Month: February 2009

As per Uncle Gary’s comment regarding an unrestored Action Comics #1 going up for sale (big news in the comic world today), I swear I read an article indicating that over the past decade if you were to compare investing in comic books vs. investing in mutual funds (before the drop), comics would still bring you a larger return on investment.

I am going to do some heavy duty analysis on this subject. Off the top of my head, there are a few things to keep in mind, such as there’s no way new comic books are worth anything anymore. It’s all about getting old comic books. I’m going to analyze some trends of the increase of the value of older comic books and compare it to the return on investment of mutual funds for the past decade. If I see that comics have been the big winner, it’s time to start investing in collectibles.

But we’ll see what the research says, shall we?

Wow. If someone were to get me one of these, they would be my new best friend. Honestly, how AWESOME is this? This is better than the giant fur hats with the flaps for your ears (which is genius by the way).

http://www.beardhead.com/

Here’s a little information concerning TFSA that I was mistaken about. I’m sharing this information with you inc ase you thought the same thing as I.

As far as I thought, I could have $5K inside a TFSA for this first year. It also says I can withdraw money if I need to without any penalties.

So I had assumed that it would work in the following manner:
Input $5K – Total $5K
Take out $1K – Total $4K
Replace that $1K – Total $5K
Take out $2K – Total $3K
Replace that $2K – Total $5K

In the end of the year, I would still only have $5K in the account. Beauty!

But it doesn’t work like that. You are only allowed to CONTRIBUTE $5K in total for the year. In the above scenario, I would have contributed $8K.

So in the end, it didn’t work out like I thought and I guess I’ll just keep whatever money I have in there now but I’ll have to go back into the land of regular old savings account.

Case in point, sounds like the TFSA is great for people with $5K (or less) that they want to save for a rainy day. For people like me, not so much.

I guess upon thinking about it, it still is a decent place to shelter some money. For example, I save up money off of every paycheque for property taxes. My property taxes definitely are not over $5K in the year so it’s a nice place to keep the money until I have to pay them. But ideally, if I had money that I simply wanted to save, this is the place for it.

Invest in comics books I say!

Fast Fact (Other) – Dave from work told me that if you don’t pay back the minimum payment from the Home Buyers Plan (RRSP), the Government simply taxes that amount on that years’ taxes. Interesting. I had assumed that you NEEDED to deposit the money back into an RRSP. I guess not. It makes sense in a way…it’s the same as depositing and then taking it out as a withdrawal for the year for yourself.

*update* Peter left a great comment concerning TFSA that I felt should be posted up here in the front.  Thanks Peter!

Example.

Year 1

Allowable contribution = $5K

Contribute $4k
Invest in a gold mine and grow the TFSA by $20K
Withdraw $10K for some home renos.

Year 2

Contribution limit is total of:

$ 1K – Unused contribution room from previous year
$ 5K – Annual contribution amount
$10K – funds withdrawn in previous years.
=====
$16K Total

Once again, any contributions not made in year 2 carry forward to year 3 etc.

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

Mike sent me this great video concerning the credit crisis in the United States.

The need for tax money must be at an all time high these days.

Today I received my retroactive back pay cheque. People were dancing in the streets, Maren is already scoping out her new Macbook, and I am depositing the cheque in the bank.

Unfortunately the cheque was 55% less than the gross amount! That seems to be a little extreme, don’t you think? I mean…who is in a tax bracket that high?

I had a good chunk of this entry already written and then somehow I never saved the email. Woops? So I guess I’ll speed through some elements.

On Friday, Vero and I headed out on a road trip towards Barrie. We unfortunately left a little later than planned and ended up in rush hour in Ottawa. Not good! We then encountered snow storms along the way. Not good! Then we realized that the sun was falling. Not good!

To make this even worse, we had decided to take HWY 60 as we heard it was a nice drive. Now, if you are planning to drive a highway in the middle of the night during various snowstorms, it’s probably not the best idea to head down some highway you are not familiar with, as well as one that cuts through Algonquin Park which looked like Hoth. I was ready to cut open a wampa if the car broke down but we made it through unscathed.

We rolled into Barrie around 11PM and had a few beers with Ryan and Emilie. A few beers turned into us retiring for the night around 3AM.

