way associated with this manager. Either that or head for the hills.

MOTW: Disaster Manager

Has no skills, is late for everything, offends people with his/her actions and can’t communicate. Disaster Manager turns every situation into an Exxon Valdez spill. This manager makes one wonder what one is doing working at a place that would hire and promote such a specimen.

D.W.O.P.

We all know about D.W.I. You get one of those and it is a big problem. Well in my opinion so is D.W.O.P. (Driving While On the Phone). One of the biggest problems on the road today is people driving while talking on their cell phone. If someone driving around me does something dangerous which almost causes an accident, the chances are that person is either driving drunk or on the phone.

It is extremely dangerous yet people think nothing of it. I try to not do it at all, but we are all guilty of it. It is just that some are more guilty than others because they do it more often. States are passing laws making it a moving violation if they catch you indulging in this risky behavior which people tend to think is not risky at all, but it doesn't seem to be having much effect.

I think that states should pass a law whereby if you want to be on the phone while driving, that is fine, you just have to be driving one of these. That way you are literally driving while on the phone. Click on read more to see the mode of transportation which should be mandated after the jump.

Weekend Haiku

Evening wind:
water laps
the heron's legs.

Buson (1716 - 1783)

Robert Rubin not sleeping

This article from Charlie Gasparino states that Robert Rubin has been doing some soul searching due to the damage his reputation has suffered as a result of the financial sector's meltdown and specifically the Citigroup fiasco.

The money quote, “I’ve thought about this a lot,” he told one person about Citigroup, “But I don’t know what I could have done without operating responsibilities.” When pressed if he could have done more, however, Rubin confessed, “In hindsight, there is no question. Everyone should have.”

Rubin didn't want operating responsibilities and if he is so upset about the whole affair he can use some of the almost 110 million he made at Citi while it burned to assuage his feelings.

Cathedral

My wife went to a CSN concert with her sister last night so in honor of that here are Crosby Stills & Nash performing my favorite CSN tune, Cathedral.

Stairway to Heaven

Happy birthday Robert Plant. He turns 61 today and the ex-lead singer of Led Zeppelin is nowhere near done with his musical career. In fact, in February of this year he co-won, along with Alison Krauss, an Album of the Year grammy for Raising Sand. The album won five grammys in total.

You're fired. You're hired.

First of all I prefer the term laid off. Second of all I'm not so sure this is a trend. While it might be nice if it did happen, I am not holding my breath waiting for a call.

The flip side of interviewing

With the job market the way it is these days there are a lot of candidates interviewing for limited job opportunities. This means that to a certain extent the companies hiring feel they have leverage over the candidates. Here is a short article on 5 ways companies mistreat job seekers. If you have ever interviewed candidates in the past on behalf of some company you may have unknowingly been guilty to some degree of one or more of these. If you have not, then pat yourself on the back and continue doing what you have been doing.

Just remember, when you interview a candidate you are the face of your company to that candidate. If you do commit some of these errors rest assured that the candidate will be talking about it to their friends and family and word of mouth about their mistreatment by your company will spread.

Visitors and "fishy" comments stink after 3 days

So much so that without any fanfare the White House has disabled their big brother e-tip mailbox labeled flag@whitehouse.gov. This is the email address where they were asking concerned citizens to rat on their neighbours for spreading "fishy" information about Obama's health care reform plan.

So, if you didn't like someone, you could just report them to the government. They've disabled the mail address, but don't despair, you can still snitch on people you don't like. When you send an email to the afore-mentioned address you get the reply...

"The e-mail address you just sent a message to is no longer in service. We are now accepting your feedback about health insurance reform via http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck.”

Rescue me

Happy birthday Dennis Leary. I recently wrote a post about his book here. He turns 52 today.

Not your typical 401k

And not your typical get rich quick scheme either, but here briefly are the stories of six people who accidentally came into a good deal of money. The stories range from opportunely finding a Roman treasure trove to unknowingly purchasing 1 of only 200 Declaration of Independence documents commissioned by John Quincy Adams in 1820.

The answer is yes!

What we are fed from TV sources is supposedly a reflection of what we want to watch. The argument goes that if there wasn't an appetite for this type of coverage it wouldn't be aired because no one would watch it.

Here is an article asking if these two moms (Kate Gosselin and the Octomom, sounds like some sort of deep sea creature) have been overexposed. The answer is easy. Yes they have.

From the article, "So should the media, particularly the news media, continue to fill the airwaves with stories and interviews of these two women? Howard Kurtz posed this question to a panel of media experts Sunday on CNN's "Reliable Sources."

