I bring you eclectic content I find online such as how the west lost Covid, visit Lake Baikal, we need short selling, TBB blog evolves again, we go back to Kesen, Japan ten years after the tsunami, watch a dad talk about his daughter, watch some really high diving and freak out, learn money lessons, the Beeple dude in a podcast is actually a really nice guy, the vaccines are amazing, the pandemic tolls through history, see owls fly, awesome photography and a lot more!
TBB Blog Mission: To Educate. Entertain. Inspire. In That Order!
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BLOG HOUSEKEEPING
This blog has been publishing regularly since November 2012. It has evolved numerous times. If I was not enjoying it I would have quit years ago. In its continued evolution, I am detailing some steps of yet more evolution to take place in the BLOG BUZZ section below. It is amazing how many blogs I have outlasted! It takes a special kind of a crazy person to still blog regularly for so long when the monetary rewards are so few. Ever since I got vaccinated I am filled with gratitude. For everything! I am blessed for so many things, including you reading reading this right now!
This blog will continue. It will double down on being even more eclectic. The mission to Educate, Entertain and Inspire has NEVER wavered. The show goes on…for now. Enjoy every post that appears, it really is a labor of love.
TBBon!
TOP PICKS
Top picks are reserved for truly exceptional content.
We talked here about how in the world the richest more advanced countries managed to totally screw up the Covid response. This article provides some clues, the paywalled link is HERE. The link below escapes the paywall (but not for all):
Genes can be weird. It is not black and white, regardless what your religions tells you. This is a must watch video:
This is insane, do NOT watch if you are afraid of heights. I had no idea this was a thing, wow!
The 1983 World Record High Dive Competition was Absolutely Mad
TRAVEL
Kesen, A Village Erased. This is in Japan after the 2011 tsunami. It was very surreal to watch some of those videos and I can not imagine being there! Link at Archive.is.
Lake Baikal in Russia looks great. For Russians in a Pandemic, Lake Baikal Is the Place to See and Be Seen. Here is another link to it.
PERSONAL FINANCE
I do not do any short selling. In my own portfolio. And in my clients’ portfolios. Why? Because we can lose our shirts! I always admired this group of investors who take a lot of shit. I am not talking about unscrupulous naked short sellers who rip on a company to drive its stock price lower, those are just horrible human beings. But the brave ones who do this out of very strong convictions to expose frauds. And they have. For years. And we should be thankful for them. After this long intro, I really enjoyed this brave article: In defense of the misunderstood short seller.
I really enjoyed this podcast with the Beeple dude who sold his digital art for $69 Million. It is really informative on what this shit is all about too: The $69 Million JPEG.
Totally LOVED this, found here.
COVID-19
Must read interview of Dr. Ashish K. Jha at The New Yorker. These vaccines work, let’s not screw this up too! Life After Vaccination.
There is a lot of room here for Covid-19, oh the horror, the horror! Visualizing the World’s Deadliest Pandemics by Population Impact.
ODDZ & ENDZ
Amazing! How Does an Owl Fly So Silently?
Winners of The Annual Mobile Photography Awards.
MILES & POINTS
HOT CREDIT CARD OFFERS: 75k CHASE Ink Cash, 75k CHASE Ink Unlimited, 100k CHASE Ink Business Preferred, 60k CHASE Sapphire Preferred, 60k CITI Premier, 65k CITI Business AA Platinum Select, 50k CITI AA Platinum Select, 20k CHASE Freedom Flex & CHASE Freedom Unlimited, 75k AMEX Platinum, 85k AMEX Business Platinum, 50k CHASE World of Hyatt, 150k AMEX Hilton Business & Hilton Surpass (and $150 credit!), 100k AMEX Hilton Card (and $100 credit!), 150k AMEX Hilton Aspire, $300 AMEX Blue Cash Preferred, $300 AMEX Blue Cash Everyday, 140k CHASE IHG Rewards Club Premier, and many more! Please use my Affiliate links.
If you do not see a credit card with my affiliate links, perhaps I could refer you? Contact me!
This section is about my hobby addiction of collecting frequent flyer miles and hotel points since the early 1990’s! Feel free to skip this section and parts of the next one if this is not for you.
Newbies: The hobby of this section is travel hacking. We earn frequent flier miles and points to travel around the world for free or for a fraction of what it costs. Many of these miles/points are earned by taking advantage of regular marketing offers of travel rewards credit cards by US banks. There is NOTHING illegal, it is just marketing expense for the banks because many of their targets who get roped into a travel rewards credit card because of a shiny lucrative bonus end up not handling their credit well and…paying egregious interest and fees to the bank for years. Do NOT be that guy! Instead, focus on a lucrative signup bonus offer, do the requirements, collect the thousands of miles and points and burn them on traveling the world. Of course it is not so easy as commercial blogs make it look like so they can sell more of these bank products that come with fat sales commissions. Of course they will never tell you that, be careful out there, YOU are the target!
