Life change

I wish to change my life, but I do not know how. This always happens when I am out of work, I get the urge to do something but I don't know what it is. I want to change the world, or at least my world but I don't know what to change, it's weird. When I look at everything there is really nothing to change I live a good life and there is really nothing to it, I just feel like I should be doing something other then sitting around doing nothing.
On another note it is a Friday and I am trying to think of something to do. At times like this I like to think about what other people would be doing on a Friday. The average seems to be either going out to a bar/club or nothing. This is an odd dilemma I do not know what to do, see for me being out of work a Friday has no more significance then a Monday, but I still feel like I should be doing something Friday nightish. Odd, very odd.
Anyway back to something other then my ramblings of what I should do with my life. I have come up with an idea for a summer project. I will read a book every week and a half and review it. This is more to keep my brain working then anything because I don't want to go back to school and find that my mind has atrophied. I have also made a resolution for next summer and that is to take summer courses. I enjoy university and these 2 months without education have made me feel like I am missing something, so next summer I will work part time and go to school. There it is in writing, so now I have to do it. Oh and don't hold me to that week and a half book thing because some books might take longer to read or I might be busy blah blah blah. Until tomorrow stay busy living your effective lives my dear readers.

Other money making ways

Yesterday I suggested a highly risky thing, day trading. This is not recommended unless you know what you are doing. After some more research into it I found that if you don't know what you are doing then day trading is basically as effective a way to make money as buying lottery tickets. So just a word of warning (I am reconsidering it myself). So I have been racking my fragile little mind for other ways to make money without a job. It is always fun to make money from doing little if any work. So far I have come up with ebay selling, penny finding, and starting an online store.
Now I know that making money on the internet is almost impossible, hell it might be more effective to buy a lottery ticket. However I have been thinking of creating a physical store for a while and that is a lot of work to do while still in school (when summer is over). So an online store might be better, only problem is that the online market is saturated and getting your name out is pretty hard. For my physical store front I was thinking coffee shop (impossible online) that sold fair trade coffee along with hemp products and vegan foods. Basically a hippie hang out, because I have a feeling that hemp and socially responsible products are going to get pretty big.
Long and short maybe I will start an online store that sells socially and environmentally responsible clothing, shoes and other products. Meh we will see this is more of a pipe dream then anything I have no idea where to begin anyway. Like I would have to find suppliers, have a stable and effective e-commerce site and organize it all into something coherent. I guy can dream though.

Stocks

Well long time no see. Anyway I have a new job working as a wading pool guard for the city of Toronto (all the full time lifeguard positions required an instructor certificate and mine has expired). Because of this I am currently out of a job as the city is on strike and according to all major news outlets the negotiations are not going well. In fact it looks like I am going to be on strike for quite a while, which means I am essentially out of a job. Now I could go picket to make 200 bucks a week, or I could get up to a crazy money making scheme.
Now since I was a young lad stocks have interested me very much. Mostly they interested me because I can make a lot of money off them with very little work (not entirely true but if your a lucky person it could be). So I was on my bank account web page today and realized that through other schemes and the such I have amassed 1000 dollars. I was going to go the safe route and lock it into a guaranteed income thing, but stocks seem a lot more fun.
So without further pause I am announcing my money making scheme, day trading. This is a process where you buy a stock in the morning and sell it in the afternoon (roughly). Now to do this properly you must sell even if you lost money, day trading does not leave room for sitting on stocks. It is the most volatile and risky type of trading and I am a guy who likes risk.
Now all that is left is for me to read a few books on trading, look at a few interweb articles on the topic and find a cheap web broker. Hopefully after that money will move fast and in a few weeks I will be a billionaire. I'll keep you posted my non-existent readers.

No Post

Well if there is anyone still out there they are probably wondering what happened to me. Let me try to asplane. I got a job, this job is very physically demanding (like lifting 100 pound stones all day demanding) and having not worked a job like this my whole life I have been fried. I get home too tired to do anything except eat and watch tv. It is a good job and has made me a lot stronger but it has left very little time for anything. I work 7 days a week with my shortest day being 5 hours long. It is kind of hard to find time. So that is where I have been. I'm in it for the money and frankley there is more money in my back breaking job then there is in blogging. So to my loyal readers I apologize and fear not for this blog is not dead. I will be done my current job in 2 weeks at which point I will resume lifeguarding which will give me time to think about blog posts and not have me so tired by the end of the day that I pass out at my desk. So 2 weeks and this blog will be back in full swing. Until then, stay classey planet earth.

