Fantasy sports

So Why Should I Check This Out?

I’ll be honest right now. If you don’t have an interest in finance or global markets, this post is not for you. Go make yourself a sandwich and hop in your jacuzzi. But if you like the world of finance and the stock market, this is quite possibly the coolest thing since sliced bread.

Once you sign up for an account, you can start trading the virtual stocks that perfectly emulate their real counterparts. The excellent part of this setup is that it operates as if it is a real trading entity. Their price quotes are delayed the standard 15-20 minutes, the trades you make are subject to a virtual commission, and trades only complete during normal market hours. This adds a certain element of realism that increases the excitement.

Appeal and Strategies

Face it, one of the reasons the worldwide markets are exhilarating for day-traders is that their activities essentially have them gambling with large sums of money. Hedge fund managers take positions worth millions of dollars based on some analysis they compile, and if the price doesn’t fall or rise as they predict, they lose. If prices follow their forecasts, they book huge returns. In a sense, it’s like a high-stakes game of blackjack. You can make educated decisions based on the information available to you, but there is always the risk that the dealer can spike that five to hit their twenty-one when you hold two face cards.

For retirement investing (which I’ve written about before), day-to-day trading is not an optimal strategy. In fact, it is extremely difficult to consistently make money flipping stocks over the short term, even for well-educated fund managers who pick stocks for a living. However, it also happens to be the investing activity that most resembles blackjack, and therefore gives the biggest rush. Think of this site as gambling with fake money…you’ll still get a piece of that rush without any real risk.

For someone like myself, UpDown.com provides a risk free training ground that gives a feel for day-to-day trading activities and the perils included in the lifestyle. Market timing is probably the single hardest financial action to do consistently. Those that can are filthy rich. Most have swings like a no-limit Texas Hold’em player. They’re either happier than Boston sports fans or contemplating crossing the street without looking on any given day. At this site you can take your virtual million dollars and do whatever you like with it, making for an addicting and educational experience.

Referral Opportunities

I don’t want this to sound like a sales pitch, but if this looks like something you might be interested in, leave a comment or shoot me an e-mail and I can send you a referral. In reality, this is some extra work for you, as you can just go to the site and sign up without a referral. The site offers small monetary incentives for referring friends, so once you sign up you can get some cash for getting your friends hooked as well.

This concept is incredibly interesting to someone like myself who has an interest in the markets but doesn’t have extra paychecks to be throwing around on stocks. What do you think of the idea? Will this site last? Good luck making fake money!

* Disclaimer: This article is not connected to UpDown.com in any way; I was shown the site and thought it was cool enough to write about. That bit about referrals I found right before I published the article, so I threw it in there. I’m not trying to sell you on anything…I promise. That is all, thanks for reading.

The option for watching in higher quality is not available for all videos. It seems to only work for newer uploads; those added since the infrastructure change went into effect. Clicking the high quality link reloads the clip in high-res version for your viewing pleasure.

So, how do they look?

In the default YouTube viewing space, the small increase in resolution substantially increases quality. Upon expanding to full screen, the difference is less noticeable. In my informal tests, the speed difference was negligible, although those on slow connections could possibly run into increased load times.

Someday, high-definition content will the be norm, and YouTubeHD will rule the internet video landscape. The large majority of internet connections today are not quick enough to support incredibly high resolution video clips. Until then, you’ll just have to make due with slightly higher quality videos by clicking that little link for every video you can.

My Pseudo MBP Review

There are tons of MacBook Pro reviews on the interweb, so I won’t regurgitate any specific details about build quality, design, OS X, etcetera. So far, the machine has been an absolute delight. Apple is all about the total package: it’s screaming fast, lots of video memory, a fast hard drive, all in a sexy aluminum package. And yes, I realize that is entirely too close for the words ‘package’ and ’sexy’ to be to each other. My bad. It won’t ever happen again.