Marriott Bonvoy points are not very attractive. This is NOT what to say if you want to sell plastic for your blog lol. But Amex came out with good offers on the AMEX Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant card and AMEX Marriott Bonvoy Business card. If you decide to go for them please consider supporting the blog, thank you.
I am trying to cut down the number of hotel programs I regularly collect points with. IHG Rewards is one of them. Nothing wrong with them, just better alternatives out there and I am at a point in my life I really need to keep simplifying it. Here is a good complete guide of IHG Rewards.
Good reference post in case you need to do some credit line shifting around: Rules For Each Bank: How To Move, Shift, Or Transfer Credit Limit Between Cards.
BLOG BUZZ
We are now entering BLOG BUZZ, a section for advanced hobbyists and veterans of this fast imploding hobby and also a section where I go on and on about some stuff that happens in my life because it helps me feel better about myself.
Good advice here for travel hacking veterans, stay alive do not get shut down! Weekend bit of wisdom.
There will likely be less blog posts going forward. And the posts will likely be smaller, no more than three links in each section. I have taken some action steps behind the scenes to help me continue blogging for you. And for me.
Second day after my Pfizer vaccine dose #1 and the arm soreness has completely gone away.
I am still not running. But walking a lot more, 4 miles a day at least. I wanted to at least start jogging but my physical therapist said not yet. I listen to her…something I should have done in the past as I am just too impatient in general. But not for blogging where my stamina shows woohoo!
I tweeted this yesterday, lol: Just had haircut after 9 months and I highly recommend this technique to lose #weight!
And I leave you with this…
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First!
And…last?
3rd by the time I hit send
Good morning Buzz, thanks for the post and update on the vaccine.
Have a great weekend!
Enjoy the weekend too…Still cold here but it is warming up.
Good morning!
Thanks for the link on short selling piece. How else is fraud detection incentized? I’m too lazy to rewrite that sentence.
One of the plenary papers at the conference considered the.move back to worry about monopoly and power. Your adventure with Amazon is far from unique.
Just a few minutes ago:
Daughter: I am going to Whole Foods to get milk.
Me: No, you are not!
Touche Buzz
So did Amazon say why they pulled the plug on you? Not enough biz or someone did something bad or..? If you don’t want to say that is cool, just that it seems sudden and a bit mysterious.
Me, I have been eBaying off and on (mostly on) for about 24 years but am pulling the plug myself this month. They just keep grabbing more and more and making it tougher, so adios. Heck, I am retired already since 2008, anyhow! Time to spend more time *being* retired!
Take it easy on the legs and listen to your PT person! They know their stuff! Got my first shot Wednesday, too! Wheee!
OH geez, you already explained that 2 days ago. Still in a fog here. Never mind…. time for another nap, I guess!
One more evolution in the blog. I am dropping the Top Pick section because, let’s face it, everything is going to be a Top Pick going forward.
I miss the Amazon conversions a little but it was that extra push I needed to eliminate so much crap in my life and simplify it. I would say half of the time I spent producing this blog was just eliminated and it feels great, thanks Bezos!
The queue for next post contains only four items. And the to read queue is only 3 items long. Ok, I have 6 “to read” items in Feedly alone. Combined, on Friday night, it is only 13 items long and that has NEVER happened before in the history of the blog, YES!
Eclectic TBBing magic I say!
You all have a great weekend.
Great stuff as always George.
Thinking if travelling to Greek islands when things go back to normal. But it seems everybody will be travelling after COVID so need some advise on less touristy/crowded islands!
Keep up the good work
Thanks!
Best site to research travel to Greece:
https://www.greecetravel.com/index.html
At the present vaccination rate Greece reaches herd immunity around 2061. Cases going way up, ICUs are full, civil unrest growing and government scrambling to save tourism season #2. The place is phucked up, always was. Speed and organizational discipline were never a Greek thing you know…
It is hard to go wrong with Crete, it is so big that you will find something you like. Santorini and Mykonos are well known tourist traps, first great for say honeymoons and the second for gays and night life. Maybe easier to fly/escape in the other side closer to Italy, like Corfu and Zakynthos. Paros is a nice island that will give you that Aegean sea feeling and it is not like the two famous one. Ios and Antiparos are the party islands, oh man, some memories back in the day. I need to retire there when The Points Guy buys me out 🙂
Why are COVID cases going up so quickly in MI? People returning from spring break in FL?
