St. Pats - time to get SHADDYYYYYY

Thats right bitches, its St. Patricks Day weekend. Rog sent me a card, so its now official. Never mind that I had to request vacation for the weekend, or that some of the gays that I call compadre's are dropping out, but I'm getting off work early and I'm getting all sorts of Irish. I was brainstorming about good St. Pat's day t-shirt ideas (mostly for the ladies), and I figured I'd write some of the best ones down here, so I could read them later and laugh about them.

- Kiss me or I'll roofie your drink
- Kiss me or I'll tell everyone you're gay
- Kiss me I'm braugh-less
- Kiss me I'm on the pill
- Kiss me, I'm asymptomatic
- I'm HIV-positive you want to kiss me
- Kiss me (RU) 486 times.
- Plan B is my Plan A. Kiss me.

And my favorite:

- I don't have morals, but I do have Plan B. Kiss me.

If I find a woman wearing any of those sayings tomorrow, she better watch out, cause Glenn is rolling strapped. Plan for the weekend:

4pm: Off work, heading home
4:10: Pants off, beer open
6pm: Shamrock and Roll and Lucious B. Jacksons. The continuation of the debatchury of the past years Shamrock and Roll from Boston, but with a gayer, more married feel in the heart of Tysons corner.
8pm: Catch the train. I'm holding a one way ticket to Blackout City, USA.
~10pm - 4am: Pass out. Hopefully indoors. Maybe with a bed. We'll see.

Saturday:
9am: First beer of the day. Delicious!
10am: Kegs and eggs with Phil and Denny. Apparently there will be ladies, but with those two throwing the party, I don't expect much.
12pm - undetermined: Shamrockfest, VIP style.

I already have a serious semi just reading about the itinerary. Check back Sunday. I'll take the plan and put what actually happened, hopefully with photographic evidence. Watch out ladies, here I come.

Top Chef and an injured roommate

Sitting on my couch, Scott's parent are here and hes passed out in the lazy boy next to me with a surgically repaired ACL. This injury might be the best thing that has happened to me in a while. His parents brought more food than this apartment has ever seen, including sacks of potatoes, a ton of canned goods, and Costco sized meat. Mrs. Spicoli made an amazing pork dish tonight, with a side of potatoes and corn. For dessert, banana pudding, with marshmallows. I'm happy that Dave's surgery went well, but I'm even happier about all this food! Too bad we are in a weigh in week for the weight loss competition, but I just can't pass this opportunity up.

Tonight starts a new season of Top Chef too. I can't believe I'm going to watch another 12 weeks of Bravo, after the finale of Project Runway last week. I'm not sure what qualifies me for a GLBT scholarship for school, but I have to think this is one of the qualifications.

12 days until I find out from UVA. I think I'm going crazy...

Gemm

Not sure what this is, but I saw make money and went with it. More to blog later, but I have a possibility to pick up Paul Simon's Rythum of the Saints for $2 bucks with free shipping. Sweet!

Gemm

Fantasy Baseball

Getting ready for the fantasy draft tomorrow morning, I'm going to put all the links I need here.

Top 20 Rookies
Reliever rankings
Fantasy Baseball Cafe

Fantasy Sports Information Links

Middle Relief:
Sport Fanatics (with holds projections)
Fox Sports Rankings
Bulls Eye (Not great, they have a few)

The Man-chure

Here it is, the hottest listing of single men in Washington DC since the Declaration of Independence. This updated listing included bios of each of the eligible bachelors, so that you ladies don't just treat us men like pieces of meat and really get to know us before deciding which of us you would like to take to your bedroom.

With that said, ladies... eat your hearts out.

Name: Glenn Freshman
Penis Comparison: An adult mens softball bat, but a little wider at the base
About Me: Glenn Freshman is a highly successful professional who hasn't let go of his childlike wonderment and playful nature. He enjoys crisp fall days, snuggling, and HJ's, and hates non-babe babes. Glenn had a particularly long cold streak with the ladies, and thankfully recently found the magical pill of science known as rufies. Glenn looks for women whose proclivity to drink themselves to the point of finding anyone attractive and low self esteem make the perfect combination to allow Glenn to swoop in.


Name: Roger O'Reily, aka Buch Daddy aka Lots of Speculations aka BMOB
Nicknames: The Rog, Jesus Christ (in bed. As in "Jesus Christ, that was amazing!")
About Me: Roger was born in Japan and at the tender age of 3 months moved to the mean streets of Harlem. Here he learned the art of slinging rocks and developed a love of rhythm and blues music at the Apollo Theater and later other stops along the chitlin' circuit. The Rog went on to attend JMU majoring in bullshit and figuring out how to not do work yet convince people you did something great. This degree gave him more free time to pursue other interests which include building forts, sleeping in tents and watching movies wrapped in a teddy bear blanket while drinking chocolate milk. He now works for a large consulting firm as a Network and Risk Analyst where a little of his sole dies everyday. Upon meeting the Rog the risk of you falling in love with him is 100%.



