doodledee

The image above is the little weather widget that lives on my desktop. That's what it looked like when I woke up this morning. I wept into my raisin bran when I saw it. Then I put on a swim suit and loaded junior into the bike carrier thing and pedaled over to Linden Hills park to spend the morning soaking in the kiddie pool. Genius.

Later this afternoon we lost power for a few hours. As soon as the lights went off I ran to the freezer to eat save all the ice cream. Then I ran downstairs to shut the computer down before the battery backup thing ran out of juice. I'd never actually been home when the power has gone off, so today was the first time that I realized that while my computer is backed up by battery, my monitor isn't. Whoops.

The hot debate [ha!] in the neighborhood this weekend started when neighbor.dave yelled "at least it's not twenty below!" as he happily sweated through his yard work routine. I said I'd prefer the cold to the heat. I'd probably say the opposite if it were 20 below out, but whatever. Several of the folks mingling around agreed with my take, but a couple of others just smiled and said they love days like today. Doofs.

In other weather news, Libby mentioned that the newest WCCO weather map program that Paul Douglas uses on TV doesn't support 3 digit temperatures. Burn.

Today's opinion based on garbage math brought to you by the Strib's letters to the editor page.

William Cooper owns over 3 million shares of TCF stock, which paid a 97-cent dividend last year. That would be almost $3 million in dividends.

As outlined in his opinion piece with Michael Wigley, taxes on dividends dropped from 30 percent to 15 percent. That means Cooper netted over $700,000 in tax savings on his dividends alone. Add in the capital gains from his sale of TCF stock and other holdings and he has a million reasons to promote the president's tax cuts. It also gives me a million reasons to question his credibility.

[REDACTED], BLOOMINGTON

Data Errors

- The tax rates on dividends didn't drop from 30% to 15%, it dropped from being taxed as "ordinary income" - which could be as high as 35% - to being taxed at a flat 15% for everyone. [duh]
- There's no such thing as a 30% tax bracket. [src]
- TCB paid-out $0.85/share in 2005, not $0.97. [src]

We'll do the math both ways, just for fun.

Bad Data Math

3MM shares * $0.97/share = $2,910,000
Tax owed (30%) = $873,000
Tax owed (15%) = $436,500
"tax savings" = $436,500

Good Data Math

3MM shares * $0.85/share = $2,550,000
Tax owed (30%) = $765,000
Tax owed (15%) = $382,500
"tax savings" = $382,500

I have no idea where the letter writer's $700,000 in "tax savings" came from, but his math gives me 328,000 reasons to question his credibility. Or maybe I'm wrong. Wouldn't be the first time.

Full Disclosure: I'm no fan of TCF Bank, but I do maintain a small account there so I can use their ATM's without being charged a fee. (Genius.) I also don't like that they might be naming the new Gopher stadium after a stupid bank with a crappy website.

Letters to the Editor - 7/30/2006 [strib]
Tax cuts are benefiting our economy [strib] - I think this is the original article

Hey check it out, it's almost an entire half a pint of homegrown raspberries. Woo hoo. And there are tons more of them out back in the garden. Woo hoo again. Get me some ice cream or something, I'm ready to eat.

Those of you keeping score at home may recognize the significance of such a bountiful harvest, as these would be berries picked from plants that Libby planted way back when we first cleared space for our backyard garden way back when we first got a backyard to clear space in. For those of you who don't remember that particular time in doodlehistory, I'll just put it this way: these are berries from plants purchased from a pre-IPO Garden.com. Yes, that Garden.com. If I remember correctly we had a coupon and we ended up getting 12 live plants shipped overnight for like $8. 1999 ruled.

The story goes that Libby planted her raspberries in our garden and then a couple of days later I planted like 6 huge tomato plants and a ton of beans and zucchini and herbs and stuff and more or less hogged all the sunlight and water and nutrients and - go figure - all but like 3 of her plants died after that first summer. That's what we in the business like to call a "whoops". At the time I had also purchased a ton of lumber and wire and stuff so that I could build this killer industrial strength raspberry trellis thing that Libby had found blueprints for on the internet. ("Mmm... Ambitious this one is." - Yoda, that afternoon). Go figure, all that crap is still up in the rafters of my garage, waiting to be built. Whoops again.

