I have a bottle of Napa Valley Cab that I plan to open for the earnings report. The first drops will be poured onto the ground, so that Tom and dilleet can symbolically share in the toast. Yeah, yeah, I know dilleet had been sober for a long time, but I don't think a few drops in the afterlife will hurt.

Best wishes for all of you

Not that I know of, Chaz

I am not taking a survey

If links are prohibited I probably will not participate.

I think links are important and would not support a move to make it a link-free environment.

rnsmth on IV

I used to be comfortable with iHub

I think if one wants

USA culture, law, etc. one should definitely stay in the USA.

One should not move away from the USA and expect to find the USA there. That would be silly and delusional.

For example

Portland is one of the safest cities in the USA, by reputation

http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2009/01/police_civic_leaders_sound_ala.html

Bootz

Thanks, appreciate it. I believe one is

much safer in downtown Mérida than in the downtown of most US cities of a million population. Both actual safety and feelings of safety.

The USA, now that is a dangerous country with very high levels of violent crime. I would be very careful there.

All these posts about Dell and other products assume a willingness to use Windows. For an increasing portion of the public, that is not a good assumption.

New iMacs

I am wondering along with Blue when new iMacs are going to show up.

Just got CS4 Web Premium for Ms. Roni. She has been using Illustrator forever and Photoshop for 1/2 of forever and has InDesign and has been using it since switching over from PageMaker about 1/4 of forever ago.

We're still using one of the last G5 iMacs made. Reckon she might like something a bit beefier for CS4.

Know any place cheap to retire where they speeeeeeeak French (or English)???

Arkansas? Alabama? Southern Missouri?

I think the economy will improve in the next 5 years. I increased our monthly contribution to the 457 plan twice in the past 6 months. I may be stupid, but if this is not part of the "buy low" segment of the cycle, it should be here in the next year or so.

I get along fine with my Spantuguese, and more vocabulary starts flowing out of deep long term memory after being there for a week or so :). Kathy has started learning. There are many Mexicans who know some English, some from living in the States, others from studying it in Mexico. Merida has quite a lot of US, Canadian, European and Asian tourism. English seems to be a common denominator among them.

The future is hard to predict, but I suspect I'll report any big moves here

<What's a pension? What is retirement?>

We on the many small pots and we won't starve retirement plan :).

Traditional pensions, IRAs, 401k equivalents (457 plans), Individual Account Plans (part of Oregon's public hybrid retirement plan into which our colleges put an amount equal to 6% of our salaries, Social Security and the equity in our home, which is still way hefty even with the 10% drop in prices the Portland area has taken over the past year.

We're headed to the Yucatan Peninsula (most likely) in 2 or 3 years, where we have friends living very well today on $2500 a month.

We ended 2008 in pretty fine fashion - This was taken on Christmas Day

Failed state? I think that overstates it.

Pakistan, maybe. Thailand, maybe. Mexico, not yet. The interior of Mexico is pretty safe. There are some pitched gun battles between drug factions and between drug factions and law enforcement/military. With very few exceptions, one being in Morelia on the night of El Grito, civilians have not been targeted, which does not mean there has not been "collateral damage.- even in some relatively small cities in the northern part of the country, like Lerdo.

I feel safer in downtown Merida any time night or day than I did in downtown St. Louis in the 1960's, or in parts of Portland in 2008 - even with our low crime rate.

a 4GB model diminishes the value of the App Store

I passed my 4 gig iPhone to my wife. She has an adequate amount of music, several hundred photos, a few applications and 1.4 gig of free space.

I think 4 gig is more than enough for many users, but the cost differential between 4 and 8 gig should be $50 at the most - given the $100 difference between 8 and 16 gigs.

Four gig in current form - $149? Does anyone see that? I am a little doubtful.

OT: roni,

It ain't the frontera, or the west coast :)

The Yucatan, that is where all three of our destinations are.

tomm-> Apple, "Got to get a piece of this..."

I have not looked closely at Apple's education sales last year, but I do remember some reporting of statements indicating that it had been a very good year.

A piece of it will be good and essential - even though the impulse in these economic times may lean toward the side of least expensive initial cost.

OT: roni, how's your FZ28 treating you

We're liking it.

Kathy is playing with it more than I am. I'm more the intelligent auto mode kind photographer :).

We fly out late this week, and the camera will get a pretty good workout over the next 3 weeks.

<Would you buy a 4GB iPhone for $99?>

I bought one for $399 when they first came out. Perfectly usable, plenty of memory for a good collection music and photos.

I think that offering an iPhone with 4 gig for less money could be a consumer hit. The question I have, though, would be on the profitability for Apple. How do those numbers work for Apple?

Well, I have my 3G iPhone now

incoming call volume is much lower than with the first gen iPhone.

Close to hard to hear if there is any ambient noise. Speaker is turned up all the way. Disappointing.