One major reason Macs have been gaining some market steam is because of a nifty new tool called Boot Camp. In the latest version of OS X, Apple has allowed their users to load a copy of Windows XP or Vista on to their Intel-based Macs. This has eased the concerns of paranoid would-be switchers by giving them a security blanket backup for their Windex-only programs. I threw a copy of Windows XP Pro SP2 on my notebook for gaming purposes, and it has so far worked flawlessly. And it’s stupid fast. Which is nice.

I learned everything I know about software on Windows. However, my first foray into Mac-land has been a pleasant one. Pretty much any mainstream program these days has a Mac equivalent, and the open source community has robust Apple support. There hasn’t been a single instance where I haven’t been able to do something in OS X that I can do in Windows (except play Orange Box). That might not always be true, but at least I have the Windows install to back me up.

If you’ve recently made the switch to Appleville, how do you like it? If you haven’t, are you considering a Mac for your next computer purchase?

The truly great invention of the last fifty years is March Madness on Demand, which allows office workers all over the world to not get any real work done these next two days. If you’re sitting at a computer that’s not near your 90″ HDTV, check it out.

For those interested, here are my Final Four teams. If you’re not interested, I’ll give them to you anyway. North Carolina, Georgetown, Texas, and UCLA with the Bruins over the Tar Heels in the championship. March Madness, it’s awesome, baby!

Welcome to a brand new series on ChuckMcKenzie.net — Blogging as a Business! This series will be structured like a business plan for a startup, with the following sections (subject to amending at a later date): the Introduction, Marketing, Finances, and Operating Procedures.

Here’s the point that makes this series a worthwhile read for you. An absolute staple of any B-School is the ubiquitous teaching tool — the case study. Since I’m going through this process for Chuck McKenzie dot Net anyway, this site will be used as an example for the process. Let’s learn!

The Importance of a Business Plan

I know what you might be thinking. “Business Plan?! What is this nonsense? This is a blog, not a mom-and-pop shop selling cupcakes!” Well, if you want to make money blogging, you need to view your blog as a business. So, you need to properly plan for your business in order for it to succeed. That is the goal of this series…to lay out a plan for the business success of your blog.

How do I make money?

Here is the $64,000 question. Look at your blog like a television network. How do ABC, Fox, and NBC make their dough? Advertising. Bingo. This analogy continues to include the key to getting viewers/readers: quality content. The higher the quality of your content, the more you can maximize your advertising revenue. So, as an aspiring blog entrepreneur, you cannot lose focus of writing quality posts. Sure, if you are trying to make money, there are other concerns; but if your posts are less thought-provoking than John Madden, you won’t keep readership.

There are many avenues for advertising on your blog, and literally millions of articles available online for blog advertising strategies. I won’t beat a dead horse. That’s just mean. This series will attempt to focus on global business topics as opposed to micromanaging blog ad strategeries.

Conclusion to the Introduction

You can think of this post as a sort of executive summary for the business plan of Chuck McKenzie dot net. In the coming days/weeks/months*, action plans will be laid out concerning marketing, finances, and day-to-day operating procedures for this blog that will be general enough to scale to other blogs, so hopefully you can learn from the process.

* I haven’t decided how long this series will span, so I covered my bases here.

5. Great Title

You see what I did with the title? It’s a top five list about why it’s the best top five list. You had to think about that for a second, didn’t you? That’s okay, you can admit it. I won’t tell anyone. Also, the title is a little cocky, but just enough to get your attention. “The best list ever, you say? I’ll be the judge of that.” So here you are, judging away. In all seriousness, the title certainly intrigued you enough to peer down this list, so it is a contributing factor to its all-time greatness. This is the Michael Jordan of lists.

4. It’s a List About Lists

Lists are pretty sweet because they spur some debate. For instance, you would certainly not completely agree with my top five hot, young, Hollywood actress list. Or my top five rock band list I mentioned a minute ago. Even if you agreed with the choices, you might want to change the order a little. In fact, you might be debating the worthiness of this list right now. But the fact that this list has gotten you reading and thinking about its all-time list importance certainly at least puts in your top five—top five lists ever, right?

3. It’s Creative

Maybe you’ve read other top five lists that claim to be the best ever, but only one can truly be The. Best. Ever. Coming up with the idea for the best top five list ever is pretty gosh-darn creative. This list is oozing in creativity.

