Ed Icionsub

Have you ever been to an auction? I used to take my son to auctions around town. We’ve been to estate auctions, house and land auctions, liquidation auctions, police autions and the auto auction. Now I’m all excited about online auctions, because online is much more convenient than driving all over town for the local auctions, plus you have a greater variety of items on which to bid.

There is an auction site in the U.K. that has sold high dollar items for a fraction of their retail value, such as an iPod going for just $2. One of the secrets to finding the best deals and rock bottom prices on the internet is to find a newly launching site, because you will have less people bidding against you.

With that in mind, I’ve heard about a new site just about ready to launch, called bidray.com and I’ve already got the site bookmarked. The cool thing about this site is that your first bid of the day is free, and you can raise bids on the items you want by as little as a penny, so these type of auction sites are called Penny Auctions. I like the way they work, like extending the time limit after each bid to allow users a last chance, and they offer free shipping. You can even bid on items using your cellphone if you can’t be in front of your computer all day to monitor your bids. I’m really looking forward to giving this new site a try.

Many years ago the birth of the USA Today newspaper brought huge outcries across America that “The Moonies” were implementing this horrific scheme to brainwash Americans into the Moonie cult. Critics decried the singular point of view from a national newspaper and the perfect platform to write stories that were little more than opinion and advice rather than news, which would mold the minds of the people reading the daily propaganda.

If you take a look at today’s newspapers and the internet homepages, that is exactly what we have now. A small percentage of news and a large dose of opinion, advice and seeds of doubt planted daily.

When the football season is over, the only night that I bother to turn on the television is Thursdays. I like to watch Survivor and the original CSI. Otherwise, I don’t watch much TV and don’t need the television set on sucking away my electricty and brain cells.

This was a conscious and deliberate choice for me. While growing up, television was a major influence on my life and the entire household. There were loud debates about which show to watch on nights when more than one appealing show aired on competing channels in the same timeslot. There were times that personal obligations were not met because of the desire to watch a show (It’s almost over – give me 5 minutes!). There were family nights in front of the TV when we were required to sit as a family unit and be entertained or informed. Eventually, we added additional television sets to the household. Remote controls were invented and assigned to the dominant male in each household. Cable television introduced more adult-oriented shows and the concept of commercial free broadcast. The majority of Americans became willing slaves of the boob tube.

As recently as last year, the primary television was left on,24/7, and became a constant source of noise and eirie blue light emanating from the black box sitting in the place of honor of our living room, our kitchens and bedrooms. Hell, in Las Vegas there was even a 9 inch flat screen TV mounted to the wall of my hotel room’s bathroom.

All of that has changed in my adult single life. I now turn off the TV unless there is a show that I want to watch. I check the schedule for titles and times and if it is convenient, I’ll watch the show. Then I turn off the TV and go about my business without the noise and annoyance of canned laughter, third grade level “humor” and the same 10 actors or actresses making the talk show rounds to promote their current movie, CD or book.

Once the young families get settled into their careers, they’ve bought and furnished their homes, and the kids are in school, they start thinking about investments. The younger you can start thinking about the investments, the better chance you have of acumulating real wealth. A lot of successful people work closely with investment counselors and advisors, and some people are more comfortable learning the tricks of the trade and directing their investments on their own.

An interesting investment vehicle that is similar to the stock market in many aspects is currency trading. This is a relatively new opportunity because there is now access to software and online real time trading.

The best source of charts, analysis, tracking and trading is the Forex Trading Software. If you like charting and fingertip analysis of your trades and investments, then you should check out the Forex web site.

I like the web site because it answers all the questions for a beginner, and you can open a free practice account to see real time effects of your trades without actually costing you any real money as you learn. You learn to read the forex charts and execute trades, and you learn how to track and analyze your account activities.

Interesting to note how branding has become such an important part of commercial life. A successful brand not only proclaims ownership but it commands loyalty.

In the days of the “Wild West,” branding was developed to claim ownership of livestock. Even then, some people tried to thwart the seemingly obvious clear and commonly accepted  method of burning a brand into the hide of cattle abd horses. If you were found with cattle or a horse in your possession that had another man’s brand on their hide, then you were a thief. Common law allowed for the immediate execution of the thief by the rightful owner or the Texas Rangers who tried to enforce the law of the land.

Today, we use that same concept for copyright and trademark protections. If something is yours, there are legal ways to proclaim ownership and protect your rights to your property, whether the property is real (land), personal, or intellectual.

Unfortunately, we no longer dispense immediate justice for the thievery. And sometimes there is a fine line between taking, borrowing, or just using the items. And so, boys and girls, we now have lawyers who, for a price, will argue your case and make arrangements for you.

The CNBC talking head, Rick Santelli, goes off on a rant about the mortgage bailout and the stimulus plan. I agree with him 100% – this plan rewards bad behavior. I especially liked his comment about how we should reward the people who carry the water – not the people who just drink the water. You go, Rick!

Tomorrow is the start of all digital TV transmissions for a lot of folks. The entire country was originally supposed to switch to digital on February 17, but Congress decided, in its infinite wisdom, to delay the mandatory conversion until June 12. Part of the delay was to make up for the Government not having enough coupons to mail out to citizens requesting the rebate coupon for purchasing a digital concerter.

Not everyone has to buy a digital converter. I don’t most people realize that if they subscribe to cable TV they are already getting digital signals. But estimates of millions of people who will be losing their only TV signal in June are mystifying to me – how would they know who has analog TV and still needs a converter?

With an unexpected day off, thanks to President’s Day and the company deciding at the last minute to close for the day, we were able to knock off a lot of chores from my “Honey-Do” list today and still have time to goof off a little, too. We watched a couple of TV shows that we have never seen, played games on the internet and gossiped about celebs and figures in the news.

Some of the newsmakers that I watch, like a train wreck, are Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. We found a cool web site all about Celebrity Gossip that has recent photos and captions on both of the girls. Britney is smoking and appears to be letting one of her young sons play with her pack of cigarettes. And Paris in a photo on the public street, not wearing a bra.

The web site is called http://royalgirls.com/ and it has candid photos of a variety of today’s movie stars and spoiled rich girls. We laughed at photos of Pamela Anderson on the beach in Hawaii, Halle Berry on her knees at the Hollywood Walk of Fame star with her name, and a hokie glamour photo of Salma Hayek, who got married on Valentine’s Day to one of Europe’s richest men. This site is pretty good for finding photos of your favorite celebrity.

As much as our grandson loves everything Transformers, we cannot wait for the new Transformers movie, “Revenge of the Fallen,” to hit the theaters. We rarely take him to the theater as he is fine with watching DVDs on the home TV, but will make every effort to let him see this one on the big screen at the theater.

The new Transformers movie trailer was released today and I found it on Yahoo. I can’t wait to show it to our grandson next weekend when he comes for his visit.

Guys have a few good choices on what to give their sweetheart for Valentine’s Day:

• candy – especially chocolates
• flowers – especially roses
• jewelry – especially diamonds

So I had to give this some serious thought and try to find not only something she would like but also something special. Trust me, I took care of things – my sweetheart is the best thing to ever happen to me and I want to make sure that she knows it.

So, here’s hoping that your sweetheart gave you something nice and made you feel special today, too.