I often look back on the dot com boom with disappointment but I have taken it in stride. I sometimes like to play things fast and loose and this can be both a positive and a negative. I started investing my money when I was twelve years old. This was around 1991. I lived for it. The thought of making money thrilled me. And it played to my strengths. Research and analysis is my strong point.



Back then money meant everything to me. I had dreams of becoming a billionaire. At that time I had saved up a few thousand dollars and was just putting it in various stocks via Charles Schwab. I had no idea what I was doing but it was fun as hell. And I was making a profit too (albeit a small one). Over time I became more and more confident. Hubris finally took over. I told my parents that I wanted to take my college fund (which was about $45,000 at the time) and invest it in stocks of my choosing. I think that this was around 1996 -- around the time of the inception of the dot com boom. I would take all of this money and put it in a single stock. It became a compulsive thing. I would change stocks a week later. And the following week I would choose a different stock. As so on and so forth. Of course, I would always chose technology stocks and so I did remarkably well. I managed to do this over and over again and my profits on paper multiplied. I was a high roller and I had free reign. I can’t remember all the stocks that I chose because there were so many. At my height, I had about $555,000 dollars in stock. But I wanted much more. I was greedy as hell.



Then came the bust. In the Fall of 2001, I was hit hard. Over a period of two or three months, my earnings fell to approximately $100,000. You would think that I would have developed a gambling problem by then and have lost it all. But I didn’t develop one because I don’t have a addictive personality. So I just quit cold turkey. Fortunately, I still managed to make a profit. Not a great one ... just a good one.



Ever since then, my style of investing has been conservative, to put it lightly. I was so stung by the whole thing that I didn’t even consider investing until about a year ago. Most of the money by that time had been used up for college, living expenses, and therapy. I had destroyed my car and had to buy a new one, which also hit my savings. This left me with a paltry $16,000. I told my dad that I might as well invest it at this point. I guess you could consider it my commission.



But my approach was much different this time around. I decided to take the approach that uber-investor extraordinaire, Warren Buffet, takes: pick a good stock of good value and stick to it for dear life, through thick and thin, for the very, very, long-term. That’s the way that it needs to be done.



Originally, I wanted to get a financial advisor. Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough to have that option. So I used my dad’s subscription to Morningstar (a website that helps small-time investors help themselves) and picked a high-risk mutual fund. You would think that I would pick a more conservative stock, right? Well, since I had so little and because I intend to keep it there for 30 years or more (i.e. retirement), I’m not so worried. Since I am a bleeding-heart liberal, I picked an SRI (socially responsible investment). This type of fund only invests in stocks of companies that aren’t harmful to the environment and humanity in general (i.e. not the casino industry, tabacco and alcohol industries, defense industry, oil industries, etc.). And that’s that.

I was listening to a song earlier. It went a little something like this: “Everybody have fun tonight. Everybody wang chung tonight.” ... That’s it ... Oooh, oooh! I was lucky! I went to Safeway and I found that they had one bag of Thomas’ Blueberry Bagels left and I took it and I was beside myself! Those little fuckers sell like hotcakes ... ummm ... yeah ...



Anyway! What to write about? What to write about? I’ve been feeling pretty cynical lately. Everytime I turn on the T.V. I feel disgusted. The amount of conspicuous consumption out there is pretty disgusting -- especially now because its that time of year again.



I really don’t need much for myself. Whatever extra money I get from my grandmother or other family members or anywhere else, I give to charity. However, this year, I will be shopping for some cool shirts because I need them very much. Luckily, I live near San Francisco, which has some of the coolest second-hand stores in existence. I love shopping at these stores, not so much because the clothes TEND (emphasis on “tend”) to be cheaper, rather, they have the coolest, most offbeat clothes out there -- things you can’t find anywhere else. So I’m pretty excited about that. What are you guys getting for Christmas?



One thing that has been on my mind lately is the type of career I’m going to end up getting. I’m pretty frustrated because school is coming to a close and I am still not totally sure what I want to do. And I’m almost 28. This means that I might end up getting a job just to earn money. And the options aren’t great because I’m an English major. I went to see a career counselor recently for some guidance in this arena. He’s like: “Well, you can be a teacher or a technical writer.” When I heard the words “technical writer”, my skin crawled. I told him: “Look, pardon the expression, but I don’t want to be a corporate bitch.” I didn’t get much guidance.



