By Eric Savitz

Collins Stewart analyst Sandeep Aggarwal this morning lifted his rating on Amazon.com (AMZN) to Buy from Hold, setting a price target of $150. The stock closed Friday at $117.39.

“In addition to AMZN presenting an attractive entry point after being down 15% from its recent peak, we believe that, though higher competitive risk remains a concern for the Kindle franchise, the Kindle ecosystem is much bigger than what we and Street previously thought,” he writes in a research note. “In our view, the strength of core biz combined with multi-billion opportunities with Kindle and AWS [Amazon Web Services] create more significant growth opportunities for AMZN that the Street is currently estimating.”

The analyst expects 2010 Kindle shipments of 3.85 million units, generating in $2.5 billion in Kindle-related revenue and an estimated $620 million in gross profit. He also contends that AWS can generate more than $300 million in revenue in 2010, with margins “much higher” than Amazon’s core business.

Aggarwal lifted his 2010 GAAP EPS estimate to $2.91, from $2.79; for 2010 he goes to $3.98, from $3.77.

AMZN this morning is up $1.76, or 1.5%, to $119.15.

Video game publisher Activision Blizzard Inc. is laying off about 200 employees and shutting down its Santa Monica-based development studio Luxoflux, a spokeswoman confirmed Wednesday afternoon.

Activision, which is headquartered in Santa Monica, reported Wednesday that its fourth-quarter 2009 net loss nearly quadrupled to $286 million. Part of that loss was due to deferred revenue from its online efforts, but the company also reported weakness in sales of its Guitar Hero games and those products aimed at casual players.

Luxoflux, which Activision acquired in 2002, employs about 56 people. It has recently worked on movie-based games aimed at the casual market that Activision is pulling away from, such as 2009's Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen game. Some Luxoflux employees may be offered jobs at another Activision studio in Santa Monica, Treyarch, which producers titles for the successful Call of Duty military franchise, a person familiar with the situation said.

About 50 of the 170 employees at Activision-owned developer Neversoft were laid off Wednesday as well, a person close to the Woodland Hills studio confirmed. Neversoft is the lead developer for games in the Guitar Hero franchise, whose sales slumped 35% last quarter. The company said Wednesday that it would release just 10 versions of Guitar Hero games this year, down from 29 last year.

Activision is also cutting staff at its Vancouver-based Radical Entertainment, which it acquired as part of its merger with Vivendi Games in 2008. More than half of the 180 people there lost their jobs, a person familiar with the situation said. Remaining employees at Radical are working on a video game version of Sony Pictures' next "Spider-Man" movie, set for release in 2012.

"We are directing our resources against the largest and most profitable business segments, and as part of this initiative, we are realigning our resources to better reflect our slate and the market opportunities," an Activision spokeswoman said in a statement. "At the same time, we are increasing our digital/online capabilities as we expect that digital/online will continue to become a more meaningful part of our business model in the years ahead."

– Ben Fritz

Photo: Activision Blizzard Chief Executive Bobby Kotick. Credit: Lori Shepler / Los Angeles Times.

By Eric Savitz

Collins Stewart analyst Sandeep Aggarwal this morning lifted his rating on Amazon.com (AMZN) to Buy from Hold, setting a price target of $150. The stock closed Friday at $117.39.

“In addition to AMZN presenting an attractive entry point after being down 15% from its recent peak, we believe that, though higher competitive risk remains a concern for the Kindle franchise, the Kindle ecosystem is much bigger than what we and Street previously thought,” he writes in a research note. “In our view, the strength of core biz combined with multi-billion opportunities with Kindle and AWS [Amazon Web Services] create more significant growth opportunities for AMZN that the Street is currently estimating.”

The analyst expects 2010 Kindle shipments of 3.85 million units, generating in $2.5 billion in Kindle-related revenue and an estimated $620 million in gross profit. He also contends that AWS can generate more than $300 million in revenue in 2010, with margins “much higher” than Amazon’s core business.

Aggarwal lifted his 2010 GAAP EPS estimate to $2.91, from $2.79; for 2010 he goes to $3.98, from $3.77.

AMZN this morning is up $1.76, or 1.5%, to $119.15.

Video game publisher Activision Blizzard Inc. is laying off about 200 employees and shutting down its Santa Monica-based development studio Luxoflux, a spokeswoman confirmed Wednesday afternoon.

Activision, which is headquartered in Santa Monica, reported Wednesday that its fourth-quarter 2009 net loss nearly quadrupled to $286 million. Part of that loss was due to deferred revenue from its online efforts, but the company also reported weakness in sales of its Guitar Hero games and those products aimed at casual players.

Luxoflux, which Activision acquired in 2002, employs about 56 people. It has recently worked on movie-based games aimed at the casual market that Activision is pulling away from, such as 2009's Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen game. Some Luxoflux employees may be offered jobs at another Activision studio in Santa Monica, Treyarch, which producers titles for the successful Call of Duty military franchise, a person familiar with the situation said.

About 50 of the 170 employees at Activision-owned developer Neversoft were laid off Wednesday as well, a person close to the Woodland Hills studio confirmed. Neversoft is the lead developer for games in the Guitar Hero franchise, whose sales slumped 35% last quarter. The company said Wednesday that it would release just 10 versions of Guitar Hero games this year, down from 29 last year.

Activision is also cutting staff at its Vancouver-based Radical Entertainment, which it acquired as part of its merger with Vivendi Games in 2008. More than half of the 180 people there lost their jobs, a person familiar with the situation said. Remaining employees at Radical are working on a video game version of Sony Pictures' next "Spider-Man" movie, set for release in 2012.

"We are directing our resources against the largest and most profitable business segments, and as part of this initiative, we are realigning our resources to better reflect our slate and the market opportunities," an Activision spokeswoman said in a statement. "At the same time, we are increasing our digital/online capabilities as we expect that digital/online will continue to become a more meaningful part of our business model in the years ahead."

– Ben Fritz

Photo: Activision Blizzard Chief Executive Bobby Kotick. Credit: Lori Shepler / Los Angeles Times.

existing franchises for sale , franchises for sale

Blizzard of bad jobs <b>news</b> to hit Friday - TheHill.com

The White House is bracing for an ugly unemployment report on Friday made worse by winter storms. hit the East Coast last month.

AMERICAblog <b>News</b>: Exposing the lies of Orrin Hatch and his fellow <b>…</b>

<b>News</b> and opinion about US politics from a liberal perspective.

Lincoln-I; Halter-MSNBC-UPDATE BLANCHE ON TV | Arkansas <b>News</b>

1 Trackbacks For This Post. Lincoln-I; Halter-MSNBC | Arkansas <b>News</b> | Surfemotion-Blog Says: March 4th, 2010 at 9:20 am. the article here: Lincoln-I; Halter-MSNBC | Arkansas <b>News</b> AKPC_IDS += "833,";Popularity: unranked [? …

Once You Reach Your Financial Security Goals, What's Next?

Wise budgeting, spending, and saving will help you build a retirement fund and meet your other financial goals, but what happens then? Finance blog Get Rich Slowly takes a look at what to do once you've feathered your financial nest.

Photo by pfala.

At 26 years old, entrepreneur Erica Douglass found herself in the enviable position of having a surplus of cash after selling her online business. Once she established a retirement fund and paid off debt, Douglass had to figure out what to do with the income that continued to roll in from her new business venture.

Rather than blow tons of cash on impulsive purchases just because she can, Douglass limits most spending to things that allow her to live a more fulfilled life. For instance, instead of buying a new car every year, Douglass employs a personal chef to make dishes that make living with an autoimmune illness easier.

It has been more than two years since I sold my business, and I am happier than I have ever been. I made different choices than most: We rent a house instead of owning (a savings of nearly $4,000/month in our neighborhood - more than our monthly rent payment!); we only have basic cable; we don't have a landline, credit card debt, car payments, or student loans.

