In an endearing expression of his Normal Guy personality, Bill Murray watches COPS while doing an interview.

• Be Jackson Pollock for a day (or a few minutes). Be sure to click to change the colors. (via Feld Thoughts)
• In a rather popular question for the day: How many sources of income do you personally have? As a former market research person, this is a great question, but it needs to be a little more specific: Excluding the revenue sources of other people in your household, how many sources of income do you have? (Joint streams, such a project that you & another work on together, count.) Then, the number split needs to be 1, 2, 3-5, 5+ to reflect people who have a full-time job, a full-time job plus perhaps some freelancing, and people who are putting multiple streams together. I’d make the argument though that this still isn’t the world’s best poll. If I had 5 streams of income, that doesn’t amount to much if they’re each $200; I could just as easily have 1 stream of income that’s $100k a year. Additionally, it could cost me $100 to have an income stream that only generates $50. A smart researcher would find out how much each of those streams deliver profit-wise.

• Poll of the readers of Infectious Greed. Of the 160 responses so far, 44% have 2-3.
• Poll of the readers of Lifehacker. Of the 459 responses so far, well over 50% have 2 or more sources.

Your standard “for Dummies” book on how to buy a house. Clear, easy to read, not too detailed but I never felt like anything was underexplained either. I already knew a little about preparing for buying a house, but this laid out exactly how much work it really is.

Wondering where Biz Markie has been lately? Me too! Turns out he’s bringing beats to a kids TV show–Yo Gabba Gabba. (via Mimi Smartypants)

me: i have to stop reading books that self-describe as “tragic” and “epic”
me: because it really means “depressing” and “long”
[smash]: you should watch full metal jacket instead!
db: (giggles)
bug: stick to short stories
bug: while sometimes tragic, they are rarely epic

Acts of Faith. The complaints against this book–it’s depressing (tragic) and long (epic). As noted in a number of reviews, it drones on and on and on in places. The women, as a whole, are poorly written and the dialogue is wrong/overdone/caricaturized. The plusses, however, outweigh the minuses and the book is a fairly definitive book on the complexity of morality on a continent that for so long has had to choose between what is necessary and what is not, rather than between what is right and what is wrong. A worthy read from A Rumor of War author Philip Caputo, though, as many have pointed out, would have been better as a non-fiction from the same author.

I have to admit that I’m profoundly embarrassed to have succumbed to the book publisher’s ploy of appealing to my financially-focused (ed. originally said greedy, but see traits #5 & 6 below) side and bought Secrets of Six-Figure Women. This, however, speaks to the book’s topic–how financially successful women approach money in a way that financially unsuccessful women do not. (Hint: They aren’t embarrassed to admit they occasionally need help, support, and guidance when it comes to the fruits of their labor.)

The book is an interesting mix of self-help, interviews with successful women, and personal disclosure from author Barbara Stanny, an EF Hutton heiress who lost her trust fund at the hands of an unscrupulous husband and managed to become a six-figure author. Stanny points out that it’s not, in fact, the amount that you are paid, but rather the determination to be paid what you’re worth that matters. While I gained a lot of intangible benefit from attending business school, I probably would have gained even more just by reading this book before I went. Or before that even.

Not only had I shortchanged myself financially based on a myth I held as fact, but even worse, I denied myself the satisfaction of seeing tangible rewards from personal achievement and the deep sense of security that you can only get from being genuinely self-reliant.

If you think, suspect, or know you’re an underearner (yo! represent!) and you’re not quite ready to totally ‘fess up, you should at least read through the descriptions of the Nine Traits of Underearning on page 52 before you put the book back on the shelf:

1. High tolerance for low pay
2. Underestimating your worth
3. Willing to work for free
4. Are a lousy negotiator
5. Practice reverse snobbery
6. Believe in the nobility of poverty
7. Be a self-saboteur*
8. Be unequivocally codependent
9. Live in financial chaos

*This is my biggest fault–the constant moving? Check. Switching jobs frequently? Check. Stopping short before reaching important goals? Check.

While the book’s editors could have been a bit more heavy-handed and the financial investment information in the back isn’t particularly helpful, I’m glad I read this.

What are you implying, John? That O’Reilly & Geraldo are narcissists enthralled with their own overblown egos, projecting their own petty insecurities onto the world around them? inventing false enemies for the sole purpose of bolstering their sense of self-importance, itty bitty Nixons minus the relevance or a hint of vision? How dare you!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uyhzw2kcSSs