But now I don't garden as much as I used to - mostly because I've finally come to terms with my super shady backyard - and Libby and her raspberries have somehow managed to claw their way into dominance. I'd estimate they've taken over a good half of the garden, and are actually producing quite a bit of fruit. Not enough to jam or jelly or anything, but certainly enough to enjoy as a snack, and certainly way more than they've produced any other year. Who knew?

Berrylicious indeed.

Can we talk about ice for a minute? Good, because it's been a big year for ice in the doodle household. It started a few months ago when Libby crossed off another item from her deathbed confessional list by admitting that she hasn't refilled our ice cube trays in like five years. I'm just going to leave it at that, because I assume that all you readers without automatic ice makers will instantly know how big of a deal that type of acknowledgement is, while those of you with ice makers would probably think I'm insane if I went on at any length about it. So either way you'd know how it this would go. It's like a blog that writes itself. Genius.

But there's more ice to talk about. The other day I'm making iced tea - coincidentally it's also been a big year for iced tea in the doodle household - and while it's brewing I prepare myself a glass with a couple of lemon slices and a ton of ice cubes. Except we don't have any ice because we had had a bunch of people over for lunch and we used up all 4 trays keeping their drinks cold during the meal. Curses. But I figure no big deal, and I grab a bowl and head over to the neighbors. Neighbor.nextdoor tells me their ice machine is on the fritz. Neighbor.commie.mike wasn't home. Curses again. So I jump on the scooter and cruise over to the gas station and buy a small bag of cubes. Yes, I *really* wanted that iced tea.

And now it's been a few weeks and I'm in love with my little bag store-bought cubes. They're so convenient and cute and they have holes in the middle so they cool my drink really fast. I used up the last of them this afternoon, and tonight when I was out grabbing a few ingredients for dinner I caught myself gazing into the freezer at Lund's, sighing softly and wondering how big of a deal it would be if I bought another bag under a non-ice-emergency situation. It's so indulgent, almost reckless. I managed to resist this time, but I'm thinking that may not always be the case. Yet another $1.05 that should be put to better use. Or should it? I'm so confused.

Ice on.

Yesterday's post from Beth "Die Soccer Moms Die" Hawkins on the City Pages Blotter titled "Don't Stop Living in the Red" caught my eye. It was subtitled "Three-fourths of Target profits now from credit cards" and it opened with the following mind-blower:

Shabby Chic, indeed: […] According to a BusinessWeek analysis of Target's first-quarter 2006 earnings reports, three of every four dollars in profit made by the retailer now come from interest, late fees, over-balance fees and other earnings on its Visa cards.

It goes on to talk about how TGT is potentially lowering the standards for issuing credit cards in order to make more money from people who carry balances, miss payments, etc. I'm guessing the angle Ms. Hawkins was going for was that this giant corporation is making tons of money by exploiting people with questionable credit worthiness, but for all I know she may have just been trying to warn the investing public that TGT was taking on too much credit risk and that it might be time to sell your shares.

Either way, after I read the story all I could think was, "Whaaa?!! 75% of TGT's profit comes from credit cards?" That seemed insane. They're like a $50B company with over a thousand stores. I know the credit stuff has been kicking ass for them and everything, but holy cow I didn't realize they were making 75% of their money from interest and late fees.

So I go find the Business Week article - because naturally she didn't link to it - and here's what it said:

When Target Corp. reported its first-quarter earnings in mid-May, analysts were annoyed that the retailer missed their consensus forecast by a penny per share. But few seemed to notice that three-quarters of the company's 15% earnings gain came from its credit-card operations, not its retail business.

