Did we really just quote some Dickens’ to open this post? A Christmas Carol was always one of my favorite Christmas stories, but that’s not what’s got me thinking about this topic. This week I was trying to clean off some of the broken links from my site in hopes of FINALLY raising my Google Page Rank score in the next update. While running the link checker, I kept noticing the same trend of broken links popping up in the results window: Past personal finance bloggers. Yes, if you really want to bum yourself out, go visit your post archive from about a year ago, and look at the names of the people who used to leave you comments. I was finding that a pretty significant number of them no longer visit my site. I decided to find out why. … [Read more...] about Ghosts of Personal Finance Bloggers Past
Carnivals
Happy Thanksgiving and William Shatner Deep Fried Turkey
Happy Thanksgiving weekend everyone! I hope everyone is enjoying some time off, taking it easy, and loving big helpings of home cooked meals. Within our family, we host Thanksgiving at our house. So Thursday was a pretty big occasion for us. Mrs MMD out-did herself again and cooked an outstandingly delicious assortment of food. While visiting, we also managed to find a pretty hilarious Thanksgiving song. Someone auto-tuned a remix of the William Shatner Deep Fried Turkey public service announcement from last year (which by itself is also kind of ridiculous in its own way). Enjoy: … [Read more...] about Happy Thanksgiving and William Shatner Deep Fried Turkey
How Much Do People Really Do Airport Shopping?
This week I was pretty bad at blogging again; but with good reason. I spent the first part of the week on a business trip in Texas. The weather down there was nice and I had a lot of fun working with my colleagues. But unfortunately when you travel your hours and WiFi availability tend to get pretty spotty, so I didn’t spend as much time online as I normally do. But I was able to make use of my flight time by doodling some much needed future post ideas in a notebook. So with my travels, that brings me to my question: How much airport shopping do people really do? … [Read more...] about How Much Do People Really Do Airport Shopping?
Weekend Wind Down 11/10/2012 – Will Star Wars 7 Suck?
While shopping for Christmas presents last weekend, I was reminded by just how much of an influence Star Wars still is on children. So the news that broke last week with Lucasfilm selling to Disney for $4.05 billion dollars and the immediate plans to proceed with a new Star Wars 7 movie comes as no surprise to me. I have said since the Episode 1-3 trilogy that NOT making Episodes 7-9 would be far too good to pass up. And apparently Disney thought so too! So now the big question: Do you think Star Wars 7 suck? Do you think they’ll stick to the versions that are already written, or go in a completely new direction? Many fans feel as though since Disney will keep George Lucas around as a creative consultant that the movies have a chance of … [Read more...] about Weekend Wind Down 11/10/2012 – Will Star Wars 7 Suck?
Weekend Wind Down 11/03/2012 – Epic Post Next Week
I hope everyone had a great time on Halloween! Ours went pretty well. The kids scaled the neighborhood in about 30 minutes, which was perfect for Mrs MMD since she was freezing her tail off walking them around. The haunted garage was another hit, and I took down a lot of great ideas for next year. My only complaint was that I wish we had had more visitors. Things in our area were a little caught off guard by the cold and rain, but I’m not going to complain since just about anything is better than the mess they had to deal with on the East coast. I will have an epic post next week that will literally melt your eyes out! Your head may possibly also explode. I’m not kidding. If you think you’ve seen the full extent of my “money design” … [Read more...] about Weekend Wind Down 11/03/2012 – Epic Post Next Week
Weekend Wind Down 10/27/2012 – Welcome to the MMD Haunted House!
I can’t wait until Halloween! Last year I raised the bar pretty high. I got the bright idea to go from simply passing out candy to turning my garage into a miniature haunted house. Pretty cool, right? That’s the blueprint on the left. Basically I hang up large black vinyl drop cloths to create a short dark maze, add a lot of flashing lights (purple circles) and smoke from a fog machine, play some scary music in the background, and then add in as many props as I can. Oh yeah, and my Dad occasionally jumps out at you from around the corner (skulls). The haunted house was a big hit last year from small children to adults, so I’ve made several improvements and we’re going full steam ahead again this year. Unfortunately, as much as I'd love … [Read more...] about Weekend Wind Down 10/27/2012 – Welcome to the MMD Haunted House!
Weekend Wind Down 10/20/2012 – Back Home
There is nothing like being back home after a long business trip. This week I was traveling the east side of the country through NY State and then back through Canada. Everything was going smoothly until I hit the 401 highway to come home and got stuck in a wallop of traffic. I could not believe how business the road was on a Friday. Even the service station I stopped at for a quick bite was busier than a mall on Christmas Eve. Who knew that’s where everyone hangs out? … [Read more...] about Weekend Wind Down 10/20/2012 – Back Home
Weekend Wind Down 10/13/2012 – Going to the Lego Kids Fest
We’re going to make the dreams of our two kids come true this weekend by taking them to the promise-land: We’re going to the Lego Kids Fest! If you don’t know what that is, think of something like an “auto show” but everything is made out of Legos. There’s going to be classes from Master Lego builders, a museum, challenges, a huge brick pile, races, etc. My kids might explode when they get there. It’s going to be awesome. … [Read more...] about Weekend Wind Down 10/13/2012 – Going to the Lego Kids Fest
