World's Largest Cruise Ship - $1.24 Billion

Royal Caribbean is sick and tired of "tiny" million-dollar cruise ships. It's time to take things up a notch.

"Project Genesis" also known as the 'Oasis Class' ship was ordered by Royal Caribbean in 2006, and upon it's completion in 2009, it will become the world's largest operating cruise ship. I really hope the whole thing is Phil Collins/Genesis-themed. Do you know how hard that thing would need to rock to deserve that name??

For the big-time price of $1.24 billion, the ship will be 43% larger than the current largest ship, the Queen Elizabeth II. Genesis will be 1,180 feet long, 220,000 tons and able to carry 6,400 passengers and 2,100 crew members. (More details and photos after the jump).

Many of those crew members will be entertainers located in the 'Central Park' area of the ship. This zone, larger than a football field, serves as a multi-purpose common area for passengers. It will be filled with live concerts and street performers. I'm sorry, but street performers? You're going to pay top-dollar for a cruise ticket and you want to be bothered by second class mimes and card game pushers all over the place? I suppose they're trying to replicate what it feels like to not be on a luxurious cruise, but rather an ordinary city street corner.

The 'Central Park' will also include fine dining in the form of fancy Italian restaurants and an elite steakhouse. For the realistic vacationer, there are also a few places to 'get your drunk on', including the extravagant 'Rising Tide bar'. This "bar area" has the ability to slowly ascend and descend through three decks of the ship, allowing passengers the ability to hammered as they move around the busiest commons areas. Sounds like almost every carnival ride I've been on while drunk: incredibly dangerous and nauseating. As if sea-sickness wasn't bad enough, right?-



The ship comes equipped with its very own giant amphitheater at its stern to accommodate large open-air concerts. There will also be rock-climbing walls on the outer edge of this 'AquaTheater' in case that's something you've always wanted to do at a Nickelback/Celine Dion concert.

Don't forget about the in-house psychic and tattoo parlor, so that you can singlehandedly make every most regrettable mistake of your life all on one vacation.

Despite all these luxurious accommodations, unfortunately they still haven't figured out the dilemma of wide-spread sickness easily spreading in these sardine-like conditions. Anyone still interested?




Royal Caribbean: Oasis of The Seas (video)

I think I might just stick with the world's largest swimming pool for my next vacation.

MSNBC: Royal Caribbean orders largest cruise ship, February 6, 2006

BoingBoing: Project Oasis Class Cruise Liner, June 20, 2008

Most Expensive: Cruise Ship, June 25, 2008

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What The Hell Is A Mutual Fund?

You hear the phrase mutual fund tossed around a lot, and although it's not as sexy as a "hedge fund" or a "strip club", it's an investment tool where a better understanding would benefit you.

There are portfolio managers out there who think recessions and downturns in the market are the best time to go cherry picking for mis-priced stocks. They're essentially finding companies that are getting a bad rap and then buying them on the cheap.

On the other hand, there are also investors who feel now is the time to stay away and we should hoard our money like there might not be a tomorrow. Either way, it's better to be informed for whenever you plan on making your move into the market.

Take for example the mutual fund, these are 'technically' companies that offer an investor a chance to get into a piece of a variety of stocks. You give them your money, the invest in a bunch of different stocks, if the stocks do well, you get big returns. This is called 'diversification', not to be confused with an old, old, wooden ship from the Civil War era.

Diversification is the best way to invest because it protects you from the incredibly likely chance of one sector or company doing poorly and you losing all your money. However, unless you have a lot of money to invest, diversification is difficult to do by just investing in stocks. That's where mutual funds are your best bet.

Mutual funds can either be managed by an investment professional, hopefully some smart guy who knows which stocks to invest in, or they can be non-managed funds. An example of a non-managed mutual fund is one that is tied to an index like the Dow Jones Industrial Average. That's why you might hear a lot of important sounding people talking about 'The Dow losing 100 points today' or something like that (The Dow is just a list of the 30 largest and most widely held companies in the USA). Sometimes non-managed funds linked to big indexes perform better than managed funds run by meticulous professionals, other times they do not.