The answer to Kurtz's question is a resounding no! But then again, asking a panel of experts on a news show this question only perpetuates the hype even more. So, I would say that there is a bit of irony in writing a news piece asking about whether the piece of news it is reporting on is over-reported. And I know, I know, posting about it does the same thing, but hardly anyone reads this blog and I can't take any more news about these two moms anymore.

News flash: The Tiger is human

We all know by now that Tiger Woods lost the PGA Championship yesterday to Y.E. Yang, a Korean player, who played spectacular golf, especially since he was in the final pairing with Woods. Yang looked calm and collected and not intimidated at all. He looked like he was enjoying himself and played with the aplomb usually reserved for players who have been in that position many times before. In short, he deserved every iota of his win and I congratulate him for it.

Now, just about everyone had picked Woods to win the tournament before it even began, including myself and I said as much on this blog in this post here. It was looking pretty good for that prediction since Tiger led wire to wire the first three days of the tourney and we know that when he is in that position he just does not lose, period. Well the unthinkable happened yesterday and this article from Golf.com argues that Woods losing just might be that best thing that has happened to him. After reading the article I have to say that the author has a pretty good point.

The money quote from the article, "Cut him open and I'll tell you what you'll find," Rocco Mediate said of the man who beat him in a playoff at the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, despite playing on a broken leg. "A bunch of wires and levers, and a big heart.

Um, no, you won't. Woods bleeds, and he bogeys. "

I watched his post tournament interview with the press from start to finish and Tiger Woods showed a lot of class in the way he answered the questions about what happened on Sunday at Hazeltine National Golf Club. He spoke articulately about not being able to hole putts and credited Yang for his stellar play.

Also, here is the NYT's take on Yang's win.

The Hall saga continues

Now Uncle Vik is offering to pay him with Citigroup stock. What do you think the odds are of Mr. Hall accepting this arrangement? I would say pretty long odds on that one. He's a trader after all. Good luck with that Uncle Vik.

It's Monday

And we all know what that means. Time for another MOTW, Manager of the Week. If you have ever worked for this next manager you will know that it is kind of like that acquaintance you may have who tries too hard to be your friend. It is just not meant to be like that. There are acquaintances and there are friends, just like there are managers and there are peers/co-workers at work.

MOTW: Just-One-of-the-Guys Manager

Never really manages. Instead tries to join in all the repartee and shenanigans of the regular Joes/Janes that comprise the staff. He/she is usually not respected and not very effective.

Superman

Here is an oldie but goodie. The Kinks perform (Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman. In my opinion these were some of the most underrated rockers out there. Enjoy.

A 675,000 dollar judgment for downloading 30 songs

Even with a renowned Harvard Law School professor defending him, or perhaps because of it, Joel Tenenbaum, a Boston University graduate student is found guilty of downloading and sharing 30 songs. Instead of settling when he should have for a small amount of money, Tenenbaum decided to fight in court. He lost and the jury handed down a staggering 675,000 dollar judgment against him. Ouch! I saw Tenenbaum interviewed on television the other night and he says that he now purchases his music via iTunes. He is also planning to appeal.

Lollapalooza and the changing music business

The WSJ looks at the music festival and what the artists who play it are saying about the industry.

The money quote from the article, "The music business is upside down," said alt-country singer-songwriter Robert Earl Keen. "You don't tour to support your record. You put out a record to support a tour."

Weekend Haiku

Green plum-
it draws her eyebrows
together.

Buson (1716 - 1783)

Krawcheck Buys $1 Million Bank Of America Stock

Citi's former head of Global Wealth Management and CFO before that buys one million dollar worth of shares of Bank of America Corp. a week after becoming head of global wealth and investment management at Bank of America. Sallie Krawcheck's departure from Citi was a bit quiet and unceremonious by Citigroup standards, but she is back in the saddle again and sending a message with her purchase.

Touchable holograms

This is so cool! Watch the YouTube video to see a hand dribbling the ball and feeling raindrops. Remember, it's a hologram.

Don't forget about Free Chocolate Friday

Every Friday from now through September you can get a coupon here to get a free chocolate product from Mars. Dubbed the Mars Real Chocolate Relief Act, it provides a coupon for your favorite Mars product. This includes Snickers, Twix, Milky Way or M&M's, among others. Every Friday it is valid for the first 250,000 coupons ordered.