I chose, instead of buying more Stuff, to live a more fulfilled life. For me, even more important than holding onto my money tightly was to learn to let it go - to give it to others in exchange for work well done, and to trust that they could do tasks well. It's one of the best decisions I've ever made.

Though most of us aren't able to afford the luxuries of a personal chef or full-time housekeeper, Douglass makes an interesting point. If you have a surplus of cash left over after paying your bills and adding to your savings each month, maybe blowing it on a fancy dinner or a new electronic gadget isn't worth it in the long run. Instead, consider spending it on something that adds to your overall quality of life—like an accountant to do your taxes, or commercial productivity software that will help you more easily manage all your work tasks.

What would you do if you had a batch of extra cash to spend as you wanted? Would you hire a personal assistant to deal with all the chores you don't like, or blow it on something frivolous like good cognac or a box of truffles? Talk about it in the comments.

If you want to take control of your life, there are certain areas that require persistent tracking.  In order to track your life and make appropriate changes, you need to know what’s going on and to do that you need to track what’s going on.

Some people need to get a handle on their time (tools to track time wasted online).  Others need to better control their finances (tools for tracking expenses and budgeting).  There are also other resources that other people need to track.  These days there are tools that help in this task of tracking life’s intricacies but many of them are too complex for the needs of the everyday person.  We need something simple that we’ll actually learn and use for it to be a help.

That is why I would like to introduce you to a new start up you can use to track your life called 1DayLater.  The creators of 1DayLater originally started the project to help them track their valuable time as freelancers.  It turned out to be a tool simple enough that anyone can use and benefit from.

In my opinion a useful tool has two attributes : usability and benefit.  Let me show you how 1DayLater fits both of those attributes when it comes to tracking life.

Signing Up & Registering Is Virtually Painless!

The easier a website makes signing up and registering the better.  Obviously they should take security precautions but when they make it so complicated that you need to consult a help file or forums just to figure out how to register, they need to back off a bit.  1DayLater made the process a cinch by asking only the basics (there’s also a line for your phone number but it’s only optional).

Signing In Is A Cinch!

Once again, going with the “easier is better” philosophy, 1DayLater hits the nail on the proverbial head with the login process!  Email-password, bing!  You’re in!

Track Your Life With a Log!

Once logged in you are faced with the opportunity to begin logging your life!  To begin with, you can start logging your time by hitting the “start timer” button.  When you stop the timer, the time is automatically entered into the “value” field which can tell what kind of measurement you are trying to log.  You can also manually enter measurements into this field.  You can log measurements such as time, money and mileage.  Then you can tag the lot with a label in the “project/client” field and add the date and a note to finish off the log.  It’s all pretty straight forward.

Glance At Your Latest Activities

As you log your life, you can get a quick look at the activities you are logging.  They are sorted by date and project / client tag (which you can assign your own colors to in order to have a visual to keep them separate here and in the charts in the analysis area).  Here you also have the ability to edit the logs and delete them altogether. Very handy!

A Visual Analysis Of Your Life

There is also a nifty chart showing off time spent on different projects.  This could be key to getting an overall idea of where your time is going.  I didn’t see charts for mileage or money so I personally hope they are also incorporated too.

The Future Of 1DayLater COULD Be In Your Hands!

All I am saying is that they are a new start up and are working hard on new features!  For instance, they have released the ability to export data into a spreadsheet and are working out the bugs there.  They are also working on the ability to output to invoices and mileage claims as well as some apps.  As a new start up, they have been smart enough to offer a feedback forum to share what you would like to see them develop and a voting system to vote on other people’s ideas using Uservoice.

Right now 1DayLater is free but in the future there may be some features that will not be.

Let us know what you think about 1DayLater as a new start up.  Also, how do you track your life?

http://removeripoffreports.net

There are several ways to look at the next presidential election in 2012, especially since the current and new president, Barack Obama, appears unuusually vulnerable to being limited to one term.

This early vulnerability, after only about one year in office, could, following the 2010 mid-term elections this year, provoke an intraparty challenge to the president, as happened in 1980 when then-Senator Ted Kennedy took on incumbent President Jimmy Carter. Kennedy ultimately failed in that effort, but a politically wounded Carter went on to defeat by Ronald Reagan in the November election that followed.

Although it would take a huge wave reversal this year in the congressional elections, the Republicans might take control of one or both houses of Congress as early as this year.

All of this remains speculative, at this point, since so many events and conditions can intervene in an eight-month and thirty-two month interval. Political fortunes rarely go very long in a straight line either up or down.

But if all this predictive caution isn’t enough, I suggest that an even much longer period of time may be in order for political and policy planning for candidates and their political parties if they are not only to win the next political cycles, but govern successfully as well.

Barack Obama has been a political phenomenon. In 2008, the odds-on favorite to win the Democratic nomination was Hillary Clinton, then a U.S. senator from New York.

But it was the novice US.senator from Illinois, Mr. Obama, who survived a long, closely fought battle up to the Democratic convention, and then went on to defeat Republican nominee John McCain in November. Although the latter was in the end a decisive victory for the first black U.S. president, it should not be forgotten that following their own convention and just before the mortgage banking crisis, the McCain-Palin ticket had pulled ahead in the race. The financial meltdown effectively ended the presidential race, but without it, it is not dispositively clear who wins.

In any event, Barack Obama did win, and did have a reasonably good idea for some time before election day that he would become the next president. While there is some evidence that Mr. Obama and his advisers, and certainly Democratic congressional leaders, had some idea of “what” they wanted to do if they won, there is now little evidence that any of them, especially in the executive branch, had thought out “how” they would accomplish their goals.

The “what” of the Obama-Pelosi-Reid political team has turned out to be a radical series of public policies which are mostly quite unpopular with U.S. voters. Even with huge majorities in both houses of Congress, they have been unable to pass very much legislation. In an historically brief time, in fact, they have squandered their decisive 2006 and 2008 victories, and appear he…

Comment / Read More >

The Federal Government is stepping in as the private sector has shed more than $1.5 trillion of mortgage assets in the past two years. Figure 3.2 illustrates this active downsizing by the private sector and the reduction in its exposure as well as some of the accompanying decrease in values due to foreclosures. In short, between net mortgage lending and existing mortgage management, the Federal Government now completely dominates the housing mortgage market, with the taxpayer shouldering the risk that had once been borne by the private sector.

The most comprehensive chart highlighting why the Fed is the new New Century:

The collapse of the GSEs:

A summary of all the artifical home price increase programs set up by the government:

59 Qualified Financial Institutions have missed one or more dividend payments on the TARP's CPP program.

HAMP trial programs started since program inception: 902,620; number permanent mortgage mods completed: 66,465.