Name: Scott Spicoli
Best bedtime move: The French Tickle
About Me: Scott, a native of Emerald Isle, North Carolina and Virginia Beach, never left his love for sand and sun behind when he moved to Arlington. He can be most often seen with flip flops, sunglasses, and a visor, hanging out in kids playgrounds, because he says "that's where the best sand is, plus I'm scouting out the milfs." Scott works as a government consultant, allowing himself plenty of time to tan and nap, and points out that with his extra 6 hours of sleep a day and limited work requirements, he can focus on a woman's needs 110% (he defines a woman's needs as cleaning supplies, ingredients to cook dinner, and water based lubricant). Scott is a Virgo, and would love to get you under the moon and stars and have his way with you.


Name: Scooter
Who would win in a fight, Joe Gibbs or God? Thats a trick question - Joe Gibbs is God.
About Me: There isnt much that amazing face can't say, but to not seem shallow, I'll list a few selling points to get your panties a little moist:

1. I have dreamy blue eyes, not that I know but I have been told so
2. I am in the top five, at least, as best kisser on the east coast
3. I have great dance moves
4. I dated a very hot girl in college, therefore she must have seen something attractive in me. Therefore, other hot girls must be able to find something also attractive about me.


Name: Kev
Lifetime Achievement: Finished an 80oz Utz pretzel container full of beer through two straws put together
About Me: I'm a simple man. I love the Redskins. I drink American beer. I tape caps hockey games on VHS and rewatch them. My work involves physical labor, and I'm good at it. I can kill a man with my bare hands, and I can please a woman with any part of my body. If you have a screw you need turned or a hole you need plugged, I'm your guy. Also, I cry alone in the bathroom sometimes. Come play with my rubix cube and untrap me from the puzzle that is my feelings.

Name: Phil McSorley
AKA: Leppy the Leprechaun
About Me: Phil, a native of the Washington area, is finishing his first year at MD Law. He lives in downtown DC and thoroughly enjoys going to pubs, not clubs. He hates long walks on the beach, but enjoys spooning after sex. Phil enjoys dominating bottles of red wine during the week, and punishing Miller Lites on the weekend. He believes a girls best feature (after her personality) is her butt.


Name: Denny
Former profession: Denny was the penis that they made dildo molds from.
About Me: Denny, a JMU grad, is an environmental scientist and attends grad school at Johns Hopkins. His interests include volunteering with disabled children and saving little puppies. Denny thrives at most all games, particularly yard and drinking varieties. In his spare time, Denny enjoys attending parties, shin digs, bru-ha-has, and other social engagements. Denny maintains a outwardly respectable appearance, but has a naughty streak behind closed doors.

Caps Lose... Again

We need to stop going to the Caps games. After we went to the 2-1 overtime loss last Sunday, we were treated to a 3-2 loss in regulation last night. So far this season, I'm 0-2. Not a great streak. Everyone did have a good time though. Before the game, Feeney, Allison and I went to the Barra preseason party and picked up our sweet 2008 Barra jerseys. After the game, everyone went to Hooters, met up with Phil, Denny, and Skylar, and watched UFC 82, with no cover charge to get in.

Picked up a few more records and set up the player yesterday. For $30 bucks, I got Elvis' Gold Records, Volumes 1-2 and 3-4, Paul Simon's self titled album, Elton John's Greatest Hits, and Cat Stevens' Teaser and the Firecat. I also set up the system, and it sounds great. The links are of course to Amazon CD's, if anyone knows of a good used lp site I'd love to hear about it.

Blog Tips

Quick post - check the sweet browser icon. Thats Glenn at his hottest. Found a pretty sweet blog to help make this thing even more magical.

Also, so I don't have to search for it anymore - the background color pallete is HEX: #CAF99B RGB: 202, 249, 155.

March!

Working on Saturday after a long ass week, with a hangover. I need to start living a life of 366 angles and not 1 angle - staring at this computer screen. Anyway, I get to go home and have fun in a few hours, with my new record player. I ended up buying the Audio-Technica from amazon.com for $199, with free shipping. I ordered it on Thursday, it got here Friday. Sweet free one day shipping. I've got three albums to play around with, but from searching online I found a few cool record sites, the best being Aural Exploits and InSound. I picked up the Juno soundtrack on vinyl, but that was mostly for the cover art, and I'm thinking about picking up the entire Iron and Wine catalog. Two really cool things about buying vinyl: a) you get a free download of the entire album online, and b) there are usually a bunch of extra tracks you cant hear other than on the LP. Sufjan Stevens, Iron and Wine, and a few others all have bonus tracks that are vinyl only. The one other LP I'm definitely going to pick up is Sufjan's Seven Swans, one of my favorite albums ever.

So the record player hasn't taken up my entire life, but it is probably the most interesting. I went to the Caps game last Sunday, and got the box for tonight, with a similar crowd of characters: Glenn, the Rog, Scott, the dynamic team of Scooter and Kev, plus a few Maryland guys and Feeney and his woman. Also got the box for tonight, which is a pretty sweet deal. I still need to pick up a jersey, but I'm not sure I'm going to have time today.

