Chocolate Diet Coke (I Get No Kick from Champagne) December 29, 2006March 5, 2017 SELL LEA I just sold most of my LEA at a slight profit on the shares we bought at $28, and a nice profit on the shares later bought when it dipped to $18. I still have some LEA LEAPs, just in case Carl Icahn (who recently took a big position) pulls this off. My LEA guru is no longer as enthusiastic. HANG ON TO YOUR AXP First suggested here at $52.50 a year and a half ago, it is now $61 and change – but that’s after spinning off 1 share of AMP for each 5 of AXP, which adds nearly $11 more, for a gain, with dividends, approaching 40%. Oink, oink; I’m hanging on for more. A LA MEL TORMÉ Jim Busek: ‘Loved the Mel Torme item. I have had very few celebrity sightings myself (even counting Henny Youngman on a jetway as one of them), but I thought this had something in common with the fortunate Mr. Evanier: I was changing planes in Nashville and walked to the main lobby to get an ice cream cone. There were a couple of guys in that lobby sponsored by a group called ‘Arts In The Airport’ and playing country music They were pretty good so I watched them play for a while as I leaned against a pillar, eating my cone. They were about halfway through the Johnny Cash standard ‘Ring of Fire’ when it happened: Johnny Cash himself came walking into the airport, carrying a garment bag. As you might imagine, he recognized the song. And the guys singing it recognized him. Here’s the cool part: Johnny Cash walked over – maybe six feet away from me, mind you – stepped behind the microphone, and sang the last verse with the little two-man band. There were only about six of us watching, but we gave a rousing ovation when they finished. And then, with a smile and simple wave, Johnny Cash picked up his garment bag and went through security like everybody else. It was one of my all-time favorite travel moments.’ Joel Grow: ‘What an utterly charming story! When I was 19, I worked my way to Europe for the summer on an oil tanker. While in London with Susan, a young woman I met along the way on my travels, we splurged on a fancy restaurant. I was then a freshman in college and a Voice major. Somehow my being a singer was passed on to the waiter, who asked if I knew Richard Tucker, the great operatic tenor. Thinking he meant merely did I know who Tucker was, I said of course. A minute later, around the corner came the waiter with Richard Tucker in tow. I stood up fearfully, realizing the misunderstanding would make me seem a fool. Tucker walked up, embraced me and quietly whispered ‘What’s this all about?’ ‘Mr. Tucker,’ I said, ‘I meant I know who you are, not that I know you. I’m a singing student.’ ‘What’s your name?’ he asked, still embracing me. ‘Joel Grow,’ I said. He then held me out at arms length and asked loudly, ‘Joel, how are you? How’s the singing?’ and on and on like we were old pals, or mentor and student. I saved face, and even rose quite dramatically in the view of the waiter and my traveling companion. What a gracious, kind gesture from Mr. Tucker, who certainly didn’t have to go to that trouble.’ Larry Taylor: ‘Reminds me of a story that I heard Chet Atkins once tell. He had quietly slipped into a gathering of young pickers and just began jamming with them. After an hour or so that had little or no conversation, he thanked them for letting him barge in. As he walked away, one of the youngsters yelled out to him, ‘You ain’t no Chet Atkins, but you’re pretty damn good.’ Chet said that he just smiled and kept walking.’ HE SPEAKS FRENCH, BUT HE’S A MIME, SO YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO UNDERSTAND WHAT HE’S SAYING Several of you sent me this one. In case you haven’t seen it, an elegant bit of puppetry. CHOCOLATE DIET COKE Where but this web page would you get my Cooking Like a Guy™ recipe for Chocolate Diet Coke? (Squeeze some chocolate syrup I into the bottom of a glass, add ice, fill with Diet Coke, stir.) It’s kinda fun, gives your Diet Coke a little more body, and need not bring it up to more than maybe 50 calories, compared to the 145 in a real Coke. Hey, it’s the holidays – go nuts. Thanks for sticking with me again this year. Here’s wishing all of us a terrific 2007.