A summary of all the PPIP managers:

• AllianceBernstein L.P. is a publicly traded investment management firm that offers research and diversified investment services to institutional clients, individuals and private clients in major markets around the world. It has $496 billion in assets under management and employs more than 500 investment professionals in more than 20 countries.
• Angelo, Gordon & Co. is a privately held registered investment advisor focused on alternative investing. The firm was founded in 1988 and currently manages, with its affiliates, approximately $21 billion in assets. Angelo, Gordon & Co. is partnering with GE Capital Real Estate for the purposes of PPIP asset management.
• BlackRock Inc. is a publicly traded asset management firm and provides global investment management, risk management, and advisory services to institutional,  intermediary, and individual investors around the world. The firm has $3.2 trillion in assets under management and employs more than 8,500 professionals in 24 countries.
• Invesco Ltd. is a publicly traded global investment management company. The firm provides investment solutions for retail, institutional, and high net worth clients around the world. With $417 billion in assets under management, Invesco Ltd. employs approximately 4,900 individuals in 20 countries; the company is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol IVZ.
• Marathon Asset Management LP is a private alternative investment and asset management company. Marathon’s core businesses include hedge funds, structured finance, emerging markets, and real estate. Founded in 1998, the firm has more than $11 billion in assets under management and 140 professionalsworldwide with headquarters in New York City and investment offices in London and Singapore.
• Oaktree Capital Management L.P. is an investment management firm specializing in less efficient markets and alternative investments. Founded in 1995, Oaktree Capital Management has $67.4 billion in assets under management. The firm is headquartered in Los Angeles and has more than 500 employees in 10 countries.
• RLJ Western Asset Management LP is a newly created, minority-owned entity that is 49% owned by Western Asset Management, the fixed-income affiliate of Legg Mason, Inc. and 51% owned by The RLJ Companies, the portfolio holding company owned by Robert L. Johnson. Western Asset Management is a global investment firm, and The RLJ Companies include private equity real estate funds, a private equity mid-sized buyout fund, and a bank, Urban Trust Bank.
• TCW Group Inc. is a private asset management firm, headquartered in Los Angeles, offering individual and institutional investors a range of U.S. equity and U.S. fixed income alternatives, as well as international investment strategies. As of September 30, 2009, TCW had approximately $108 billion in assets under management. TCW’s management has an average of 23 years of industry experience and the firm’s portfolio managers have approximately 11 years of tenure with TCW. On January 4, 2010, TCW withdrew as a manager in PPIP. Treasury has entered into a winding-up and liquidation agreement with TCW.
• Wellington Management Company LLP is a private partnership investment advisory firm headquartered in Boston. Wellington Management has more than $506 billion in assets under management and serves as an investment advisor to more than 1,600 institutions located in more than 40 countries.

Full report:

http://removeripoffreports.net

If you want to take control of your life, there are certain areas that require persistent tracking.  In order to track your life and make appropriate changes, you need to know what’s going on and to do that you need to track what’s going on.

Some people need to get a handle on their time (tools to track time wasted online).  Others need to better control their finances (tools for tracking expenses and budgeting).  There are also other resources that other people need to track.  These days there are tools that help in this task of tracking life’s intricacies but many of them are too complex for the needs of the everyday person.  We need something simple that we’ll actually learn and use for it to be a help.

That is why I would like to introduce you to a new start up you can use to track your life called 1DayLater.  The creators of 1DayLater originally started the project to help them track their valuable time as freelancers.  It turned out to be a tool simple enough that anyone can use and benefit from.

In my opinion a useful tool has two attributes : usability and benefit.  Let me show you how 1DayLater fits both of those attributes when it comes to tracking life.

Signing Up & Registering Is Virtually Painless!

The easier a website makes signing up and registering the better.  Obviously they should take security precautions but when they make it so complicated that you need to consult a help file or forums just to figure out how to register, they need to back off a bit.  1DayLater made the process a cinch by asking only the basics (there’s also a line for your phone number but it’s only optional).

Signing In Is A Cinch!

Once again, going with the “easier is better” philosophy, 1DayLater hits the nail on the proverbial head with the login process!  Email-password, bing!  You’re in!

Track Your Life With a Log!

Once logged in you are faced with the opportunity to begin logging your life!  To begin with, you can start logging your time by hitting the “start timer” button.  When you stop the timer, the time is automatically entered into the “value” field which can tell what kind of measurement you are trying to log.  You can also manually enter measurements into this field.  You can log measurements such as time, money and mileage.  Then you can tag the lot with a label in the “project/client” field and add the date and a note to finish off the log.  It’s all pretty straight forward.

Glance At Your Latest Activities

As you log your life, you can get a quick look at the activities you are logging.  They are sorted by date and project / client tag (which you can assign your own colors to in order to have a visual to keep them separate here and in the charts in the analysis area).  Here you also have the ability to edit the logs and delete them altogether. Very handy!

A Visual Analysis Of Your Life

There is also a nifty chart showing off time spent on different projects.  This could be key to getting an overall idea of where your time is going.  I didn’t see charts for mileage or money so I personally hope they are also incorporated too.

The Future Of 1DayLater COULD Be In Your Hands!

All I am saying is that they are a new start up and are working hard on new features!  For instance, they have released the ability to export data into a spreadsheet and are working out the bugs there.  They are also working on the ability to output to invoices and mileage claims as well as some apps.  As a new start up, they have been smart enough to offer a feedback forum to share what you would like to see them develop and a voting system to vote on other people’s ideas using Uservoice.

Right now 1DayLater is free but in the future there may be some features that will not be.

Let us know what you think about 1DayLater as a new start up.  Also, how do you track your life?

We’ve just been informed that Finance Web startup Kublax will be heading into administration and closing its doors officially on Friday 19th February.

The UK company, which did see some traction, sent an email out to its customers a few minutes ago.

Kublax is a secure online personal financial management platform which automatically aggregates all of your UK bank and credit card accounts into one place. The brainchild of Sridhar Sethuraman, a former IT and management consultant, the company was also one of six companies to win investment from Seedcamp in 2007.

Launched in August 2007 and hailed as the UK’s answer to mint, the company raised two rounds of funding totaling €2 Million.

The company assures its customers in its email posted below all user data will be deleted and no further information (including financial data) will be gathered and stored for Kublax customers.

What other options do UK customers have? Sadly not many. MoneyDashboard is the most immediate alternative although it has yet to officially launch. LoveMoney.com also seems to have some potential. Let’s not forget the likes of Wesabe, worth a look, but unfortunately doesn’t feature deep integration with UK banks accounts.

Anyone else worth looking at?

Full Email Below:

It is with great regret that we announce the closure of our service as we have been forced to take the business into administration. Over the course of the last 6 months we have been trying hard to raise funding which would have allowed us to launch our enhanced new product and develop our offering further. Unfortunately we now have to admit defeat.

We are sorry that we have not been able to repay your trust in Kublax and particularly disappointed not to be able to launch the new enhanced version of the service which was being shaped to a very large extent by your Feedback on the current service.

Kublax’s partner, Yodlee, will be deleting all user data, including online banking details from its servers. Once deleted no further information will be gathered and stored for Kublax customers. Your transactional data will also be completely erased from our servers by close of business on Friday 19th February. We will not pass your data on to any third parties.

If you wish to contact Sridhar or I you can reach us at the following email address – kublaxenquiry@googlemail.com

Many thanks again for your support and we hope that Kublax was able to help you make slightly better sense of your finances over the last year or so.

Tom and Sridhar

http://removeripoffreports.net

McQueen Laid To Rest In London; Karen Elson To Release Album

• Alexander McQueen's funeral took place today in London. His father Ronald, Daphne Guinness, Naomi Campbell, Lady Gaga, and Kate Moss were all in attendance. [Daily Mail]