In the morning, we headed out to the Flashback Diner which claimed to have ‘Barrie’s Best Breakfast’. When I first heard this, I figured the owner must have been ‘Barry’ and it was their best breakfast. It wasn’t until I go into the restaurant when I realized that we were in the town of Barrie!

Barrie is a nice enough place and it’s a good jumping point whether you want to go into the city (Toronto), or you want to do some outdoor activities (fishing, hunting, cabin). Ryan and Emilie seem to enjoy it and they have a sweet house with a lot of windows which Vero adores. Thanks for putting us up for the night!

On Saturday night after dinner, we hit the road to Meaford which was supposedly an hour away. Of course, luck would have it and we hit snow squalls along the way so with a wrong turn near Collingwood, the trip ended up being two hours.

We rolled up to the Kins Hall where the surprise party was being held. Vero and I honestly had a double take as we walked up to the place. There were four lone smokers tucked in a dark corner and beyond them were stacks of picnic tables stacked in a corner. Keep in mind that this area was still outside! Vero and I thought that the party was being held outside when we saw the smokers but we realized quickly that there were stairs in the back to climb up to the actual hall. Even getting the hall was random as the door was a little off axis and I had to haul on it to get it open. We saw Mike when we entered and then all I heard was Danny saying “Palmer?!”. Surprise, indeed!

Turns out that in a moment of surprise party planning brilliance, Carol managed to convince Danny that there was an engagement party for their friends being held in the hall. So when he showed up, he saw all his friends in the hall and they yelled ‘Surprise!’. He was a little confused and looked behind him wondering who they were yelling at. He then realized that there was no engagement party and the party was for him! It was a grand old time with his family who had come up as well as a few of his old buddies from back home.

The beers were a-flowing, wine was being spilled everywhere by Samantha and Carol and all in all, it was a good time. I also was introduced to a new beer…Mill Street Stock Ale which was AMAZING. I cannot rave enough about this beer and I’ve only had three so far. I shall be hunting for a case soon enough.

We headed back to Carol and Danny’s house which was amazing…they had this bar and a fireplace in their living room. I was quite impressed by it all and can’t wait to get back there. It was nice seeing the Losier Clan together. Happy birthday to you Danny!

The next morning we headed out around 10AM and I ended up at Canadian Tire in Collingwood to change a wiper blade. It wasn’t broken, but it wasn’t leaving Vero with a great view. Unfortunately for me, a pin had broken and I had assumed that it was part of the old wiper blade so I had to go in and buy a pair of pliers to rip it out. This process took me a good half hour and finally I got the other wiper blade on. Unfortunately for me (yet again), it turns out that the pin was part of the wiper arm and the wiper was hanging from a thread! It never flew off but I’ll have to fix it this weekend coming up.

The drive back was equally unexciting. A few snow squalls here and there and we could never find the German Settlement that Krista had told us about. I would like to recommend that people don’t bother with HWY 60 unless it is the summer and you can appreciate the scenery. Otherwise, it’s probably best to travel on the 400 or HWY 7 during some snowstorms.

I suppose I’ll get pictures of the event sent to me one day by Carol. I also need to remember to write an entry regarding fighting in the NHL. Turns out there was a faithful reader amongst the group on Saturday night and I said I would write on any subject he wished for. Mike, if I forget about it, let me know.

With the new Friday the 13th film out in theaters, Trish, Vero, Aaron and I headed out to Rideau Cinemas after work to check it out.

If you have never been to Rideau Cinemas, I gotta tell you, it’s a pretty great place to see a film.  I got there with a lot of time to spare so I went to HMV for awhile and found a great book called ‘Tales to Astonish’ for $3.  It is about the story of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and the rise of the Marvel Age within Marvel Comics in the 1960s.  The Marvel Age is when you see all the superheroes (Fantastic Four, Spider-Man) be created.  For $3, you can’t go wrong.

Question: On an item that is FINAL SALE ONLY, why do they bother giving me a receipt?

So after a nap and reading a book, Trish and Vero show up for the show and we buy our ticket (Trish even had a 2 for 1 coupon!) and when I asked the woman working there if it would be a problem getting seats in the theater, she had a good chuckle as there were ten people in the theater with us when the show started up!  This is a far cry from the madness which is Silver City where you need to arrive two hours before a new movie on a Tuesday night!  Heck, they didn’t even check my ticket stub.  I’m sure we could have walked in without one.