Long Time No Post

Hello anyone who is still reading this humble blog. I have not posted in a long time and for that I am sorry. I have been busy with a new job and many other things that being home from school brings. I hope I still have readers because I do not want this blog to fail and fall into the deep dark recesses of the interwebs.
So interesting thing, I am getting checks from the government in the form of tax returns and stuff. Because I am a student I am getting extra money too, it is very exciting. The other day I was reading the newspaper though and I saw that the Canadian government is entering a 50 billion dollar deficit. So I came up with a funny idea, send my tax return money back to the government with a letter saying that I think they need this more then I do. Ha ha that would be funny, but I am not going to do it. I like having money. Anyway short post today but just wanted to say that I am not dead and neither is this blog.

H1N1, the economic crisis and money

So this is a little rant here bear with me. I have a theory you see, a theory that will probably not blow any one's mind but it's something that has been bugging at me. The two "disasters" that we are currently going through (swine flu and the 'economic crisis') have been made up my the news media. Now when it comes to the economy the news media hasn't created the problem, there is an economic problem, but the media has blow it up. As it usually does with anything and we should all know that, but the media making it look like we are on the brink of the next great depression has only made the problem worse.
If it wasn't for the news making this problem into something a lot bigger then it is then I think some of the side effects would not be as bad. The reason it is so hard to get a job is because the media has made it look like we are all going to be jobless in a few months so everyone that has a job is holding on and everyone that hires is looking to save money but not hiring. The thing is the extent of the economic problems is not as large as the news would have you believe. Or economy is not a true capitalism and neither is that of the rest of the world, and because of this a huge horrible depression is almost impossible. We learned from the great depression and have modified our system to be a lot stronger.
Sure a lot of people have lost their jobs, but that has more to do with globalization, outsourcing and terrible management. That and unions that have no clue. If people want to keep working at a car factory for example then they have to recognize that no one wants shitty cars anymore and that they should be willing to take a hit in pay to keep their job. Because that is what it comes down to, take a pay hit or lose your job and people don't realize this until they lose their job because they didn't want to lose a few buck pay. Moving on.
H1N1, this is the biggest media created disaster I can remember. Here are some facts for you: Regular influenza kills on average 100 000 people a year, H1N1 has killed 53 people since it started. There is only one reason why people are worried about this flu, the media. You are better off getting h1n1(aka swine flu) then the regular flu. You are statistically more likely to die if you get the regular flu then if you get h1n1. So yah just had to get that off my chest.
Now one more thing, how to weather the coming global economic collapse followed by the mass deaths caused by h1n1. Save money outside banks, because if the banks go down they are taking your money with them. So save all your cash in an envelope under your mattress. Also make sure you stock up on canned food and shovels. The food so you can eat when the stores are looted clean and the shovels so you can bury your family after they die from swine flu. Or just stop watching the news and the world will start to seem like a much safer place. That's my crazy bad grammar, bad spelling rant. Hope it entertained you for a few minutes.

Angry Dog/cat

Just in case there was some confusion as to my advice the other day here are some handy pictures that will let you know what an angry dog and/or cat looks like.

This is and angry cat, note the fang like needle sharp teeth.



This is an angry dog note the way it looks like it wants to kill you.

Well that should clear up any confusion and make my life advice better.

Email

Now I know everyone has some form of email out there. As in everyone reading this must have an email account of some type and I was thinking today as I deleted 75 junk messages and read the 3 relevant emails that a person's in box is in some way a reflection of their personality. Now I do not know if this has been done before, but I am gonna try to think of the different types of in box out there, and maybe analyze them.
I know personally that my in box is messy as all hell. I delete junk mail without opening it and the emails that I read never get deleted because I read them and move onto the next. So my in box is like 700 read emails that there is no reason for keeping and 3 emails that maybe might be important. I think that this says a lot about me personally, I am a lazy messy person and my in box reflects this laziness and messiness. I am also the kind of person who never throws something away, and the only things I delete in my email are junk mails. Now time to think of other possible in box types...this is actually probably going to be boring because the only other type I can think of is one that is opposite to mine. Hmmmmm, okay loyal readers I ask you (if you have the time) to comment on what your in box is like and see if it reflects you in real life. I might have a pretty viable theory here, maybe something that can fit into my classes on technology and its cultural impacts and reflections.
Sooooooooo, in todays tidbit of advice let us go into the feild of life advice. I am the grand old age of 19 so I probably have some valid advice in this area (that was sarcasim). I am going to try anyway: if a dog looks angry it probably is, if the dog is big and angry do not try to pet it because dogs have sharper teeth then you would think. I guess the same goes for cats, except a cat can't almost kill you. Well that is that until next time stay the opposite of sober.

