Gran Turismo 5

Greetings, all!

I have been in an absolutely delightful mood this week.

You see, 5 years and 9 months ago, Gran Turismo 4 was released on the PlayStation 2, and much win was had.

On the PlayStation 3, Gran Turismo 5 Prologue came out on April 15, 2008, giving us a small taste of potential future win.

Last Wednesday, Gran Turismo 5 finally arrived.

After 2 hours of Deerfoot-ing my way home at 3kph, after a late meeting at work and in horrendous driving conditions, I arrived at Wal-Mart and sprinted across the parking lot and then inside towards the electronics department of my beloved Supercenter.

After a few gut-wrenching seconds of searching for a blue-vested angel, I located one of the celebrated celestial beings and informed him of what I required. His reaction to my request was not unlike that of a heroin addict's to a 5kg gift-bag of smack, and he cheerfully pranced over to the locked games cabinet.  We briefly discussed how long it had been since Gran Turismo 4 on the way back to the checkout, and after he rang it through, I dashed back to the car and broke several traffic laws to get home.

Words cannot describe the awesomeness of this game, but I will give it my most offensive and blasphemous try:

If somebody offered me free, front-row, floor seats to the Second Coming of Jesus Comeback Tour, I would decline in favor of staying home and playing GT5.

GT5 has everything.  I could bore you with the details of Karting, NASCAR, or World Rally Championship racing, how there are 1,031 cars, or how you can race VW Buses around the Top Gear Test Track at a blistering 75kph, but it's not necessary.

All that needs to be said is that the best part about the game is that you don't even have to race to enjoy it.  Gran Turismo 5 is simply the best experience out there for any car enthusiast.

Without this game, your life will be forever rendered a shriveled, worthless husk of sadness.

Go buy it.  Now.

That's all I have this week, I can't be away from GT5 to write anything else.

Below are some shots of a few of my cars that I took during replays and in photo mode.

Papers, please!

Jason wrote an interesting piece on Wednesday, discussing the Soviet Union of American States' airport security practices.

While I agree with one of his main points, "The problem with this whole system likely isn't (as some people suggest) that the TSA is some evil organization bent on destroying the freedoms of good law-abiding citizens.",  I personally suggest that the only problem with the system is that it's run by the government.

The TSA was created as a reaction to September 11, 2001, on November 19, 2001, to monopolize airport security screening under the wing of a government department.

Of course, remembering that with great power comes great responsibility, we can rest in comfort knowing that TSA employees sleep on the job, bypass security checks, mistreat passengers, sexually harass children, the elderly, and the rest of us, hold lavish parties at the taxpayers' expense, and steal passengers' belongings and sell them at a handsome profit (I originally had a link for 'mistreat passengers', but couldn't settle on just one; if you really want an example, just Google TSA pat down under the News tab).

In fact, Rapiscan Systems, one of the two manufacturers of those pesky airport full body scanners, is a client of Michael Chertoff's security firm, the Chertoff Group; if this doesn't immediately surprise you, you probably aren't aware that he was the second United States Secretary of Homeland Security!

If it were up to me, when people board a plane, each of them would take a free loaded handgun from a barrel conveniently located by the jet-way, and upon arriving at their destination, they would return said handgun to an empty barrel, much like 3D glasses at a movie theater.  If you believe, as I do, that there are far more rational, sane individuals on this planet than terrorists hell-bent on killing us all, this is an extremely economic, workable solution.

Jason also says, "So we have a crappy system but it's all we have and if you want to fly without incident, you've got no choice to go through it.  The only thing I know is that the next time I go through a security checkpoint, I'll just keep my mouth shut and just get it all over with as fast as possible."

While I agree that his chosen solution is probably the only practical one available, one must remember that, as Bodie Thoene said, "Apathy is the glove into which evil slips its hand."  The one thing I am absolutely sure of, is that flying without incident will never be a result of the work of the TSA, only one of pure probability.  After all, these organizations are run by the same people who can't do something as simple as balance a national budget.