Although anyone that tells you an investment is 'safe' is totally full of crap, mutual funds are considered much less risky than other investments. And as always, learn from MC Hammer and Wesley Snipes and do all your own research before you hand over your money to some dude.

Weigh in with your opinion of the ole fail-safe mutual fund option in the comments section. Your sister was assaulted by 'a mutual fund' once? Let us know, we want to hear!

TheMotleyFool: Mutual Fund Center Truth

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Escort Services Represent $109 Million in USA

Client #9's most recent saga with Ashley Alexandra Dupre brought plenty of spotlight to the escort industry, and recently Portfolio mag has some numbers of the entire 'pricey hooker' industry.

Portfolio magazine's writers, Duff McDonald and Miriam Datskovsky, cite the National Health and Social Life Survey (which sounds totally legit, if you ask me) when revealing that over 700,000 American men frequent the services of a prostitute each year. That's a little more than the combined population of Alaska.

The vast majority of that number is perpetrated by 'johns' with dirty streetwalkers or brothel house workers. And as you may have guessed that's not where the real money is. The real big bucks come from the 5% of those 700k transactions which are perpetrated through the discreet venue of escort services.

These escort services can be broken down into three generalized groups:

Group 1 - 94% of All Escort Users
This is how the vast majority of escort service transactions play out. It's your run of the mill lonely businessman or corporate executive with some extra cash to blow. He'll search out the services of an escort company he finds on the internet, places a call, doles out $500 to the nice lady and also pays a $40 booking fee. Pretty simple but, not nearly as exciting as the following groups.
Total - $540


Group 2 - 5% of All Escort Users
Here's where Spitzer and other well-to-do politicians may fit in. Secrecy is key here. Most of the expense will be tied into keeping everything nice and low profile. The escort will cost around $3,200, which includes a $500 credit to 'reserve future bookings.' Two separate hotel rooms are also a must, and will run you around $938 for one night at the Mayflower in Washington. A train ticket for the lady to travel from NYC to DC will cost you around $138. And a couple of drinks from the hotel room minibar to loosen everyone up will amount to another $50.
Total - $4,326


Group 3 - 1% of All Escort Users
These guys are the cream of the crop. The kingpins of the escort industry, the 'money shot' if you will. These are your globe trotting billionaires with access to private jets. The escort herself will run a similar $4,500. Expect to pay $30,000 a night for a 4-star penthouse hotel room in a fun city like Miami. The private jet to get all interested parties together in one place will cost you another $15,400. Tack on an additional $1,000 for some top-notch wining and dining. Then don't forget about the "distracting spa weekend package" for your unsuspecting wife - $5,000. Throw in a diamond necklace for your new ladyfriend 'for all the trouble' - $3,000 and you're all set.
Total - $63,900

Based on these average numbers, Duff and Miriam did a little math and came up with the value of the total US escort economy as being worth around $109,668,808.

What else is worth around $110 Million? Sub-prime mortgage slinger, Angelo Mozilo's severance package. Britney Spears' annual economy. And Heather Mills' divorce settlement. Wow, among that list I can't decide which is more horrible. Maybe I'll just stick to the hookers.

Portfolio: The Escort Economy, May, 2008

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Exxon Sells Its Gas Stations

A lot of people would have thought with record-high gas prices in the U.S., all the oil companies would be making a killing. At least for one oil giant, that isn't the case.

According to a report in today's New York Times:

Exxon, the world’s largest publicly traded oil company, said it would sell the roughly 2,220 service stations it owned across the United States, including about 820 that it also operated.

The company will maintain the Exxon and Mobil brands, an Exxon spokeswoman, Prem Nair, said.

Of the 12,000 or so Exxon Mobil-branded stations in the United States, about 75 percent are already owned by others.