As you have probably guessed by now, I think that people who work in the corporate sector -- just to make a lot of money and to buy SUVs -- are the scum of the earth. My brother-in-law is a case in point. He will be worth at least $100 million when all is said and done. What does he need all that money for? How many bottles of wine could he possibly drink? How much stuff does he need to own? I mean, he is thrilled to make a lot of money because ... well, he is thrilled to make a lot of money. Period. It’s so trite and petty to live that way. And so many people are like him -- especially in the U.S.



There is this national obsession with money, fast and flashy cars, jewelry, fancy clothes, and everything else. And my sister is even worse than he is because she married him for his money ... mostly because of his money, anyway. She wouldn’t give a garbage man the time of day. I can’t believe I’m related to her. And people want to do away with the estate tax because they even want to control their money from beyond the grave. And this just fucks their kids up for life because it gives them an overwhelming false sense of entitlement. Feliz fucking Navidad.

These are interesting times in Latin America. Populist movements are gaining an iron grip in South America and are slowly creeping their way up north. It’s something that the aging cold warriors like to call the “Domino Effect” in their “back yard”. Except now they can’t play the “communist” card, much less anything else. More about this later.

For the past 500 years, Latin America has been at the mercy of various European, then U.S. (notice I say “U.S.”, not “America” because, afterall, what is “America”? “North America”? “South America”? “Central America”? “Latin America”?) colonists. The cold war was a particularly brutal time. Amazingly, in spite of such adversities, populism kept regenerating itself. Such is the human condition.

Augusto Pinochet and his cohorts of Chile

Humberto de Alencar Castelo Branco of Brazil

Joaquin Balague of the Dominican Republic

As you can see, I have included some pictures of various brutal, later-20th century Latin American rightist dictators who were installed in their respective countries via CIA-backed military Coup d'états. They are real lookers, aren’t they?

Needless to say, these unsavory characters had a job to do and they did it efficiently and ruthlessly. Namely, they would silence the free press, conduct various “disappearances”, dissolve the existing democratic apparatus and create a farcical “two-party system” not unlike the one in the U.S. In addition, they would create a relatively small, complacent, primarily white, Spanish-descended, middle and upper-class hierarchy in order to perpetuate this situation. Afterall, if everybody was poor, how would they be able to prop up their neo-liberal system? At the end of the day, this token class would be subservient to the white upper-class in the U.S. Trickle-up economics. Throughout history, Latin America looked a lot like what Europe would have looked like if Hitler had won.

Now! Because the U.S. has both hands tied behind their balls due to their escapades in the middle-east, they haven’t been able to continue their escapades in Latin America. This is extraordinary because South America was only briefly independent and united for one time in its post-colonial history, thanks in part to visionary military leader Simón Bolívar. Unfortunately, due to greed, short-sightedness, and ego, this fledgling movement towards independence and self-sufficiency was smashed to smithereens. Interestingly, this is exactly what would have happened to the U.S. if our "founding fathers" had not been able to come to an agreement and establish the U.S. Constitution. Even more interestingly, if the U.S. Constitution were not established and if Simón Bolívar had realized his dream, North America might look like Latin America today and vice versa. Makes you think, huh?

Simon Bolivar

Anyway, a new round of populist governments are sprouting up. Some are more potent than others. The most extreme case would be in Venezuela and the least extreme would be in Chile. Various other neo-liberal governments in Latin America are on their last legs (i.e. Mexico and Peru) and have only been able to get elected through outright fraud. I don’t expect them to last -- nor should they.

It’s not to say that these populist movements are perfect. Actually, quite the opposite:

Daniel Ortega

Daniel Ortega, the recently re-elected leader of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and a long-time Washington foe, has become hopelessly corrupt and is only a shadow of his former self. Being constantly treated like a messiah while also being in power too long breeds this kind of character deterioration.