A lot from the Madison rugby front too. I'll take most of what I wrote to the alums and repost it, but there is some great news about the scholarship and the current team. The Luis de Souza Pinto Scholarship endowment was created December 20th, and in a little over 2 months we have raised $19,070 towards the required $25,000 to begin to award the scholarship. I received a note from the JMU planned giving office saying they were getting gifts nearly everyday, which provides the current team great exposure (in a positive light this time), and shows how dedicated the alumni are to the school and the current team. The scholarship is also highlighted on the USA Rugby website, under college scholarships. Crazy. The team was also awarded a kit from the National Guard, which, according to USA rugby, is "valued at thousands of dollars". The kit includes jerseys, shorts, headgear, balls, goal post pads, and a ton of training equipment.

The highlight of my week was hanging out with Coach Holmes, who gave me the news that the team is off to a 2-0 start this spring season, with wins over Longwood and VCU 73-17 and 55-17. He said the schedule gets tougher, but the team is showing depth and seems to have their act together. He also let me know that the Madison Rugby website has been updated and has listed all practices, games and tournaments. The team is even filming games and putting them on YouTube, complete with instant replays. I put links to the two current games below - there is film of a few great hits. One really funny thing Holmes pointed out - Slutty Matt only made one kick, and they just kept using the same footage after every try. When the team switched sides, they just flipped the image, so it looks like he is kicking left footed. Idiots.

Links to Game Videos:
Longwood, pt. 1
Longwood, pt. 2
Longwood, pt. 3

VCU, pt. 1
VCU, pt. 2
VCU, pt. 3
VCU, pt. 4

Record player

Alright, I want to buy a record player (for the sweet LP's I bought a week ago), but obviously have no idea what I should be looking for, so I'm going to do a running blog while I do about 30 minutes of research.

First thing I came across was this guide posted on eBay, which looks like a pretty well written article. (I will say that while I am doing this I am talking to Fake Lauren, trying to convince her that Sufjan Stevens is one of the best artists of our generation. For some reason she doesn't believe me.) I'm quickly realizing that even though this article dubs itself as a "layman friendly guide on how to select your next turntable", I'm seriously having some trouble figuring out what this all means. I just scanned it, and it doesn't get any easier to read. I'm moving on.

Article 2 has a great title - My first turntable - what should I buy? Now we are talking. But wait, what the hell is this? This guy wants to spend a grand on this thing? I'm not trying to get a bj from the machine, I just want it to spin my records around. I could get 4 iPods for that much. I finished the article, and realized it uses just as much wacky language, and the forum posters don't think you can get a record player for less than $1k that doesn't make you want to cut your ears off. Not the right stop. Again.

Third article and I'm finally getting to the good stuff: How to Decide if a Turntable is right for you. They are still talking about spending 500-600 on a table, but at least I can understand what all the words mean. I'm starting to feel like I'm going to end up finding the right thing, and I like the argument that if you are a classical or classic rock fan, due to the fact that records are so cheap you can actually save money switching to LPs.

Here we go! Subject: In need of a good turntable under $120. Now we are talking! First major question appears to be answered: buy direct drive and not belt driven. I'm pretty sure this is what Raz told me to do, but I couldn't remember. And this has what appears to be a decent recommendation: Accurian turntable from Radio Shack. I went to search for it, and the Audio-Technica AT-PL120 came up, which looks pretty good and is currently on sale at $250. Starting to look a lot better, this is definitely in the running for final purchase. It also got a great review from Crutchfield. And its down to $200 on Amazon. This might be the one, but I'll keep looking.

One of the turntables the Crutchfield article discribed was the Technics SL-1200. This looks great, but with a $519 price tag from Amazon (remember you still need to buy a needle), its just not what I'm looking for right now. I might have stumbled upon the right player already...

Alright, thats enough for tonight. If I end up picking anything up, I'll post a follow up note. And if anyone knows anything about record players, I'm all ears.

And FYI, I was able to make a convincing argument for Sufjan Stevens, after Sister Winter, The Transfiguration, and Chicago. Here's a quote from Fake Lauren (and something that a lot of people should try to remember): "Fake Lauren: I should have known better than to disagree with you."

Quick recap

One quick post tonight after a busy week, I'll go through and link this later.

Visited Darden for an interview on Wednesday, I think it went well, but when I talk for 45 minutes straight I always think it sounds good. Heard back from Wharton today, it was the standard denial letter, but now in internet form, so I felt good that my rejection was not harming the earth. Three more schools to go, and Harvard still hasn't even opened the application. This process sucks.

Got a lot of cool links this week. I'll try to group them all by general topic:

- Read an article in the Post entitled The Dumbing of America. The general thrust of the article is that not only is the American attention span waning and education focusing more on teaching to a test rather than learning, but that people are content on not knowing information, and to point this out is labeled as elitist. I don't think reading the authors entire book would be very interesting, but in a two page opinion form it seems pretty good.

- Another article from Business Week focused on Verizon's current offer of unlimited minutes for $100 a month, prompting at&t and T-Mobile to follow suit. The article said that all stocks lost ground in a fear that this singles new pricing wars, which is great now that I plan on leaving the Company cell phone plan.

- Debby sent me a link about an article on the modern woman, who has so many choices in front of her that her life is vastly different from her parents, and the desire to succeed is mostly based on the dearth of opportunities that are provided. Makes me feel like I haven't moved cities enough.

