20. We all love a good musical. Admit it. You turn on High School Musical or Grease and next thing you know you've watched the whole darn thing.

19. Even guys think David Beckham is good looking. We compensate for it by making fun of his voice and saying we hate him but there is not a guy on earth that wouldn't like have the ladies throwing themselves at you .

18. Motorcycles are unsafe. It's not IF you are going to get hurt, but how bad

17. Your golf score is inversely proportional to the time you spend with your family It is impossible to shoot in the 70's and spend the correct amount of time with your family if you work or have ANY other hobbies.

16. That old fraternity t-shirt needs to be thrown away. It's not getting any younger in the drawer and it certainly has too many holes to wear anywhere.

15. Valentines day is worthless. It's becoming more and more meaningless each year. Kind of like Microsoft.

14. You will never stay thin without exercise. You can diet all you want but it is next to impossible to diet forever.

13. Gambling is for the poor. Rich men don't gamble. It is OK to take a gamble now and then. More than once a year and you are wasting your money and time. The lottery is for the poor and uneducated.

12. You don't talk to your parents enough. We all know it but we don't do much about it. Everyone I've ever met regretted this at their parents funerals. Spend time with them now.

11. We hire people based on looks. You're not supposed to, but we all do it. Two people equally qualified will be decided on which one looks best. I choose the personality I can get along with best , but ugly usually loses. Not legal, not right , but true.

10. We overmedicate. Your body is made to heal itself of simple things. If you eat correctly, get a good nights sleep, and exercise, for the most part your body can take care of itself. If you take ibuprofen every day then how is your body going to learn to take care of itself?

9. Creativity is under emphasized. It's hard to put your creativity on a resume but it's a trait that is highly desired and needed in business. Everyone copies or improves. Creative people approach from a whole new angle.

8. "Inch by inch, life's a cinch" If you do a little everyday things will get done. Procrastinate or try and do everything at once and you will fail.

7. Republicans have 0 percent chance in the next election. I don't care if Reagan came back. This one goes to the other team this year. Let them figure out how to get out of the war.

6. The anonymity of the Internet has turned the younger generation into a bunch of online punks. The way they talk to each other on line is shameful. If some of these guys talked to me like that in person I would put them down like Chuck Lidell.

5. A human life is worth more than an animal's. Despite what PETA and the other crazy groups will tell you. DO NOT harm a human to save an animal. (This does not mean I don't value an animals life, it just means that if an animal were dying and I was dying, I think there are some people that would help the animal first and let me die)

4. A person that doesn't smoke is EXTREMELY bothered by someone who does right next to them. We never say anything because we don't want to cause a scene or make someone mad but almost everyone is bothered by it. Laws will take care of this over next couple years.

3. We all have the will but most don't have the dedication or the preparation to meet that desire. There are so many people that want the world but aren't willing to sacrifice anything to get it. Nice things take hard work. A healthy body means getting tired. Nice things take long hours at work. A good family means sacrificing some personal things (see golf above)

2. We love "bad people". The world would care less about Lindsay Lohan if she acted like a nice young teen. People are drawn to and curious about people that do bad things. Go to your local online news and see what percentage of the stories are about people doing bad things. Almost all. Why? Bad is entertaining.

1. Anything man made in large doses is most likely not good for you. Follow this rule and you will probably live longer. Remember the "everything in moderation" rule. This especially applies to man made ingredients. From Aspartame (my vice) to Zoloft, watch the intake.

My opinions only. Feel free to comment.

Here are a couple key things I've learned in my young business career that I think has made me successful. Some may say they are simple but I guarantee you will be a better business if you follow them. (OK maybe not number 4)

1. You either cut costs or increase sales. There is no other way to make more money

2. A good buy is not a good sale if you can't sell it.

3. Customer Service is overlooked. People aren't willing to spend more for one product because of it but they are willing to buy more products

4. Long lines don't bother guys as much when a pretty girl is running it. Terrible to say but I can keep the frustration of lines getting too long on a busy day by putting a cute (but intelligent) girl at the counter

5. Employees are your best asset. Pay for the best

6. Business relationships are two way streets. Just because you are the buyer doesn't mean you don't give back. Treat your vendors right and they will take care of you.

7. People love the personal touch. People love to put a face with a business. They tend to gravitate towards businesses where they feel they have a relationship. High turnover leads to high customer turnover

8. It's best to have one person run operations and one to handle finances. It is a good system of checks and balances. If the operation is run well the financials should be OK. If the finances are OK then usually the operations are being run well. Even so it is best to have two different people in each role.

