Redirecting

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Paradigm Shift - Live Free or Die!

The Dude chastised me for not posting enough again today. "Buddy - people want to read stuff every day - they don't want to go back every 5 days and have to scroll down for your posts, or find nothing new at all." Yes, yes, but sometimes worthwhile content doesn't jump up and throw itself on my screen every day. Stick with me, folks - you will not be disappointed.

There is big news in the Kid Dynamite household: we are leaving New York City. The change from a duplex townhouse garden apartment in the West Village to a massive house on multiple acres in the outskirts of Concord, New Hampshire will be a paradigm shift, to be sure, but Mrs. Dynamite and I are ready for it. She's been dying to get out of the city for a while, and I would rather try this new avenue than go back to work on the Street in NYC, so, that's the story. Live Free Or Die!

The most popular question is, "What are you going to do?" Well, same thing I've been doing: keep my chiseled physique in peak condition, devour massive amounts of financial information on the internet, act as the financial blogging community's ombudsman/fact checker, and switch to online poker. I hope to eventually start some sort of business - maybe a bar, microbrewery, coffee shop, or indoor soccer arena. Who knows. Oscar is almost certain to appreciate the change of scenery.



We will need a new car - we're looking at small SUV's that will be good in the snow. My mother-in-law raves about her Honda CR-V's handling in the snow, so that's a top contender, along with the Toyota Rav-4, the Subaru Forrester, the Nissan Rogue, and maybe the Hyundai Tuscon. If anyone has experience with any of these cars, please let me know your thoughts. Also, I've found TrueCar as a great source on new car pricing, and Edmunds as an excellent research resource. Are there other must-visit sites when shopping for a car?

I have some quality links today:

1) Dikshit sells most of his stake in Partygaming: I'm a Party shareholder, and this can't be good news. If Barney Frank were making any progress in getting online poker legalized in the US, why would Dikshit abandon ship? The logic in the article that the company needed him to sell his shares because the government doesn't like criminal shareholders is bunk - since his crime was running PartyGaming! Bones liked how the article pointed out the proper pronunciation of Dikshit's name: "Dikshit (pronounced Dix-it)"... yeah sure...

2) Fantastic Esquire article on the magic of the "$20 trick" - an entertaining account of the perks you can obtain by spraying $20's around to the right people

3) John Hussman's weekly note: "The stock market has never been this (intermediate term) overbought"

4) David Einhorn's comments from the Value Investing Conference: straight talk from one of the smartest guys out there, who also expresses himself very well in writing.

-KD

3 comments:

Hammer Player a.k.a Hoyazo said...

Wow KD those are some of the best links I've read in quite a while. Even the $20 Esquire column is a great read. Thanks for those.

And I think the Rav-4 is one of the less safe cars out there, if you care about that kind of thing. Consumer Reports had some good articles on this a couple of years back I believe.

Anonymous said...

You're on the right track with the small SUVs. And I live in Canada, so I know what works in snow. But on the Nissan, can I suggest the Xterra instead of the Rogue? We have a 2000 that has taken a beating (we take it off-roading) and lasted a long time with very little required maintenance. Once it's lived a good long life we will likely replace it with a new Xterra.

Daniel said...

Subaru, hands down. My brother lives in Anchorage, has for 25 years and has owned 2 of them. He has Chesapeakes, skis, hunts, etc. Swears by them.