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Paul B. Farrel, in a recent article published on MarketWatch.com, posits that everything you need to know about personal finance is contained in nine simple steps. In a Dilbert book. He goes so far as to praise the ideas as worthy of a Nobel Prize in economics.

Paul, you may be onto something. I won’t get into too much blabber, but I certainly agree that these simple bullet points are essential and bear repeating. For the lazy readers (and because I think this is so important), I’ll quote them here:

1. Make a will
2. Pay off your credit cards
3. Get term life insurance if you have a family to support
4. Fund your 401k to the maximum
5. Fund your IRA to the maximum
6. Buy a house if you want to live in a house and can afford it
7. Put six months worth of expenses in a money-market account
8. Take whatever money is left over and invest 70% in a stock index fund and 30% in a bond fund through any discount broker and never touch it until retirement
9. If any of this confuses you, or you have something special going on (retirement, college planning, tax issues), hire a fee-based financial planner, not one who charges a percentage of your portfolio

There you go. That’s it. Do these things and you will retire worry-free. Furthermore, you’ll live the rest of your life not having to worry about losing your job or being able to pay the bills.

I realize these things aren’t easy, but work towards them. Most of the people reading this post can go 9 for 9 if only they prioritize a little. If you’re not making much money, you can always save a small percentage somewhere you can’t touch it so easily. Do you smoke? Quit — and put away the $4 a pack. You’ll kill 2 birds with one stone that way (and maybe even save yourself).

Will he be the same as the old boss? Probably.

If our country ran like it was intended, the state gubernatorial election would be as (or more) important than the national election. Alas, it isn’t; so a lot of people just don’t care who’s at the helm in Tallahassee. We should care, so I’m hoping to spur a little reading with this post, maybe even some discussion.

The most difficult thing for me is always finding objective information about each candidate. Political ads have degraded to cheap slander. Candidates’ web sites can be a source of information, but you have to be able to see through the empty rhetoric. Local news is decent from time to time, if they can cease the dramatization of every little matter for a moment. The Sun-Sentinel has a pretty readable section on the race. That same article also has individual sections on the Democratic front-runners as well as the Republican ones.

I’m still looking for a good side-by-side, issue-by-issue rundown from some nonpartisan source. A friend suggested realpolitics.com but considering the source, I don’t think that was what he was intending. Anyone have a good comparison site for state officials?

In yesterday’s White House press briefing, spokesman Tony Snow had this to say regarding the President’s position on embryonic stem cell research, specifically regarding the fact that these are embryos which are going to be discarded anyhow:

“…the President is not going to get on the slippery slope of taking something that is living and making it dead for the purpose of research.”

No, no, that would be a tragedy. But taking living things and making them dead in the name of world politics is a completely noble cause. Jackass.

Good thing my wife and I were able to catch Bodies, the Exhibition in Manhattan last month, because it isn’t coming to War Memorial Auditorium any time soon. In a blunt move sure to rescue innocent children from actual education, the city commission blocked the show from using the facility. Mayor Jim Naugle had this to say:

“It makes me think about what happened during the Holocaust,” Naugle said at a Thursday conference meeting. “These are the bodies of oppressed people.”

Really? What does the Fort Lauderdale Gun & Knife Show make you think of? Lollipops and teddy bears? The mayor doesn’t seem to have a problem with the display and free sale of thousands of deadly weapons inside the venue. To be clear, my dissatisfaction about gun shows in general is one of inconsistency, not philosophy.

So let’s hope another venue picks up the show, because it is by far the most informative display of human anatomy one can experience without going to medical school.

My wife and I came across the strangest billboards in Chicago this past weekend. The oddest of the bunch is shown here; others say “I Pooted” or “Yes”. Clearly we had no idea what this was about, but a little Googling reveals what I think is a new breed of viral marketing. I won’t ruin it for you, but check it out:

A bad fan crippled my linux box for a few days, and hence the site was down.  Sorry bout that.  How will I ever make my 5-nines SLA now?!?

Is the number of pairs of shoes my wife has.  That’s really all there is to say about that.

Using Albert Banks‘ cool plugin, I’m now able to display the movies I have checked out from Netflix. I had to play around with the CSS but it all went in OK I think.

I’m interested to get your feedback on the 3-across layout — Larger images on top of each other left too much whitespace. I think this works…let me know!