- Another article, from the New Yorker, entitled The Birthday Party, focused on Stephen Schawarzman, head of the Blackstone group. Great profile of a business leader, very fair presentation of his talents and faults.

- Finally, Roger did a bunch of research after we had questioned each other about the situation with Advanced Towing on Sunday. He found a bunch of really interesting information. Starting at Wikipedia, he found an article on predatory towing, which linked him to Virginia towing laws, "among the forefront of towing laws in America meant to protect vehicle owners from predatory towing practices". Apparently tow drivers are required to take pictures of a car prior to towing so they can't claim a car was damaged prior to being towed, and other restrictions. Of the counties in Virginia, Arlington has the toughest restrictions. From there, Roger found a bunch of other websites, including one blog which takes pictures of Arlington county vehicles illegally parked (but has been inactive for over a year), a review of Advance Towing, which also towed Scott's car and illegally charged him over the $95 maximum fee even though he was parked in his own garage, and a few stories of seriously pissed of people who got towed. One guy was pissed that kids sat in a parking lot waiting for people to park illegally so they could get towed, and one felt he was mistreated by Franks Towing, which ended up getting out of the towing business after the owner was arrested for tax fraud and ordered to pay $16,000 in fines for overcharging people. If you have time, read the Franks towing website, its hilarious.

Walking Arlington

Roger and I had a romantic day together today. After finishing Good Luck Chuck (probably one of the worst movies ever) and then watching Charlie Wilson's War (very, very good), we decided to grab some food. Without any idea where we wanted to go, we just started walking. I had my camera on me, so I just took a bunch of pictures of Arlington, figuring that almost everything we were looking at was going to change soon. We also decided to eat somewhere we had never eaten before, which ended up being a very good idea. We passed by El Pollo Rico, one of the three Peruvian chicken places in Arlington, and the current favorite of both DCist and my uncle Mark. I still argue that Super Pollo is better, where you can get chicken that tastes just as good, plus yuca. Anyway. Walking around Arlington made me notice a lot of things I never do when I walk by them. Like the flower painted on the side of a building, painted after September 11th, with the date painted like one of the clouds. Or the shoe repair place that seems to advertise that its open very well, would have a real bitch of a time changing the sign at closing, and for some reason is located in the corner of a parking lot.

The first place we actually stopped at was Orpheus Records, a small record store in Arlington that is currently going out of business. The Washington Post wrote an article on the store and the issues its having, mainly not being able to make the increasing rents as business decreases. Roger and I commented that the guy behind the counter (not the owner) seemed a lot like Comic Book Guy, both in appearance and condescending demeanor. Despite this, even though I dont have a record player yet (thats a subject for future posts), I picked up two Sufjan Stevens albums, Illinois and Michigan, and Bloc Party's Silent Alarm. Thanks to Raz for getting me into vinyl, mostly because of how cool the Bloc Party records look and the extra track on the Illinois album. Plus the covers will look great if I ever put anything on my walls.

We kept walking, turning into a few more stores (there's a porn shop in Arlington! score!), and finally got hungry around the end of Clarendon. We saw a place that we have passed a million times called Earl's. Roger made a quip about it probably being named after the Earl of Sandwich, which turned out to be true, then pointed to his head and said "This thing ain't just a hat rack". What a funny guy that Rog is. Earl's bills itself as just like homemade, but with less the hassle. Earl has obviously never been to my house. Earl turns out to be Steve Dugan, former employee at Rockland's and the guy that picked out my sandwich for me. Turns out he is cool as shit, knows his menu, and makes great sandwiches. I had the Pearl, which tasted like Thanksgiving on a roll, and the Rog got the Monty, which looked awesome other than the mayo based spread that was also included. We both got the gumbo, which was more like a stew but still really good, and I got the fries when I noticed they were fresh cut before I ordered them and Earls had Old Bay to put on them. I loved it, the Rog loved it, and the Washington Post loved it too. I will be back often.

At this point its about 2 and a half hours into our walk, and the Rog and I asked each other if we should feel gay (not that there's anything wrong with that) about the whole day. Without girlfriends or even girl friends, we decided that it wasn't gay, more of just a trip together by default. Then we went and got lattes together. Shit. Oh well, the coffee was good, and from a small place near Courthouse called the Java Shack. The place is very typical small coffee house, with a bunch of hippie ideals about people bringing in their own mugs and stuff, but the prices were really good and I would choose it over Starbucks any day. I think you can also see the place upstairs in the picture - its a massage parlor. I asked if it was the kind of massage parlor that gave happy endings and found out that (unfortunately) it isn't. This led Roger and I to begin discussing massage parlors, our friend Phil's plan on experiencing one in DC which takes the term happy ending to another level, and then about two brothers who "experienced" the same girl in the same night. This made us both feel much more manly - back on the "straight talk express" if you will - as we headed into Courthouse for the turn around point in our journey.

We popped into Olsson's Books and Records, mostly because I wanted to see if they actually sold records (they do, kind of. They had three. So I guess that counts). There were a lot of different types of books, not as big as a Barnes and Nobel, but with a much more local feel. They had a good list of recommended reads, including one of the funnier reviews I have ever read. The Rog also found a book that from the outside seemed to be written about TSNIFB, but as the old saying goes, you can't judge a book from its cover (although I'm thinking about suing for false advertising, they are obviously making money off people expecting to read about Glenn). I picked up one book, signed by the author: The Redskins Encyclopedia, for EJ and Katie as an engagement present, then we started back towards Ballston.