9. Working with your family is great but more difficult. It is easier to rely on family but harder to deal with if they aren't reliable

10. When your company is making good money it is easier to make good decisions. You make decisions based on what is right, not on what they cost.

yes I actually wrote this.

It takes years for a person to develop a successful business. If you talk to successful businesses managers and their owners they have their opinions on what it takes to run a profitable long term business. From these people I have come up with a list of 10 things that are the keys to success.

1. You either cut costs or increase sales. There is no other way to make more money.
There are many ways to make money but these two are the bullet points of finance. Sales and cost. Everything else in between all points back to these two.

2. A good buy is not a good sale if you can't sell it.
You can't make money if you can't sell your product. It doesn't matter how much you paid for it if you can't move it.

3. Customer Service is overlooked. People aren't willing to spend more for one product because of good customer service but they certainly will buy more products. People love good service. They won't pay an arm and a leg for it but they certainly will come back time and time again to a company they feel treats them right.

4. Long lines don't bother guys as much when a pretty girl is running it. Terrible to say but I can keep the frustration of lines getting too long on a busy day by putting a cute (but intelligent) girl at the counter. Sexist yes. A lie, no. It doesn't do your company any good to put a non-intelligent person at a counter of a retail store but it is amazing friendly customers become with someone easy on the eyes assisting them.

5. Employees are your best asset. Pay for the best. They are how you make money. They drive your company and give great employees give all of themselves to their job. These employees should receive as much as you can afford. You should share your wealth with those that make you wealthy.

6. Business relationships are two way streets. Just because you are the buyer doesn't mean you don't give back. Treat your vendors right and they will take care of you. Relationships are the key to good business. It doesn't matter if you are the buyer or the seller. Treating people fairly will always get you ahead.

7. People love the personal touch. People love to put a face with a business. They tend to gravitate towards businesses where they feel they have a relationship. High turnover leads to high customer turnover. Talking to the same rep or salesperson makes your customers feel comfortable.

8. It's best to have one person run operations and one to handle finances. It is a good system of checks and balances. If the operation is run well the financials should be OK. If the finances are OK then usually the operations are being run well. Even so it is best to have two different people in each role.

9. Working with your family is great but more difficult. It is easier to rely on family but they're harder to deal with if they aren't reliable

10. When your company is making good money it is easier to make good decisions. You make decisions based on what is right, not on what they cost. Too often new companies or companies with financial issues make decisions not on what's right but what they can afford. When this happens, a company has no where to go but down further.

Craig from AllSux wrote this article and I thought it was interesting. I have nothing against Helium but he is not the first to say these things, but maybe the most verbal about it. Of course Helium canceled his account so I thought I would give him the podium

Helium.com is a hilarious site supposedly for writers to make a bit of money and "share knowledge." In reality, they let scammers, spammers and plagiarists run rampant. Why? Because any semi-legible content is good content if you're only interested in massive SEO!

In theory, the most informative articles rise to the top of a given cateogry via their user rating system, but this is often the opposite of the case. This article about Helium is ranked #1 out of 223 and is wrong about Helium not having an affiliate program! Better yet: they refuse to remove inaccurate content - only directly copied or offensive content is taken off the site. Why? SEO!

They also have a weekly competition that the same guy keeps winning by spamming with hundreds of articles at the last minute. They let him operate despite the fact that he is subverting their rating system (which is against their TOS) by not giving people time to rate down his articles. Again: why? SEO!

And what do they do about whistleblowers? Well, they ban them. In this case, they banned someone, kept their content (almost 300 articles) while denying them their $300 in earnings and prize money. Why? They pointed out all of the above problems and stirred up dissention in the ranks. That is bad for SEO!

The running season is upon us and the first big race of the year is coming up. I ran a few races this winter ( an 8 miles and a 28.5 miler) but really didn't take any of them seriously. That is about to change. My running team, The Wandering ElderBarrys, is about to partake in the famous River To River Relay. The run is an 80 mile jaunt from the Mississippi River to the Ohio River split up between 8 people and is the largest relay in the country. Because it is so popular, not every team is accepted but because we've done it for so many years, they seem to always let out team in but made us change our name. It used to be called "Sand in the Vaseline" . Now 80 miles doesn't sound bad except you add in the hills. They are severe. People from other parts of the country may not be affected by these hills, but us flatlanders have to run the parking garages to train for the race. The hills kill us. Always looking for a challenge, I decided to take the hardest leg of the race. Leg 6. (see 3 legs to the side) What's funny about it is I'm not even close to the best runner on the team, just the stupidest. I love the pain of the hills. Last year, when they saw me sprinting up the hill they all laughed because they figured I was going to die eventually. I never did and kept on chugging. It was the next two legs that sucked because the hill took everything out of me. This year I know what to expect. I'm not saying I'm going to run any faster this year but I am better prepared and am ready for the challenge.