Citi hires outside help

Along with the compensation review by Obama's pay czar, Citi has had to retain an outside consultant to do a management review. Regulators have pushed Citi to hire Egon Zehnder, a headhunter and board advisory consultancy to evaluate whether the current management has the right stuff to lead it out of its current crisis. The headache and sleeplessness continues for Uncle Vik who is obviously under review himself.

An animated Moby talks about his new album

The new album is Wait For Me and the track he is talking about here is Shot In The Back Of The Head.



Here is the whole video.

Shot In The Back Of The Head from Moby on Vimeo.

The saga of Andrew J. Hall

Uncle Vik's headache has not gone away and I am sure he is sleeping less. Obama's Compensation Czar is set to begin formal reviews this week of the pay practices at several firms which have received TARP money, including Citi. A big blip on the radar in this review is sure to be the 100 million dollar package that the star trader, Andrew J. Hall of Phibro, Citi's commodities trading unit is poised to receive this year, just like he did last year.

The best that the Citi people can come up with in terms of defending this package is to say that his compensation is exempt because it is part of a contract signed before the law establishing the review system was passed.

Hall is good and Phibro makes money which is more than can be said about many of Citi's other business units, but the headache is so big that Citi has even explored selling Phibro.

Here is the NYT article that covers the issue in its entirety.

Moby speaks out on the music industry changing

For some reason today feels like a Moby day. He speaks out about the music business model changing, music piracy and his feelings about the RIAA. His views are very interesting.

Consistency, Thy name is Tiger

I have said this before. He's back. As this NYT article documents, since his knee surgery a year ago, he has won five times. No other player on the PGA Tour has more than two wins in that span.

From the article, "In his past 21 events, he has 20 top-10 finishes. In the past two weeks, he has won the Buick Open and the W.G.C.-Bridgestone Invitational."

So he is rolling into the season's last major, the P.G.A. Championship, with confidence. In golf anything can happen on Sunday, but Tiger Woods feels his chances are good to win this tournament and so do many others.

Here is the man himself, talking about the upcoming tournament and about the controversy during his last win this past weekend at the W.G.C.-Bridgestone Invitational.

Another piece in the Madoff jigsaw falls into place

Frank DiPascali admitted yesterday in court that he was in on the Madoff scam from the start and helped Bernie Madoff defraud his clients. He described how as a kid fresh out of high school he landed a job with Madoff's firm and promptly began aiding and abetting in the Ponzi scheme which swindled thousands of customers out of their life savings.

From the article, “I knew it was criminal, and I did it anyway,” Mr. DiPascali told Judge Richard J. Sullivan, of Federal District Court, just before pleading guilty to 10 felony counts, including conspiracy and tax evasion.

Mr. DiPascali is facing 125 years in prison and had his 2.5 million dollar bail revoked by the judge.

A Sultan of Swing

Happy birthday Mark Knopfler. The guitarist turns 60 today.

The computer mouse

You just might be using it to scroll to this blog post. Do you know who invented the computer mouse? Answer after the jump.

Among Douglas C. Engelbart's two dozen patents is one for a "X-Y Position for a Display System" which is a prototype for the mouse. Although the device was invented in 1968, Engelbart's brainchild was not popularized until Apple used it in 1984.

Toxicology report states that cocaine may have played a role in Billy Mays' death

It seems as if there were traces of the breakdown products of cocaine as well as other drugs in his system upon his death.

From the article, "The autopsy also found low concentrations of ethyl alcohol "consistent with social consumption of a few beverages" as well as the narcotic drugs hydrocodone, oxycodone and tramadol. Mays had prescriptions for the drugs -- which were found in therapeutic or subtherapeutic concentrations -- to ease hip pain.

In addition, the tests found evidence of two tranquilizers -- alprazolam (Xanax) and diazepam (Valium) -- which are commonly prescribed for a variety of ailments, including anxiety and insomnia. Both drugs were determined to be in therapeutic or subtherapeutic concentrations."

The high-powered pitchman had his problems, just like the rest of us. I feel sorry for his family. This must be a trying time for them.

Family headed to Alaska on a 5 person bike

This seems like it could be a really wild trip and while it seems like a really cool idea I'm not sure it's the best one that these parents have ever had.

The sweet smell of football is in the air

The regular season kicks off approximately one month from today. Here is a report from the training camp of my team. Last year we had the single best turnaround season in the history of the NFL, from a record of 1-15 the year before to an 11-5 finish which won the division. As someone said, we moved the dash over to the right one spot. It will be hard to top that effort, but expectations are high.