• The original street style photographer, Bill Cunningham, is the subject of a documentary that will screen at the Museum of Modern Art in New York on March 24.
• Meanwhile, in Toronto, more than 60 pairs of extraordinary platforms and high heels worn by women going back to the Renaissance are on display.
• Zoe Saldana has been named the “Face of the Future” by MaxMara. This means she'll go to its fashion show, and receive an award at a gala the brand sponsors in L.A.
• Lady Gaga is going to wear a lot more Armani — and sparkly exoskeletal corsets — on her Monster Ball tour, according to these sketches.
• Gaby Sidibe's Oscars clothing options were many, says her stylist, Linda Medvene, but the Best Actress nominee settled on a gown from Marchesa.
• Kate Moss sat next to her ex, and the father of her daughter, Lila, Jefferson Hack, at a fashion show in London.
• Fellow Brit Karen Elson, who has long been one of our favorite models and who happens to be in possession of a glorious voice, has an album coming out this summer. It's produced by her husband, Jack White, and you can listen to and download one song from her website.
• Bar Refaeli may not have gotten a second cover of the Sports Illustrated: Swimsuit Edition, but she did do a shoot with The Situation from Jersey Shore. Wait, those things aren't actually equivalent…
• A Colombian-born former lingerie model is accused of being the head of a cocaine-smuggling gang. Suspicion fell on Angie Sanselmente Valencia, who apparently recruited only fellow lingerie and glamour models as mules, when a woman allegedly from her drug network was arrested in Buenos Aires' airport with 55 kg of coke. [Daily Mail]
• Christopher Brooke, of the label Basso & Brooke, says that dressing Michelle Obama was a bigger deal than dressing even Madonna would be. [The Cut]
• Leona Lewis is still working on that unnamed vegan clothing line. “It's a challenge — mostly with shoes — as I don't wear any leather and am very ethical about what I wear. I love wearing Stella McCartney, but one day I hope to have to my own line of ethical clothes and accessories.” [Vogue UK]
• Crystal Renn has made her second appearance in V magazine — and it's not even a “size” issue. [The Cut]
• New this spring: Karl Lagerfeld's limited-edition luxury safe, the Narcissus! It costs $339,000, but it'll keep all your valuables in style. It'll look like an aluminium-clad monolith for your bedroom. Or your great room. Or any room! Assuming you have enough to buy a house after spending that much on the safe, which we remind you, is called Narcissus.
• Given that the Council of Fashion Designers of America is for the first time inviting certain online writers to participate in the voting process for this year's CFDA Awards, black fashion bloggers would like to remind the world that they, too, exist, and that they work hard to provide interesting and accurate coverage of the industry. So far, it's interesting that none of the people who have been tossed around as potential members of the franchise — like Tavi Gevinson, BryanBoy, Rumi Neely, and the teams behind Refinery29, The Cut, and Racked — has actually received a ballot, even though CFDA Award ballots were supposedly sent out last month. So perhaps nobody's really getting the vote? (For the record, we have not been given a ballot.) If the CFDA wants to announce it's inviting certain bloggers to participate in its awards voting, that's fine: but it should make sure to actually, you know, invite some bloggers.
• Debenhams has a model who uses a wheelchair in its spring campaign. [Daily Mail]
• Twiggy says the designers who showed real fur at London Fashion Week “should be ashamed of themselves.”
• Former competitive skater Vera Wang was honored and excited that she dressed gold-medal winner Evan Lysacek at Vancouver. So excited that she wants to go back there and watch more of the Olympics.
• Unsurprisingly, Vogue's new iPhone app is mostly about shopping.
• Burberry is understood to be opening a store on Columbus Avenue between 66th and 67th Sts, on New York's Upper West Side. It'll be right next to the Ugg store. Last November, the brand opened its Madison Avenue flagship with great fanfare.
• The Wall Street Journal teamed up with NetProspex, a marketing database, to track designers' sales inquiries in the 24 hours following their New York fashion week shows. Turns out Diane von Furstenberg, who saw an 1150% jump, gets the best value out of her show.
• Meanwhile, model Maggie Rizer practically equaled New York fashion week fixture Leigh Lezark's show tally. Rizer had 17, while the DJ went to 22. We're rooting for a Rizer comeback.
• For the quarter ended January 30th, Kohl's sales rose 9% on last year, and earnings were up 28%, to $431 million.
• Ever wanted to rip the clothes of a male model? Well, now you can, thanks to Wrangler.

Send an email to the author of this post at jenna@jezebel.com.

After striking gold with the High School Musical franchise, Disney is developing Prom, a big-screen comedy about a group of high schoolers getting ready for an all-important school dance, reports Variety. In an effort to keep costs at a minimum, the pic — which is already being touted as a potential franchise — may star a cast of unknowns.

Franchising for many people can be the easiest way to get into running your own business for many people. Unlike starting your own company based on a product you have invented or a service you want to offer, franchising brings an established brand with it allowing a new franchise to ride the wave of the company's previous performance with customers. But every franchise is not for every kind of entrepreneur or potential franchisee. There are critical factors or questions ever franchisee needs to answer to find out what franchise is for them.

It is important to remember that buying a franchise is a lot like a marriage. Two individual parties unite for the purpose of a happy union. Franchisees and franchisors come together with the hopes that the franchisee will make money for both them and the national organization through running a successful franchise. When the marriage is going well both sides are happy. When things are difficult, both sides are oftentimes guilty of blaming the other for shortcomings in their partnership.

To avoid such matters, premarital counseling or franchise counseling needs to be participated in by the franchisee. In franchise counseling several issues will be resolved that will make the decision of committing to the franchise a worthwhile transaction. Otherwise, the franchisee is setting themselves up for failure or misfortune by making a long term decision based on a limited set of facts that are but part of what they should know in making a decision.

Investment Involved

Many franchisors have established methods for identifying the costs not only of securing a franchise but also operating one for a three to five year window. Companies that avoid doing this should be redlined as companies a franchisee should avoid. When a franchisee does not know the upfront costs the franchisee walks into a business opportunity blind and devoid of reliable information to make sound business decisions. Franchisors like McDonalds are upfront about franchisees needing upwards of a million dollars in cash or available credit, including financing, in order to secure a franchise. They do this knowing that it is better to be upfront than to snowball people who will ultimately have to make an immense investment for the franchise to work. Subway, the deli franchise has an investment of between $175,000 - 225,000. For Subway that includes a franchise fee of $15,000 and expected building construction costs that near $100,000. Subway and other ethical franchisors attempt to be as concise as possible about expectations early on to ensure franchisees know how much the must invest throughout the process.

Is My Area Franchise-Friendly

Whether your community or where you want the franchise to be located is an area conducive to running this type of franchise is important to know. There are several factors that will help you make a decision such as market saturation and the closest franchise to your location. Just because you have a better idea than the guy down the street or think you can do it better than the woman around the corner does not mean the market will embrace you and your concept without question. In communities that are relationship-driven, consumers will shop with different patterns than one that is driven by economics or value. Other factors to consider are population density, shopping patterns of consumers in the trade area, and income levels of the people in that area. When you have that information you again are able to make a well=informed decision about the area you are looking at.

Get the Details

The UFOC (Uniform Franchise Offering Circular) is the one thing every potential franchisee must read before beginning any real thought on buying a franchise. The UFOC is like an investment prospectus that includes twenty-three specific bits of information about the franchise and its operations. This document includes obligations by the franchisee and franchisor, any pending lawsuits, as well as any restrictions, contracts, and fees needed for the franchisee. Additionally, any financing information that a franchisee would need is included in this document. The UFOC is the single most important read a franchisee will read before and during the franchise process. The Federal Trade Commission regulates franchisors to ensure integrity and full disclosure for franchisees.

For Subway, their UFOC includes that training occurs internationally. Because they do not offer absentee ownership, which means the owners must also operate the franchises, every owner is required to go through their mandatory training program. This training occurs in Miami, Australia, China, Germany, and India. Subway also promises ongoing support through several mediums including the Internet, field operations and evaluations, and meetings. They also promise marketing support through grand opening advertising that can be a shared expense between the franchisee and franchisor, also, they constantly run national and regional media and advertising pushing the Subway brand which helps any Subway franchise build community credibility.

When it comes to operating a franchise, entrepreneurs considering buying a franchise would be wise to get as much information as possible before proceeding with the franchisor. Just like getting in a marriage, knowing more than how something looks is the most critical piece of data one can have. There is no divorce court for entrepreneurs who feel they have irreconcilable differences with the franchisor. A divorce is subject to penalties that could add up to over a million dollars depending on how a breach of contract reads between the franchisee and franchisor. To avoid a bad relationship, do the due diligence necessary to have the facts upfront.