On the way back, we almost got run over by a group of hashers, people who run a 5k to get to a keg at the end (my kind of people), and an Enviorcab, then actually did run into BRJ, looking as straight as ever. He was out with his boyfriend / roommate buying wine to celebrate Presidents Day, and to try to get a woman drunk enough to look past his flaming homosexuality and play patty cake with him. They picked up $140 worth of wine, wasting about $130 when two $5 roofies will do the trick, and posed for one picture. Surprisingly, he didn't realize that Roger was farting on him the entire time until it was too late. We passed a car getting towed, which I laughed at and snapped a picture of. What was weird, after I took the picture the two tow truck passengers took pictures of me (why the hell did they both have cameras) from the parking lot and again while they sped by us, without towing the car. Very strange. We passed the remains of another building getting torn down, hopefully for more condos, grabbed a beer, and called it a day.

Quite a Sunday.

Wow. I can't believe people are this dumb

How awesome am I?

Sunday morning, I woke up on a love seat, my neck hurts a lot. Roger and I walked to Starbucks and got breakfast and coffee, and made a friend along the way. And by friend, I mean we hollered at a babe and she waved at us on the walk home. I'll take what I can get. Especially after dinner last night, when I walked to 7-11 and bought a 12 pack of Natty and a half gallon of milk. It even looks pathetic in pictures.

So now we are hanging out watching Good Luck Chuck. The movie kind of sucks, and by sucks I mean the acting is bad, the plot is stupid, and the dialog is terrible. But there are a ton of boobies in it, which makes it definitely worth watching. There are also a few good lines, such as the following, from an overweight plastic surgeon to a hot babe at a wedding:

"Here I am. What are your other two wishes?"

If you are hungover / still drunk, that line is pretty funny. Really, thats the only way you should watch this movie. Have nothing else to do, have drank heavily either the night before or during the movie, and have someone to watch it with and make fun of it. Anyway, the line from the movie made me think of another great line I heard recently. Its from the Taco Bell commercial with the two 9's talking to each other:

"I don't have an ego. I just love how awesome I am."

For some reason, I can not figure out why I can't find the video online. Why wouldn't companies put all ads online? I fast forward through all commercials on tv, and the one time that I actually want to watch a commercial I can't find it. Stupid.

One last good line:

"Why do you want to take me out to dinner so bad?"
"Because you look hungry"

I need to say that to fat chicks when I hit on them.

Europe!

I booked my ticket for Europe today! June 9th to June 24th, I will have much style and worldliness. Popcorn and I are going to hang out in Paris for a week where I'm flying in, then Debby and I head to Florence for a week in an Italian villa. Its probably going to be the most romantically awkward trip ever, between traveling with a friend who has been confused as my boyfriend (Good guys? We're great guys!), and taking in the amazing Italian countryside... with my extended family. Oh well, its still going to be amazing.

A few things I want to accomplish on this trip (so far) - spend a full day at the Louvre, visit both the Uffizi and the Accademia, and if possible, learn to cook an Italian dish I haven't made before.

Valentines Day part 2

Ok, so I got over the shock of Harrisonburg restaurants closing early for Valentines Day. It helped that we went to El Charro for dinner and I got to see couples going out to dinner together in their nicest outfits, which were Coors Light shirts, camo hats, and flannel shirt jackets. It also helped that we went to Wal Mart at lunch and I got a fucking bad ass tiger print mouse pad. Check it out! This thing is fucking fierce. People had been messing with me all day, then after lunch I put this thing down, and no one even came near me. It was pretty sweet.

Valentines Day also has a lot of good ecards associated with it. I sent one to Blackie Blackburn, which I though was really the perfect card and I'm sure she loved it too. Some other great cards here, here and here. And who doesnt remember Ralph Wiggum's card to Lisa? It made a great card, it makes an even better shirt.

Valentines Day

So much to say, but I'll start with this. Think about this for a little while. Apparently Valentines Day has turned into a federal holiday.

Fun with YouTube

I was surfing the internet while shitting today (standard) when I came across a story about a guy living at an Ikea while his apartment was being redone. His name is Mark Malkoff, and they have this video of what he is doing. Apparently he works as a ticket taker on the Cobert Report, but is most famous for hitting all 171 Starbucks in Manhattan in one day.

I obviously wasnt done shitting, so I surfed over to ESPN, which had a story about Rudy Gay asking fans to submit ideas though YouTube about what he should do in the dunk contest. It also talked about a video posted by Chris Bosh, asking fans to vote him into the All Star Game by dressing up and acting like a used car salesmen. Not the best video, but pretty funny. Some of the videos submitted in response to Rudy Gay are sick: one guy does a roundoff and dunks, one has a guy come from behind the backboard and jump out of the gym. I think there should be enough to find a pretty sweet dunk.