So…Friday the 13th…I’ve been reading some reviews and they are pretty bad.  But the thing is, they echo the same sentiments which I don’t agree with.  All the reviews I’ve read speak about how it’s a lame reboot of the series…or is it a sequel?  Or it is a homage to the old films?  Either way, it just doesn’t know where to fit in the grand scheme of the series. Then the reviews go on about how it’s the same mindless hacker film of yesteryear…no-good doing teenagers get hacked by a guy in a hockey mask while running through the woods.  The story is thin, the characters bland.

Uhh….last time I checked, I didn’t realize Friday the 13th was supposed to be an Oscar worthy film!  Let me set the stage for you my fellow readers…if you enjoy the Friday the 13th films for what they are supposed to be…mindless horror films where there are killers lumbering through the woods after screaming teenagers who may or may not get naked every 12 minutes…heck, you’re in for a treat!

The film is an amalgamation of the first four Friday the 13th films which in my mind, are the true essence of what the series is supposed to be.  *Spoilers for the first four films right here…skip to the next paragraph or so to continue on***.  In the first film of the series, Mrs. Voorhees goes around killing camp counselors who let her son Jason drown while on their watch because they were having sex.  The second film sees Jason emerge from his watery grave and take out his revenge on a new batch of counselors.  In the third film, he returns again but in this one, finds a hockey mask which becomes his iconic image.  In the fourth one (and probably the best of the series) everything comes together again and he returns on a killing spree and is *supposedly* killed.

So the new film starts out with a five minute recap of the end of the first film.  Mrs. Voorhees makes an appearance and it sets up the film…”You let Jason drown!”, yada yada yada.  Then the film skips ahead to ‘Crystal Lake – Present Day’ (I always enjoy when they move something to present day but if you watch the film twenty years from now, it may seem dated, especially if they are talking about this newfound technology…the GSP system) and we see a bunch of campers in search for a marijuana field.  Everything is going well and they set in for the night where common horror film camping activities occur (I specify ‘horror film camping activities’ because I swear whatever happens in the films never happen in the real world.  Doh!) but then Jason shows up and hacks them all up and then this leads to the main part of the film where a brother is searching for her missing sister who was part of this camping group.

But of course Jason lumbers around and starts hunting down this new group of teenagers who (Oh noes!) are on Crystal Lake, Jason’s hunting area of choice.

The film has great nods to the past in some of the killings…Jason with a machete, Jason with a bow and arrow…we get to see a good dose of 1980s slasher flick nudity and the film is a great addition to the series.  If you get past all the thinking behind “Where is this film supposed to be in the series?” and simply enjoy it for what it’s supposed to be…a half decent slasher flick, then I think you’ll enjoy it.  We all did.  They had some great death sequences and my favourite was the woman who was out wake boarding (for those who will tune into the film later on).

Was the film revolutionary?  Heck no.  Was it a fun film to watch if you already enjoy the Friday the 13th series?  Heck yes.  It wasn’t as campy as Freddy vs. Jason and I would like to say that it was a decent Friday the 13th film.  I would still recommend watching the first four films of the series to get a good base of the story, but if you only need one, I guess there’s no harm in watching this one.

On another note, we had this great idea of an amazing marketing tactic for a film like this.  At one point in the film, everyone is wondering where Jason is and then we hear the theater door open up behind and we say “I think that’s him entering the theater!”.  Imagine that as an actual event…somewhere in the middle of the film in a really tense part, an actual Jason comes running into the theater with a machete in hand and pandemonium ensues for ten seconds before he runs out.  That would be KILLER.  Vero and I were thinking of the logistics and we realized it couldn’t happen in every theater but it would be amazing to see it happen in select cities as part of the promotion.  Let’s just ignore the lame thoughts of mass panic, heart attacks, etc. that would happen and let’s think of the grand theatrical masterpiece that it would be.  Vero thought about a variation on this theme where the film would actually be sliced midway through the film and you would see Jason’s shadow in behind the screen (ala Gremlins 2…does anyone remember that happening in the theaters?).  Anyhow, we thought it was a pretty good promotion.

iplaying: Be There for Me – Thornley (Tiny Pictures)