For now, if flying is something you can't choose not to do, as I try to, then you'll have to live with organizations like the TSA, and probably ones a whole lot worse as America continues its rapid decay.  It's only a matter of time until "Papers, please" becomes, once again, the most commonly used introductory sentence.

I suggest everyone watch the movie The Lives of Others, if they want hints of what the coming Utopian socialist future holds for the Western world.  Each day that passes has me thinking more and more about emigrating to Asia, the new land of opportunity.

A couple of other funny things happened this week:

Vancouver taxpayers on the hook for Olympic Village as Millennium Water goes into receivership

Read more: http://www.theprovince.com/business/Vancouver+taxpayers+hook+Olympic+Village+Millennium+Water+goes+into+receivership/3845267/story.html#ixzz15xtRrCL1


B.C. government cancels Campbell's planned income tax cut

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/business/income+suspended/3845348/story.html#ixzz15xtgKIkI


And Gordon Campbell resigned.  He spent 26 years in the public service. Sometimes I wonder how it feels to know that your life has resulted in nothing but a net economic loss to society over the course of one's career.  I've never understood how we even allow career civil servants to exist.  They don't even pay taxes!

For everyone who is paid with the tax dollars of others, those deductions on your payroll statement don't mean anything.  Just because the government takes vast sums of private sector income and redistributes it to a select few of you, and then takes some of it back in line items like "income tax", doesn't change the fact that all of that money came from the employment of capital and labor in the private sector.  Therefore, no public sector employee ever pays taxes unless they work for the government for a shorter period of time than in the private sector, and even in this case it's usually not true because they tend to draw a public pension for the rest of their useless and unfulfilling existence.

Lol.  I knew I'd get to a true rant at some point.  Good night, everybody!

The Woes of Air Travel

As a rather frequent flyer, I generally keep myself up-to-date on the latest in travel-related news.  Lately I've been seeing a rather notable increase in the number of security-related air travel stories coming out of the USA.  It seems that the TSA is rather quickly gaining some rather bad press.

First, Slashdot brought to light a story from the San Francisco Chronicle about a three-year-old girl having to suffer a pat-down at the hands of a TSA security agent.  According to the report, the girl was terrified after watching her teddy bear go through the x-ray machine and refused to go through the metal detector.  She was then subjected to the standard TSA alternative: the pat-down.  Apparently the girl's father captured the event on video but since it has been posted on YouTube, it has now been removed "due to a copyright claim by Tribune".

Today, I picked up an article from Adam Savage's Twitter feed (via Mike Tyka) about an incident involving Penn Jillette from the comedy/magic duo of Penn and Teller.  I don't think I could possibly re-tell the story with the same impact as it coming directly from Penn himself.  Please do read it in its entirety here.  However, to sum up, Penn was required to have a pat-down and the TSA agent did not ask his permission before patting down his crotch.  Insanity ensued.

Also today, Jaunted and the Toronto Star have articles about Wednesday November 24 being "National 'Opt-Out Day'".  Basically, the idea is to start a grassroots movement where people will opt out of the full-body scanners now deployed across the USA in favour of a pat-down.  The Jaunted article also points to the TSA's latest blog post on their "new pat-down procedures".  Although there isn't much relevant information in the blog post itself, it's worth noting just because of the volume and nature of the comments left by users.  I would like to note that Jaunted is extremely anti-body scanner.  Their views do tend to be a little skewed when it comes to that subject.  However, the idea of a (possibly) large percentage of people choosing the "alternative" screening method on one of the busiest travel days of the year (the day before American Thanksgiving) is worthy of note.

