Cogs

This is a post about things way over your head.
I hope you enjoy it.

For the first time in 17 months, HP stock has consistently stayed above what I bought it for.
"Adjusted basis."
Of course, I probably broke even some time ago, with the consistent $3.30 dividend I get every quarter.

And, as we all know, break even point is fixed costs divided by contribution margin per unit.
Which doesn't apply here.

So here's to a 2.3% return!
Note: this is approximately 230 times the annual return in most savings accounts (.01%).
Don't get me wrong- my heart broke a little bit when it went down to $17 a share last fall and became the Wall Street Journal's favorite thing to write about.

But you want to know my investment strategy?
Allie J only sells at a gain.

Can you believe it's only Wednesday?

I hate when economic models are like, "This model assumes no taxes." or "This model assumes no transaction costs."
GUESS WHAT.
There ARE pesky little things like taxes and transaction costs, and these things ARE relevant because they affect people's DECISIONS. Therefore your models are relevant, Miller and Modigliani.
Like saying that "dividends are irrelevant".
Pssh. Your IDEAS are irrelevant.

That's what I think about economics sometimes.
Last semester, I was studying for a test and came across this formula:

Effective annual rate : [(1 + INOM/M)^M] - 1

And all I could think was: [(1 + I NOM NOM NOM NOM...

Because the real rate plus inflation is HUNGRY!!!!!!!!!!!!

Apple stock rose $48 from yesterday. According to a news release written an hour ago, they're coming up with new stuff that will premier in the fall and into 2014. So this one's for all the haters (including myself).
Hopefully it will actually be new things and not old ideas that Apple just recently decided to finally participate in.
Like that time they introduced "tabbed web-browsing".
Yeah.

Well, I'm going to go take the CPA exam.

This stream of consciousness brought to you in part by,
TWS

And viewers like you!

Marvel

I'm so over superheroes.

For some reason, superheroes seem to dominate a lot of pop culture.
Batman, The Dark Knight Rises (which took me months to figure out was Batman), Spiderman, Superman, the Hulk (which I'm not sure is a superhero, but he still falls into this lame-o category) and I'm sure I'm forgetting other ones. Like ironman or transformers or something.
Whatever.

It's just that some of these stories/characters/concepts have been around since the 1930s.
It's time to move on, guys.

Maybe people are still obsessed with these stories because there's nothing better in our generation? That's understandable.
But that says more about our generation's inability to be more creative!

Comedy Central: Important Things With Demetri Martin

I just don't think superheroes are anything to get excited about.
And whenever a "brand new" (insert one of Marvel's superheroes) movie comes out, people act like it is the best thing since sliced bread.

But it's just not.

Apparently explosions, weapons, and boring dialogue equals exciting entertainment,
TWS

Tumbler

Why are there no sippie cups for adults?
I'm pretty sure I spill my drink more now than I ever did when I was a kid.

Suddenly, there was coffee all over my car.
Luckily, I had a picnic basket in my trunk with several absorbent napkins.

You never know when you're going to need a picnic basket.

Or an abacus, which is also a component of my trunk emergency kit,
TWS

Bologna

Today I applied for the last section of Uniform CPA Examination.

(Doesn't that sound important?)

It is.
Sort of.

All along, I've had this notion that after I become a CPA, things will change.
Change like in a drastically trivial way.
I'll be a part of a professional society of professional professionals.
I'll be that much more "marketable" to employers and/or clients.
I may even make more money.
It will allow me to do what I really want to do (which is what exactly!?!?)!

And I'll have fancy letters behind my name.

But as the date draws nigh, I begin to feel that nothing will change.
What is it that I really want to do? Tax preparation? Am I not doing that already?
Will I be no more important than I am right now?
And if "doing what I want to do" is what I think it is, that will take YEARS to accomplish.

(I wanted a quick fix.)

Motivation = lost.

And I guess I've been fooling myself into thinking it'd be worth it.
Because somehow certification = success?
And now I feel this annoying urge to get certified in everything.
Financial planning. Quickbooks Pro. Management accounting.
WHY CAN'T I BE NORMAL?!?!??

And maybe I'll be glad that I "got it out of the way" while I was "still in school".
And maybe in the future, it will really make a difference as far as my opportunities.
And maybe one day, I'll know exactly what I want to do and how to do it.
And maybe it will all be worth it one day.

Better be.

I'm going to go write a book,
TWS

Required Field

I read in a book today that businesses are using social media to make connections, develop relationships, and get clients from online sources.

But whenever I see that one of my Facebook friends 'likes' Wal-Mart, I don't see that as a good thing or a marketing tool.
I'm more like:

Do my "friends" really like going to this artificially-lit warehouse of chaos and screaming children infiltrated by clincally depressed "employees"?

I put employees in quotes because it's rare when you see a person in a navy blue shirt and khaki pants actually working (i.e. actually stocking shelves as opposed to leaving huge boxes in the middle of a really crowded aisle).
They're usually too busy standing around flapping their humongous lips to their fraaaaaaaaaand who's smacking her humongous lips back. Or they're standing around being a 'greeter', which is synonomous to pacing awkwardly around the front of the store and glaring and sometimes grunting at customers.