It's a bold title but I have been saying it for last few years and Michael of Benchmark Capital reminded me of my feelings. Recently I invested in simple little company called Wallstrip. I didn't invest with the hopes of making millions or being part of the next YouTube. I invested to learn more about Web 2.0 and the internet. I wanted to learn how advertising works and how a site or a company is developed with real money and real thought behind it. I have neither invested in this site, so I figured I should take part in the evolution of a site in hopes of learning a little more about the web. Over the past few months I have learned the following.

1. RSS takes away viewers from the source site:
If you are trying to develop a site you obviously want people to visit that site. People who get your RSS feeds are less likely to visit your site because they get all the information in a nice little organized package. No comments, no feedback, no interactivity. With the sheer quantity of good blogs out there, people need an organized cliff note version of each blog to have any chance of reading all of blogs they enjoy. Again, most never make it to the site. It take effort to get back to the site. People don't like effort.

2. So do Widgets
Think about this logically. You want people to watch videos that you create. You create videos to make money. Then you give away these videos via widgets that others can post on their blogs. Unless you have ads in those videos, you don't make a dime. This strategy works for YouTube because they get all the content for free but when you pay for the production, this method is a much tougher way to make money. The only way I believe this makes sense is that after the video plays you are automatically sent to the source site. Nobody does this because the bloggers wouldn't post your video if it forces them to leave the site. Bloggers get to boost traffic to their site and everyone enjoys the content and the creater of the content gets zip.

4. RSS Feeds take away from your source of income.
In order to provide the free content, sites have to advertise. You make much less on RSS feeds than you do at the home site.

Web 2.0 brings the content to the reader but doesn't bring the reader to the content. In order to make money or just break even, a site needs those viewers to come home. With this idea, it brings me to divide the internet into two types of sites. Interactive, community type sites and news and information sites. In the trading blog world for example , Trader Mike has 4125 RSS readers and 11 comments on yesterday's stories. He does a great job of providing info but it is not much of a community. Fly on Wallstreet on the other hand, is more of the community type site. He probably has a quarter of the readers but they all come to the site and interact daily. He usually has 50 or more comments on most days. Two completely different sites but both effective. In the long run a community type site will make more money, that is unless someone pays you for your content.

I think the business model of Heavy.com (disclosure: I work with Heavy) is the model of the future. No RSS feeds, no widgets just a simple model. First, develop content or gather other's original content (for the most part) . Pay people a nominal fee to bloggers and webmasters to send their viewers to their site via links or embeded video. They, in turn, sell advertising to large companies who will pay good money for a large number of viewers. Bloggers love it because they can make a little extra money and Heavy gets people to come to their site. They are also smart because they know what advertising works for them. "Reminder" advertising. New movies, new video games, and other awareness type ads are the ads usually run on their site. Knowing what type of advertising to run is a whole other article in itself.

In summary, Web 2.0 sounds great. Widgets, feeds, and all the compilers you could ever want to deliver the web. In the long run this will not work unless the the readers get delivered back home to the source site. I see a future of reduced RSS feeds and less free content widgets and more of a future of subscriptions. I see a future of $3 a month for a feed of techcrunch or free if you visit the site.

Disclaimer: This is no way represents the feelings of the owners of Wallstrip or anyone else but myself. It is merely an opinion.

That is you brain telling you to be careful. If you are a long term investor, go to your cash and put in your trading account. DO NOT BUY but get ready to add some at these cheap shares. But you better wait. This has dead cat bounce written all over it. The markets are going to go down a bit over the next few weeks. If you feel nervous and own stock, then sell calls. If you don't know how to do this then you shouldn't even be worried about day to day things, you should sell or just come back in a year. It does strike me as amazing that people know who Lindsay Lohan's dating or how the Anna Nicole burial custody is going, but they have no idea how to hedge their assets. Oh well, it's only money and Anna Nicole had some really nice boobs.