Hugo Chavez

Hugo Chavez of Venezuela is a total demagogic, narcissistic diva and this has gotten in the way of his better judgment, in part allowing corruption to reign supreme. He is without a doubt the most controversial current Latin American leader. On his weekly national television show, "Aló Presidente", he has called George Bush a "donkey", "Hitler", "The Devil", a "pendejo", a "drunkard", and "Mr. Danger", among other things. He fancies himself as being a modern-day Simón Bolívar. Strangely enough (thanks to all the oil that Venezuela possesses), he isn’t far off. I guess that you could say that he is similar to Huey Long of Louisiana during the U.S. depression. The only difference is that Chavez miraculously entered the highest echelon of power -- something Long couldn't achieve.

Ugly Nestor Kirchner and his smoking hot wife who I'd definitely bang, Christina

Nestor Kirchner of Argentina is still beholden to the same two-party system that has existed since the end of the Argentinean military dictatorship in 1983, thus, he is unable to establish a truly independent populist movement. What's more, if a strong, independent populist movement does develop in Argentina, he will likely co-opt it. He is kind of like Franklin Roosevelt in that he is saving capitalism from itself.

Lula Da Silva

Michelle Bachelet

Lula Da Silva in Brazil is wielding power (if you can call it that) over an enormous, ungainly system fraught with corruption and rightist legacies. The same can be said about Michelle Bachelet of Chile.

Evo Morales

Evo Morales of Bolivia is only getting started and it is not entirely clear how things will play out. So far, so good. I will say this, though: If he doesn't pay heed to the people of the poorest country in South America, his head will be placed on a pike by an angry mob of Aymaran and Quechan Indians. Anyway, to his credit, he seems like a humble guy which is necessary to keep his ego in check.

Rafael Correa

The young, dapper, blue-eyed, and handsome Rafael Correa of Ecuador was just elected and so I don’t know how things will play out with him, either. He could easily become another Chavez.

In truth, most of these movements are what I like to call “fascist populism”: So much of the impoverished public supports these leaders within a democratic system that such leaders have become de facto dictatorships -- an ironic twist between the antithesis and carbon copy of the brutal rightist Latin American regimes of the past. It’s a classic case of the chickens coming home to roost.

P.S. Here are some recent fallen populist heros who weren't able to escape Uncle Sam's sticky fingers.

Ollanta Humala of Peru

Twice-overthrown Jean-Bertrand Aristide of Haiti (a tragedy of epic proportions)

As far as busty models go, Linsey Dawn McKenzie is one of the most famous. Though she’s primarily known for her nude pictures and videos, she did do one hardcore video with an ex-husband shortly before she retired. She’s won various awards from nude magazines and this means absolutely nothing to me. McKenzie has one child, Luca Scott Mark Williams, born May 2005. That baby never starved to death. On January 5, 2006, Linsey had breast reduction surgery, going from 38HHH to 32DD after her pregnancy. I wonder why? What possible rational explanation is there for this tragic occurrence? Me not likie!





I was thinking about a college experience I had a few years ago. At the time I was living in what is called a “co-op” -- a relic of the 60’s that miraculously persevered to today. A co-op is very similar to a fraternity or sorority in its design but is much more accepting. Guys and girls can join. The co-op is a magnet for hippies because its general concept is to love nature, live peacefully, and think progressively. Many of the usual hippy stereotypes are true in these places. This is probably why I stuck out like a sore thumb. I joined because I didn’t know anybody at the time and I was very lonely. Plus it was an easy way to live economically. $270 a month would pay for food, electricity, water, and housing.





While I was living there, a major bone of contention was the whole ‘being one with nature’ concept. The filthy house that we lived in had a large colony of rats -- probably as a result of the big compost heap in our garden, the garden itself, and the general design of the house. You could hear the little fuckers running around in the walls. Often times at night I would go into the pantry and there would invariably be one or even two rats scuttling around eating fruits or vegetables or whatever they could get their mouths on. Oh, and let’s not forget the little rat craps laying around in such areas. But the people that I was living with had no problem with it.





After several months, it finally reached a boiling point and I independently sought out various medieval rat traps. This caused quite a stir in the co-op. We had what is called a “meeting” -- a weekly ritual to vent and divvy up chores and other such things. I was surprised to learn that me and my roommate (and my only friend at the time) were the only ones who hated the rats and wanted them gone by any means necessary. I was already worked up over various other things so I kind of lost my cool. There was this one guy who just drove me berserk. He was totally unwilling to consider getting rid of the rats and would not listen to reason. I wanted scream in his ears: “WE HAVE DISGUSTING FUCKING RATS LIVING WITH US YOU STUPID FUCKHEAD!!!” I didn’t say this but this general vibe was seeping out of me. At the end of the meeting I realized that it was pretty much a lost cause so I relented ... or so they thought.