Exxon cites "very challenging" business conditions as the cause for selling off its retail gas business in the U.S. Apparently, in spite of gas prices being 31% higher than last year, the gas station business is still not a big money maker.

The company says the profit margins inherent in its business model are not feasible. Looks like they see more money right now in selling these stations to independent owners.

Does this mean the low demand for gas is finally hurting the gas companies? It was only a matter of time before people began to realize they couldn't afford to fill up with a gallon costing more than $4.

Congratulations, everyone! Keep those gas cap locks fastened tightly and don't stop burning down your local fill up spots! I think all those half-baked schemes might actually be working. No. Not really. Driving this summer will continue to suck.

NYT: Exxon Plans To Sell Its Gas Stations, June 13, 2008

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World's Most Expensive Guitar Picks- $4,674

This is one little piece of plastic that has a massive price tag.

Those seemingly worthless pieces of plastic that your guitar heroes throw at the crowd might not ordinarily be worth anything, but Starpics, an Australian company, puts those other crappy chips to shame.

Starpics is a top shelf brand known for fashioning guitar picks out of precious metals. This particular pair of picks is valued so high because they're made out of friggin' meteors!

That's right, those rocks from space that crashed on earth. These two picks were whittled down from chunks of Gibeon meteorites. These meteorites were discovered in 1836 in Namibia. For a long stretch of time they were locked in the country due to a ban on their sale and export.

Somehow they were smuggled out and now seem to be popping up in all sorts of places. According to MostExpensive:

One of the most interesting things about the meteorites is the pattern of Widmanstatten lines created by their frigid passage through space. These patterns are preserved in the picks and can be seen in the picture above.

Sweet. Yeah, if you're going to buy $4,674 guitar picks made out of genuine meteors you've gotta have a few choice Widmanstatten lines on there. This is totally something I could see that tool Bon Jovi using on stage.

If I owned these meteor picks, I would probably just use them as fancy lock picking devices.



MostExpensive: Guitar Pick, May 20, 2008

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Beware The Repo Men

Repossession men are busier than ever, and they might be coming after your boat soon.

It used to be just rich guys with stupid pants who bought expensive boats and yachts. However, during those glorious pre-recession days almost anyone was able to take out a loan and buy a boat.

Borrowers are defaulting on those loans now and it means lots of business for the world's repo men.

A New York Times article, appearing in tomorrow's issue, profiles the world of Jeff Henderson, the owner of Harrison Marine, who is hired by the banks to repossess boats from delinquent borrowers. According to the article:

Henderson is repossessing nearly a boat a day, most from the Great Lakes area but a few farther afield. He is looking for a man from the Bronx named Rocko, who told the bank his 34-foot cruiser was at a marina that does not exist. He is trying to get a Michigan woman to tell him where to find her husband’s pontoon boat.

Surprisingly, the terms of a typical boat loan allow the bank to employ someone to enter a borrower's property and extract the indebted boat without fear of trespassing charges.

Henderson doesn't like doing it, but on a few occasions he has crept around someone's backyard to remove a boat. Most of the time the boats to be repossessed are kept at a local marina where they are delinquent in dock fees. After Henderson pays those fees, the dock owners are more than happy to send him on his way with the boat.

He recalls a few time having a gun pulled on him. Once an old woman came out to defend her boat with an old hunting rifle aimed right at Henderson. On another occasion a police officer confronted Henderson with his pistol and asked why he was stealing his boat.

That is some scary stuff. Not a line of business most people would want to be involved in, I'm guessing. Henderson has a heart of stone now and after a lifetime of being forced to listen to weepy sob stories about late payments, he doesn't give the owners a chance to reason with him.

This article was interesting because it also offered some good insight into the plight of the consumer and some of the reasons behind the recession and credit crunch.

One of the former boat owners that Henderson is repossessing explains that he simply spent beyond his means. He'll soon declare bankruptcy and also had his apartment foreclosed on. After taking out a $125,000 loan to pay for his boat, he spent 7 years barely making the interest payments. The loan is currently worth twice as much as the boat.

