Zariah

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Ecstasy in the Bronx! Yankees win title No. 27 (AP)

AP - The New York Yankees bolted from the dugout even before the last grounder was scooped up. After waiting nine years for championship No. 27, no one would dare hold them back.

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Phones are just horrible

Photos: commons.wikimedia.org

Whenever the phone rings, I always hope it is someone who I know well and not some random person because I don’t like to talk on the phone with people I don’t know very well.

It’s hard to talk on the phone, it really is. It takes so much effort, but it takes less effort when you know the person very well. This is because you don’t have any visual clues. Visual clues are very important to communication, and I use them a lot.

I guess that’s part of the reason I don’t like to talk on the phone–I can’t use body language. When you use a phone to communicate you rule out a lot of visual signals that are important to communication.

And when you chat online with someone, you rule out visual and verbal signals. Tone of voice and inflections are important and they can’t be easily transferred through a computer. That’s why face to face communication is so important to us humans. It is easier to communicate that way.

I would rather talk to you in person any day than chat with you on the phone. Phones are just horrible. But sometimes they are convenient, and that’s part of why they are horrible.

Nonetheless, I am grateful for them. They help me keep in touch with my friends who live far away. If it weren’t for telephones, I would probably just forget all about them. I would maybe send them a letter every couple years, but not anything more than that.

My Dog Skip

Photo: http://flickr.com/photos/24734142@N07/

I tend to highly enjoy dogs. They are definitely my favorite animal. No matter what I think about, it somehow chains back down to my dog, Skip. Skip is by far my best friend in the world.

I am always thinking about him. When I am eating, I think about how I eat with my dog by the couch. When I am lying in bed, I think about Skip lying right next to me. Most everything I do makes me think back down to my dog. I just can’t get over it. One minute I am thinking of one thing, and the next I am thinking of Skip.

GOP wins Va. gov race a year after Obama won state

Republican Bob McDonnell easily won the Virginia governor’s race tpday as independent voters who last year delivered the state to President Barack Obama shifted to the GOP, handing the party a convincing sweep of statewide offices.

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

How You Voted: Halloween Costumes

Another Halloween has come and gone, and with it, a lot of creative costumes. There were lots of pirates, witches, and a large assortment of popular movie characters to name a few. A common theme for some of these costumes for the adult groups, were that the costumes were either scary, or sexy.

We asked in our latest poll which you preferred, Sexy, or Scary and most voted for Sexy.

Amazingly, most costumes can be made into something sexy, with few modifications. For instances, by making it shorter, tighter, or more revealing you can pull off that sexy look. You could also change up makeup and accessories to give that more alluring look.

Whatever your choice was, be it sexy or scary, Halloween is a great opportunity to have fun!

Don’t forget to vote in today’s poll (right)

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Monday, November 2, 2009

New Schwab ETFs: Indexed, Low Cost, & No Commission With Schwab Account

Schwab just sent me a press release announcing their new series of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that have low operating expense ratios and passively track indexes.

The most commonly-noted drawback of ETFs is that you must buy them like a stock and thus pay trade commissions. However, if you buy these within a Schwab brokerage account, there are no commissions charged. Here is a chart comparing the new Schwab ETFs and their corresponding competitor from Vanguard. The ETFs don’t necessarily track the exact same index, but they are pretty similar.

This is definitely worth a second look. A possible criticism is that Schwab may increase expenses and reinstate trading fees in the future, which may lead to tax hits if you wish to switch back to other ETFs. Meanwhile, Vanguard has a long track record of rock-bottom expense ratios. However, it may also be that increased competition in this area by others like Fidelity and E-Trade will prevent this from happening.

Ford Posts an Unexpected Profit of $997 Million

The automaker said it had its first profitable quarter in North America in more than four years.