I am not the Customer

In the past, I have subscribed to assorted fashion magazines. Usually I wait until there is a sale. They are a bit tricky. Magazines automatically enroll you into continuous subscription. That means they renew your subscription by default. Often times that comes with a hefty price increase.

That's okay though. They end up having to bill me. And I always cancel. Usually they will try to get me to resubscribe. Nope. Not unless I get the good deal again. Today the good deals came in the mail. I got a letter from Heart Magazines. They publish a ton of magazines. Some I have not even heard of.

The offer was $5 yearly subscription to any of the many magazines they listed. I immediately signed up for Cosmopolitan. I have subscribed to that magazine a couple times in the past. I was happy when they did a big article on one of my favorite YouTubers - Emma Chamberlain.

Here is the thing though. At $5 a year, and 12 issues, that is just 60 cents per issue. The postage along probably costs way more than that. I think Cosmo is one of the thicker magazines too. So how does the publisher make any money at all? The answer is that I am not the customer. They work for the big companies that run ads in their magazines.

They just need me to be a "paying customer" so they can flaunt their subscription numbers to their advertisers. I think this is a fair trade. I get a monthly magazine for a bargain. It is chock full of pages, half of which are ads. I do actually look at the ads. Not that I can afford to buy any high end luxury brands. It is still fun though.

Tiktok Dance to Carbi B "Up"

I frequently watch Sofia Gomez on her spam Tiktok account dancing to "Up" by Cardi B. Now Sofia does know how to dance. But her Up dance is some type of farce that is taken to a whole new level. The best way to describe it is The Faces.

Sofia is does not have the best dance to this beat. I actually love Mariah Amato's version. You got to wait until the end to see the lit handstand she does. It is not fair really. Mariah dances for a living. Or more accurately she teaches dance.

Hard Knock Life

My stock option investments went south. So there went a lot of my cash. Now I need to conserve like a poor person. We had the banister pull out from the wall in the stairs leading to the basement. Time to call the handyman? Nope. That would cost a lot of money. I had to try to fix it myself.

I usually go out to lunch every day. While I should cut that whole expense out, I try to choose less expensive meals instead. No more $10 chicken sandwich from Popeye's. Instead I get a $6 lunch special from the cheap Chinese restaurant. You can't hardly beat that.

I have two pairs of New Balance shoes. One is on its last legs. The other does not seem to fit right. A new pair costs $82. That is just too much for shoes for a poor guy. Instead I opted to buy a used pair for $27 from Amazon. They were rated "like new". Luckily they seem pretty good. Maybe a return?

Continual Fall of Viacom

About a year ago, some hedge fund got its margin called on their speculative bets on Viacom. This caused them to be forced to liquidate their huge position. The result was that Viacom stock fell from $100 to under $50. I thought that was a good time to load up on the stock. My dad was a believer in CBS.

Well the stock continued to fall. This month the stock was down at $25. If I liked it at $50, I absolutely loved it at $25. So I decided to purchase stock option contracts. I was better the thing would bounce up to $30 or $35. My expiration horizon was short.

The last quarterly earnings came and went. The stock did not rise much. My options essentially expired worthless. I gathered a lot more cash and doubled down. I purchased more short term stock options figuring a jump was right around the corner.

Unfortunately the overall market tanked these last few days, causing my options to effectively be worthless again. I swear. This thing has got to rise up sooner or later. I guess it will occur later when I am insolvent.

Broken Handrail

Momoko found a piece of metal on the stairs leading to our basement. Turns out it was a broken bracket that was holding the top of the handrail. This has happened before. So I knew they had replacements at Lowes. When I visited Lowes, the employees could not tell me exactly where to look. They had me checking wrong aisles. Finally I tracked it down myself. I bought two brackets for good measure.

At home I grabbed some 4x4 posts from my shed. I propped the loose handrail up to get access to the wall behind it. Then I completely removed the base of the broken bracket from the wall. Then I installed a new bracket in its place. I used my own screws with wall anchors. I tried as best I could to use an electric screwdriver. It was still painful. And the clasp that ties the bracket to the bottom of the handrail would not stay flush.

I decided we needed a second bracket at the top of the stairs. I installed this one at an angle, so the clasp would be oriented properly to attach flush to the bottom of the handrail. It was hard to install the second one with the first one already holding the handrail in place. I put the bracket as high as I could. It was still a bit under the handrail. So I folder a piece of paper to act as a shim to make a good contact. Don't know whether these 2 brackets will survive the heavy weight people put on the handrail. However 2 is better than 1.