$30 to Buy Better Bulbs December 28, 2006January 9, 2017 ALDABRA IS NO MORE But only because its deal to acquire Great Lakes Dredge & Dock has closed, with the stock symbol changing from ALBA to GLDD and the warrants, from ALBAW to GLDDW. The warrants closed at $1.55 last night, a double or quadruple depending on where we bought them, but I’m not selling because (a) I’d rather wait until the gain goes long term and because (b), more important, with the stock at $6.45, their ‘intrinsic value’ is $1.45 (they give you the right to buy something worth $6.45 for $5) which means that the premium you pay for a 25-month option on the stock is just a dime; and because (c), most important, I think the stock is worth more, so a lot of upside could remain in the warrants. (As always: only for money you can afford to lose.) $30 – I SUPPOSE YOU MAY AS WELL ACCEPT IT It’s amazing (and perhaps a bit disheartening) that grown men and women spend their time arguing over amounts of money this small. Heaven forfend the government, nearly $9 trillion in debt, should have collected a few ‘too many’ pennies a month on your phone bill. But I suppose it’s worth your reading this and taking the $30 or $40 or $60 when you do your taxes. At least it will pay for your year’s subscription to my page. COMPACT FLUORESCENTS Derek Deer: ‘I have been using them for quite a while. Most bought at Aubuchon hardware for $1.49 each. Only one failed after just 2 weeks (they replaced it for free, with the receipt). Several are hanging down (the failed bulb was hanging in the basement from a porcelain fixture). I don’t think position means much. The main point is that in the Northeast there are lots of rooms with high ceilings and long nights. It’s great to replace a relatively short life incandescent bulb in a hard to reach fixture with a more powerful, cooler, more efficient 10,000 hour bulb!’ Juliana: A good place to start in understanding light bulbs is here. And if light bulbs are always blowing out in one fixture, the fixture may be faulty, like my front porch light. I’m just too lazy to fix it.’ Frank Schrader: ‘I replaced all but 3 of the light bulbs in my house with fluorescents over 2 years ago and have yet to have one burn out (a big improvement over the incandescents they replaced). I know that I have at least two that are facing upside down and have had no problems – I will say this though – I bought name brand bulbs and didn’t try to save a few cents by buying ones that had a brand name I’d never heard of.’ Cyrus Ginwala: ‘Our fluorescents are sideways (in those recessed-in-the-ceiling cans). They haven’t exploded, but they do seem to die rather quickly, considering the price.’ Don Jensen: ‘ I have had a lot of trouble with short life on these bulbs screwed into ceiling mounted fixtures (so the base is up) I have finally saved the cash register receipt on the long life bulb so I can use the guarantee.’ Jeremy Bronson: ‘I have several fluorescent bulbs in my house, including 4 hanging upside-down from ceramic fixtures in my basement. I also have those compact fluorescent bulbs that are encased in a floodlight-looking glass shield so they can replace (upside-down) recessed ceiling bulbs and still look like traditional bulbs. All the bulbs have lasted very well, have reduced the heat otherwise generated by incandescent or halogen bulbs, and, most importantly, have never been associated with a drawer-soiling, combustion moment.’ Thomas Hawk: ‘I have several of the 60-watt-equivalent lamps mounted base up in open fixtures in the basement. I’ve had no heat related problems with them, whatever the brand name. I have several others mounted sideways in fixtures, two of which are 100 watt equals. No heat problems with them either. My complaint with them is that if the ambient temperature is less than 75 degrees, the lamps take several minutes to warm up and provide the anticipated light output. The starting illumination is about like a 7 watt night light.’ Bill Spencer: ‘A number of Internet articles (like this one) explain that the base up/down issue is one of efficiency and output performance, but apparently not a question of safety. For those sensitive to bright lights, color temperature is an important factor when buying a CFL (compact fluorescent lamp) in order to achieve the desired effect. Temperature ratings in the range of 1000-3500 Kelvin will produce a warmer light; higher ratings give brighter white lighting. Now you can even buy dimmable fluorescents, although you might need to shop on the Internet to find them (1000bulbs.com is a good source).’ John Kasley: ‘Catherine might explore the low-voltage Xenon lights which give a full spectrum of light – like halogens, only much better. The new triphosphor CFL’s do not flicker and might be okay as well. She should look for a CRI (color rating) of 85 or greater. If half the lights in a room are converted there is still a 50% savings, and the CFL’s don’t flicker at the ends like tube fluorescents. That spiral shape increases surface area and therefore light output. And as to Ken Glade‘s explosion . . . many CFL’s are designed to work base-up and they are fairly ugly, but so are his cheap ceramic fixtures. The circular fluorescent light (GE) disperses what little heat there is since the bulb is away from the base. MOST likely, insufficient voltage in the lines is causing the ballast to burn out, which is why only certain types of CFL’s can be used with dimmers. ‘Fluorescent Gas’ gas as such doesn’t exist, but the inert gas (neon, argon, or xenon) in the lamp does have traces of mercury, so if a bulb is broken, it’s recommended that one use a broom to clean it up. That’s broken glass – it’s sharp.’ Michael Rutkaus: ‘LED lights meet Catherine’s requirements for non-fluorescent energy saving, but they are expensive. The light from them is considered pleasant by many. Tomorrow: Chocolate Diet Coke!