Roadrash

So my longtime (3 week) readers will know that I enjoy long boarding. Well I am not that great at long boarding and the other day I decided to take a cruise down one of the steepest hills in my neighborhood, bad idea. I got some killer speed wobble and hit a crack and it was over from there. The whole left side of my body is road rash its fun. I don't regret it though, it was fun while it lasted and I learned that I will have to work up to killer hills. It reminded me that if you fall you can pick yourself up and try again or just walk away, and its a lot more fun to try again. There is something important and relevant in that I just don't know what. Maybe like if you fail at something financial you can give up or try again, or if you fail at school, I guess it applies to anything. Well that's my quick post for the day and I will get pictures when I get a camera. Until then a youtube video of long boarding.

Gainful Employment

So after weeks of searching in vain I finally found a job. I am still broke but that will hopefully change once the money starts moving in. The odd thing is that I am kind of skeptical about this job, it seems too sudden. I guess I had just resigned myself to a life of unemployment and now that I am working it feels weird. I have been scammed by jobs in the past and am therefore worried that this might be a scam (its a small family run business). By scam I mean I am slightly worried that I won't get paid, but we will of course have to wait and see.
On that note I give a list of way to avoid getting scammed by your employer.
1.) If it is a big company and you are legally working for them then do not worry because if they do anything to you it will hurt their company image too much so they won't risk it.

2.) Do a google search on the company. Scroll down and look through a few pages of results looking for anything negative about the company.

3.) Pay attention to how they plan on paying you and when. If they pay you at the end of each month you have a lot more to lose if the check doesn't go through.

4.) Talk to any long time employees of the company. Chances are that if people have been working their a few years then they are a decent employer.

5.) If you hear anything along the lines of checks bouncing, people not getting paid the right amount or anything like that be ready to leave and possibly take a hit. The money you might lose will be smaller then if you continue to work and still end up not getting paid.

Well those are my suggestions, if you have any ideas of your own please leave a comment.

Insomnia

So I can't sleep tonight, just adjusting to normal schedule I guess. Anyway I present to you loyal non-existent reader a rant. Insurance, I want to start an insurance company. It seems like the best friggin way to make money, people pay you money and the only thing you have to do is pay for their bills if something happens to go wrong. The best part is people are forced to pay you by the government. I think that if everyone just put all the money they pay in insurance into a savings account that they only used when they needed the money for an accident or something then they would have a lot more money to spend on stuff. Like at least that way people would be in control of their money. Anyway I want to start an insurence company, everyone send me 50 bucks a month and if something bad happens ill send you a hundred bucks (you just have to pay me a 50 doller deductable). All my money problems are solved.

New food: Vietnamese Beef And Lettuce Curry

I made this a few days ago and let me tell you personally it is amazing. Just thinking about it is making my mouth water, it was so good. Best part is that its cheap and easy to make, and it tastes better then ordering food. So I think this works well for a student to make because 1.) its cheap and 2.) it tastes good and 3.) there are a lot of left overs so you can have dinner for like a week. Without further stalling here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

1 cup uncooked long grain white rice 2 cups water 5 teaspoons white sugar 1 clove garlic, minced 1/4 cup fish sauce 5 tablespoons water 1 1/2 tablespoons chile sauce

1 lemon, juiced 2 tablespoons vegetable oil 3 cloves garlic, minced 1 pound ground beef 1 tablespoon ground cumin 1 (28 ounce) can canned diced tomatoes 2 cups lettuce leaves, torn into 1/2 inch wide strips

Directions:

1.	In a pot, bring the rice and water to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer 25 minutes.
2.	In a bowl, mash together the sugar and 1 clove garlic with a pestle. Mix in the fish sauce, water, chile sauce, and lemon juice.
3.	Heat the oil in a wok over high heat, and quickly saute the 3 cloves garlic. Mix the beef into the wok, season with cumin, and cook until evenly brown. Pour in the tomatoes and about 1/2 the fish sauce mixture. Reduce heat to low, and simmer 20 minutes, until thickened.
4.	Toss the lettuce into the beef mixture. Serve at once over the cooked rice with the remaining fish sauce mixture on the side. And here it is your done, enjoy.

