We bring you an interesting blog post about how to never retire, more nasty Wells Fargo crap, best article of the week about our online distraction madness, Zach interviews Hillary and nothing more, that’s it!
TBB Blog Mission: To Entertain. Educate. Inspire. In That Order!
Another quick weekend post here in San Diego.
A few posts that really stood out for me in this lovely Sunday. Sometimes I like to take a break from the crazy world of miles & points world. Blog was started to make an impact, to change the world. Ok, must be the alcohol from the parties lol.
Want to age well – how about never retiring? Must read post. Hey, everything I post here is a must read. To me anyways. Not sponsored by Bankrate or anyone else for that matter! 🙂
Between Two Ferns With Zach Galifianakis: Hillary Clinton Insanely hilarious again!
What a comment by Claire (and discovered by Steve ) in the Personal Finance Digest about the crap done in Wells Fargo back in 2014, wow!
Wells Fargo could never offer me enough to get any of their products. When my father was in hospice someone there opened an account in his name that never had any money deposited in it. Nevertheless, they charged monthly fees to this account even after he passed away. Then they offset these fee amounts against my account because he had put my name on his real account, the only account that EVER had any funds in it, to pay his bills for him. After I thought I had it cleared up, they started in all over again months after his death and threatened to “ding” my credit report. This whole time they kept refusing to talk to me because only his name was on this phony account that some dishonest employee probably opened surreptitiously to get a commission or bonus.
Nevertheless, the stock has done very well. How can this be?
My favorite movie in the past few years is Ex-Machina. And guess what? It was filmed in Norway in this hotel! Sadly no hotel points can be burned to stay here for freeeeeee!
And now for the most fascinating article I read this week. I started reading it while I was in a conference session that almost put me to sleep and I am too nice to walk out in the middle of it.
I am seeing this walking around this blogging conference, everyone glued to their phones like zombies. All talk about increasing followers, adding email list subscribers, podcasting, doing videos. doing something called Periscope, Snapchat like my kids do, apparently Facebook live is cool too, texting that has pretty much replaced conversations, paper books dying…and on and on and on. Just a few selected excerpts, take your time to read and reevaluate what you are doing. All the “successful” bloggers out there most likely paid or have been paying a very steep price for their success. Oh, and never let anyone, redefine what YOU define what success is!
We absorb this “content” (as writing or video or photography is now called) no longer primarily by buying a magazine or paper, by bookmarking our favorite website, or by actively choosing to read or watch. We are instead guided to these info-nuggets by myriad little interruptions on social media, all cascading at us with individually tailored relevance and accuracy.
Just look around you — at the people crouched over their phones as they walk the streets, or drive their cars, or walk their dogs, or play with their children. Observe yourself in line for coffee, or in a quick work break, or driving, or even just going to the bathroom. Visit an airport and see the sea of craned necks and dead eyes. We have gone from looking up and around to constantly looking down.
Think of how rarely you now use the phone to speak to someone. A text is far easier, quicker, less burdensome. A phone call could take longer; it could force you to encounter that person’s idiosyncrasies or digressions or unexpected emotional needs. Remember when you left voice-mail messages — or actually listened to one? Emojis now suffice. Or take the difference between trying to seduce someone at a bar and flipping through Tinder profiles to find a better match. One is deeply inefficient and requires spending (possibly wasting) considerable time; the other turns dozens and dozens of humans into clothes on an endlessly extending rack.
Has our enslavement to dopamine — to the instant hits of validation that come with a well-crafted tweet or Snapchat streak — made us happier? I suspect it has simply made us less unhappy, or rather less aware of our unhappiness, and that our phones are merely new and powerful antidepressants of a non-pharmaceutical variety.
The mania of our online lives reveals this: We keep swiping and swiping because we are never fully satisfied. The late British philosopher Michael Oakeshott starkly called this truth “the deadliness of doing.” There seems no end to this paradox of practical life, and no way out, just an infinite succession of efforts, all doomed ultimately to fail.