Pet Stains, Exploding Light Bulbs, and Immortality December 27, 2006January 9, 2017 PET STAINS Karen: ‘Forget the vinegar – it only hides the smell from human noses, not from dog and cat noses. Enzyme cleaners. Get them at any pet store, or from planeturine.com . (There’s a URL for you!)’ EXPLODING LIGHT BULBS Ken Glade: ‘I followed your advice and bought several fluorescent bulbs expecting to reap large savings, but have found that the bulbs last only a few months each. At the premium price, I doubt I am saving anything. I installed the bulbs in my basement in those cheap ceramic, bare bulb fixtures where they hang UPSIDE DOWN. Nowhere on the packaging did it say for right-side up only. I even had one bulb literally explode and burn up with smoke and flame, spattering glass and deadly fluorescent gas throughout my basement. I happened to be in the basement when it happened so I was a witness. Fortunately, no damage to anything but the bulb and one pair of soiled underpants [see ‘pet stains’ above – A.T.]. Now, I followed your link from today’s posting and I find the last line as: ‘For maximum life the manufacturer recommends this bulb be used in a base-down position.’ In the interest of truth in consumer packaging, this should read ‘the manufacturer recommends this bulb be used in a base-down position unless you want to burn down your house.’ Have you heard similar comments from other readers? Or, am I alone in my dark basement of suicidal bulbs? In your house are there huge arrays of upside down bulbs glowing dutifully year after year, indicating that there is something especially explosive about me and my bulbs?’ ☞ I’ve never had a problem with longevity or – far more important – fire. And I do have some downward-pointing bulbs. And yours is the only such comment I’ve gotten so far. Could it have been something about the fixture it was screwed into? Anybody else know of problems in this area? Anyone? Anyone? Catherine: ‘Unlike you, my eyes are very sensitive to bright lights and I truly cannot stand anything fluorescent – are there any energy-saving alternatives for people like me, besides candles?‘ ☞ Candles are good. You could read by the light of your partner’s reflected glory. You could breed fireflies. But I think just using low-wattage incandescents puts you in the energy-saving category right there. WILL YOU STILL NEED ME, WILL YOU STILL FEED ME, WHEN I’M A HUNDRED TWENTY-THREE? Dan Stone: Perhaps the Social Security Administration is being too conservative, given that the oldest known person, Jeanne Calment, made it to over 123. And with the miracles of medicine, one never knows. Although not shown on this particular table, one ‘nice’ thing about actuarial tables is that you get a time dividend. Say your life expectancy is twenty years. If you get to that point, your subsequent life expectancy is not zero, but a few additional years, which represents the accumulated ‘dividends.’ So, with every minute you live, you get a little additional life expectancy. If we could only make the addition increment in life expectancy equal to the amount of time that passed in order to obtain it, we’d be…immortal! I think we’re still a ways away from that.’ ☞ Perhaps. But as Bill Gates has noted, mortality is just a software problem. (I have a team in Bulgaria working on it as fast as they can.)