Later that night, I conspired with my like-minded friend. Our conversation went something like this:

Me: I’ve about had it with these people. I’m going to kill those rats (the rats, not the people).
Friend: How?
Me: I’m going to call the campus pest control first thing tomorrow morning.
Friend: What are you going to tell our housemates?
Me: Whatever the hell I feel like telling them ... as long as it’s not the truth.
Friend & Me: (laughs)



Sure enough, the next day I made a call to the campus pest control troubleshooters and they came in a hurry because -- as people with common sense -- they knew that having a rat infestation is a major problem. Those guys were all business. Within a week, the walls were deafeningly silent.

There are two minuses about Jelena Jensen (36D-26-36): her forearms are a little bit hairy and her boobs are a little bit smaller than I’d prefer. But she has a great butt and a beautiful face, so I am grudgingly willing to overlook the hairiness and smallness factors. What’s more, I’m willing to let her bang me for a mere $100 a pop.



Most of the information that I found about her pretty much read like a resume. I wouldn’t be surprised if she wrote the 411 herself. By all accounts, she is a very ambitious girl. She’s of German heritage, obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Film and Television Production with an Emphasis in Producing in college and graduated Magna Cum Laude (that sounds like a risqué sexual position). She has done a lot of marketing work in the porn industry but isn’t a porn star. She just poses for photos and videos in some very, very, very, very, very ... very, very, very, revealing ways. In other words, she’s a porn star. Since I like to keep my blog relatively clean, I have only included the relatively tame pictures of her.



Anyway, it’s been pretty quiet on the homefront lately which is why I haven’t posted sooner. I just downloaded Justin Timberlake’s song, “Rock Your Body”, off of iTunes and, being that I am a straight male, I feel kind of weird about it. As a matter of fact, I’m listening to it right now as I am typing out this post.



If you know me, you know that I like to take things down to the wire. Whenever I have to do a homework assignment, I literally finish it and print it out about five minutes before I have to head off to class. But I always keep my head above water. In fact, I pretty much get mostly A’s without even trying. This is why I was nonplussed to realize that I got a “C” on an essay that I turned in recently. My narcissism was offended. In retaliation, I fucking savaged my teacher’s choice of literature in the worst possible way during class. During the next class, I savaged it even further. The class was amused but in a good way because they were fascinated with what I had to say. Maybe because it was so visceral and outrageous. They were oblivious that I was taking out my frustrations on my teacher. I’m a total passive-aggressive. Needless to say, I think that I really hurt the teacher’s feelings. At the time I didn’t give a flying fuck because I was so pissed.



When I discussed the matter with my psychiatrist, she helped me realize where I was wrong. In addition, she suggested that I apologize. Fair enough. So in the next class, I went back to the teacher to apologize for being “too aggressive”. He told me that it was alright and that if I had gone too far, he would have let me know. But, he added, I was on the “borderline”. Of course, this is the polite way of saying that I did, in fact, take it too far.

This is a major problem I have. When I get really worked up, I become a marksman with a hair trigger. Whatever slips out of my mouth can be so cutting. When I was in my senior year in high school -- just after the worst time of my life -- I was a million times worse than I am now because I was for the first time put on anti-depressants. This allowed my mood to stabilize and, in turn, I became much more outspoken and, in turn, this got me into a lot of hot water because I had a really short fuse and I would always shoot my mouth off. And I had a major chip on my shoulder to boot.



Whenever I thought that someone was offending me (whether imagined or not), I would blast them with everything in my arsenal. I’d drop a hydrogen bomb like I was flipping off a switch. You people out there (if there are people actually reading this stupid blog) have no idea. I did this to whoever. There was this 6’4” football hotshot and homecoming king that I tormented relentlessly. Fortunately, he was just a gentle giant. However, on one occasion someone I offended got so pissed that he grabbed a chair and was on the verge of bludgeoning me with it. For whatever reason, he didn’t. And I left that room but quick. Ah yes, those were the days.