National Portrait Gallery

I had almost forgotten about the Steven Colbert portrait in the National Portrait Gallery until I was watching the show tonight. Apparently the exhibition has been extended until April 1st due to the popularity of it. The museum is open from 11:30 to 7 daily, located on 8th and F.

New Music

Roger sent me a link to a new band, Vampire Weekend, out of New York. I listened to some of their stuff on MySpace, and it sounds pretty good.

I also picked up a couple of CD's last week, one called Ghost by Radical Face, which is pretty good, with a few great tracks. I've listened to Welcome Home and Winter is Coming about 10 times in the last few days (Welcome Home is one of the singles on his MySpace page). I also got an album called Veneer by Jose Gonzalez, which is also good. Sean Hayes, the reason I started this blog, has a few albums, so I just picked up a few singles off iTunes that I liked, Rosebush Inside and Rattlesnake Charm. I usually don't pick up just singles, but I had already bought 2 albums and wasn't sure I wanted to pick up all 4 of his.

Launch party

Tonight was the first time I've ever attended an internet party, but thats what I got to do tonight, the launch party for 366 angles. I had suggested calling it a coming out party, what with the pink theme to the site, but apparently I was shot down. I do have to credit Leslie for inspiring me to start a blog, and for having one of the coolest sites on the internet. I pretty much sat there and laughed, and Debby yelled at me for being inappropriate, but I think it ended up being a great success. Check out my favorite angle so far.

Roth IRA

I wrote an email an few years ago to send to some friends on setting up retirement accounts, and I wanted to republish it here. I've cut some of the language out, but the substance is all here, and I also added a bunch of inline links. Note that this was written in 2005, so any of the projections are current as of them. Looks like I got the real estate market right, even if I was a few years early. Also, note that all my friends are single, so all the advice is for a single person. If you are married, there is nothing I can do to help. You got yourself into that mess.

Here is what I have put together for a few of my buddies and my ex as far as getting started, which is hopefully with Vanguard. I've added the specific funds I think you should look at for what I have described below. What I am trying to set you up with below is your "base" retirement fund - this would be a blend across multiple investments that would have growth potential but would also be well diversified. I will say that I have the fund I describe below in my 401(k), but I have a much more aggressive portfolio within my Roth IRA which I developed based on where I think the market will go and is more weighted for long term growth as I have a long time before I plan on taking the money out.

what im going to do is write a lot of stuff here, then try to summarize it at the end. all you need to do is keep the email and you can refer back to it whenever you need to, you dont need to try to understand everything right away.

I will try to focus on asset allocation - how to split your money up over different types of stock and bond funds to diversify your portfolio. most of the information and suggestions i am giving you comes from reading the intelligent investor by ben graham, updated in 2004. i have tweaked the advice in that book a bit from different pieces of information from the washington post, business week, and the wall street journal. additionally, please remember that i am setting up a portfolio that is long term in nature. currently, real estate funds are, in my opinion, overvalued, and energy funds are killing. i will be recommending, however, that you invest in the real estate fund, because while there might be a correction in the short term, in the long term it will help balance your portfolio. i am not trying to "time the market," i am giving you advice for what has been a historically successful long term strategy.

the current rules for putting money into the two funds are as follows. $14,000 can be put into your 401k this year, then $15,000 next year (for 2008, its $15,500). this is the choice of the irs and the government, so keep checking year to year what the maximum contribution amount is. your roth ira has a maximum donation of $4,000 this year (for 2008, its $5,000). same deal here, this max will change, so check once every few years. a few things with the roth. currently, if you are making more than $90,000 a year, the amount you can contribute to a roth is decreased, and then phased out completely at $110,000 (for 2008, its $101,000 to $116,000). this is done because of the tax effects of the distributions with the roth, but you don't need to worry about any of that. additionally, with the roth there is a provision that you can take a one time withdrawal, tax and penalty free, of $10,000 to purchase a house, if the money has been in your ira for 5 years. i do not advise that you take this money out of your retirement funds, rather if you plan on buying a house start to put money into the roth specifically to take advantage of this clause, preferably in a short to intermediate term bond index fund.

ok, so thats the 401k vs the roth. now lets talk about asset allocation. you are getting a great head start on your retirement by starting now for two reasons. one is with a longer time horizon until retirement, you can take more "risk" because you know that over time the short term fluctuation will come back and work in your favor. second, by reinvesting all interest and capital gains from a fund, you receive the maximum benefit of compounding. the bulk of your retirement money will be made before the age of 35 (as all this money will compound over the next 30 years) so you have 12 years to take advantage of this. what does this mean for your portfolio? you should invest much more heavily in stocks (a riskier asset) than bonds for the first 20 - 30 years. the stock market has historically returned an average of 10.47% per year (on a nominal, not real basis), based on the s&p 500 Composite Stock Price Index from 1965 through 2004, compared to bond rates of around 8%. your portfolio will therefore be structured more heavily towards stocks to start. every 5 to 10 years, you will then adjust your allocations to better match the amount of time until retirement, from stocks towards bonds. a good pictorial example of this is of the vanguard target retirement funds.

k, thats the background. now for action. i will give you approximate amounts that you should invest in each asset class, then you need to decide what you want to do.

so, here is what i suggest:

55-65% domestic stock index fund (the fund i hold is Vanguard Institutional Index Fund Institutional Plus Shares)
20-30% international stock index fund (i hold Vanguard Total International Stock Index Fund)
5-15% long term bond fund (i hold Vanguard Long-Term Bond Index Fund)
5-15% reit (real estate investment trust) index fund (i hold Vanguard REIT Index Fund Investor Shares)

a few things to remember. one - look at the fees on each fund! very, very few managers can beat the market year after year over a long period of time, and to truly beat the market, they need to achieve a higher rate of return on the market plus the fees charged. for example, if the market returned 10% and a manager charged 2% in fees, then the manager would need to realize greater than a 12% gain to truly beat the market. over time this wont happen. so try to
stick to index funds and other funds with low low expense ratios. vanguard has some of the best rates in the business, so you can look at similar funds on that site to see what kind of fees you would expect to pay. so try to stick to index funds with low low expense ratios. second, for the bond fund, you want to get the highest rate of return possible, which means the longest period of time. a lot of funds offer an intermediate term total bond market index fund, which returns around 2% less than a similar long term fund. even with a slightly higher expense ratio, you will still realize higher returns with the long term fund, so make sure you pay attention to that as well.

ok, i think this essay is long enough. to summarize:

you have two choices, build your own fund, or invest 100% in a Vanguard fund of funds. if you build your own fund, aim for the following allocation:

55-65% domestic stock fund
20-30% international stock fund
5-15% real estate fund (preferably a reit index fund)
5-15% long term bond fund

if you want to let vanguard do the work, put 100% of your moneyin the following fund:

vanguard target retirement 2050 fund (vfifx)

ask these questions:
1. what are the fees on each of the funds i will be adding to my portfolio?
1b. (compare yourself) what are the fees on similar vanguard funds?
2. can i be getting a better return with a fund that invests in similar assets (ex. long term bond fund vs total market bond fund)
3. why the hell did glenn write an essay this long?
4. what do i need to do to change my portfolio or add investments? - for later, but good to ask now

thats pretty much it. the summary was much shorter. maybe i should have stuck with that. hopefully you got all the way down here, probably you didnt, i know i wouldnt be able to. if you have any questions (which i would assume you would because i am not going to reread this for things i didnt explain well) please post a comment and ask.

IRA Rollover

I've been questioning the effect that rolling a 401(k) to a Roth IRA (in 2008 this can now be done without rolling into a traditional IRA first) has on contribution limits in a tax year for a while, and it looks like I finally got an answer today. Per bankrate.com, "According to Internal Revenue Code (IRC) Section 408A(c)(6)(B), qualified rollover contributions do not count toward the annual maximum contribution limit applicable to Roth IRAs." Of course I checked out the Cornell Law Code Collection (a great resource) to ensure that it is actually in the code, based on the very sketchy and typically incorrect information on IRAs on the internet, and did verify that the advice was correct. The link actually includes the entire code related to Roth IRAs, which is pretty helpful for answering any tax questions that might come up.

I'm also going to add the limits for 2008. Going forward they will be pegged to inflation.

From the IRS website:

Roth IRA contribution limit. If contributions on your behalf are made only to Roth IRAs, your contribution limit for 2008 will generally be the lesser of:

• $5,000, or

• Your taxable compensation for the year.

If you were age 50 or older before 2009 and contributions on your behalf were made only to Roth IRAs, your contribution limit for 2008 will generally be the lesser of:

• $6,000, or

• Your taxable compensation for the year.

However, if your modified AGI is above a certain amount, your contribution limit may be reduced. For more information, see How Much Can Be Contributed? under Can You Contribute to a Roth IRA? in this chapter.

Modified AGI limit for Roth IRA contributions increased. For 2008, your Roth IRA contribution limit is reduced (phased out) in the following situations.

• Your filing status is married filing jointly or qualifying widow(er) and your modified AGI is at least $159,000. You cannot make a Roth IRA contribution if your modified AGI is $169,000 or more.

• Your filing status is single, head of household, or married filing separately and you did not live with your spouse at any time in 2008 and your modified AGI is at least $101,000. You cannot make a Roth IRA contribution if your modified AGI is $116,000 or more.

• Your filing status is married filing separately, you lived with your spouse at any time during the year, and your modified AGI is more than -0-. You cannot make a Roth IRA contribution if your modified AGI is $10,000 or more.

New Phone!

I finally got a new phone, and while it isn't everything I ever dreamed of, its certainly better than my crappy Treo 650. I broke down and got the Samsung i760, because I got tired of waiting for the q9c, and it is quite a difference from the Treo. The biggest difference? I am actually receiving calls. That can be a good and bad thing, depending on who is calling me, but in the end I'd have to say I'm happy that the device I'm using for a phone is actually functioning as a phone.

I'm having a real problem figuring out what all the buttons do, but its becoming more and more user friendly now that I'm getting used to it. My fat fingers have a real problem hitting things on the screen and accidentally hitting buttons I'm not supposed to hit, but maybe thats my fault and not the phones. I set up a bunch of tasks in the phone to see if I can finally take my to-do lists online, rather than on a sheet of paper that changes everyday, and hopefully it starts helping like my calendar reminders.