From CNN: Top 10 spots to snorkel

I was raised in the Bahamas (New Providence specifically, people refer to the island as Nassau, but Nassau is really the capital city) and grew up snorkeling and scuba diving. It's nice to see that 2 of CNN's best places to snorkel are in the Bahamas.

I would add that although this article is about snorkeling spots, a great spot for diving in the Bahamas is the drop-off into the tongue of the ocean off the Northwest side of New Providence. Depending where you anchor, anywhere from 50 to 75 feet beneath you is the drop-off into blue water, the side of a cliff which plummets to over 6000 feet. Swim along the side of the drop-off at around 80 feet and be prepared to see many forms of marine life (from manta rays to jacks to sharks) that come up out of the blue.

Also, a little bit further down there used to be black coral. I don't know about now since it has been a few years since I have been back to dive there. It's an amazing spot and a dive that will hopefully stay in your memory forever as well as in your log. Remember, the only things divers should take are pictures and the only things they should leave behind are bubbles.

It's Monday

And we all know what that means. Time for another MOTW, Manager of the Week. There is always one of these next managers lurking around. They are tending to become rarer these days, but when you do work for one your approach should be to try and learn as much as possible from him/her. You never know how much longer they will be around.

MOTW: Seasoned Manager

No, this is not about herbs and spices. Seasoned Manager has a long, storied career that began very low on the totem pole. He/she usually joined the company as a messenger or in some similar position and has laboriously worked his/her way up through the ranks, having been at the company for a long time. Seasoned Manager spends a lot of time reminiscing about what “the good old days” were like and can be slow to adapt to change. He/she has a lot of experience which can be a good or bad thing depending on the circumstances.

Rakim

Dead Can Dance perform Rakim from Toward the Within. The lyrics that are sung by Brendan Perry in English are as follow:

Favored son
Turn in the garden
Shades of one
Sins forgotten

Favored signs to find hope
In the rounds of life
Favored rhymes to find hope
In the sands of life

Favored son
Fence in your heart
Saviored son
Sins forgotten.

10 ways to find a supermarket's best wines

Some nice tips when you don't have time to run to the wine store and want to pick something up at the supermarket.

Uncle Vik has a headache

And it is because perception is reality. There is no doubt that Phibro makes money for the embattled financial supermarket which is Citigroup while many other of its business units are stinking up the place, but the government pay czar, Kenneth R. Feinberg, is coming and Mr. Hall's contract (the 100 million dollar star of Phibro) will certainly not be to the czar's liking. So much so that Citi is considering selling Phibro. Well, if they do it might make for another profitable quarter due to a high profile sale just like the last one.

Weekend Haiku

Even with insects-
some can sing,
some can't.

Issa (1763 - 1827)

Cold Souls

I definitely want to see this movie. Any film that has as part of its premise soul removal through elective surgery should be interesting to say the least.

Once Paul has his soul extracted, from the review comes this nugget, "Afterward Paul is horrified to discover that his soul looks — and, as he rattles it inside its glass container, sounds — exactly like a chickpea."

And this next line is classic, "How can such a tiny thing feel so heavy?” Dr. Flintstein marvels.

Oh, and by the way, if paying sales tax for this service can be avoided, who wouldn't want their soul stored in New Jersey?

Also, I wonder if soul removal will be covered under Obama's proposed health care reform? Now I will probably be reported to the White House for spreading "fishy" information about the health care debate.

Anyway, the movie seems promising. I hope it is as good as it sounds.

Oops! Fannie Mae seeking 11 billion in U.S. aid

Following a second quarter loss of 15.2 billion Fannie Mae is seeking 10.7 billion dollars in additional government bailout money. I would laugh but I can't. It is just too depressing. Only AIG has cost the taxpayer more.

This is fascinating

How do you feel? Computer scientist and artist Jonathan Harris wants to know. Intent on peering into the soul of the web, his programs collects stories that have been posted online. In this presentation he talks about three of his projects which engage in data mining of the internet. One of these projects is entitled We Feel Fine. It collects the world's feelings via passive observation of the world's blogs. The algorithms he uses and the results he gets are fascinating. For instance, he can show metrics which tell you how "used" the world is feeling at this time. Given the present economic situation the result is not surprising.

He also talks about two other projects, Time Capsule and Universe which are equally interesting. Perhaps this blog will make it into his We Feel Fine project if it picks up the following sentence. I feel quite impressed by the scope of Jonathan Miller's research, ideas and presentation. I find his work interesting and feel that it will ultimately benefit the world as a whole.

