madoffSmilin’ Bernie Madoff, who cheated an incredible number of people, got 150 years in the clink.

50 years ago, Bernie started out with $5,000 and his last job was a lifeguard at Rockaway Beach.

I used to work on Wall Street, and when I heard this story, I had to laugh. Why was he so successful? Easy!

  • He gave people consistent returns. Investors regularly got dividend checks. They were happy. They didn’t care it was a Ponzi Scheme, they got their checks and they were happy.
  • He gave people the idea he was SO GOOD at investing that he was better than everyone else on Wall Street. He was a part of a “secret insider” who knew how to always make money on Wall Street. People liked that, and investing with him, they could laugh at their other friends who invested with other people and lost money when the market went down.
  • I do NOT feel any sympathy for the individual investors who lost money with him. They got swindled by their own greed.
  • I DO feel sympathy for the charities who invested with him. WHY didn’t they do their due diligence?
  • I am disgusted by the SEC. They are a useless watchdog agency… an office full of lawyers with no enforcement saavy. Bernie wasn’t caught until he TURNED HIMSELF IN!

Honestly, I think Bernie could have pulled this off for much much longer… I think he felt that by coming forward, he would be shown some kind of mercy.

But on Wall Street, if you make people money, they love you.

Lose them a penny, and they will crucify you.

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Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

- Calvin Coolidge

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On July 8th, The boys and I are going on a road trip to play poker at the Borgata in Atlantic City. We are all pretty excited about the trip.

RoadTrip

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Can you guess what all these great men have in common?

  • Al Pacino
  • Anthony Kiedis
  • President James Buchanan
  • Sir Isaac Newton
  • Ludwig Van Beethoven
  • Bill Maher
  • Anthony Michael Hall
  • Matt Dillon
  • Ralph Nader
  • Supreme Court Justice David Souter
  • Charles Dunstone
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In the movie, “Better off Dead” with John Cusack, one of the cool things on the screen was a black 1967 Camaro SS.

Some guy tracked down the ORIGINAL CAR from the movie, restored it, and then made a (really impressive) website about the tracking down and restoration of the car.

Enjoy!

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FDA Approves Depressant Drug For The Annoyingly Cheerful

I know people who need this…

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I ran the Peacemaker benchmark on Windows, at the request of a few friends….

The results were interesting.

Safari is by far the fastest browser on Windows. Chrome is a decent second. Opera is slightly faster than Firefox.

Internet Explorer 7.0 is just pathetic, and 8.0 is a tad less pathetic.

Brower8

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The big news is that Chastity Bono, the child of Sonny and Cher, is trading in her womanhood status and becoming a MAN.

I would like welcome her to the International Brotherhood of Men, and help ease the transition, I would like to make a few suggestions.

  1. Oprah and Dr. Phil. Yeah, you aren’t watching that anymore. Same with Ellen. You can watch Ellen when she doing stand up comedy, but no more talk shows.
  2. Pick a sport and watch it. All men watch at least one sport. I watch football. A guy in my office watches Nascar, which technically qualifies (although, you would never catch me watch that…).
  3. When you don’t see another man friend for 5 years, he is still your friend. Nothing has changed.
  4. You may never comment on another man’s looks. Example:
    1. Man One: “Wow, Brad Pitt looks good on the cover of People Magazine”
    2. Man Two: “Oh, you must be  gay”
  5. If another man or woman doesn’t like you, you don’t care. Unless that person is a loved one, men know that life is not a popularity contest.
  6. When you go shopping for clothes or shoes, it should take you no more that 15 minutes to enter the store, find something you like, try it on, buy it and leave. You will be timed.
  7. If you go shopping for cars, guns, sporting goods, hardware, stereo equipment, big ass TVs or computers, you can take as much time as you like.
  8. Learn the Universal Truth of being a Man: “Women! Can’t live with them, can’t live without ‘em!”
  9. You now only have three basic feelings:
    1. Hungry
    2. Tired
    3. “The Other Thing”
  10. Movies. You can’t watch “Beaches” or “Fried Green Tomatoes” or “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants”. Movies with helicopters, car chases, guns, gorgeous women and stuff blowing up are more your speed now.
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Why acid can make you a better conversationalist

I  have never taken any drugs, but I can imagine this would be the resultant effect.

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I did a Google search on myself and I found the internet is not that accurate.

While this one site had my TITLE correct, it had the company name all wrong.

HMFWIC, that is me! [Slashdot] [Digg] [Reddit] [del.icio.us] [Facebook] [Technorati] [Google] [StumbleUpon]