2. It’s Specific

This isn’t the best top five list this week. Or this month. Or even this year. As you can see, this list is incredibly specific about the period of time over which it is the best. Ever. That about covers it, huh? Also, this claim doesn’t cover lists of other magnitudes. This is not the best list ever, it’s simply the best top five list ever. Important distinction. It will not take any fame or fortune from your top-7 or top-12 or top-anything-other-than-5 list. So you can rest easy.

1. You’re still reading it, aren’t you?

Here’s the beauty of this list. If it was not the best top five list ever, you probably still wouldn’t be reading this. Who knows, maybe you aren’t. But if you are, it was compelling enough to get you to this point. And that, my friend, makes this the best top five list ever.

Even though no one associated with the Mavericks will admit it, this is a direct response to Shaq relocating to Phoenix and Pau Gasol arriving in Los Angeles. The stale-as-some-three-year-old-saltine-cracker Mavs looked around and saw their competition getting better, so owner Mark Cuban decided to get Kidd no matter what it took. And it took quite a bit. Kudos to New Jersey for getting maximum value for their aging superstar.

To a certain extent, Dallas has put themselves in a similar situation to the Suns. They each have two, maybe three seasons of these high-profile acquisitions playing at championship caliber. The ultimate goal is to win a title, so if they don’t in the next couple seasons, how can anyone say either of these were a good deal? They both gave up quite a bit to get a 35 year old super-duper-star. Contrast this with the Lakers deal. They picked up a legit 27-year-old 7 footer and didn’t give up hardly anything. They’re poised to contend for the next six or seven seasons barring ugly contract negotations.

Throw in Nick Van Exel and we’ve got a deal!

An interesting phenomenon in a couple of these deals is trading players who are no longer in the league. How is this possible? Well, teams still own rights to players if they decide to retire or take some time off while still under contract. So, they can then include them in a sign-and-trade, like the Mavericks did with Keith Van Horn. He has been ”retired” since the 2006 Finals, but Dallas still owns his rights. So now he’s headed to New Jersey. Good for him. His buddies Van Exel, Jalen Rose, and Vlade Divac are just waiting for a call.

I think teams should take this to another level. They could include members of the coaching or athletic training staff in trades. Better yet — cheerleaders. “Sure, we’ll give you Mike Bibby, but we want Ashley included in the deal!” GMs everywhere would be lauded for their savvy dance-team pickups. The possibilities are endless.

Regardless of who you’re rooting for, this is shaping up to be a fantastic end to the ‘07-’08 NBA season. The Western conference is deeper than Bill Gates’ pockets. Who do you have winning it all? Does finally getting J-Kidd make the Mavs the team to beat?

Are We Even in a Recession?

The always-accurate Wikipedia* defines a recession as “a downward trend in the rate of actual GDP growth”. What exactly does this mean? Well, contrary to what you might believe it means, an economy in recession is not shrinking. It is just not growing as fast as it should be. So, armed with the proper definition, we can ask the scary question: is the United States macro-economy recessing? Absolutely.

There are a couple of key areas that are contributing to this phenomenon. First up is the real estate market. This is one area that actually is shrinking in some areas. In once crazy markets like most of California and Portland, Oregon, home prices are falling faster than Roger Clemens credibility. The economy was booming 18 months ago, leading mortgage lenders to be too optimistic in issuing loans. If you were breathing and could sign your name you could get a house loan, even if you couldn’t beat an orangutan in a game of tic-tac-toe. Poor judgement by these lenders has led to the current sub-prime mortgage meltdown that is certainly a major factor to the overall economic recession.

The second factor is decreased consumer spending. The interesting point here is that the decrease has stemmed from fears about the decline in the real estate market. It goes to show the tremendous domino effect present in complex markets. People realize their home is worth less than it was a year ago and they become worried. Other issues such as rising inflation and unemployment only fan these flames of worry, and people spend less on big screen TVs and iPhones.

