Articles for today

Clothes are going to cost more.

I'll do this when I'm unemployed.

Resolutions are so passé. Some advice to live by in the new year.

I think lifehacker got it down by using the word "advice" to substitute the word "resolution".

lifehacker's advice for the new year.

Most items in this list are principles and ideas I already believe in and subscribe to, but it's always nice to remind myself to have a periodic reality check.

Quote of the day: "Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." – John F Kennedy. (via reddit)

Comeback soon?

Unbelievable. Two years have blown by since the last update to this blog. Two years is two whole generations, heck-- lifetimes even!-- on the highway which Al Gore paved.

During this blog's more active heyday, I'm unsure if anyone cared to read this to have missed the updates. But in case you've been hanging around for the last 2 years waiting for a peep from me, I guess I'll do my best not to disappoint.

So much has happened, but I don't know if much of it really improved my finances per se. For the most part, I've been financially doing OK over the last 2 years. Not bad, but nothing spectacular. In the next few posts, I'll catch up with you on my finances, my real estate situation, some other off-beat developments, and maybe even throw in some technological developments.

It's been a long weekend, and this is all I feel compelled to write for now. Stay tuned for my promised updates soon!

Update: I've been flipping through the virtual pages of this diary that I've buried in a time capsule called "the last 2 years". It's amazing how, in hindsight, so much of the sources of doom and gloom I've gesticulated about not only have occurred, but so have the ugly consequences they've wrought. Like with so few other insightful blogs which started before or during the housing bubble, I can't but feel "(we) told you so."

Here's one of my timeless classics. Thanks to Forbes for leaving up Ken Fisher's original article here. Anybody willing to hand over their retirement and assets portfolio over to his firm to manage?

Another classic.

And who can forget this dark and scary day?

The ultimate litmus test, not simply for financial choices, but for any choice you can make in life, is the "sleep-capability" test. If you can steal candy from babies, send your own parents into the poorhouse, and be able to dream of dancing sheep and gumdrops at night, good for you, leave your phone number in the Comments, and hang on a sec while I dial 911.

And finally, time to start introducing some fresh content. Looking through the comments responding to Celia Chen's post, one gets the sense that many have finally wakened up to the sad reality of the legendary housing bubble