The greatest video ever, now pocket sized

Roger just sent me a link to the greatest video ever, and pointed out a new feature - download for your iPod! Thats right, you can take the "Awesome Beer Drinking Contest With Vulgar Vomiting, Tackling, and Other Amazing Crap" video with you everywhere you go! Impress your friends, scare your mothers!

Freeheld

Debby sent me a link to a movie she watched at work today (I can't believe she gets paid) for a movie that is nominated for the Best Documentary - Short Subject Oscar this year. I guess one of her co-workers made the film, or is banging the director or something. Anyway, the film is called Freeheld, and from what I can tell its about a terminally ill cancer patent who is a lesbian police officer trying to secure her pension benefits for her partner. I don't think thats the actual tag line because its too long, but if I was in charge of marketing I'd have it be something like that.

Anyway, I watch the trailer, click on a few links, and find myself at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences events page for Washington DC, which I didn't know existed. There is an event being held, screening this film and all others up in the Documentary Short Subject category, along with the Documentary Feature, Live Action Short Film, and Animated Short Film categories. The event is presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in partnership with The Charles Guggenheim Center for the Documentary Film and the Foundation for the National Archives, at the William G. McGowan Theater. The page even looks fancy. Anyway, I'm gonna go, and its going to count as one of my Lenten activities, I just have to make sure I get in the right line to get tickets (Free tickets will be distributed (at the Special Events entrance on Constitution Avenue) beginning 60 minutes prior to start time). Dates for everything below.

Documentary Feature Nominees
Wednesday, February 20, 7 p.m.
Thursday, February 21, 7 p.m.
Friday, February 22, 7 p.m.
Saturday, February 23, 7 p.m.
Sunday, February 24, 4 p.m.

Live Action Short Film Nominees
Saturday, February 23, noon

Animated Short Film Nominees
Saturday, February 23, 3:30 p.m.

Documentary Short Subject Nominees
Sunday, February 24, noon

Happy Hours

Just got this link sent to me on a happy hour finder in DC. Looks like a pretty sweet tool, if I ever feel like going outside of the Carpool / Jays Saloon scene I might use it.

Why doesn't Tivo work in reverse?

This looks hilarious. I'm going to try to find links to the videos.

Conan, Stewart and Colbert's 'feud' erupts

Lent

First day of Lent and I'm already screwing up. I'm giving up Chipotle and their delicious burritos, which is tough enough. But I'm also going to do at least one thing everyday to lose weight, save money, and accomplish a non-work task, like cleaning my room. I start lent fat, poor and lazy, and I hope to come out of lent less fat, middle class, and with a clean bathroom.

Anyway, this morning I made my lunch (savings of 9 bucks, and healthy-ish) at the expense of showing up after 9am to the parking garage and having to pay $14 for parking instead of $9. Net $4 savings, plus a healthy lunch, I thought I made the right choice. Until I left my lunch on my kitchen counter. CRAP! Now I'm starving and purchasing some fatty lunch.

I did vote today and send in a dental reimbursement though, so at least I have my daily tasks accomplished. And spicoli sent me two workouts to do which work legs and back. Follow the links below to see my lose weight strategy for the day.


Dumbbell workout
Rush-hour workout

Selling out

Man that was quick. Two stupid posts about nothing, and Google lets me sign up for AdSense and totally sell out. Click the links! I'm trying to get rich!

Vote!

I'm going to be out of town next Tuesday, but the Arlington website has a surprising amount of information on how to vote. Follow the link.

http://www.arlingtonva.us/Departments/VoterRegistration/VoterRegistrationElectionInformation.aspx

QUICK RESPONSE!

Just got a note back, I can't vote by mail, but I will be stopping by tomorrow morning to vote. Check it:

Hello. Absentee voting by mail is no longer available. There is in person absentee voting available at our office, 2100 Clarendon Blvd, Suite 320 until Saturday, Feb. 9^th

Hours are:

M – F 8am – 5pm

Thursday 8am – 7pm

Saturday 8:30am – 5pm This is the last day.

Phenylketonurics - too many letters to care.

Roger O'Reily comes through again. The warning label on the side of Diet Soda, the one that says phenylketonurics: contains phenylalaine in big bold letters? Here's what it means.

From "The Warning Label Book" open in front of me:

"Factoid: Phenylketonurics are people who suffer from phenylketonuria (PKU), a disease that makes it difficult to metabolize phenylalaine, an amino acid found in aspartame (used in NutraSweet and Equal). Aspartame ingested by women with PKU during pregnancy can cause mental retardation in the unborn child. All products containing aspartame should spell out the dangers to phenylketonurics and also warn pregnant women to be tested for PKU before ingesting any food or drink containing aspartame. Also the FDA has concluded that experimental data "appear to suggest the possibility that aspartame . . . may contribute to the development of brain tumors." Why aren't these warnings on the side of a can of diet Coke? You don't suppose it would hurt sales, do you?"

Sean Hayes

I've heard Sean Hayes a few times on Pandora and looked him up tonight, pretty interesting guy with a good sound. Did an NPR interview which I wanted to save, which gave me a reason to create the blog. Check the link below.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11119161