Don't forget about Free Chocolate Friday

Every Friday from now through September you can get a coupon here to get a free chocolate product from Mars. Dubbed the Mars Real Chocolate Relief Act, it provides a coupon for your favorite Mars product. This includes Snickers, Twix, Milky Way or M&M's, among others. Every Friday it is valid for the first 250,000 coupons ordered.

U.S. decides not to impose sanctions

In an apparent softening of its stance, the U.S. has decided not to impose sanctions on Honduras for ousting President Manuel Zelaya. This might be a sign that it is backpedaling on its rhetoric insisting that Mel Zelaya be returned to the presidency. This is an issue for the Hondurans to decide and neither the U.S. nor any other foreign government (i.e. Venezuela) should meddle in that country's internal business.

You think you know what it means, don't you?

What do America's original national motto and salad dressing have in common? Take a look at this article and find out, but just remember, caveat lector. Here are ten Latin phrases we tend to hear in our day to day, but do we really know what they all mean?

Some interesting reporting from Honduras

Which you won't see on any mainstream television reports. Check out this video from PJ TV. It's about a nine minute segment with a gentleman who is a good friend of Mel Zelaya's. What he says is very revealing. Watch the whole thing. Again, I've said it quite a few times on this blog. The U.S. got it wrong backing Zelaya in the whole "coup" affair.

Let's talk about it, NOT!

Releasing earnings without a call. Hmmmm. Wonder what that means. Probably nothing good for the embattled insurer which has accepted large amounts of government bailout money. AIG will forgo the typical conference call it usually holds when reporting quarterly earnings and simply let its press release do the talking this time.

U.S. National Debt

Click here to get a view of the U.S. National Debt clock in real time.

Some sobering stories

Most of the guys in this networking group were in my age bracket when they got laid off. The results of the economist's study in the related article are even more troubling.

A quote from the article, "Mr. Wachter studied workers who had been with their companies at least three years, then lost their jobs when their employers reduced their work forces by at least 30 percent. He found that even 15 to 20 years later, most on average had not returned to their old wage levels."

A quick sports round-up

Topping the list is Phelps and the latest on his Rome trip, but here also are some short recaps featuring The Tiger, Big Papi and an athlete you may not have heard of who hopefully will be making a big splash soon although she won't be able to hear it.

Undefeated

Who was the only heavyweight boxing champion to end his career undefeated? Answer after the jump.

When he retired from boxing in 1956, heavyweight champion Rocky Marciano had a professional record of 49 victories and no defeats or draws! He had held the world championship for four years. Now that is the way to go out on top.

A water-powered Jetpack

My oldest boy would absolutely love this.

U.S. to trade Gold reserves for cash

Have you ever seen those late night commercials telling you to put your jewelry in an envelope and send it off for cash? Well, apparently the government has. Straight from The Onion News Network, the latest government move to get us out of our economic doldrums.


US To Trade Gold Reserves For Cash Through Cash4Gold.com

It's Monday

And we all know what that means. Time for another MOTW, Manager of the Week. Working for this next manager can be frustrating, but rest assured that you are at least always covered when the proverbial stuff hits the fan. When a problem happens this manager typically pulls out an old email which no one remembers, with a higher-up's approval so his/her course of action can not be disputed. It seems there are more and more of these types of managers surfacing nowadays.

MOTW: Bureaucratic Manager

Engages in a lot of CYA (Cover Your Anatomy). Believes nothing can be done without checking with fifteen different sources for permission. Must have emails, stamps and signatures to allow any action to take place.

Hemorrhage (In My Hands)

Fuel performs Hemorrhage (In My Hands) on Leno.

Customized ads

This is kind of creepy, but it doesn't have to be. Just set your browser not to accept cookies. It might cramp your style a bit, but it is worth it.

Weekend Haiku

Blossoms at night,
and the faces of people
moved by music.

Issa (1763 - 1827)

Good news Seinfeld fans

Of which I am one. It is one of the only shows of which I can see any episode over and over in syndication and still laugh, mainly because of the four quirky main characters and the actors who played them. Larry David had already announced that there will be a reunion of these Seinfeld actors on several episodes in the upcoming season of his show, Curb Your Enthusiasm, which I am also a fan of. He has also finally explained what the plot line (sort of) will be all about. Yes, Jerry Seinfeld, Michael Richards, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Jason Alexander will all grace the small screen together for the first time in eleven years. It should be fun.