However, earlier this week, the Toronto Star had a much more interesting article comparing North American aviation security to that of Israel.  Israel obviously faces a more "present" and constant security threat due to high-tension relationships with neighboring countries, proximity to active war zones, and the activity of local factions which have been labelled by some governments as terrorist organizations.  To be clear, I don't want to get into the issue of the ongoing tension/conflict in the middle east.  I only mean to state that the risk of a major security threat is, in general, much higher in Israel than it is in North America.  With that aside, the article describes how security is handled at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion International Airport (TLV).  Most of the screening is done without any direct involvement of the passenger.  The security personnel at TLV are trained to properly profile people based on their actions, body language, and level of eye-contact.  In addition, small things like bomb-proof rooms and boxes in the luggage screening area make it so only a small area needs to be evacuated (instead of the whole airport) in case contraband is only detected by more traditional methods.  TLV claims to be able to get passengers from the street to the gate in an average of 25 minutes.  I doubt any major North American airport can boast that.

On a lighter note, Jaunted also reported Canada's own famous photobombing squirrel has put his $0.02 worth in.  The "squirrel" recently tweeted the following gem:

TSA is handling this "enhanced patdowns" thing all wrong. What they need is a "free hugs" sign.

Now that I've got all of that out of the way, I believe I will opine.  The problem with this whole system likely isn't (as some people suggest) that the TSA is some evil organization bent on destroying the freedoms of good law-abiding citizens.  It all comes down to a few simple things.

The main issue is actually a culture and training issue in the TSA.  The policies for security screening seem to be changing far more rapidly than can easily be kept up with.  As a result, it seems that frequently many people and TSA agents are uninformed as to what the appropriate procedure is in certain circumstances.  If the TSA wants to be constantly changing its policies to keep up with the changing issues of airport security, then it needs to be ensuring that ALL of its security agents are kept abreast of these changes. However, training only goes so far.  The consistent thing that I have noted in all of these recent security horror stories is the arrogance of the TSA agents.  Although I will admit that I haven't read any of these stories from the opposite point-of-view, it usually seems that the TSA agents view themselves as all-powerful.  They almost seem to want to intimidate passengers into conforming to their idea of security screening.

To fix this requires a culture change in the TSA organization.  They need to instill a set of ideals and values in their employees that they are not the almighty gods of air travel but merely one part of a system designed to keep the average person safe from the few individuals wishing them harm.  They need to be aware that just because someone is requesting a pat-down instead of a full-body scan, that they are not doing it to be a trouble maker.  They are doing it because they either don't like the idea of someone seeing through their clothes or don't believe the level of radiation put out by the machines is safe.

This, of course, necessitates a change of attitude by the average air traveler as well.  The TSA has not implemented body scans as part of some nefarious scheme to see people's naughty bits and irradiate them.  To be honest, I don't envy the person who has to see all of those body scans.  I am quite sure that the people working for the TSA genuinely believe they're doing the best job they can protecting the USA from airplane-related terrorism.  With it being North America, for every person with a good body, there would be at least 5-10 overweight to obese people.  Not the sort of thing I want to see all day.  Also, people, in general, need to learn to be patient at airports.

Well, I've made enough detours from my point.  The fact of the matter is that the type of cultural change required by the TSA would take a normal large corporation a decade or more and the average american traveler is not likely to become any less indignant (possibly rightfully so).

So we have a crappy system but it's all we have and if you want to fly without incident, you've got no choice to go through it.  The only thing I know is that the next time I go through a security checkpoint, I'll just keep my mouth shut and just get it all over with as fast as possible.

Edit:
The day after the above post I found a fantastic story by the Seattle Weekly on what they call "Airport Body Scan Porn".  This article gives you a pretty good idea of how "visible" your private parts are when going through a full-body scan.  I couldn't have put it better than how the article is summed up:

The point, perhaps, is that anyone who is aroused by vaguely discernible outlines of average people's asses is likely either Amish or an 11-year-old. And anyone else probably gets a similar kick just looking at you with tight jeans on. Basically, there ain't much you can do about that person.

But yes, by all means, raise hell about airport body-scanning. It's not like there are more important things to worry about in America.

Amen.

It doesn't pay to pinch pennies

There's a big difference between being cheap and being value conscious.

Someone asked me this week why I don't have the bare minimum car insurance coverage in Alberta (and hence, spend more than is necessary). The reason? When we moved back to Alberta from BC, we found that we were able to insure both cars with full coverage in combination with our renters' insurance for almost the same total cost as insuring just one car in BC with basic coverage (and a very high deductible).