Spring Cleaning

So since I have been home I have been toiling away at cleaning my room. My whole life I have been a pack rat keeping the most useless things for no reason other then not wanting to throw them away. I went through all my stuff and ended up with 6 big green garbage bags full and 3 more full of old clothes that I just donated to the salvation army. It has been an adventure to say the least.
So what does this have to do with anything? I guess I could relate it to student life (I am a student and this is something going on in my life) but I think finance is a better thing to relate it to. You see as I cleaned away I found some old used things that I no longer have any use for like: old snowboard bindings, old computer stuff and an old digital camera. I have been thinking and there is definitely some way that I can make money off these things. The bindings I can probably ebay for 20 bucks (they cost 350 new 5 years ago) and the computer and camera stuff I can sell for maybe another 20.
Point is, if you are really short on cash clean your room. You never know what crap you might find that you might be able to pawn on the internet for a few bucks. Now I don't know if I will actually sell any of my crap, but if it works out I will inform you. I still have to post it all, which will be a time consuming process because I want a quality post. I am going to be truthful in the information i post about what I am selling because my goal is not to scam anyone but to make some money legitimately. Well that's it for today, I will post links to my ebay items when I get around to making the ebay posts, until then keep on truckin dear reader, keep on truckin.

Traffic

I'm not talking about the kind of traffic that you get run over by, or the kind you get stuck in for 6 hours, no I'm talking about internet traffic. I have been keeping at this bad boy for about 2 weeks give or take a few days, and my traffic is still zero. I maybe get 3 views a day from people who are not friends or family, and that's a big maybe. See those little gadgety things in the bottom right side of the page those are supposed to help bring traffic to my site, they do not work.
I have done everything I can think of to drive traffic to my site, but nothing seems to work that well. I have told people to come here, I have used those gadget things and nothing, hell I even tried quality posting and that didn't work. I ask you non-existent reader, help me acquire traffic. Digg my blog, thumbs up it in stumbleupon tell random people on msn to check it out, I ask you if you like this blog please help me because I am out of ideas. On the other hand it's not like I'm gonna stop posting if I don't get traffic it just feels like I am talking to a void, an abyss (and its not talking back). Also if you want to, please comment on posts, it makes me happy to see comments even negitive ones.
Now a bit of info, as you can probably tell I am going through an idea dry spell. I do not know what to post about. This is because of my lack of camera hardware and how my inability to take pictures of stuff is making my blog look bare, and also because my brain has entered summer mode. Maybe throught the assistance of certain materials I will do a random post...
Now due to lack of thinking I give you random youtube video yay:

Gardening

Right, so this is pretty off topic for me, but I can make it on topic. So I am starting a vegetable garden (pictures of said garden soon) and my seeds are now huge sprouts. I think this is going to become a new hobby of mine, gardening that is. It is actually pretty fun and easy, all you do is put some seeds in dirt and they grow. It's kinda like playing god on my own micro scale. Once I get a camera I will have pictures of said garden( the picture is not my garden but will do until I get a camera), but until then reasons for growing your own food.


1.) As a student access to healthy food is often limited because for some reason healthy food costs more then junk. So by paying 30 bucks for pots, seeds, soil and a seedling tray you can grow your own healthy food and never run out. If you manage to grow inside and harvest seeds you won't have to pay again.

2.) It's organic(if you want), you can choose how your food is grown. You can decide if you want to use pesticides, if you want to use fertilizer or whatever. You are in control of your food from seed to harvest.

3.) It's a bit of exercise. If you plant outdoors in the spring you have to till the soil, dig a plot, plant, put up fencing to keep critters out. A bunch of activity, now it won't replace going to the gym but it gets you off the couch and doing something enjoyable.

Well that's my rant on why veggie gardening is good for students. I guess it is still irrelevant but I have been on a dry spell for post ideas lately. For those who care/read I am still broke (cashing my change just allowed me to pay my credit cards). However I am no longer starving as I am home feeding off my parents and their well stocked fridge. So now I guess its summer posting time. I have applied at like a million jobs and am now waiting for calls (if i don't get a call in 3 days its follow up time). So that's it, to my non-existent reader base I bid you all good day.