Keep Your Head on a Swivel

So, should you be worried? If you make your living trading stocks and looking for day-to-day profits in the market, you might lose some sleep over the next couple months. I recently wrote that this slight downturn can be spun optimistically for retirement investing as long as you keep a rational mindset. Buying indexes and stocks when they are down is obviously the smart play when you know they will grow over a 10 year time horizon.

Remember this the next time the evening news mentions an economic recession. Maybe the ‘R’ word isn’t so dreaded after all.

* May be inaccurate in some cases

Part of me wonders whether the Suns saw the shrewd pick up of Pau Gasol the Los Angeles Basketball Lakers made earlier this week and thought, “Suns, we should really make a blockbuster trade to shake things up like the Lake Show just did. Let’s get Shaq Daddy.” Logically, they must be thinking that their big-man match-up problems with teams like the San Antonio Spurs and the Lakers are their biggest problem.  If not, why make a move to change the entire dynamic of a team, that as of early February, has the best record in the Western Conference?

I think he just ate a whole box of Sour Jacks at once. No big deal.

Here’s the real question. What percentage of the possessions will Shaq get a defensive board, outlet to Steve Nash, and then just stand there watching the fast break? I’m going to take a conservative guess and say 88%. So, the big fella will probably get a lot of rest even when he’s in the game. Which is good for his future because he’s been more broken down than Britney’s music career lately. Maybe a little rest is all he needs.

My prediction? If Suns coach Mike D’Antoni can maximize Shaq’s strengths (low-post offense and defense) while minimizing his detraction from their current “let’s get a shot off in seven seconds or less” offensive system, he’ll look like a genius. Shaq will definitely help them match up better with guys like Tim Duncan and Andrew Bynum, but at what expense? I think that over the next two seasons, the Phoenix fans will look back on this acquisition with disdain. Who knows, maybe Nash and Co. will get hot in the playoffs and prove me wrong. How do you think things will turn out in Arizona?

– Note: Image courtesy of the Internet –

Deal Details

The per-share offer from Gates and Co. comes in at $31, a rather healthy 62% premium over Yahoo’s current price. This means that Microsoft values the company higher than investors currently do. If you think about it, this makes sense; Microsoft can take their tremendous resource pool to improve, enhance, and utilize all that Yahoo! has to offer. Here’s an analogy: let’s say if I can shoot two-under par at Augusta National Golf Course, I’ll get a $1 million prize. The catch is, I can either use equipment from the year 1900, or pay $50,000 out of my own pocket to use modern-day equipment. As much as I’d like it to, the modern day equipment is not going to make it more likely that I’ll win the prize. Now, another contestant just happens to be Tiger Woods. While he’s probably good enough to achieve the task using the antique gear, paying the small amount (relative to the payout) all but assures him of winning the money. That modern equipment is worth more to him that it is to me, much as Yahoo! and their infrastructure is worth more to Microsoft than to your average business.

The Redmond-based software giant is also planning for the long-term. Their primary weakness is precisely what their strongest competition does best: Google’s Internet search and advertising. Yahoo’s assets will enable The Soft to cover their bases and provide a well-rounded front in the future.

Google Getting Anxious?

While Microsoft has had trouble penetrating search and advertising market share, Google has been relatively effective at gaining users in some of Microsoft’s key markets. Google Apps is basically a free, web-based version of Office that’s simple to use. However, Google’s cash cow is their online advertising platforms. If a company with the resources of Microsoft and the infrastructure of Yahoo! starts to creep on their territory, they will have to get a little worried.

Long-Term Ramifications

As an aspiring dot com mogul, I’m very excited about the long-term prospects of this potential deal. Microhoo (or whatever you want to call them) will finally provide some competition to the dynasty of Internet advertising. (Think of it this way: if the Internet ad business was the NFL, Google has won the last four Super Bowls without breaking a sweat.) Business 101 says that competition in the marketplace is good for the consumer, forcing mega-corporations to make better products to remain viable. Who knows what the new Microsoft will cook up to battle Google? Whatever it is, this new presence will certainly provide for more options for the Average Joes like you and me. And that’s always a good thing.