PS: For you uninformed who thought that the drop was caused by computers. Yes computers were doing the trading, but the huge drop was caused by a computer that couldn't keep the index updated and when it finally did, it showed the REAL drop. It had been -500 all along. The spike was when the backup computer was put into play and helped out. Don't believe the media, do your own DD

Update: Sold out puts at $1.00 on stop looking for reentry.

you better make it so I can frickin read it. Most of you know , but for those of you who don't, CAPTCHA are those curvy little letters or numbers at the bottom of the page that you have to type in to submit or enter things on a given web page. I completely understand the reasoning behind them and I'm not against their use but could Reddit make the thing any harder to read?
I am going to lose my eyesight or have permanent squint wrinkles from trying to figure out if that is a capital J or a small j. And that reminds me. NO more letters that look the same in lower case and small case, no "j" no "l" and no "s". Those I find very difficult. I think the computer might actually have a better chance of getting it right that I do. Tonight I had to retype 7 or 8 times the darn Captcha entry . I spend 3 extra minutes just because I wanted to tell someone that I enjoyed their article on "The art of cooking onions" .

Digg got rid of Captcha and opened up the comments section and look what happened. OK, that's not a good example, because that turned into a fraternity house (not a bad thing for me but some don't like it) . They also moved to a CAPTCHA with better spacing in contrast to a ton of sites that act like they pay for captcha by the square inch and are trying to keep the spaced used to a minimum. Others have made CAPTCHAs that are much easier to use and even fun. I like the idea of Hotcaptcha. They take random pictures and have you pick out the hot girl. They certainly could make a something like what is (a random number) plus the number of cats you see.? Of course you would have to be able to add and speak English and both seem to be a problem in America right now.

I don't care what people do to stop the bots but someone needs to come up with a simple, EASY TO SEE, system so that I type in my stupid comments without having to bring in my seven year old daughter to translate the "bot stopper"

I'm pretty sure most of you don't care but I'm going to tell you anyway. After talking to Brian on the phone the other day I realized I need to add swimming to my routine. I am not a strong swimmer and if I want to eventually do an Ironman I better hit the pool a couple times a week. I picked a bad week to start.

I have a 28 mile race on Saturday which is a "drop out at any point you want to" kind of race. In other words, it is held in a forest preserve in the dead of winter and can be terrible weather. Because of this, it is quite acceptable to call it a day at any time and not be made fun of. Last year I called it quits at 18. I vowed to do the whole thing this year. Unfortunately the swimming has taken more out of me than I thought. I could barely swim 100 meters the first half hour. I finally slowed my stroke down, worked on my technique and I can swim 400 meters without stopping. For most swimmers this sucks, for me it is fantastic. I absolutely love it and can't wait to become a strong enough swimmer to swim a mile without stopping .

I am not training very hard because it's frickin cold outside but I still run or swim every day. I only get 30 miles or so in each week and two days of swimming so I may suffer greatly Saturday. I've already loaded up my walkman for 5 hours of music because I plan on walking 8 miles. No way I am muddy marathon trained. A healthy body leads to a healthy mind but a dead body leads to a dead mind as well. Wish me luck.

I had a little episode that was a bit embarrassing the other day. Optionsxpress, who is my favorite broker and the one I personally use, bought a "hive" at blogads. I have been put in the hive of stock market bloggers. I really don't fit in that category but as random as I am, I really don't fit in any category. Back to the story

Optionsxpress buys this hive which puts an ad in every blog that is part of this group. When optionsxpress sees my site they decided to pull the ad. Evidently they don't like the boobs and girls as much as I do. I forget how they put it, something along the lines of being too "spicy" or something. I still get paid for the ad (if optionsxpress pays their bill to blogads) but I still feel bad. I spent over $20,000 in commissions with optionsxpress and thousands again this year. I guess I don't have the image they are trying to portray but my money is clean. . What all the other bloggers don't realize is the only reason optionsxpress bought the hive is they saw the numbers a week after my "tattoos" story came out and it got 350,000 page impressions that day alone. When they saw the blogads hive with all those hits and at such a cheap price they jumped on it. Now don't get me wrong all the other blogs in my adgroup are much much better blogs than mine and much more stock oriented, but advertisers see page impressions AND quality of viewers (mine is the numbers part) . So all you guys that have an optionsxpress ad on your site, glad I could help but when you see the nice looking girls on my site please throw me a dollar.