Saving Change

Well I am home now, and after some craziness with unpacking and other welcome home activities I am now settled in. Today I broke open my piggy bank that I have been putting change in for the last year. I sat and counted all my quarters and other loose change for about an hour. At the end of that I had over a hundred dollars all rolled up in little change rolls from the bank. This brought a vision about a new blog post, how to save change.
This sounds like a simple enough endeavor for someone to do, but I am surprised that not that many people do it. All it takes is some self control and a jar and you too can save hundreds of dollars in change.
First thing to do is find a suitable vessel for your change (mine is a old washed out pickle jar) and cut a slot in the lid so you can slide change in.\
Now all you have to do is put change in it and do not take that change out until you are ready to count and deposit it. Every time you come home with change jingling around put it in that jar, do not spend from that jar just deposit. This is where the self control comes in because eventually you will notice all the loonies and toonies in the jar and want to reach in and grab some spending change, don't do this. If you can wait the pay off will be a lot more in the end.
That's basically it, just put change in a jar and do not take it out. Don't spend with change either just bills. Now this is of course not a way to actually make money, but it is a good way to force yourself to save money. I have been doing it for the past 3 years and every cash out has been more then a hundred dollars so it works. Well that's my advice for the day, now back to job hunting.

Lack of posting

Sorry to anyone who has been wondering why there has been a lack of new material lately. I finished my finals on Wednesday and have been busy doing things you do after finishing finals. I probably won't have a new quality post until Monday as I pack up my stuff and move out and unpack my stuff and get resettled. I just want to say that this has been one of the best times of my life. I met some amazing people that I will never forget, they know who they are. Well my loyal and mostly non-existent reader base, this is it until Monday.

Quick Rant

Okay I have a quick and not so unique rant. I don't know for sure but I think 'quick rant' might be an oxymoron. Anyway, this is about something that every somewhat tech savvy person has ranted about at one time or another, DRM. All I can say is that I hate it, I came to this conclusion a a long while ago, but it was made even more clear last night as I fiddled around with my roomies iphone. DRM ruins software and it ruins hardware and in my opinion it is what will eventually bring apple down.
See once all the apple people get over how pretty their hardware looks and how "omg macs kill pc's anyday" (which is a moot argument there are so many differences its basically apples and oranges), they will see what DRM is doing to it. Once all these mac heads with their iphones and i-(insert word here)'s realize that their hardware is the perfect platform for crippling DRM software sales will start to drop. The reason this gets me upset is that were it not for the fact that every mac product is crippled from the beginning they would have some of the best tech out there. It's a shame really, to see a company forced under by software meant to protect its income.
About DRM in general though, it is the most ineffective waste of money thing that a company can do to try and save money. When it comes to pc's, where users have more control, DRM is useless. I think that the hardware and software manufacturers out there need to take a step back and re-evaluate their positions. DRM does not save money and it makes legitimate users suffer. To combat the "losses" that piracy brings companies should try to make quality products that garner consumer gratitude and loyalty. This in my opinion would make people actually want to pay for stuff, of course some still won't, but its better then the current strategy where every customer is treated like a thief.
Well that's my rant, not so short I guess and most likely non-sensicle, but I think that's another characteristic of a rant, aren't they supposed to not make sense?

Re-evaluation

Now I know that this is probably not the norm, to get partially established in something the review and change it. But that is what i am going to do. I am going to alter my main topic from finance to three things. I looked at the name of my blog and that gave me my three topics.
Broke: the first word in the URL this will be finance related stuff (from student perspective).
Starving: this will be food related stuff, such as recipes and pictures of food I want to eat, stuff like that.
Student: these will be posts about student life, interesting things, and random stuff that I think and decide to post, basically misc. posts.
So that's my plan, I am not taking this in a whole new direction, rather I am broadening my topics, should be fun.

Saving in 09

Well since I claim to be a blog about finance I decided to include a video about saving money. Now I know this is not one hundred percent aimed at students, but it could be helpful none the less. Also I hear videos are all the rage on the internet these days so why not include one. I think that this video also acts as a good companion to my post on how to save money. well if you have a slow connection like me and aren't able to watch youtube as it loads the video should be loaded now and ready for watching, enjoy. Also if you like my blog become a follower, if you don't like it tell me why in the comments.