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18 Kids and Counting!

One couple has already given birth to 17 kids with their 18th on the way. 19 if you had counted a unintentional miscarriage. Story goes that the couple, when they were younger, felt they weren’t ready to have kids so they decided to take birth control pills. However it wasn’t until a miscarriage occurred that they found out from their doctor that sometimes a person can get pregnant only to have the birth control pill cause a miscarriage to happen. Being completely religious and pro-life, they couldn’t allow such a thing to happen. Since then, they said that as long as it is God’s will for them to have kids, they will as many as they come. To date, 17 kids have been given birth with at least 1 more on the way, totally 18.

The couple, from Arkansas, are two real estate agents (more like 1.1 since 0.9 is constantly on maternal leave), who own a few real estate properties. Building their own 7,000 square foot home (an impressive size by any measure), they live completely debt free. I find this amazingly astonishing as most real estate agents don’t make much more than top pharmacists and that’s considering the top tier agents. While I understand they do real estate investment of their own, to be able to feed 20 kids, find time to build such an enormous home from the ground up, and still work, is just wild and totally goes to show, anything is possible.

To date, they have been featured on several news site over the years and I am sure there will be more to come. This has got to be some kind of Guinness World Record.

Source: Yahoo News, Duggar

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The Computer of Dreams?

Whether you’re a geek or not, rich or not, or just someone who loves to shop, wouldn’t you want the best and most expensive items you can get if money was never an issue?! To live a life full of luxury! Well you may not be there but you can at least take a glance at this beauty, a computer laptop so well built that Staples is selling it for a whopping $10 million! Here is the link to the laptop in case you want to buy it:

$10 Million Dollar Laptop

In case you haven’t figured it out or they fixed the link up top, this was a serious error on Staples end. The laptop is not worth anywhere near $10 million nor is it worth buying in my opinion at it’s regular price. In case they fixed the price error, here is a screenshot. Click on the image below to enlarge:

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The Rise of Sean Diddy Combs

One of the longest episodes of The Big Idea covers a very famous person, Sean Combs, also known as Diddy, originally Puff Daddy and P. Diddy. He chronicles his road to success and his life and I wanted to show you this video because it touch bases on some key points I can not stress enough for any person who wants to find success in their life. There are a couple parts where the sound cuts out for a few seconds but overall, the video is worth watching.

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Iron Man VS Batman

A parody off the Mac VS PC commercials, comes to you with Iron Man VS Batman or Marvel VS DC (Dark Comics), the respective comic companies that created Iron Man and Batman. Enjoy!

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Gas Prices

People everywhere are in one way or another complaining about gas prices. Of course they are, it’s already in the high $3 range and will probably hit the $4 range soon. In some states, this is already the case and those states are only moments away from hitting the $5 mark. Being the baby that we are, every time something happens, Americans love to bitch and whine about this and that because things aren’t the way they’re suppose to be (in other words, as great as they can be). And why shouldn’t they, afterall not too long ago gas prices were in the $1 range and long ago, I can still recall gas prices being under a buck. Unfortunately, shit happens and prices get inflated, so people need to stop whining and get a reality check. Below is a list of gas prices that was posted on a CNN article I came across:

Looking at the list above, do we honestly have reason to complain. People will complain for all sorts of reason and yes, I completely understand that to some people, gas is absurdly high, probably in a price range some can’t even afford as most people are living like they’re in poverty or from paycheck to paycheck as it is. However if you haven’t gotten my hint yet throughout this entire post, whining and complaining really won’t do anything to solve the issue. At the end of the day, it’s not going to change how much gas prices (or prices of other goods for that matter) has gone up. Why not rather focus all that energy into something more productive, something like increasing your net worth so that the value of your “true dollar” matches up to how much prices for goods and services has gone up while your income has stagnate.

For those unfamiliar with the term “true dollar”, it’s a term used in economics. A good way to explain this is if you are making $10/hour and the cost of a movie ticket is $10, then your current true dollar is at a 1:1 ratio. However lets say you get promoted and your income goes up to $20/hour. Now let’s assume that movie tickets also go up due to inflation. While you did double your income, your true dollar is still at a 1:1 ratio, meaning your buying or purchasing power is no more or less than it was when you were making $10/hour. Of course in the real world, this should reflect the prices of goods and services for all things and not just one thing such as the movie ticket. Realistically at this point, if you think gas prices are high, find ways to increase your true dollar value rather than complain about why your true dollar value is in the negative and declining.