McQueen Laid To Rest In London; Karen Elson To Release Album

• Alexander McQueen's funeral took place today in London. His father Ronald, Daphne Guinness, Naomi Campbell, Lady Gaga, and Kate Moss were all in attendance. [Daily Mail]

• The original street style photographer, Bill Cunningham, is the subject of a documentary that will screen at the Museum of Modern Art in New York on March 24.
• Meanwhile, in Toronto, more than 60 pairs of extraordinary platforms and high heels worn by women going back to the Renaissance are on display.
• Zoe Saldana has been named the “Face of the Future” by MaxMara. This means she'll go to its fashion show, and receive an award at a gala the brand sponsors in L.A.
• Lady Gaga is going to wear a lot more Armani — and sparkly exoskeletal corsets — on her Monster Ball tour, according to these sketches.
• Gaby Sidibe's Oscars clothing options were many, says her stylist, Linda Medvene, but the Best Actress nominee settled on a gown from Marchesa.
• Kate Moss sat next to her ex, and the father of her daughter, Lila, Jefferson Hack, at a fashion show in London.
• Fellow Brit Karen Elson, who has long been one of our favorite models and who happens to be in possession of a glorious voice, has an album coming out this summer. It's produced by her husband, Jack White, and you can listen to and download one song from her website.
• Bar Refaeli may not have gotten a second cover of the Sports Illustrated: Swimsuit Edition, but she did do a shoot with The Situation from Jersey Shore. Wait, those things aren't actually equivalent…
• A Colombian-born former lingerie model is accused of being the head of a cocaine-smuggling gang. Suspicion fell on Angie Sanselmente Valencia, who apparently recruited only fellow lingerie and glamour models as mules, when a woman allegedly from her drug network was arrested in Buenos Aires' airport with 55 kg of coke. [Daily Mail]
• Christopher Brooke, of the label Basso & Brooke, says that dressing Michelle Obama was a bigger deal than dressing even Madonna would be. [The Cut]
• Leona Lewis is still working on that unnamed vegan clothing line. “It's a challenge — mostly with shoes — as I don't wear any leather and am very ethical about what I wear. I love wearing Stella McCartney, but one day I hope to have to my own line of ethical clothes and accessories.” [Vogue UK]
• Crystal Renn has made her second appearance in V magazine — and it's not even a “size” issue. [The Cut]
• New this spring: Karl Lagerfeld's limited-edition luxury safe, the Narcissus! It costs $339,000, but it'll keep all your valuables in style. It'll look like an aluminium-clad monolith for your bedroom. Or your great room. Or any room! Assuming you have enough to buy a house after spending that much on the safe, which we remind you, is called Narcissus.
• Given that the Council of Fashion Designers of America is for the first time inviting certain online writers to participate in the voting process for this year's CFDA Awards, black fashion bloggers would like to remind the world that they, too, exist, and that they work hard to provide interesting and accurate coverage of the industry. So far, it's interesting that none of the people who have been tossed around as potential members of the franchise — like Tavi Gevinson, BryanBoy, Rumi Neely, and the teams behind Refinery29, The Cut, and Racked — has actually received a ballot, even though CFDA Award ballots were supposedly sent out last month. So perhaps nobody's really getting the vote? (For the record, we have not been given a ballot.) If the CFDA wants to announce it's inviting certain bloggers to participate in its awards voting, that's fine: but it should make sure to actually, you know, invite some bloggers.
• Debenhams has a model who uses a wheelchair in its spring campaign. [Daily Mail]
• Twiggy says the designers who showed real fur at London Fashion Week “should be ashamed of themselves.”
• Former competitive skater Vera Wang was honored and excited that she dressed gold-medal winner Evan Lysacek at Vancouver. So excited that she wants to go back there and watch more of the Olympics.
• Unsurprisingly, Vogue's new iPhone app is mostly about shopping.
• Burberry is understood to be opening a store on Columbus Avenue between 66th and 67th Sts, on New York's Upper West Side. It'll be right next to the Ugg store. Last November, the brand opened its Madison Avenue flagship with great fanfare.
• The Wall Street Journal teamed up with NetProspex, a marketing database, to track designers' sales inquiries in the 24 hours following their New York fashion week shows. Turns out Diane von Furstenberg, who saw an 1150% jump, gets the best value out of her show.
• Meanwhile, model Maggie Rizer practically equaled New York fashion week fixture Leigh Lezark's show tally. Rizer had 17, while the DJ went to 22. We're rooting for a Rizer comeback.
• For the quarter ended January 30th, Kohl's sales rose 9% on last year, and earnings were up 28%, to $431 million.
• Ever wanted to rip the clothes of a male model? Well, now you can, thanks to Wrangler.

Send an email to the author of this post at jenna@jezebel.com.

After striking gold with the High School Musical franchise, Disney is developing Prom, a big-screen comedy about a group of high schoolers getting ready for an all-important school dance, reports Variety. In an effort to keep costs at a minimum, the pic — which is already being touted as a potential franchise — may star a cast of unknowns.

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Obama’s Financial Hope and Change: Free Money for Wall Street

by

J.C. Arenas

A recent Pew survey revealed the nation’s big banks are drawing the most ire from the American public, and now that the Federal Reserve is poised to hand them another victory, it’s easy to see why Main Street’s anger burns deep.

Wednesday, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke released a statement to the House Committee on Financial Services which detailed the accommodative policy the Fed implemented as a result of the Great Recession and outlined its exit strategy from that policy.

The objective of the Fed’s intervention was to alleviate the pressure on the balance sheets of the banks, which would provide them with the financial flexibility necessary to begin lending to consumers and businesses once again. To meet such an end, the Fed increased the size of its balance sheet through purchases of securities and real-estate loans from the banks, and decreased the interest-rate for interbank lending to nearly zero percent.

The banks’ first ‘Win’ came as a result of those sales to the Fed which produced billions of dollars in revenue. Afterwards, many of us were wondering why the banks weren’t lending again, despite raking in record profits, but the answer was simple. They quickly realized they had found themselves with a can’t lose proposition, as they could make guaranteed money instead of taking on more risk from lending to consumers and businesses during a period of economic uncertainty.

How could they do that?

They made the federal government their primary customer and charged them a higher interest rate than the artificially low rate the Fed had set as their cost to borrow. Additionally, they parked more than the federally mandated amount of reserve funds at the Fed, and received interest on those excess amounts.

The banks’ second ‘Win’ will come as a result of Bernanke’s proposed exit strategy, which calls for an increase on the interest rate the banks receive on the aforementioned excess reserves.

Why would the Fed want to do that?

Bernanke has to encourage the banks to keep their money parked at the Fed as opposed to filtering it into the economy through lending to prevent an increase to the money supply that would cause inflation.

So what will the banks do?

They’ll keep raking in the cash.

Their primary customer is poised to spend even more money, and they’ll be right there to lend it to them. Per their standard procedure, they’ll charge them a higher interest rate than their cost to borrow, and because of Bernanke’s incentive, they’ll keep even more money in the Fed’s coffers; the profit-making cycle repeats itself.

The government and Federal Reserve have forged a collective effort to stabilize and stimulate the economy, and in the process, they’ve unintentionally rewarded the banks for not engaging in their principal business and now the Fed is forced to financially incentivize them to continue to not lend to prevent another economic catastrophe.

While Main Street continues to be mired in a long losing streak, the banks remain undefeated at the expense of taxpayers; don’t expect those results from the Pew Survey to change anytime soon.