I think it is a combination of two factors: Extreme Covid fatigue and new variant(s). But what do I know, I am just an amateur epidemiologist like everyone else these days!
All I know is vaccinations ARE happening, thanks Biden. Daughter identified a pharmacy in Ada, Ohio and got first Moderna shots with a few classmates, going back in a month for 2nd dose. Son in Honolulu has been lining up for leftovers for four days straight, finally got lucky yesterday, got 1st Pfizer shot. Wife received text from Meijer (I had registered her some time ago), followed the prompts and booked appointment this Monday at a store just 2 miles away. Not sure which one, but said first dose so I doubt it is Johnson & Johnson. We are on our way to be fully vaccinated in my household, hooray!
At the same time, I can not help but feel there is WAY too much exuberance (do I sound like Alan Greenspan?) around with lifting restrictions and people spending again and, I wonder, if the virus has something else up its sleeve…
Developing.
Knocked out another blog from Feedly, the list casualty is 39 now. It is great!
Still looking for the third cc conversion this month…If this revenue source ends too it is going to be the end because I can not pretend this is a real “business” anymore lol. Come on guys, help me from moving to Boarding Area posting such earth shattering stuff like how someone bit an ear off on a plane or how a maskless weirdo created a scene…with SHOCKING videos, sigh!
I missed the Amazon part the other day too, but if it’s a positive, then good for you Buzz.
Sad about Greece, they were handling the virus so well in the beginning and it looked like a meaningful turning point for the country. I too can hardly wait to go to Greece again once things settle down…making me hungry just thinking about the return.
We’re still waiting patiently for the shot in Tucson, soon we’re told. I fear a serious increase in our country due to the newer variants. Would be a nice change to have full cooperation from all citizens…haha, funny right? Not funny.
Do you know if you will have the links for the increased bonuses on csp/csr? We’ll try for 3 new cards in the next few days.
Awesome post, the video of the diving competition, epic. And great article with Dr Jha.
Have a great weekend George!
We are rolling in vaccines here in Michigan. And Ohio. And oh, also rolling in variants it appears too…something we have not done well in this country…tracking the variants that is (among other things)
Greece has ALWAYS had a governance problem. I posted some years ago two posts about how schizophrenic the country can be. Most of the demonstrations happening, half of them, are in support of a notorious killer of the November 17 terrorist group who was on a hunger strike…we have a saying…only in Greece.
I should have csp/csr links here. If not in the hard to find/locate them affiliate links…I would almost certainly have referral links so please hold on, you can be third and fourth this month! The blogosphere will have an orgy selling them, I mean, they are going bananas about the crappy Marriott Bonvoy cards now…yikes but what’s new hey?
I eliminated half of the time spent reading/preparing for the next TBB Buzz post here and it is GREAT! I am being very eclectic on what I read to consider what makes it through my highly eclectic screens 🙂 Have most of Monday’s post in already. Also trying very hard to limit no more than three links per section. I think I can easily do two posts per week this way. Maybe I do three if I get some click love…I am still counting on all the TBB readers to help me reverse the TPG momentum…Ok, what time is it? LOL time.
Finally starting to warm up here, have a great weekend!
George,
Congrats on getting the vaccine made by Pfizer, the maker of Viagra. If they can raise the dead they can prevent Covid.
My additions to the VERY good “Some things I’ve learned about money.”:
Your real estate agent does not have fiduciary responsibility.
Inflation only matters on a personal level.
Son got Pfizer too, daughter got Moderna. If wife gets Moderna on Monday…maybe it is a true conspiracy!
My home you have been to…was formerly owned by two Pfizer scientists who moved to the East coast back in late 2007 when Pfizer left Ann Arbor. The company has been good to me…hope it continues!
Good additions too!
Thanks as always for the fun read. I find interesting things to read on my own but you always manage to find something unique, entertaining, and educating and inspiring! Keep it up! Hope you’re back to running soon. I’ve been on the elliptical a lot lately, decided to only watch the YouTube if I’m on it, so helped with getting a bit of exercise, and also cutting down on YouTube! Less is more, I think you’re saying the same thing! 🙂
Thank you. I am trying to keep it up…the latest cleansing prompted by a douche move by Bezos to take me out in its Amazon Affiliate program turned into a positive for me because I no longer bother with up to 50% of the crap I was drowning in, so it is all good. Everything appearing in my blog will now be a Top Pick, doubling down on being eclectic. The support clicks will follow…or so they said, still waiting for that 🙂
Yes, less is more. I just deleted one dead account in Award Wallet, went from 107 to 106, progress! 🙂