Hope You Had a Great Christmas December 26, 2006March 5, 2017 WHILE YOU FEEL STILL THE GLOW . . . Doug Lindal: ‘Fidelity Gift Fund has just lowered their limits on donation requests to $100 from $250 and halved their initial deposit to open an account. Great news for your readers who want to spread a little Holidays joy!’ ☞ Indeed. Giving via a charitable gift fund (Vanguard and Schwab have them, too) saves time and paperwork – and taxes. CHESTNUTS ROASTING Alan light: My showbiz friend Mark Evanier, who lives within walking distance to the Farmer’s Market in L.A., wrote this about his experience with Mel Tormé, and I have to share it with you. This is one of those stories that sends a shiver up your spine, makes you feel good all over, and makes you want to re-read it and savor every line. MEL TORMÉ I want to tell you a story… The scene is Farmer’s Market – the famed tourist Mecca of Los Angeles. It’s located but yards from the facility they call, “CBS Television City in Hollywood”…which, of course, is not in Hollywood but at least is very close. Farmer’s Market is a quaint collection of bungalow stores, produce stalls and little stands where one can buy darn near anything edible one wishes to devour. You buy your pizza slice or sandwich or Chinese food or whatever at one of umpteen counters, then carry it on a tray to an open-air table for consumption. During the Summer or on weekends, the place is full of families and tourists and Japanese tour groups. But this was a winter weekday, not long before Christmas, and the crowd was mostly older folks, dawdling over coffee and danish. For most of them, it’s a good place to get a donut or a taco, to sit and read the paper. For me, it’s a good place to get out of the house and grab something to eat. I arrived, headed for my favorite barbecue stand and, en route, noticed that Mel Tormé was seated at one of the tables. Mel Tormé. My favorite singer. Just sitting there, sipping a cup of coffee, munching on an English Muffin, reading The New York Times. Mel Tormé. I had never met Mel Tormé. Alas, I still haven’t and now I never will. He looked like he was engrossed in the paper that day so I didn’t stop and say, “Excuse me, I just wanted to tell you how much I’ve enjoyed all your records.” I wish I had. Instead, I continued over to the BBQ place, got myself a chicken sandwich and settled down at a table to consume it. I was about halfway through when four Christmas carolers strolled by, singing “Let It Snow,” a cappella. They were young adults with strong, fine voices and they were all clad in splendid Victorian garb. The Market had hired them (I assume) to stroll about and sing for the diners – a little touch of the holidays. “Let It Snow” concluded not far from me to polite applause from all within earshot. I waved the leader of the chorale over and directed his attention to Mr. Tormé, seated about twenty yards from me. “That’s Mel Tormé down there. Do you know who he is?” The singer was about 25 so it didn’t horrify me that he said, “No.” I asked, “Do you know ‘The Christmas Song?'” Again, a “No.” I said, “That’s the one that starts, ‘Chestnuts roasting on an open fire…'” “Oh, yes,” the caroler chirped. “Is that what it’s called? ‘The Christmas Song?'” “That’s the name,” I explained. “And that man wrote it.” The singer thanked me, returned to his group for a brief huddle…and then they strolled down towards Mel Tormé. I ditched the rest of my sandwich and followed, a few steps behind. As they reached their quarry, they began singing, “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire…” directly to him. A big smile formed on Mel Tormé’s face – and it wasn’t the only one around. Most of those sitting at nearby tables knew who he was and many seemed aware of the significance of singing that song to him. For those who didn’t, there was a sudden flurry of whispers: “That’s Mel Tormé…he wrote that…” As the choir reached the last chorus or two of the song, Mel got to his feet and made a little gesture that meant, “Let me sing one chorus solo.” The carolers – all still apparently unaware they were in the presence of one of the world’s great singers – looked a bit uncomfortable. I’d bet at least a couple were thinking, “Oh, no…the little fat guy wants to sing.” But they stopped and the little fat guy started to sing…and, of course, out came this beautiful, melodic, perfectly-on-pitch voice. The look on the face of the singer I’d briefed was amazed at first…then properly impressed. On Mr. Tormé’s signal, they all joined in on the final lines: “Although it’s been said, many times, many ways…Merry Christmas to you…” Big smiles all around. And not just from them. I looked and at all the tables surrounding the impromptu performance, I saw huge grins of delight…which segued, as the song ended, into a huge burst of applause. The whole tune only lasted about two minutes but I doubt anyone who was there will ever forget it. I have witnessed a number of thrilling “show business” moments – those incidents, far and few between, where all the little hairs on your epidermis snap to attention and tingle with joy. Usually, these occur on a screen or stage. I hadn’t expected to experience one next to a falafel stand – but I did. Tormé thanked the harmonizers for the serenade and one of the women said, “You really wrote that?” He nodded. “A wonderful songwriter named Bob Wells and I wrote that…and, get this – we did it on the hottest day of the year in July. It was a way to cool down.” Then the gent I’d briefed said, “You know, you’re not a bad singer.” He actually said that to Mel Tormé. Mel chuckled. He realized that these four young folks hadn’t the velvet-foggiest notion who he was, above and beyond the fact that he’d worked on that classic carol. “Well,” he said. “I’ve actually made a few records in my day…” “Really?” the other man asked. “How many?” Tormé smiled and said, “Ninety.” Tomorrow: Cat pee!