At some point you've gotta ask yourself, was this all worth it? Being able to say you have some boat in a marina that you never use, while you waste away in bankruptcy proceedings? In some ways aren't these guys just as responsible for the recession as all those Bear Stearns executives?


New York Times: Times Are Tough, Except In The Repo Business, May 20, 2008

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Changing The High-Def Business?

An 11-inch screen worth $2,500 has a picture that will put your HDTV to shame! This is being heralded as the future of high-definition.

I was blown away by the description of the Sony XEL-1 O.L.E.D that New York Times tech writer David Pogue described today. Firstly, this guy knows what he's talking about, he's one of the world's top technology writers and for him to cream his proverbial pants over this thing was surprising.

But check out his description:

There’s a new TV on the block, and its picture is so amazing, it makes plasma and L.C.D. look like cave drawings...Name a drawback of plasma or L.C.D. — motion blur, uneven lighting across the panel, blacks that aren’t quite black, whites that aren’t quite white, limited viewing angle, color that isn’t quite true, brightness that washes out in bright rooms, screen-door effect up close — and this TV overcomes it.

Over the top, right? Well it all comes with a big catch. (more pictures) Apparently this screen that will change life on earth as we know it, only comes in an 11-inch display. That's absolutely tiny. What could this thing possibly be used for?

Sony is describing the product as a 'desktop television', but what does that mean? Don't we have those already, and aren't they called computers?

Let it be known that this is supposed to only be the beginning for this product. As it is now, the screen is only 3 millimeters thick, which is almost as thin as that cardboard that 30-packs of Milwaukee's Best come in (and that's some cheap-ass packaging). But imagine what this thing will be like when they bust out the 27 or 40-inch versions. Your eyeballs might not be able to handle the incredible colors and contrast ratios. A 200 pack of Crayola crayons will melt with embarrassment in comparison to the plethora of hues and color gradients coming out of these O.L.E.D. TVs.

Remember how lame you were for having a VCR months after everyone else had DVDs players, and aren't you currently shopping for a Blu-Ray player? Here's your chance to be one of those super cool 'early adopters'. Then again, we're there Beta-Max early adopters, too?

Even if a $2,500 11-incher doesn't earn your money, it's definitely worth giving Sony a notice as the first to preview the O.L.E.D. technology. Expect big things coming soon from these captains of industry.



Does the new OLED TV charm the pants off you? Will it put Sony ahead of the pack in the high-def world? Let us know your opinion in the comments section.

New York Times: TV Images to Dazzle the Jaded, May 1, 2008
SonyStyle.com: OLED Digital TV

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World's Most Expensive Apartment

The world's most expensive apartment sold for $200 Million, and it hasn't even been built yet.

A lot of people in New York complain about the extremely high cost of living in the city, but they can be considered trailer park trash compared to what people are paying in London right now.

One Hyde Park, the new luxury apartment building in London's Knightsbridge neighborhood has pre-sold 1 of its 4 exclusive penthouse apartments (which are probably called 'flats', right?) over 2 years before being able to test out the sink and look in the closets.

Even though the building is not expected to be completed until 2010, these apartments are selling quickly because (more pictures) of their fancy amenities and insane central location. Think of it this way, your Monopoly board might soon say One Hyde Park instead of just Park Place. The Monopoly guy will be sooo pissed.

The developer of the property is Candy & Candy (lots of cavities, even by British standards), and the owner of the property is Sheikh Hamad, Foreign Minister of the Gulf State of Qatar.

Some of the included cool features will be:

1. communal spas
2. wine-tasting facilities
3. wooden baths
4. marble surfaces
5. floor-to-ceiling fridges

And also, according to most-expensive.net:

Each of the four penthouses will have a number of security features, including bulletproof glass, panic rooms and access to an underground passage leading to a nearby hotel.

I guess if you have enough money to buy a place like this, you're definitely a prime target for robbery.

