I tried Manny’s for the first time last week and was impressed. It’s one of the best Pale Ale’s I’ve had based in the Pacific Northwest along with Alaska’s Sleeping Lady’s Urban Ale. The odd thing about Manny’s (and Urban Ale) is that it’s not available in bottles or cans.
Continue readingNew month = time to check your credit score
Creditkarma.com is one of my favorite sites on the Internet. Every month it allows you to see your credit score from TransUnion, one of the 3 major credit bureaus. This is different from annualcreditreport.com, which allows you to see the details of your 3 credit reports for free each year,
Continue readingShould insurers use credit scores?
There has been some debate recently on whether insurers in Washington state (and others) should be allowed to use credit scores in underwriting policies. I can understand why insurers have been restricted from using some criteria in underwriting. For instance, you shouldn’t have a different rate based on your race.
Continue readingFor those that live by the 24-hour news cycle: a lesson from David Paterson
Sometimes people are so focused on the 24-hour news cycle, they miss the bigger picture. Take, for instance, David Paterson and his fall. The NY Times lobbed a series of investigative pieces against him, but after the first few, bloggers and analysts assumed that there was no big news. My
Continue readingObama’s foreclosure ban proposal will just delay the inevitable
Obama annouced today that he is considering banning all home foreclosures that don’t go through HAMP review. If you aren’t familiar with HAMP, it’s the government program to reduce interest rates, principal, and extend loan terms to help keep people in their homes. They had hoped to modify 3-4 million
Continue readingBan “phone bans”
The New York Times helped bring to light the dangers of using a cell phone while driving with their multitasking game. Clearly, it’s a problem (I missed 2 gates), but should new laws be passed to ban it? The Highway Loss Institute (funded by insurance companies) studied the impact of
Continue readingSeattle-ites customize their beverages
On the East Coast, people drink water, coffee, or Diet Coke. Out here on the West Coast, it’s amazing to see how people customize their beverages. Lattes aside, in the last week alone I’ve seen at work: Homemade iced coffee in a mason jar, brewed extra strong to combat the
Continue readingHow I book travel online
NY Times has a great blog post on how to book travel online. Here’s how I book domestic travel with defined dates: Check mileage programs – see if a saver ticket is available (generally 25k for a roundtrip). If so, book, but watch out for fees, especially if within 3
Continue readingFree Kindle to Amazon Prime subscribers: good idea, but will it be profitable?
TechCrunch broke the story of Amazon‘s plans to give a free Kindle to all Amazon Prime subscribers. I love the forward thinking by Steve Bezos. Cell phone companies have been doing this for years – free cell phone with a contract. Could he leverage a similar formula for his Prime
Continue readingAnother reason magazine advertising is dying
Add this one to the list of reasons companies will continue to reduce magazine ad spend: I was reading the Jan-Feb 2010 edition of Harvard Business Review and came across this gem: If Accenture, who dropped Tiger Woods back in mid-December, can’t alter an ad 2 months before distribution, you
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