It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas December 22, 2006March 5, 2017 OY! Oy! Oy!- Oy!- Oy!-Oy! Hup teeetle teeetle teeetle! Oy! Oy! Oy! enjOy! Itzhak Perlman, no less. (Thanks, Roger.) MID-LIFE CRISIS You think 59.5 is a magic age because it’s the moment you can begin withdrawing from your retirement plan without penalty. Well, guess what: it’s also a perfect age for a midlife crisis. ‘Yeah, right,’ you say, adopting a certain tone. Well, don’t you adopt that tone with me. I am here to tell you that the Social Security Administration has recently extended its actuarial tables to age 119, so 59.5 is precisely mid-life. And, yes, we may get a little worn near the end; but compounding our $350,000 net worth today, say, at 6% above inflation for 59.5 more years, we’ll be worth $11 million and change in today’s dollars, so you’d better be nice. And you may not be so young by then yourself, come to think of it. RED WINE STAINS Frank Schrader: ‘Soak a sponge in a 50/50 mix of hydrogen peroxide and liquid dish detergent . . . squeeze it halfway dry . . . and blot the stain. Sponge with water to rinse and blot dry with paper towels. Obviously, the sooner the better. Works great, but the usual caveat with things like this applies: test the mixture on a hidden area first. This way you can leave all the other stuff to Stanley Steemer.’ Pieter Bach: ‘Red wine is best neutralized with white wine. That’s right. If someone spills red wine or brandy on your carpet, immediately flood the spill with white wine (dry white is better than sweet because there is less sugar to get out later), and then blot carefully. The white will dilute the red and if the first flood and blotting doesn’t eliminate the red stain, flood again and blot again before the first one dries and you’re temporarily stain free. You then have to get the white wine out of the carpet, but it’s (a) easier to get out and (b) not going to leave an ugly purple blotch. To get the white wine out: wait until the spot has dried, then flood it again but this time with seltzer, and blot blot blot blot. Don’t scrub the dry towel around because that ‘frosts’ the carpet fibres and the spot will show as a different shade of the carpet color. Use light-colored bath towels and stand on them to make sure you’re squeezing out as much moisture as possible. Then let it air dry. You will have removed the substances in the white wine that would dry as dirt-attractants (the alcohol sugars dry sticky). ‘For pet stains, first blot (with paper towels – don’t use bath towels unless you want to smell bad for months after every shower). Then flood the spot with white vinegar, which neutralizes the highly alkaline urine and takes away the odor, and blot blot blot blot. This time you can use bath towels because the white vinegar will rinse out in the laundry. Follow the white vinegar, a day later, with plain water and blot blot blot blot to get out the vinegar smell. The vinegar also helps teach the cat or dog that carpets aren’t grass and shouldn’t be peed on. ‘On both red wine and pet stains, DO NOT USE WATER UNTIL THE INITIAL STEPS HAVE BEEN TAKEN, and DO NOT USE SALT — EVER — ON RED WINE (which some people do, on tablecloths) because it sets the stain, it does not remove it. This is from a long-time professional housekeeper (now retired to the slavery of a desk) and carpet cleaner. I do know what I’m talking about.’ Bob Fyfe: ‘You can prevent red wine stains by pouring table salt on the spill immediately after it happens. Let the salt soak up the wine for at least an hour or two (some people suggest overnight) then vacuum it up. I’ve seen this work at my sister’s house on light beige carpet. As soon as it happened, guests wanted to pour club soda on it, start blotting it with paper towels, etc. My sister told them to just leave it, she pours a small pile of salt on it and at the end of the party she vacummed it up and there was no stain. Don’t use your sea salts for this — no need to waste the good stuff. You’ve already wasted a glass of a $10 bottle of wine (which fortunately you’ve bought by the case). Here’s a confirmation of this method. And another, quoting Harvey Steiman, Wine Spectator editor – ‘Salt is our first response to a wine stain.’ – and Wine Lover Robin Garr – ‘Salt is our best answer, from long, long experience. [K]eep mounding it on the wet stain until all you can see is white. It sucks it all out of there. Once the stain is set, the pigments in red wine are devilishly hard to get out.’ Steinman recommends a commercial product, Resolve, for carpets. He further advises the use of white tablecloths for wine dinners ‘so we can bleach it to death.” ☞ Table cloths? Real guys don’t use table cloths – or spill red wine. Drinking it out of the bottle makes it almost impossible to spill. MONEY BOOKS Jeff Martin: ‘I was reading Scott Burns’ article in the Dallas Morning News about good finance books to read . . .’ I LOVE CHRISTMAS It’s all about the best things in life: generosity, caring, and kids. May yours be merry and bright.