Just so you all know, I worked my ass off trying to find pictures of today’s bang of the week (Carol Imhof, 38" - 25" - 35") that didn’t have that annoying “SEE MORE AT WWW.PLAYBOYPLUS.COM” logo. To no avail. Those suits at Playboy guard their property like pit-bulls.



Anyway, Carol was tied for first runner-up for Playboy Bunny of the Year for 1970. I would like to say that her breasts are definitely much smaller that I would prefer but her beauty is remarkable and she has an amazing bubble butt that suggests that she was a good breeder, thus making up for what is lacking on her chest. Carol has this impish, lolita-esque, yet womanly quality about her. It is quite contradictory and it adds to her mystique.



Carol studied elementary education at Southern Illinois University and worked at the Playboy Club in Chicago. Carol is married and is currently a high school teacher at Richwoods High School in Peoria, Illinois. I wonder how she is holding up.





Anyway, after just 3 days of working at Blockbuster, I officially handed in my resignation. Net profit: approximately $92 dollars. That’s before taxes. I can honestly say that I am glad that I jumped ship when I did because the radioactive environment that I was working in was getting worse by the second. My two co-workers were total assholes and the job was mind-numbingly boring.





When I first started work I was kind of excited because the girl that I was working with had big boobage which she accidentally(?) rubbed against me on several occasions. It doesn’t get much better than that. Then I got to know her better. Let me say this about that: believe it or not ladies, personality does matter to guys. She was a total whack job. After spending five minutes with her, it became clear to me that she had ADHD (Attention-Deficit-Hyperactivity-Disorder to the lay person). A person with ADHD tends to be EXTREMELY self-absorbed and EXTREMELY talkative. She was no exception, believe you me. She loved talking about herself. And she would talk about everything. In about five minutes time I knew all of her innermost secrets.





Apparently she was with a guy that treated her like dirt, knocked her up, and then dumped her. Now, as a 21-year-old single milf, she still hounds him and his new girlfriend, who, according to my former co-worker, he’s also cheating on. As a guy who has seen these types of things before, I can’t tell you how much of a kick this misogynistic asshole is getting out of tormenting his baby’s mama. He’s the type of guy that laughs at her and her tragic circumstances with his guy friends (read: homosexual undertones hear). I should add that this guy’s new girlfriend even got in on the chaos by making threatening calls to my former co-worker, most likely due to my former co-worker’s desperate meddling in their lives. Apparently my former co-worker had to change her phone number because the abusive calls got so bad.



During a particularly juicy episode when my former co-worker and her ex-boyfriend were still vaguely communicating, he picked up their baby boy and told her that he was going to have his new girlfriend raise him because she would be a much better mother. That’s some fucked up shit. This led to a fistfight between these two nitwits with the baby as referee.



I think that the sad thing about this whole sordid affair is that my ex co-worker has been through a lot. I mean, think about it: at 21-years-old she had a child (who she probably resents) with that prick and he dumps her. They produced a life together -- perhaps one of the most significant things that two people can do -- and he leaves her like she’s nothing. Unlike him, she can’t just move on and enjoy her youth like so many other people her age. I think she has this desperate need to have him acknowledge that this monumental thing that they share means something to him. But this just won’t happen. She is in denial about this because she’s going to spend the rest of her life caring for this child alone. The best advice I can give her: cut your losses by cutting off this prick and devote the rest of your life doing your damnedest not to fuck up the life of this innocent baby. But I doubt that she will do this anytime soon because she still has a picture of herself and her serially unfaithful ex-boyfriend together in her wallet.



There isn’t much to be said about my other co-worker. He’s an acne-infested guy who is about my age (27) that has worked at that store for about four years and doesn’t seem to have any further prospects at this point. His favorite movie is “Pirates of the Caribbean”. He was as aloof as fuck and made no overtures of friendship towards me. When I was around him, I had the presence of wallpaper. Since I am a gentlemen, I went to tell him that I was leaving and that I “enjoyed” working with him and I was sorry that things didn’t work out. He didn’t even look at me. At least the psycho-babe with the nice rack acknowledged me when I left.



The unfortunate thing is that I still have to return my Blockbuster employee shirt but I don’t want to enter that store for fear of seeing them again. I think that I will just dump it in the video return slot when the store is closed.