Hijinks Inc.

Author: Fred Smith

  • Google is up, dollar is down, investers less then pleased.

    Via USAGold.com.

    On February 1st of 2006 I bought one share of Google stock. I paid $400 for it. I planned to ask for the certificate and display it in my office. I wanted to be able to say that I bought Google at $400.

    Today Google closed at $555 and I am up a whopping 39%.

    Suppose I sold my share today and took my $155 profit.

    $155
    -$40 for trading fees
    ————————–
    $115 Gain
    -15% Capital Gains Tax
    ——————————
    $98 Net Gain

    My net profit is $98 (24%) This sound pretty good, except that the dollar has dropped 34% since Feb 2006 and I have actually lost 10% on this transaction.

    BTW, I left for a moment to sell the share during my composition of this post. I can’t afford losses like that. I bought SLV (silver) with the money. I don’t expect to make a profit on SLV, just freeze the $555 asset. I expect that the dollar will fall a lot more than 34% in the next year. Alan Greenspan actually said in his new book that it would be best to keep your money in “other than US currency”. Ironic isn’t it?

    Now granted, this is on a forum frequented and managed by gold fanboys, but it’s hard to call bias on cold hard numbers isn’t it?

    Seeing is Believing

  • Penny Arcade creaters make fun of people, rake in cash.

    Or so says the month old article I read in Wired. How much? If we had to guess, we’d say over a million a year.

    Mike and Jerry (or Gabe and Tycho as you might better know them) have their own clothing line, their own video game (to be released sometime in 2008), and their own own game con. Prompting their ascent to the lofty position of video game potentates.

    Krahulik and Holkins make a comfortable living from the strip, what with 55 million monthly pageviews driving online advertising and merchandising. They have a full-time staff of 10. They oversee a charity that has given $2.2 million worth of toys and games to children’s hospitals since 2003. And in late August, their annual convention — the Penny Arcade Expo — will attract 30,000 visitors, making it the largest game conference in the US.

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  • Want pirates? I’ll give you pirates.

    Do the words Malacca Strait ring a bell? How about lanun? Didn’t think so. Peter Gwin knows all about though, and he want around the world to write about it.


    Though his jailers remain unsure who he is, they know exactly what he is: lanun (pronounced la-noon). When asked for a direct English equivalent, an interpreter explains that there is none, that it is a word freighted with many layers of culture and history. The short, imperfect answer is: The prisoner is a pirate.

    He earned that epithet when Malaysia’s marine police captured him and nine accomplices after they hijacked the Nepline Delima, a tanker carrying 7,000 tons of diesel fuel worth three million dollars, in the Strait of Malacca. It was one of several attacks reported during 2005 in the 550-mile channel separating the Indonesian island of Sumatra from the Malay Peninsula, Singapore perched at its southern tip.

    (more…)

  • Think you’re already sick of Halo 3 hype?

    With it’s own flavor of mountain dew, dedicated check-out lines in Wal-mart, and a million dollar diorama depicting a fake battle, you might be tired of Halo 3 hype by now. Or maybe we all should be thankful it hasn’t gone any further. From Reuters:

    Items that did not make the cut were a “Halo”-themed lottery ticket, lingerie modeled after a female hologram character and toy guns based the game’s weapons. Instead, fans can expect high-quality action figures from McFarlane Toys, a tabletop game from WizKids Inc and replica weapons for mature buyers.

    Interesting to note that the article does not rule out Master Chief boxers. Finish the fight. Believe.

    “Halo” no longer just a game for Microsoft

  • Off-Topic: Career Choices

    When I graduated high school, I wanted to be a journalist. I wanted to travel, write engaging articles to enthrall the public, the whole deal. You might even say I had a passion for writing.

    A couple years later I had a couple jobs, bills to pay, and very little desire to write, let alone be a journalist. What changed? I think it was me. When I wrote in high school it was a tool to help me organize my thoughts and make decisions. As I got older those decisions started becoming easier to make on a day to day basis (practice makes perfect), and writing wasn’t something I needed anymore.

    Fast forward to the present. Now that I’ve been writing on a consistent basis for our lovely conglomeration of a blog, the though of “hey, I could actually do this with my life” started creeping back in. Then I had a conversation with my dad, my girlfriend, and one of my best friends, and they all–directly and indirectly–encouraged me to try journalism again. All in the same night nonetheless.

    I figure, why not? When I started taking classes off and on (three years ago) I was aiming for a Journalism degree. So right now I have the classes I need to do it, I only need to finish of a couple more pre-reqs and I’ll be good to go. Did I mention that with the career change I can put Hijinks Inc on my resume? Yeah baby, yeah.