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Tags: bank bailout, bank lending, Ben Bernanke, carry trade, Federal Reserve, great recession, interest rates, securities
Posted Feb 14th 2010 at 5:59 am in Economics, Exclusives, Featured Story, federal spending |

7469487 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/jarenas/2010/02/14/obamas-financial-hope-and-change-the-undefeated-banks/Obama%27s+Financial+Hope+and+Change%3A+Free+Money+for+Wall+Street2010-02-14+13%3A59%3A42J.C.+Arenas

The mo money we come across the mo problems we see? Apparently, that's how it was for 47-year-old Karl Rabeder. Despite making millions through furnishings and accessories, owning a 3,500 square foot villa in the Alps, and driving around in a luxury Audi A8, he had never been more miserable. Rabeder has now found something that gives his life much more meaning. He's giving it all away.

The Telegraph reports that he's set up a nonprofit, MyMicroCredit.org, to provide microloans to entrepreneurs in Central and South America. He's not taking a salary from the nonprofit and plans to live, most likely, in a small hut in the mountains.

From The Telegraph:

“My idea is to have nothing left. Absolutely nothing,” he told The Daily Telegraph. “Money is counterproductive - it prevents happiness to come.”

He first got the idea during a luxurious trip to Hawaii with his wife.

“It was the biggest shock in my life, when I realised how horrible, soulless and without feeling the five star lifestyle is,” he said. “In those three weeks, we spent all the money you could possibly spend. But in all that time, we had the feeling we hadn't met a single real person - that we were all just actors. The staff played the role of being friendly and the guests played the role of being important and nobody was real.”

He had similar feelings of guilt while on gliding trips in South America and Africa. “I increasingly got the sensation that there is a connection between our wealth and their poverty,” he said.

(via Gimundo)

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When I was in high school, as part of our English III course, we had to read a book called the Scarlet Letter. Most of my male friends and I loathed the book with a passion. We felt that the plot made little sense and the book was hard to follow. After we got done reading the book, we decided to burn a copy just for fun. The next book we had to read in that class was 1984. We absolutely loved that book, and its grim view of the future. I guess it's true that not all books are equal. This is especially true with books about money. There are so many differing views on the topic of finance, from the very conservative to those who think you should borrow money on your home in order to start a risky business. How do you know who to listen to and which books to buy?

The first thing you need to do is stay clear of anything that reeks “get rich quick.” There are some books that tell you that you can do very well with very little work. There are also books that suggest you do some very risky things in order to have the possibility of wealth. For example, in Rich Dad Poor Dad, Robert Kiyosaki tells his readers not to diversify their investments, and instead focus them on a few good ones. This is some really bad advice. Avoid any books that suggest you do things which seem illogical in your mind to make a lot of money very quickly.

Stay away from books that you don't understand. Some finance books are written for you and me, and some are written for those who had a Ph.D in finance. It's okay to read higher level material if you understand it, if not, that's okay too. Find a book that you will understand so that you do not misread any of the content and make a mistake because of it.

So how does one go about finding a really good personal finance book? There are a few different ways. You can look in the bibliography of books that you have already read and enjoyed. For example, if you read “The Total Money Makeover” by Dave Ramsey, you would see that the author has a list of recommend books in the back of the book that you might be interested in reading. If you have any friends who are also interested in money, ask them what books they liked. Read a quick review of it online before going out and making a purchase, Amazon is a very good way of letting you know that a book probably shouldn't be bought.

Having an ever growing and understanding education about personal finance is absolutely critical for you to be successful in the long term. If you know a lot about money and make use of what you learn in your financial life, you will become very wealthy.

Nikon releases 24mm f/1.4 G ED fast wideangle lens: Digital <b>…</b>

Nikon releases 24mm f/1.4 G ED fast wideangle lens: Nikon has released the AF-S Nikkor 24mm F/1.4G ED wide aperture prime lens for full-frame DSLRs. It features an anti-reflective Nano Crystal coating and both ED and …

Facebook Sends Lots Of Traffic To <b>News</b> Sites… Will They Start <b>…</b>

With a new report coming out suggesting that Facebook sends more traffic to <b>news</b> sites than Google <b>News</b>, folks like Mathew Ingram are asking if Rupert Murdoch, the AP and others will be complaining about Facebook "stealing" their …

NBC's Todd: Fox <b>News</b> Trying To 'Undermine' MSM | NewsBusters.org

Now that the public has genuine choices in <b>news</b> programing, they have begun abandoning NBC and other MSm outlets, and turning on Fox <b>News</b>. And the inheritors of the sinking ships — like Todd — not only can't figure out why, …

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Nikon releases 24mm f/1.4 G ED fast wideangle lens: Digital <b>…</b>

Nikon releases 24mm f/1.4 G ED fast wideangle lens: Nikon has released the AF-S Nikkor 24mm F/1.4G ED wide aperture prime lens for full-frame DSLRs. It features an anti-reflective Nano Crystal coating and both ED and …

Facebook Sends Lots Of Traffic To <b>News</b> Sites… Will They Start <b>…</b>

With a new report coming out suggesting that Facebook sends more traffic to <b>news</b> sites than Google <b>News</b>, folks like Mathew Ingram are asking if Rupert Murdoch, the AP and others will be complaining about Facebook "stealing" their …

NBC's Todd: Fox <b>News</b> Trying To 'Undermine' MSM | NewsBusters.org

Now that the public has genuine choices in <b>news</b> programing, they have begun abandoning NBC and other MSm outlets, and turning on Fox <b>News</b>. And the inheritors of the sinking ships — like Todd — not only can't figure out why, …

Nikon releases 24mm f/1.4 G ED fast wideangle lens: Digital <b>…</b>

Nikon releases 24mm f/1.4 G ED fast wideangle lens: Nikon has released the AF-S Nikkor 24mm F/1.4G ED wide aperture prime lens for full-frame DSLRs. It features an anti-reflective Nano Crystal coating and both ED and …

Facebook Sends Lots Of Traffic To <b>News</b> Sites… Will They Start <b>…</b>

With a new report coming out suggesting that Facebook sends more traffic to <b>news</b> sites than Google <b>News</b>, folks like Mathew Ingram are asking if Rupert Murdoch, the AP and others will be complaining about Facebook "stealing" their …

NBC's Todd: Fox <b>News</b> Trying To 'Undermine' MSM | NewsBusters.org

Now that the public has genuine choices in <b>news</b> programing, they have begun abandoning NBC and other MSm outlets, and turning on Fox <b>News</b>. And the inheritors of the sinking ships — like Todd — not only can't figure out why, …

UPDATE: Is Wyclef Jean's Charity the Best One to Help Haiti?

There's no doubt Wyclef Jean — who has raised $1 million since the Haiti earthquake — wants to help his homeland. But a look at his personal foundation's finances raises questions about whether it's wisely managing the donations it's collecting.

UPDATE: Go here for more on why Jean's charity may not be the best way to help Haitians right now.

The Smoking Gun took a look at the finances of Yele Haiti, the foundation Wyclef Jean founded to help his homeland—and it's ugly. Jean founded Yele Haiti in 1998, according to TSG, but didn't file any tax returns until five months ago, in August 2009. And the returns filed so far—for 2005, 2006, and 2007 only—reveal that Yele directed huge sums of money to commercial entities that Jean and his business partner Jerry Duplessis own stakes in.

The most eye-popping expenditure is $250,000 that the foundation paid in 2006 to Telemax, S.A., a Haitian television company that Jean and Duplessis own a controlling interest in. The payment for “airtime and production services” appears to have been related to a telethon of some sort that Yele Haiti produced in the country—its chalked up to “outreach”—and amounts to one out of every five dollars that the foundation took in that year. The return claims the fees were “below market” and constituted the “most efficient” way for Yele Haiti to conduct outreach.

The foundation also paid Platinum Sound, the production company that Jean and Duplessis co-own, a $100,000 fee for Jean's performance at a Yele Haiti fundraiser in 2006.