More Light December 21, 2006January 9, 2017 THE CHICK FLICK Apparently, it’s engrossing and educational, even for people who were not already Dixie Chick-adees. But when NBC refuses to run their ad, you know it’s worth a look. LOW-ENERGY, BRIGHT LIGHT I like to be able to see. So how come all the energy-efficient Compact Fluorescents are the equivalent of 75-watt light bulbs, 100 if you’re really lucky? Well, kids, get a loada this sunshine. (Thanks, Bob Fyfe.) Draws the same power as a 65-watt incandescent, but puts out 250 watts of eye-popping excitement. It saves maybe $20 or $30 or $40 or $50 a year on electricity, compared the same incandescent wattage (depending, of course, on the number of hours a day it’s switched on and the price of electricity where you live) and keeps hundreds of pounds of CO2 from rising into the atmosphere. All you need is a tall lampshade to hide it. SHORT ALBA? The warrants have now roughly doubled or more than tripled, depending on when you bought them. Dan from a top Wall Street firm: ‘What might be more likely to be profitable with ALBAW is to buy the warrants, as you’ve been suggesting, but to short the stock in some attractive ratio, especially if your broker will pay you rebate (interest) on the proceeds of the sort sale (which they keep and give you back some of if you demand it). In fact, that trade’s pretty close to break-even wherever the stock goes.’ ☞ Hmmm. I wouldn’t do this, because I think ALBA stock is going up, and can afford the risk if it goes down. (Also, very few retail investors do get interest on their short sales, even if they demand it. At least last time I checked, they had to be fairly significant customers for their broker to go for that.) But I see what Dan’s saying. If you short 1,000 shares at $5.83 (where ALBA closed when Dan sent this, before it jumped to $6 yesterday) . . . and if you own 4,000 warrants at $1.25 (where they were trading when Dan sent this, before they jumped to $1.38), then: If the stock goes to zero in a couple of years, your $5,830 gain on the short sale more than covers your $5,000 loss on the warrants. You win! If the stock goes to $8.50, you lose $2,670 on the short (for which you got $5,830 but covered at $8,500) but you make $9,000 on the warrants (exercisable at $5, and thus worth $3.50 when the stock is $8.50, which is $2.25 each more than the $1.25 you paid for them, and you bought 4,000). You win! (But $2,670 less than you would have won without this strategy. That’s what you give up for reducing your risk if it goes down instead of up.) If the stock goes to $6.25, you lose $420 on the short ($6,250 less $5,830) and break even on the warrants (because you paid $1.25 and they give you the right to buy a $6.25 stock for $5). You lose – but just $420. If the stock goes to $5 – the worst possible case with this strategy – the warrants expire worthless and you’ve mitigated your loss by only $830. But, hey, $830 is better than a frog with no legs. Dan’s strategy might grab me for a riskier stock. But – although anything is possible – I don’t see ALBA collapsing the way (say) a one-product drug company might if its drug didn’t make it. Dredging is just not all that dramatic.