And its threat is not so much to our minds, even as they shape-shift under the pressure. The threat is to our souls. At this rate, if the noise does not relent, we might even forget we have any.
And I leave you with this…TBB attempts to monetize lol.
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Periscope is amazing. In short, it allows you to broadcast live on the ‘net whatever you are watching. After you download the free app, you use the map it has to look for people broadcasting from anywhere in the world. Bad video, worse audio, but people get hooked.
Bruce Springsteen fans got into it during his just-ended tour. When the Boss played Europe and the shows started in mid-afternoon in the USA, a few people were even leaving work early to go home and watch. BTW, it’s all free.
I went to the play 1984 in London a few days ago. It follows the book (written in 1949), and portrays the terrifying world where all thought is known and controlled. At one point, the government leader said “…people who can’t lift their heads from watching little screens”. I looked down our row to my left and-you guessed it-a woman in her 20s was sending a text.
I think I tried it once but video came upside down and then I just never went back to it. Lots about video and podcasts in this conference. I have never listened to a podcast…ever!
Something profound is happening to our reality these days…and I don’t think it’s good.
How many in a row do I need for lifetime gold?
It’s okay Brenton, no doubt you can start another streak 🙂
Until I see a photo finish I’m calling it a tie for first.
Going for more than lifetime bronze
OK, so I just returned home from Jordan. I taking the hike into Petra and the guy in front of me (age 27) was fixated on his phone as he walked. Get out from behind these screens people!
In Petra and fixated on the phone…wow, that is so sad!
Great article I used to be a human being. It reminds why I’m so excited about these trips to remote places. A lot of my $ job is being connected, on the road is where I disconnect. This is even considered an offense by my boss who believes I need to be reachable due to me being important in the structure. So yes there is no retirement (another article) as our projects continue but there is retirement from this BS as soon as we can afford it.
If you were at this conference you would find many blogging about retiring early and how to do it by…clicking on their links lol.
Okay, not all of course…
Even the ones who did it….they are back doing something….just gotta find what THAT is…
Wells Fargo – their 5% 6 month card allowed me in 2013 to pay down about $3k of my mortgage. Their Proper card gave me $400 + $100 of SW GC the first year, the second year they never paid my $100 and I downgraded. They suck but at least some of us milked them.
Milking…
Oh man, was there some mega milking done or what? Could not have happened to a better bank 🙂
It was the glory days of VGCs at CVS with Bluebirds. Many CVS around here, buying usually $2k per location. Wells Fargo even temporarily restricted my account because of recycling the CC line but it was at month 7 when I stopped because the 5% promo ended 🙂
Two things, George:
1. That comment was actually by Claire. Steve was the one who brought it to my attention.
2. Are we going to get a FinCon review? I thought about going last year when it was in Charlotte but I got the feeling it was directed at people who wanted to be the next Points Guy of home budgeting or whatever. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that, just not my cup of tea.)
1. Fixed.
2. Correct. There were some sessions that had some things I learned of course. But the biggest benefit of these conferences is due to networking of course. I met so many I knew only online.
It amazes me how wrong people are when they meet me in real life…they have this perception of permanently angry TBB ranting dude lol.
Andrew Sullivan mainstreamed racist pseudoscience. F–k him. Won’t read any of his emulsions.
Ok, you do that.
But, imho, this was a phenomenal piece!
Last week I’m driving down the Eisenhower in Chicago near end of morning commute and look over at the car next to me. I see a guy with a tablet attached to his steering wheel texting while he’s driving. He nearly rear ended the car in front of him three times in just under a mile! Its really out of control.
Wow…shaking my head to oblivion….
Sometimes I like to approach and hunk the horn. You can see cool reactions.
Ever read Fahrenheit 451, think Mildred, and the disconnect to reality, numbing the mind to the endless and pointlessness of it all.