And Platinum Sound charges Yele Haiti more than $31,000 in annual rent for office space at its Manhattan studio. UPDATE: A tipster familiar with Platinum Sounds' set-up just e-mailed to say that the “office space” that Yele rents from the studio consists of one staffer who works out the kitchen, at a cost of $2,600 each month paid from the charity to Jean and Duplessis.

All told, TSG says, Yele Haiti has paid out $410,000 in the three years for which it has provided tax returns to businesses owned by Jean and Duplessis.

Which makes it even more stunning that the foundation ended 2007 with a $489,000 deficit. That year it took in only $79,000 in direct public support—not much more than the $54,711 it spent on travel—and reported $503,000 in cash with $956,000 in liabilities, including a “30-day demand note” in the amount of $500,000 borrowed from a foundation controlled by music impresario Lou Adler. Its only charitable activity that year was a $270,000 grant to Yele Haiti's Haitian operation, which presumably then distributed the funds to recipients there.

When we called a contact number for Duplessis listed in Yele Haiti's tax return, a receptionist at Platinum Sounds answered the phone and referred us to a public relations firm. We haven't heard back from the publicist. We also tried to contact Hugh Locke, the head of Orsa Consultants, a firm that Yele Haiti paid $82,000 in 2006. According to this 2005 press release, Orsa is a “corporate social responsibility consultancy” that managed Yele Haiti's programs; we couldn't find any public references to Orsa independent of Yele Haiti, and the firm's web site is no longer operative. When we called Lock, he immediately handed the phone to someone identifying herself as “Mrs. Lock,” who referred us to the PR firm. When we asked her about Yele Haiti's expenditures, she said, “Our finances are totally straightened out. We have filed, and are up to date on everything.”

None of this means that Jean, Duplessis, and Yele Haiti aren't doing important work in Haiti, or that they can't play a constructive role in responding to the earthquake crisis. It does mean that, if the past is any guide, they are unlikely to wisely manage any of the money they are currently collecting from concerned Americans on behalf of the victims in Haiti.

Send an email to the author of this post at john@gawker.com.

In a State of the City address crafted for a recession era, Mayor Bloomberg said he will reduce government spending, streamline city agencies, and assist debt-ridden New Yorkers by establishing a $10 million fund to help refinance mortgages, and starting a new banking program that will offer accounts with no minimum balances or hidden fees. “The city can't manage anyone's personal finances but we can make it easier for New Yorkers to manage their own — and we will,” he said.

In terms of cuts and reductions, the Mayor said he will merge the Department of Juvenile Justice and the Administration for Children's Services, combine the Mayor's Office of Film, Theater and Broadcasting and NYC TV, reduce the number of city-owned cars, and save $40 million in rent and energy costs by cutting city office space by 10 percent over the next four years. He will also launch a new inter-agency task force to “consolidate,” “centralize,” and “reduce” government operations.

Bloomberg announced some new proposals, calling for a $750 million rescue fund for owners of distressed apartment buildings, expanding the NYPD's Lower Manhattan Security Initiative into Midtown, installing GPS devices on some school buses, and leading an effort to help New York residents who are undocumented Haitian immigrants apply for temporary protective status so they can stay in the country legally for 18 months. The Times found the address to be more “focused more on the incremental rather than the innovative,” while the Daily News claims that “espite campaign pledges to keep coming up with bold ideas, many of his points are familiar,” like his promise to keep development of the World Trade Center site on schedule, which he said he would do last year.

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Gmail to Get Social <b>News</b> Feed: Report – GigaOM

Gmail to Get Social <b><b>News</b></b> Feed: Report – GigaOM internetreporter » Blog Archive » personal finance budgets February 8, 2010Tracked on. Gmail to Get Social <b><b>News</b></b> Feed: Report – GigaOM …

MrSun tracks the sun's position | iLounge <b>News</b>

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<b>News</b> Corp. Got $12.5 Million In Flixster Stock For Rotten Tomatoes <b>…</b>

<b>News</b> Corp. (NYSE: NWS) received $12.5 million in Flixster stock when it sold its Rotten Tomatoes movie reviews site to the startup last month, according to an SEC filing. We first reported about it on Twitter this morning, …

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PostSecret: PostSecret <b>News</b>

PostSecret <b>News</b>. The German version of PostSecret - PostSecretDeutsch - opened an exhibit of cards yesterday at the Tübingen City Museum, in Germany. The KSU PostSecret Exhibit opened last week in the Sturgis Gallery. …

'Ghostbusters 3' <b>News</b>: Murray Confirms Rumors, Possible Villain <b>…</b>

As the writers slave over another draft of the Ghostbusters 3 script — with production hopefully beginning later this year — some more <b>news</b> regarding the film's storyline has slipped out across these internets, with one aspect being …

FDL <b>News</b> Desk » The Future Of Health Care, Described

And I'm an old school 'wish I was a newsman' with some serious hostility about what's considered to be <b>news</b> reporting and informing anymore since dereg of media beginning under Reagan. You hold the flame high, hoss . . . . . *bows* …

It's 2010, already. Unbelievable isn't it - how quickly time passes? I'm taking time to reflect on the previous year and thinking of resolutions for the new one. I live in New York, one of the most hectic, fastest-moving cities in the world. I love the city and chose to move here, but lately I have been feeling the urge to just 'slow down.' Everything is always moving in fast-motion guided by the notion that time= money. At my job, my co-workers are always multi-tasking and rushing to cram into a single day what realistically should be done in a week. My friends are always making plans, on top of plans in the fruitless effort to have more fun. Personally I always feel in a rush: I eat fast, think fast, talk fast and walk fast. Perhaps I am just worn out and need a radical lifestyle change. Maybe after nine years, it is finally time for me to throw in the towel and leave NYC to move to the country.

If I had it my way, tomorrow I would not wake up at the crack of dawn to travel to work on the packed subway car at rush hour. I would unplug to move at my own speed letting my inner rhythm guide me throughout the day. Well, at this moment living in a cottage in a remote village in Ireland is still just a dream but here are some thoughts on ways to slow down.

When I told my friend about my goal to slow down, she said that there is a book called In Praise of Slowness: Challenging the Cult of Speed, by Carl Honore who offers some inspiring examples of a growing worldwide 'slow' movement.

“It is a cultural revolution against the notion that faster is always better. The Slow philosophy is not about doing everything at a snail's pace. It's about seeking to do everything at the right speed. Savoring the hours and minutes rather than just counting them. Doing everything as well as possible, instead of as fast as possible. It's about quality over quantity in everything from work to food to parenting.”

Honore, who lives in London, said last spring the city held the first Slow Down London Festival where the city's residents were offered a rare opportunity to take a break from their rushed lifestyles. Personally I would love for the Festival to come to NYC. Are there are other New Yorkers out there who feel the way I do and want to slow down the pace of your lives just a little? If you're like me and wishing to lower your life's speed limit, here are some thoughts for inspiration. First a list of things to observe when you need inspiration, and second a list of activities to follow that will help you reset your daily metronome.

Slow things to observe for inspiration:

• Clouds floating
• Plants growing
• A seed starting
• Syrup pouring
• Honey squeezed
• Sailboats without wind
• Snails
• Sloths
• Worms
• Herons
• Small children walking
• Old women sewing
• Pregnant women
• Ice cream trucks
• Kiddy Carnival rides
• Noh performances
• Isicles dripping
• Candles burning
• The tide coming in
• Snow falling

Slow down activities:

• Slow-dance
• Walk through snow
• Row boats
• Listen to someone you love
• Eat pomegranates
• Ride the bus
• Travel by hot air balloon
• Talk to people with southern accents
• Make wine
• Hand-sew
• Bake bread
• Walk home
• Make sun tea
• Bake a cake
• Hand-make clothing
• Visit cemeteries
• Wait in lines
• Soak in the bathtub
• Pick berries
• Bird-watching
• Paint portraits
• Ride Ferris wheels
• Watch Tarkovsky films
• Save money
• Sip hot tea
• Make snow angels
• Walk in the woods
• Ride Gondolas
• Slow-kiss

It's easy to forget while perusing the world of gourmet, handmade, and unique pizza that most of America gets its pizza elsewhere. They get it from the chains and from local pizzerias; and they get it delivered. When this happens they spend less than a minute interacting with the pizza delivery dude (or chick, but I'll just say dude because most customers throw me into that bucket regardless of my gender).