Speed is better though.

The new camera has arrived - Panasonic Lumix DMC FZ28

Yes, the old Nikon Coolpix 4300 is biting the dust and we are headed to Mexico for a spell in December.

Thanks

Those were all taken with the FZ28, I assume.

You approve for a nice, little traveling camera?

Digital Camera - Panasonic Lumix FZ28

Think I am going to replace the Nikon Coolpix 4300 with one of these. Have been poring over reviews etc... the past few days. Looks like a pretty good traveling camera.

The one still standing

Is the house of a man who rebuilt after the last hurricane. It was built to take 130 mph winds. The 14 storm surge came no closer than 4 or 5 feet from the actually living space. Guy who did it said they listened to the engineer and paid attention to detail.

Another state-led witch hunt. Do these things EVER end up well?

Seems to me that most investigations of potentially illegal behavior are carried on by the state. I imagine most suspects consider them witch-hunts.

Some do turn out well.

Paulson's statement on foreign banks
This adds to what WLD posted

"Yes, and they should. Because ... if a financial institution has business operations in the United States, hires people in the United States, if they are clogged with illiquid assets, they have the same impact on the American people as any other institution," Paulson said on ABC television's "This Week with George Stephanopolous."


Also,from a Washington Post article today

Senior administration officials meanwhile pressed their counterparts in Japan, Germany, Britain and elsewhere to establish similar programs to rescue their own troubled firms in what would be an unprecedented bailout of the worldwide financial system. The move comes in recognition that complex interconnections among financial institutions have created a global crisis that the United States cannot solve alone.

Yep, don't need no re-regulation

Just getting some that we have enforced would be a good start

“The SEC’s public data say that on any given day over the first three months of this year, there were more than one billion shares that had been sold and failed to deliver (within the allotted 3 days) and that 70% of those fails were concentrated in just 100 companies. That’s a real red flag for the SEC that naked short selling is very widespread, is highly concentrated, and consequently might be being used today to manipulate the price of scores of stocks.”

-Former Deputy Secretary of Commerce Robert Shapiro on CNBC

Dispelling the 'deregulation' myth...

That sounds like some people trying to perpetrate a fraud on us all.

Appropriate regulation, appropriately applied is important and has been lacking.

Enforcement of existing rules would have been a good starting point.

Excesses lead to swings back in another direction.

Hopefully we'll all survive. I know I will.

Wow, I think this board is going to get real ugly real soon.

I just think maybe a couple of people were a little deep into their bottles, perhaps :)

No need for ugliness here.

Those are some of my criticisms as well

Given the current alternatives

I know who I am voting for

We'll see how all our choices end up on my birthday :)

Absent the huge deficits

Run up by 3 Republican administrations in power for a total of 20 years - well, Reagan, Bush and Bush

absent that level of irresponsibility, SS would be just fine.

In the meantime, we get the great risk shift in terms of retirement security and health care security, from the larger social groups to the individuals.

This is the core of the modern Republican plan - to reverse all the New Deal programs to the greatest extent possible.

OT: Clueless and more clueless by the day...

Well yeah, but he is 72 years old.....

(I strongly suspect these new prices for the Touch are the margin-reducing “product transition” Apple alluded to in its quarterly finance call in July.)"

I am delighted they are available for the last few weeks of this quarter :)

Go to Zero: Syquest.

I owned a hundred shares of it as a fairly novice investor who bought a dying swan thinking it would make a comeback or get acquired.

I have some puts I bought this morning.

September and October $145's.

Had a pretty nice day, those did.

FYI, since another posting venue has been pretty much down for a day

I got stopped out of all my call positions yesterday.

I'm going to wait around a bit before re-entering.

http://www.jkontherun.com/2008/08/iphone-life-mag.html

iPhone Life Mag launching next week.

The 100-page premier issue includes:

• Full coverage of the new 3G iPhone
• Top software from the iTunes store
• 85 hidden features
• Best FREE software and web apps
• How to Rip DVDs
• Must-have accessories
• Safari surprises
• iPhone profiles of a doctor, rabbi, student, mayor, CEO
• Celebrities who have iPhones

Regular departments include profiles of people who have integrated the iPhone into their life, articles telling users how to get the most out of their iPhone, resources available on the Internet such as free software and support, and more.

In other news...

Friday morning I sold almost all of my AAPL trading positions.

Still have a October lottery ticket, shares and Jan 2010 $180 LEAPS and I consider those last two core positions. It is plenty of exposure.

We'll see what next week brings. I think the fall run-up is still on, so I will be looking to ladder back in with trading positions at some point, but until then the plan is to keep losses small - and I am way up overall on trades since Feb and March buys - but it does not take much skill to make money in a $115 to $175 run-up. This semi-skilled fellow sure will welcome another run this year.