Or do my "friends" like Wal-Mart because it is the only seemingly reasonably priced supermarket in town (e.g. Statesboro)?

"Low price leader."

Every time Mike and I have to go to Wal-Mart because the item is not carried at Kroger, Publix, the Dollar Tree, or Dollar General, I get very sad and whiney.
Like a child going to ... well, anywhere, really.

And then there are the fire-fighters/middle school girls basketball team/PETA representatives who stand right outside the doors to solicit funds, turning an already terrible experience into an awkward one.
The key here is to avoid eye contact.
Or enter through the side door.

But THEN there are the solicitors INSIDE the store who are unvoidable.
Like the DirectTV people.
"Yo dawg - I heard you like to buy things, so we decided to sell things where you buy things, so you could buy things while you buy things!"

And we already have DirectTV.
WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT FROM ME!??!!??
DO I REALLY HAVE TO TALK TO YOU RIGHT NOW?!?!?

And I would feel relieved whenever I finally exit the store if it weren't for the parking lot.
Oh, the parking lot.
I have yet to have been to a Wal-Mart with a decent parking lot.
The one in Pooler actually hires a mall cop - or the social equivalent- to scuttle around in a white SUV, waste gas, and not do anything productive.
A common theme of Wal-Mart.

Also, am I the only one who's picked up on how Wal-Mart seems to exclusively serve obese customers?
This is so invariably true that Mike and I have actually substitued the word for "fat" or "obese" with "Wal-Mart".
So when you go to the pool, and you see something in a bikini that shouldn't be in a bikini, you say, "It was so Wal-Mart at the pool today."
And Mike knows exactly what I mean.

And I could go on for hours of how awful the whole Wal-Mart franchise thing is.
Whether its the interminable check-out lines, how people still haven't grasped the utility of enter/exit signs, or the tornado-sodomized state of their inventory, there is always something dysfunctional about how that store operates.

So, no, I don't think Wal-Mart is anything to be like-ing.

My life is average,
TWS





Diss Claim Her

"OMG IT'S BLUE!!!!!!!!!"

Yes. Yes it is.

And may it take you back to the days of OoGa BOoGa Surf Company where LiveJournal posts ads on my content, and I don't get paid for them.

I think I may make some changes to this blog, starting with its color scheme.

"I like the term 'color scheme'. It sounds very sneaky. Alright, we're going to improve the look of this room. And here's how we're going to do it. Blue. Brown. Beige. Shhh!! Somebody's coming. Act cool."
-Demetri Martin

So you may see some gagets and fun stuff that I find useful. Or you may not. I don't want to make your eyes bleed every time you come to read my blog. I was just letting you know not to freak out if you see some things that haven't been here before.

But for now, I've only changed the colors.
And the attribution.

I can't change your colors...

I can't change your G,
TWS

Work

I was reading about the taxation of nonmarital trusts today.

I know. Stimulating way to start a blog post.

And it said, "A key feature of the nonmarital trust is that it gives the decedent postmortem control over the property, as the surviving spouse generally has no control over final disposition of the trust property."

Postmortem control over the property.
So I guess they come back as a ghost and decides who gets what and how.
Wouldn't that be creepy.

And sometimes these trust documents contain a "sprinkling" or "spraying" clause which is suppose to be how income flows to beneficiaries, but all it really does is remind me of how cats pee.

In addition, Qualified Terminable Interest Property trusts remind me to clean my ears.
Because they're QTIPs.

Then I switched topics completely and began reading about farm income and expenses. This topic fascinates me because I like farms, and it reminds me of being home and the cotton fields and the garden and tractors and cows and sunshine.

Farmers can generally deduct prepaid farm expenses as long as they don't exceed 50% of every other farm expense. For example, if you buy a bag of feed, but haven't fed your livestock yet, you can deduct the whole cost of it. However, if the cost is over 50% of your other farm expenses, you can only deduct it as you use it.

But the government has beef with poultry farmers (so much pun intended). If prepaid poultry expenses exceed 50%, then they are deducted ratably over the lesser of their 12 months or useful life.

I wonder how long the "useful life" of a baby chick is.

Have you ever organized or cleaned something and then a day later regret that you ever messed with it?

In one of our staff meetings, we went over our e-mail retention policies and then people talked about how they had their e-mail organized into years and then client folders, and I was struck with awe at how organized and neat and useful that sounded.

So I spent some time going through mine doing the very same thing. At the end, I was so pleased at how consolidated and neat I was able to make everything.

The next day, I had to look for an e-mail.
Oh no.
I suddenly realized I had ruined everything.
Before now, whenever I had to search for an e-mail, it was in one of three places: inbox, sent, or trash.
I could search easily- by name, by time received- no cumbersome folders to open up and look through.
But that was all gone now.

My world no longer made sense.

It's like that time I cleaned up my desktop icons at home.
Looking for anything after that was like looking for a needle...in a stack of needles.
However, I was able to fix that problem by making a folder called, "That random folder that I miss so much" on my desktop and sticking everything that I would put on my desktop in there. That way, it looks cleaner (but it's really not).

And that's the true story of how I fixed something after I broke it after I tried to fix it.

Residuary clause,
TWS