Stanley Gets His Steemer to the 11th Floor (Dr. Livingstone, I Presume?) December 20, 2006March 5, 2017 WHY THESE COLUMNS LOOK MESSY – Part II Steve Strunk: ‘The reason for your UNICODE issues goes back to the history of computers storing letters and other symbols. Computers can only deal with bits, i.e. ones and zeros, AKA ‘binary.’ The first useful microprocessors were able to do mathematical operations on 8 bits at a time. This meant they could easily deal with numbers from 0 to 255. To represent letters (and other language symbols) a coding method was needed. The most widely used (for English and other Latin based languages) was called ASCII. The problem comes in with languages that had more symbols than 256. It was not possible to easily represent them using the 8 bit limitation. There were interim solutions but finally a standard called UNICODE was created that used 16 bits (0-65535) that could represent all languages at the same time. Early versions of Word (prior to Word 2000) stored characters as 8-bit characters using something called code pages where extra characters were needed. Word 2000 started encoding using UNICODE and all versions since have also done this. ‘I assume your original document was created in a version prior to Word 2000 and therefore was not stored in UNICODE. To keep backwards compatibility Word 2003 will continue to save the document in the version of Word that created it. When you cut the text and paste it into a new document it gets imported in the version of the new document, hence 2003 causing the change. If you do a “Save As” on the original you should be able to save it in Word 2003 format and then this problem should go away. At least I think it will. I don’t have any really old documents to try this on.’ ☞ Thanks, Steve! I saved my 7,380-page (2.8 million-word) file to a new name, cut and pasted the above to a new document, and . . . for unfathomable reasons that would probably explain why the IRS has never been able to integrate its computer system despite hundreds of millions of dollars in trying if only we could fathom them (and maybe why our intelligence agencies couldn’t either?) . . . in the new little two paragraph file, both of the above paragraphs showed up in Times new Roman except for the two phrases above that I have high-lighted in a color I call ‘perplexed purple,’ which appear in Arial Unicode MS. I think Word 2003 is buggy. INDEX FUNDS AND TAX CONTROL – PART II Josh: ‘It is obvious that index funds are the way to go . . . but why would it help control your taxes to invest in individual stocks? By that logic, it would help control your taxes to lose money!’ ☞ Unless you expect to be wrong all the time, whether flipping coins or buying stocks, you won’t only lose money when you buy individual stocks; you’ll also make money. So if you break even over the long run (and, given the market’s general upward bias, you should actually do a little better than that), after tax you come out ahead. As described Friday, you use your losers to lower your income tax (naturally, all this has to be done in a taxable account, not a retirement plan); and you use your winners, once they go long-term, either to fund your charitable giving or else simply to take a more lightly taxed long-term capital gain. Is this really worth bothering with? Certainly not for everyone. Rich people don’t give two hoots about the dinky $3,000 by which capital losses can lower their taxable income. And most people can’t afford to be in the market at all, outside of their retirement plan – they should be paying off their credit card debt. But for some, this is a good little strategy that may allow them the fun of ‘the game’ without their having to pay too high a price to play. Indeed, they may win. In effect, with this strategy, the tax laws stack the odds in your favor. How often does that happen? One last note (full disclosure): I like to do this with speculative stocks, so you get some big winners and (inevitably) some big losers. That way, putting just a few thousand bucks in each of a few stocks could give you your $3,000 of losses each year and (with luck, over time) at least that much in long-term gains. But speculative stocks aren’t necessarily a 50/50 proposition – let alone reckless speculations, like buying the stocks you find recommended in your SPAM folder. With those, you could lose all the time – in which case Josh would be right. BORAT – PART IIIIIIII Turns out, he’s not speaking Kazakh, he’s speaking Hebrew – and his movie is a big hit in Israel. Click here. (Thanks, John.) STANLEY STEEMER™ Listen, I’m sure this is old news to you, but not to me. It was a miracle! Not that they got the van up to the eleventh floor – all that took was blocking off traffic for a couple of hours, popping out some windows, and a twelve-storey crane. No, the miracle was that they were able to restore even the coffee-stainedest and blotchiest of disgusting wall-to-wall to brand new appea1. The only things that defeat them, my Steemer steerer confessed, are red wine and pet pee. Click here. [To avoid having to pay for a twelve-storey crane and cops to block traffic, and then to avoid having a van driving around your condo – which would terrify your cat and make her pee, I expect, if you have one (I don’t) – have them send their portable unit. It rides up the elevator like a large steamer trunk. Total cost for four rooms: $200 plus a holiday tip plus an hour for them to do the work and 10 hours or so to fully dry, though you can (carefully) walk on wetter.]