Ah ha! So it's not that "Three-fourths of Target profits now from credit cards", it's that three-fourths of Target's Q1 15% gain in earnings originated in the credit card side of the house. That's what we in the business like to call a BIG DIFFERENCE. Still kind of an eyebrow raiser, but not exactly the type of thing your local arts and entertainment weekly would typically get worked up about.

I tried to comment on the Blotter to correct the error, but City Pages moderates their comments and - brace yourself - my comment with the correction never got approved. That may or may not be related to the fact that I used the username 'econ101' or the fact that I probably had tons of spelling errors in my comment or the fact that they never check their moderation queue for new comments, but regardless, hipsters continue to be misinformed even as we speak. The humanity.

This story didn't deserve an entry this long. Whoops.

Don't Stop Living in the Red [citypages]
Where Target May Miss The Mark [businessweek]

Today's World Cup final didn't go exactly like I was thinking it would. Except the part about Italy winning, that part I expected, though our house would be holding out for Les Bleus to pull it off.

What I didn't expect was that the championship would be settled by PK's or that Zidane - a player I had developed somewhat of a mancrush on during the tournament - would have an on-field meltdown and end up getting ejected for headbutting another player in the chest (thereby ending my mancrush). I also didn't expect Henry to get a near concussion like 2 minutes in and disappear until the second half or that the team looking the most exhausted at the end of the game would be the Italians. And to be honest, I didn't really expect France to score, so that was a surprise, too. Either way, most everyone on earth watched one of the more bizarre games of the entire Cup. Except for that soccer hating douchebag Jim Souhan, he probably mowed his lawn instead. And unfortunately for us soccer fans, this game provided The Douchebags with plenty of ammunition for the next time the US pays attention to soccer, whenever that is. I'm guessing 4 years from now. I'm counting the days already.

All in all, not a bad Cup. Kudos to ESPN for buckling down and showing every game.

The other night I was out for an evening jog and I happened upon a group of kids playing a game of horse in the alley. I was maybe five houses away when I first saw them, but even from that distance it was obvious they were deep into the impossible-trick-shot stage of their game. I watched as one kid jumped off a retaining wall, spun around in mid-air, and launched the ball just before his feet hit the ground. The shot missed by maybe 10 feet, but I still gave him a B+ for creativity and a solid A for effort. (Coincidentally, those are the same grades Libby gave me when she heard I was going jogging. Badump.)

Now I'm like three houses away. Another one of the kids tries some silly backwards shot that I *totally* could have made, but CLANK, no go for him. Maybe next time. Two houses away now. The third kid starts building a set of stairs out of a couple of recycling bins. He climbs up, then crawls over onto one of those big blue rolling garbage can things. One house away. I can see where this is going. I'm sure you can to. Kid tries to stand up on rolling garbage can. Instantly loses his balance and falls ass over teakettle, bouncing first off the garbage can, then off the retaining wall, then off the pavement. Ouch ouch ouch, three times ouch.

I'm maybe 15 feet away at this point, still jogging on the outside, but half paralyzed on the inside. The kid who fell bursts into tears, which is good because it means he's not out cold. One kid bolts - and I mean BOLTS - into the house to get mom. I slow down and kind of shuffle for a few steps. Here comes mom, running through the backyard. The hurt kid is up, stumbling around, bawling and holding his side. She runs to check on him.

I see that their basketball is rolling down the alley, so I catch up to it and kick it back into the yard. I try not to make eye contact with mom. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to have done when I saw the kid fall, but at that moment I was pretty sure "continue jogging" wasn't the right answer. In retrospect, though, I'm not sure "run over and help the kid up" would have been the right answer either. I suppose the best thing to do would have been "make sure someone is going to get help", which the BOLTER certainly was doing, so all in all I think I'm probably in the clear in this case. Lucky me.

One of the non-injured kids saw me retrieve the ball. He yelled a big happy "Thank you!!" and waved a big goofy wave at me. That pretty much pushed the surreal scale into the "crazy backwards talking Twin Peaks red room" realm. I headed for home after that.