Also, I bet that secret passage comes in handy when you're trying to slip out to the hotel bar after your girlfriend goes on a screaming tirade about her $2,000-coasters not being used, and you leaving your Million-dollar-socks all over the place.



Is this place worth $200 million? Let us know what you think in the comments section.

Most Expensive: Most Expensive Apartment, April 25, 2008
BusinessWeek: Nouveau Riche Palaces

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Makes His Own Bikes, Runs His Own Business

In a little one-man bike shop in California, this guy lives his life at full speed and on his own terms.

Brent Steelman has a cult following for his hand-made bicycles. In the days when ultra-light carbon fiber bikes are king, Steelman has welded out a niche for people who love the old-school steel bikes.

Once you get past the coincidence that his real name is 'Steelman' and he's the man behind the steel bikes craze, it's a cool story. And if you've got some extra cash and want a cool and truly unique vehicle to help deter gas costs, read on.

He charges $5,500 on average for one of his handmade bikes, and it sometimes takes 6 months for the finished product to be delivered to the buyer. Impressively, Steelman Cycles has no advertising or marketing campaign. The popularity and demand for the brand is all from word of mouth.

This is particularly amazing when you realize how computer assisted design and big factory bike manufacturers have cut down the number of handcrafted bicycle makers to under 60 in the whole country.

Steelman makes only 50 bikes a year, but he's in no shortage of funding or new business. Some of his investors include Jim Breyer, a venture capitalist who made Facebook what it is today, and KKR co-founder, George Roberts.

With all that confident investing behind him, Steelman is sitting pretty. He makes his own hours and spends plenty of time riding his bikes.

Steelman, a former professional cyclist, finds that he works best alone though. His company consists of himself, making all the bikes from scratch, and his wife, who handles all the front office orders. Steelman is a very particularly guy. He refuses to hire anyone else to help with his shop because he feels a hired gun could never match the passion for a product that its creator has.

But what's with the steel bikes? According to Jim Goldman, who profiled Steelman for CNBC:

He prefers steel -- as do his customers -- because of the ride the material offers. Stiffer, a better connection to the road. You "feel" the ride differently than you do with carbon fiber -- in much the same way drivers feel differently in a Porsche than they do in a Lexus. Each weld is a precise work of art; each frame capping his obsessive pursuit for perfection.

You've gotta envy this guy. He found something he loves and his little company is doing well for itself. From what this guy says, he seems pretty committed to working on his own, but it would be interesting to see what Steelman would say if he got offered a huge contract from a large bike manufacturer. Should he turn down a deal like that to stick with his ideals, or is it exactly what he's waiting on to cash in?

CNBC Tech Check: Silicon Valley's Steel Bike Guru, April 24, 2008

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The Popemobile Is Pricey

The Pope definitely rides in style with his latest suped-up whip.

His holiness' custom-built Mercedes ML 430 cost $511,000, but the Vatican got it on the cheap when it was donated by the maker in 2002.

Although Pope Benedict XVI won't be cruising at more than 10 mph, this baby can go 0 to 60 in 8 seconds with its 4.3 liter v8 / 272 horsepower engine. It was shipped directly from Rome to Washington D.C. in time for his visit to the White House today.

The Popemobile also comes fully equipped with sinless-white leather seats and stainless steel bars to grip while standing, kind of like the Vatican toilet. The most clutch features in this dangerous world are the double-paned bulletproof power windows.

Newsweek also reported on the inner luxuries of the p-mobile:

There's a full climate-control system to ensure that the pontiff doesn't get too hot or cold en route. And if he wants to fill the silence in his private enclosure, the car's got a full stereo system with a tape deck. (What, no iPod?)

Yeah, Newsweek, no iPod! Everyone knows Benny prefers rocking out to a couple of killer mix tapes he made back in the 80s. And because PB XVI originally hails from Germany, Hassellhoff is definitely on there.

Newsweek: From Horses to Horsepower, April 14, 2008
The Washington Times: Catholics pony up for visit from pope, April 15, 2008

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