Sorry; We’re Closed December 19, 2006March 25, 2012 Well, when Stanley Steemer arrived to clean the carpets, it seemed they couldn’t get their van up to the eleventh floor, and that threw off the rest of my day.
We’re All In the Top 40% December 18, 2006March 5, 2017 30 ROCK Why have I been holding back on you? Because by the time I decided ‘30 Rock‘ was fun enough to recommend, the first few episodes had already aired. (I’m a firm believer in experiencing great art as it was intended to be experienced. You will not catch me in the Louvre wearing Ray-Bans.) But – hello! – it’s 2006, almost 2007, and who is tied down by schedules anymore? You can watch it all on your computer, starting with the pilot, right here. And you can get Alec Baldwin to call anyone you want and leave a personalized holiday message for them here. BRAIN FITNESS TEST #2 It takes one minute . . . and is very annoying if you’re a perfectionist. Being one of my readers, I’m sure you’ll do well. But if you get all 15 – I didn’t – you have done too well and I really don’t want to know about it. Another teaser from Brain Posit Fitness, whose newsletter is free, even if its product is pricey. [Full disclosure: I own a sliver.] Starting January 1, the product, too, is free, or close to free, if Humana happens to be your Medicare provider. PERSPECTIVE ‘Ninety-four percent of world income goes to 40 percent of the population while 60 percent of people live on only six per cent’ – Muhammad Yunus, accepting the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize.
How To Invest Your Money And the Hands-down, Sure-to-Please, Must-Give Gift of the Season December 15, 2006March 5, 2017 The gist of this article from San Francisco Magazine – invest in index funds and over the long run you’ll outperform almost all your neighbors – will be old hat to those of you who’ve read my investment guide. (Such a gift! Have you no children to give it to? No grandchildren? Kids: give it to your parents! Employers: give it to your employees!) But the article is well worth reading anyway to reinforce your resolve, or simply because it provides such interesting context. But wait – if you should do your stock market investing via index funds, why do I occasionally suggest crazy things like BOREF and ALBAW and NTMD puts (and not so crazy things like oil stocks, DD and AXP*)? Because I can’t help myself? Because a lot of people just need more ‘action’ and like to play the game? So if they’re going to do that, maybe I can help them do less badly than they otherwise would – or even win? Because it draws in fair-minded Republicans who, over time, come to see that ‘liberals,’ like Bill Clinton and Al Gore, may actually do a better job of balancing budgets, conducting foreign policy, and staying out of our personal lives, than ‘conservatives’ like George Bush, Dick Cheney, Trent Lott and Tom DeLay? (Not to mention a better job of running government agencies, like FEMA?) The other reason I occasionally mention specific stocks – as long-time readers know – is tax control. If your assets are of sufficient size, it can make sense to do most of your stock market investing through index funds, but to play with perhaps $10,000 or $25,000 or $100,000 intending to take considerable (prudent) risk. That way, you can sell your losers for a tax loss (lowering your taxable income by up to $3,000 each year, with any excess carried over to the following year) . . . and use your winners, held at least a year and a day, to fund your charitable giving (ideally, through the ‘charitable gift fund’ you’ve set up at Fidelity or Vanguard), for a further tax advantage. The punchline is that even if you just breakeven with this strategy before tax, after tax you will have come out nicely ahead. (See past columns or read my book if you need this fleshed out in more detail. I’m pushing my book so hard today because I try to plug it only once a year or so. So my entire year’s income from this column rests on how many people you can think of to give it to today. Think, dear reader! Think!) Anyway, I recommend the article from San Francisco Magazine and thank Jeff Bauer for sending me the link. Have a great weekend. *Hey! When you add in the fifth of a share of AMP that AXP spun off, AXP is up 38% in a year and a half, DD up 25% in a year. (Sorry about those Google puts and ARC. What was I thinking?)