Monday Misc.

* Did you see the Time magazine cover on housing? "Uh oh" indeed!

* I didn't know Joyce from the Amazing Race 7 was a cast member on Star Trek The Next Generation.

* The stock market? Well, we're now out of the monthly strength period, and in that scarey week before options expiration. With oil up again, who knows what kind of fear will take over. I'm still long. It's too tough to short-term trade for me. But if I were guessing, I'd say we're due for a pullback before the next move higher. Since it's just a guess, I won't try to trade it. Pessimism is already quite high, so maybe we won't get that pullback. I'm overall bullish because interest rates are low, inflation is low, and we're probably near the end of the Fed hikes. The economy is growing well. Jobs numbers are perfect over the past year. And wage growth is just fine considering the core rate of inflation.

* Remember the 80's band Cinderella? That's what's on my MP3 player right now. Oooooh, falling apart at the seams...

* Did you see that the UK wants to tax drivers per mile driven? And they'll be tracked by satellite. Uh... Hmm. Seems like somebody could figure out a hack for that one, eh? Just make sure to pay cash for your fuel, so that they can't match the GPS numbers with your credit card fuel bill...

* Have you noticed that some bands keep releasing "best of" CDs? The CD will have 17 songs on it, plus maybe one unreleased song. Then a few years later, they release a "remixed best of" CD, with a bunch of songs on it. Maybe some of the same from their previous "best of" CD. It's kind of ridiculous. (In my book.) I'm not going to mention any names.

* I remember when I bought Providian stock for like $4 (i think) and sold it at $12, thinking I was a Wile E Coyote stock trading genious. Look at it now with the Washington Mutual buyout. Oh, I'm not complaining. And I won't tell you about all the stocks that I bought at $12 that went to $4, either!

* AOL is now offering free, web-based email. Uh... This is big news? Aren't there a bazillion websites with free email these days? Google. Yahoo. MSN. Just to name three big uns. And this is supposed to be good for AOL shareholders? How are they selling that one? "Well, we decided to go from a subscription-based model to one that is free. But we'll make it up on volume." Uhhhhhh. Well, I guess they can sell herbal viagra ads on the free site.

* I thought the same, regarding Lacey Chabert.

* So, will the cap on social security be lifted? Right now, the first $90K of income is taxable. If it's lifted, that'd be a big ol' tax increase on "the rich." Especially those who pay both sides of the tax (12.4%). Has anybody done the math on what that tax increase would cost Shaq?