There are an abundance of stereotypes about the pizza delivery dude. He drives fast (in either his POS car or a brand new Lexus), never uses a turn signal, and isn't watching where he's going. Seemingly contradictory, if the pizza is late, it's because the pizza dude was slacking, driving slow, stopping to smoke a cigarette (or a joint). We have our windows down and are blasting music, probably rap or Southern rock. We don't really care about the customer, just about the money.

I've met those guys, I've worked with a few, but they come and go quickly because this job is soul-crushing if you can't find some other reason to keep doing it other than the money. The customers can be shitty, the store's full of teenagers and teenagers are full of drama, and if you work for one of the chains, the Man is constantly trying to find new, efficient ways to do things (most of these ways mean lower pay and worse conditions for drivers). Every driver who sticks with it has some reason other than the money.

My reason for keepin' on keepin' on is my blog [the excellent Diary of a Pizza Girl —The Mgmt.] and my love of pizza. I started for the money and somewhere along the way discovered that I love pizza of all kinds. I used to order the same thing every time, now I experiment, I try to find the best flavor; I fantasize about running my own pizza joint and making test pie after test pie to find the best specialty combinations to put on the menu. I dream about traveling all of the country researching the best pizza and finding a way to make it better. I recently visited a place that billed itself as “Austin's Weirdest Pizza.” I want to make “Austin's Weirdest and Most Delicious Pizza.”

Brings to mind: “If We Don't Take Care of the Customer, Somebody Else Will”

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Tags: pizza delivery, Pizza Girl

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It's 2010, already. Unbelievable isn't it - how quickly time passes? I'm taking time to reflect on the previous year and thinking of resolutions for the new one. I live in New York, one of the most hectic, fastest-moving cities in the world. I love the city and chose to move here, but lately I have been feeling the urge to just 'slow down.' Everything is always moving in fast-motion guided by the notion that time= money. At my job, my co-workers are always multi-tasking and rushing to cram into a single day what realistically should be done in a week. My friends are always making plans, on top of plans in the fruitless effort to have more fun. Personally I always feel in a rush: I eat fast, think fast, talk fast and walk fast. Perhaps I am just worn out and need a radical lifestyle change. Maybe after nine years, it is finally time for me to throw in the towel and leave NYC to move to the country.

If I had it my way, tomorrow I would not wake up at the crack of dawn to travel to work on the packed subway car at rush hour. I would unplug to move at my own speed letting my inner rhythm guide me throughout the day. Well, at this moment living in a cottage in a remote village in Ireland is still just a dream but here are some thoughts on ways to slow down.

When I told my friend about my goal to slow down, she said that there is a book called In Praise of Slowness: Challenging the Cult of Speed, by Carl Honore who offers some inspiring examples of a growing worldwide 'slow' movement.

“It is a cultural revolution against the notion that faster is always better. The Slow philosophy is not about doing everything at a snail's pace. It's about seeking to do everything at the right speed. Savoring the hours and minutes rather than just counting them. Doing everything as well as possible, instead of as fast as possible. It's about quality over quantity in everything from work to food to parenting.”

Honore, who lives in London, said last spring the city held the first Slow Down London Festival where the city's residents were offered a rare opportunity to take a break from their rushed lifestyles. Personally I would love for the Festival to come to NYC. Are there are other New Yorkers out there who feel the way I do and want to slow down the pace of your lives just a little? If you're like me and wishing to lower your life's speed limit, here are some thoughts for inspiration. First a list of things to observe when you need inspiration, and second a list of activities to follow that will help you reset your daily metronome.

Slow things to observe for inspiration:

• Clouds floating
• Plants growing
• A seed starting
• Syrup pouring
• Honey squeezed
• Sailboats without wind
• Snails
• Sloths
• Worms
• Herons
• Small children walking
• Old women sewing
• Pregnant women
• Ice cream trucks
• Kiddy Carnival rides
• Noh performances
• Isicles dripping
• Candles burning
• The tide coming in
• Snow falling

Slow down activities:

• Slow-dance
• Walk through snow
• Row boats
• Listen to someone you love
• Eat pomegranates
• Ride the bus
• Travel by hot air balloon
• Talk to people with southern accents
• Make wine
• Hand-sew
• Bake bread
• Walk home
• Make sun tea
• Bake a cake
• Hand-make clothing
• Visit cemeteries
• Wait in lines
• Soak in the bathtub
• Pick berries
• Bird-watching
• Paint portraits
• Ride Ferris wheels
• Watch Tarkovsky films
• Save money
• Sip hot tea
• Make snow angels
• Walk in the woods
• Ride Gondolas
• Slow-kiss

It's easy to forget while perusing the world of gourmet, handmade, and unique pizza that most of America gets its pizza elsewhere. They get it from the chains and from local pizzerias; and they get it delivered. When this happens they spend less than a minute interacting with the pizza delivery dude (or chick, but I'll just say dude because most customers throw me into that bucket regardless of my gender).

There are an abundance of stereotypes about the pizza delivery dude. He drives fast (in either his POS car or a brand new Lexus), never uses a turn signal, and isn't watching where he's going. Seemingly contradictory, if the pizza is late, it's because the pizza dude was slacking, driving slow, stopping to smoke a cigarette (or a joint). We have our windows down and are blasting music, probably rap or Southern rock. We don't really care about the customer, just about the money.

I've met those guys, I've worked with a few, but they come and go quickly because this job is soul-crushing if you can't find some other reason to keep doing it other than the money. The customers can be shitty, the store's full of teenagers and teenagers are full of drama, and if you work for one of the chains, the Man is constantly trying to find new, efficient ways to do things (most of these ways mean lower pay and worse conditions for drivers). Every driver who sticks with it has some reason other than the money.

My reason for keepin' on keepin' on is my blog [the excellent Diary of a Pizza Girl —The Mgmt.] and my love of pizza. I started for the money and somewhere along the way discovered that I love pizza of all kinds. I used to order the same thing every time, now I experiment, I try to find the best flavor; I fantasize about running my own pizza joint and making test pie after test pie to find the best specialty combinations to put on the menu. I dream about traveling all of the country researching the best pizza and finding a way to make it better. I recently visited a place that billed itself as “Austin's Weirdest Pizza.” I want to make “Austin's Weirdest and Most Delicious Pizza.”

Brings to mind: “If We Don't Take Care of the Customer, Somebody Else Will”

10 Comments

Favorite this!  (3)

Tags: pizza delivery, Pizza Girl

CTV releases Official Olympics Coverage App | iLounge <b>News</b>

The official Canadian broadcasters for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games have released a <b>news</b> and information application for the iPhone and iPod touch. Developed by Indusblue, the CTVOlympics.ca app provides …

Jon Stewart Talks Fox <b>News</b> On The O'Reilly Factor - Tuned In <b>…</b>

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Stocks in the <b>News</b>: Aetna, Beazer Homes, Tyson Foods - DailyFinance

The following is a round-up of <b>news</b> likely to affect stock prices today: Aetna (AET) said Friday its fourth-quarter profit fell 15% to $165.9 million, or 38 cents per share, as it continued to struggle with pricing problems and rising …

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