Posted in News, Rant | 2 Comments »

Iron Man Movie Review

UPDATE: Critics and watchers worldwide are putting in their reviews and Iron Man currently ranks as the top movie of 2008 and possibly the best superhero movie of all time according to several sources. It is hitting critical mass! Although I still think Batman Begins and it’s upcoming sequel The Dark Knight is better in some ways, Iron Man does in fact rank up there among the top movies I’ve seen. 

My friend Melvin from Singapore got to see Iron Man before it was released here in the US (they’re actually one day ahead timezone wise). He recommended as a really good movie and I was already looking forward to see this movie so it only made it better (in theory). Well Iron Man officially hit theaters tomorrow but there were 5 sneak peak showings today so my girlfriend, friends, and I went to go check it out. And Melvin was right! The movie was great (if you’re into the comic book type of action movie). I’d give it a 4/5.

If you plan on watching this movie, do stay all the way through the end credits as there is a bonus scene you won’t want to miss (especially if you’re a comic nut like me).

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Longest Domain Name [That I know of]

This is the longest domain name I’ve seen, obnoxiously long and annoying. Just imaging having to type this out by hand over and over again.

http://thelongestlistofthelongeststuffatthelongestdomainnameatlonglast.com/

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World’s New Youngest Billionaire

Not too long ago, I wrote a blog post about the world’s youngest billionaire. According to Forbes, for 2008, the world’s youngest billionaire is Mark Zuckerberg, founder of social networking site, Facebook. He is 23 years old and what is more significant is that his billionaire empire was entirely self-made, the youngest in world history according to some sources.

However that didn’t last long. According to a news post released by the LA Times on their blog, Miley Cyrus, known to many by her Disney persona Hannah Montana is going to be the world’s youngest billionaire by year’s end at the age of 15! Much like Mark, her fortune is mostly self made albeit she was made famous by Disney and her TV show including her songs. That is quite impressive. Billionaires are popping up everywhere these days and at a young age by the minute!

Posted in Money, News | 1 Comment »

Iron Man Movie

Although it’s another Marvel movie, I am actually looking forward to seeing this movie. Whether it’ll be good or not, only time will tell. Nonetheless, it’s the first movie I have really look forward to so far in 2008 (the only real movie I have been dying to see is The Dark Knight aka Batman Begins 2). In any event, Iron Man is due for release Friday May 2nd. For popular movies (or movies they think will be a hit), theaters will usually have a pre-release showing at midnight the night before. But not Iron Man, it’ll get a whopping FIVE showings the day before. This is something I’ve never seen before and may just be available here locally. In either case, you can bet I’ll be showing up early to catch it.

In other semi-related news, they’re doing a completely different Hulk movie. The first one was so god awful, that they had to do an entire new Hulk movie unrelated to the last one. I’ve seen bad movies, and not all Marvel movies have been a treat, but anyone who did go see the Hulk movie knows what I am talking about. One of my friend, whom I’ve known for a long time, is a comic nut. That however, is not an excuse. He argues the movie was good and it was just ‘different’. Different my ass. It was bad. I use to be into comics too but there comes a time when you gotta say, that was just wrong. They twisted the story so horribly and turned it into crap. Hopefully the second Hulk Movie won’t be so bad.

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Wesley Snipes in Jail

Since we talked about Tax yesterday, I thought I’d bring up another tax story. According to a CNN article, Wesley Snipes, a famous actor for those who don’t recognize the name, was sentence to three years in jail for failing to file his taxes. He was given the maximum penalty of 3 years. You can read the original article here. I can not stress the importance enough of filing your tax return and making sure you file it correctly. According to some sources, the IRS has the right to come after for up to 7 years for taxes you file incorrectly or for lack of filing. Does this mean if the IRS doesn’t catch you within 7 years, you’re free? Not necessarily. Long story short, do your taxes!

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