Thus, in terms of value, given that we were already saving a huge pile of money in relative terms, we opted to pay the minor incremental charge for full coverage.

I was also asked this week why I recently cancelled my cable. That's also very simple: it was a giant waste of money. I found it pointless to pay a monthly sum for a service I hardly used, which is why I now have Netflix (unlimited entertainment-on-demand and $7.99/month; easily one of the best decisions I've ever made, and one of the best services offered in Canada today). Excuse the grammar, but I don't not have cable because I want to save the cost of having it, I don't have cable because I don't use it enough to get my money's worth -- that is, my value out of it. That money is more usefully allocated elsewhere in our budget (like the Hawaiian vacation category).

Something that is odd to me, though, is that a lot of cheap people -- you know, the type who tip servers poorly and pinch pennies on miniscule expenses – tend to be extremely risk adverse.

Let's consider two people who make the same amount of money each year.

Person A (our cheap example) stiffs service staff, avoids parking meters, picks up change from the sidewalk, returns their cans and bottles to the depot, and religiously puts away $20,000 every single year into GICs and low-risk Mutual Funds, yielding 2% (we'll ignore taxes, for simplicity). After ten years, Person A has accumulated $223,374.

Person B tips well, focuses on cost reduction in the major expense categories (where the real damage is done), leaves dropped change on the ground, and gives their cans and bottles to children and the homeless. Person B actively invests in equities and fixed-income securities yielding 7% (easily higher, with effort). To achieve the same amount as Person A at the end of our ten year timeframe, Person B only has to put away $15,110 per year. This is almost 25% less than Person A's $20,000, and, provided the end goals of Persons A and B are the same, Person B's quality of life is about $5,000 a year better than Person A.

Our last trip to Hawaii in September cost less than that, and we stayed at the Mauna Lani Bay in an Ocean Front Room (rack rate $865/night USD). Of course, we only went because we scored a deal for less than $200/night (value conscious :D).

If Person A goes on vacation -- and if they did, they'd probably drive and stay at the Travelodge -- they put themselves even further behind Person B.

My point is, the world has way too many Person As. The tools are out there. Educate yourself, invest wisely, and become a Person B.

For the record, there is a Person C, who invests like Person B, but pinches pennies like Person A.

That person is called a giant asshole.

Arbitrarius Maximus

I've been rather busy traveling the world lately (possibly more on this later) so I haven't had much time to scour the intertubes for the usual randomness and inanity that I try to provide.

However, this week, something caught my eye that I couldn't resist talking about simply due to its (as I would call it) "WTF factor".

I follow the TSA's Twitter feed simply due to the amount I travel (especially in the USA).  Usually it's a heaping pile of monotony about what not to bring to the airport.  However, this week something really caught  my eye.  There has been a lot of controversy lately about what electronic gadgets need to be removed from your back while you're clearing security.  With devices such as the Kindle and iPad rising in popularity, the definition of "what is a computer" is becoming somewhat gray.  The TSA blog team set out to clear this confusion.  They stated that the official TSA policy (see here) is "Electronic items smaller than the standard sized laptop should not need to be removed from your bag or their cases."

To me, this raises the question of "What defines a standard sized laptop?"  Does this apply to netbooks?  What about smaller laptops, such as the new 11" MacBook Air?  Apparently I was not the only one confused.  The TSA blog team again tried to clear things up.  In this post they stated the following: "So with those rules in mind, the 11” model of the MacBook Air is fine to leave in your bag, and the 13” model must be removed prior to X-ray screening."

And that is when my "WTF alarm" was set off.  The TSA has come out and said that two (essentially) identical pieces of electronics which only differ in that one is slightly larger are to be treated completely differently.  How is it that an 11" MacBook Air (measuring 11.8" x 7.56" x 0.56" - 49.956 cubic inches) provides so much less of an opportunity to hide drugs/weapons/explosives/other contraband than a 13" MacBook Air (measuring 12.8" x 8.94" x 0.56" - 64.082 cubic inches)?

It just doesn't make sense to me...

Retirement Slingshots

A couple of weeks ago I said the TSX would probably make a run for 13,000.  We closed at 12,925 on Friday.  That's a 2.6% increase in the index in the last 2 weeks.

Also on Friday, the CREA adjusted their housing forecast.  It's nice to see some recognition of the actual market, but I guarantee you this is the first of many.

Then, in more exciting news, a useless politician (I guess that adjective is unnecessary, really, as a useful politician would be an oxymoron) named Jim Prentice resigned from his post as Environment Minister for a newly created position at CIBC.  He was kind enough to help out Canadians by shutting down Taseko's Prosperity mine development in BC -- who's stock subsequently fell 29% last week -- and putting his left foot forward towards socialism with the negation of BHP's PotashCorp deal.

How odd that he decides to leave just a few months after qualifying for his gold-plated, government pension.

Yes, that's true.

Meanwhile in the US, Ben Bernanke is pulling the one lever he has available to him, which happens to be the one labelled "debase the currency".

One of my favorite blogs has a good piece on how to position yourself.

On the one hand, I'm glad I'm not an American right now, but on the other hand, I find it hard to see how Canada will avoid being severely harmed by this.  When the exchange rate with the US dollar hits $1.50 CAN to $1.00 US, all I can hope is that we are selling our commodities based on prices in Yuan or ounces of gold. 

Another exciting story that is gaining momentum involves the lawsuits against JP Morgan and HSBC for silver manipulation.  Back in early September I mentioned I was looking for a way to play this opportunity, and I'm still doing that.  I think that silver still has quite a large upside, and is a lot more accessible to the average Joe than gold. 

A couple of amusing facts were posted on Garth Turner's blog today: first, only 9% of Canadians own equities, and only 1% of Canadians have investment assets of over $1 million.  Retirement, for my generation, is going to be one of those crazy things your grandparents were able to do back in the good-old-days.

Looking into the future, I am sure of three things: higher taxes, increasing price inflation in consumer goods (groceries, gas, utilities), and massive deflation in debt-financed assets (real estate). 

Lastly, I pose a question that I have asked many friends and coworkers over the last couple of weeks:

How many wealthy people do you know directly?  I know wealthy is an ambiguous term, but let's define it as an unsubsidized person -- that is, no inheritance or family riches, no lottery winnings, no government pension -- who has accumulated enough liquid net worth to not work for the rest of their lives.

The answers I've received for the most part have been zero.

Let me follow this, then, with another question.  If the number of wealthy people you know is almost nil, than isn't it likely that they do things quite differently than the majority of people, with respect to personal finance? 

Celebrating your once-every-two-months Sunday off from Starbucks by buying a second investment property with a 2% cash back and 35 year amortization mortgage from CIBC, while driving your leased 2010 Cadillac Escalade to Holt Renfrew to put your coworkers' Christmas gifts on your home equity line of credit is probably not going to slingshot you into retirement.

Disclaimer: All content on this site is provided as general information only and should not be read as investment advice.  All site content, including advertisements, shall not be construed as a recommendation to buy or sell any security or financial instrument, or to participate in any particular trading or investment strategy.  The ideas expressed on this site are solely the opinions of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the opinions of sponsors or firms affiliated with the author(s).  The author may or may not have a position in any company or advertiser referenced above.  Any action you take as a result of information, analysis, or advertisement viewed on this site is your responsibility.  Consult an investment adviser before making any investment decisions.

Self-Immolation and Diarrhea

My apologies once again for being a day late; we didn't get home from Edmonton until after 9pm last night, and I was too tired to come up with anything coherent after unloading the car.

I'm still at a loss for a good subject today, which is probably because I haven't had a good trip to Wal-Mart in a couple of weeks.  We tried out the new Costco northeast of CrossIron Mills last weekend, but it lacks the robust character that Wal-Mart exudes.  I almost feel like I have to dress up to go to Costco, whereas if I show up at Wal-Mart in nylons, a fur coat, and a pirate hat, while carrying a lightsaber, I'm one of the classiest people there.  Yes, Virginia, a good trip to Wal-Mart is like a good bowel movement (I've always wanted to use the phrase "Yes, Virginia" in a sentence).

There's still no real news worth my effort commenting on in the market; several earnings reports last week disappointed me, but no real surprises were had.

On a rageful note, last night's 60 Minutes was astonishing.  They interviewed public sector figures who looked straight into the camera and said they had cut their budgets to the bone -- that there was nothing further they could do to save money without badly disrupting service to the needy.  Oddly enough, they neglected to consider removing even a single penny from the 'payroll' portion of the budget.  When 99% of all government revenue goes to salaries, pensions, and benefits, it's hard to make a dent on the cost side by reducing the material aspects of the services it renders.  Funny how that works.

Unfortunately, 60 Minutes didn't even mention the fact that the average public sector worker makes over twice that of the average private sector worker, which makes me sorry to say that I have lost a considerable degree of respect for their journalism.  This is the first time I can remember that they've truly disappointed me.

Government budgets are actually one of the simplest things on earth. The sole source of revenue is taxation (in one form or another; i.e. royalties, user fees, inflation).  Thus, the entire equation is:

Total Tax Revenue - Cost of Government = ___________

Balancing the budget is a trivial exercise; unfortunately, because they have the ability to run deficits, they have no incentive to keep the outcome of the above equation to a positive value.

In business, if revenue decreases and cost does not decrease proportionally, bankruptcy eventually occurs.  In government, the currency becomes worthless.

Speaking of bowel movements, I am going to dust off a story from the Terry Archives.

About three and a half years ago, I was working in a small mining town called Elkford (pop. ~2,500) in southeastern British Columbia.

The primary entertainment venue in the town (aside from the time they bussed in strippers from Calgary to another location, which is a separate tale for another time) was a bar called "The Lamplighter".  Every Wednesday at this establishment was "Wing Night", and on that night they served 30 cent wings.  Thus, being able to recognize a good deal when I saw one, I religiously consumed 24 wings every Wednesday for 5 or 6 months.  One night in particular, however, I ate 24 hot wings -- normally I would mix a dozen of one flavor with a dozen of another, just to keep things interesting.

The next morning, I got up and went down to catch the bus to the mine, which usually came by my stop at 5:50am.  As it was early in 2007, winter was still in full force, and it was very cold and very snowy.  At 5:49am, as I stood  waiting for the bus, which I could see a few blocks away, I felt the faintest rumble in my abdomen that briefly made me think "I guess I could go back to my apartment and use the bathroom, because I can always drive my own car to the mine, but I'm confident I can make it to work."

The bus ride from my stop to the mine was typically 40 minutes.  About 10 minutes into our journey through the dark wilderness, disaster struck. The angry, disgruntled remains of the wings were battling my willpower to contain them internally like the scene in Aliens where Ripley fights the alien queen in the airlock with the power loader.

I immediately broke into a cold sweat, and I could hear my heart pounding in my ears.

I began to repeat a mantra in my head over and over again "Terry, crapping your pants on the bus is probably not in your best interest."

As time slowed down around me, I ran through scenarios in my head where I rationalized calmly asking the bus driver to pull over on the mountain road in sub-zero weather so I could run outside and end the suffering immediately.  However, this was not a decision to be taken lightly, lest I be known for the rest of my co-op term as "the guy who stopped the bus to take a dump in the snow at 6:15 in the morning".

So, with the mental discipline of a monk who is able to self-immolate without making a sound, I clenched as tight as they keep the gates at the US Embassy in Iraq, and counted down the remaining 30 minutes, second by second.

When the bus pulled into the parking lot at the mine, I broke into a full-sprint on my way to the washroom, and in full legs-in-the-air-like-Jeff-Daniels-in-Dumb-and-Dumber style, triumphantly relieved myself.

And that, kids, is why I no longer eat two dozen hot wings in one sitting.