Alireza Sefati Blog

If you usually buy gift cards during the holidays as gifts to others, be extremely careful. Many retailers are either closing out going out of business or filing for chapter 15 which means they are protected from any debt and gift cards and store credits while restructuring.

If you must buy a gift card, I suggest purchase those VISA or Mastercard gift cards because they are backed by them and by strong banks and FDIC. But if you really insist on store gift card,  be sure to find out if that store is going to be around and find out their financial status.

Here is an incomplete list of retailers that are either closing up or going through chapter 15 bankruptcy restructuring.

Gadgets - I have been thinking for a while to ditch windows for an alternative OS. Although buying a Mac was always on my mind but it was never an option simply because Macs were too expensive. So I was thinking about installing Linux on my laptop but then I remembered the old days back in college when I installed Red Hat 6.2 on my old IBM Thinkpad laptop and it was a painful experience so I switched back to windows.
Of course in the commercial world I have been using windows mainly windows XP just because I didn’t have any options there either. And to be honest with you my days of experimenting different OS are over. Back in college I had the time and motivation to install various distros of Linux and BSD Operating systems. I tried Redhad Linux,  Mandrik, Debian, and Free BSD. Also my teacher gave me his old Solaris workstation so it had Sun version of Unix installed on it. And back in college I did a lot of my C homework in digital Unix using the school mainframe.
But those days are over, now I look at computers as a tool to help me to achieve my business and personal objectives so reliability matters the most and although Windows has been pretty reliable for business usage (because there are so many software available for it), I think it really fails to give a good personal experience to its users. Besides I am really tired of compatibility issues with Windows Vista and hardware.
There are some major issues with new Microsoft operating systems starting at Vista, and windows server 2008 which is the one I have installed on my laptop. I am not the only one in pain I was just reading an article that how HP is frustrated at Microsoft over Vista compatibility issues (The article)
I was at Best Buy the other day and was playing with one of their new Macbooks. And if it was not for the sales person keep bugging me if I needed his help, I would have kept playing. Macs have improved alot in recent years both in hardware and software.
So I know what I wanted for Christmas now, a 13 inch Macbook as shown in the pictur below:

Announcement - I just would like to announce that new Nike Vapor IV in blue and the corresponding Nike Talaria IV firm ground soccer shoes just arrived. Since it is a bit slow this time of the year and the economy is bad, we only received one run size of these shoes that means once we sell a size it is gone and won’t be available.

So if you are a soccer player and like to purchase these great soccer shoes, check out our online soccer store.

Economy - I think one way we local and federal governments can help the economy and protect its citizens, both of which are primary jobs of all governments, is to increase sales tax and other taxes on Alcoholic beverages and spending that tax into green projects that provides jobs and helps the environment.

Let’s think about it, Alcohol consumption heavily lies within American culture and although most Americans drink socially, many go over the limits and consumption of Alcohol has caused in many problems including death and diseases in this country. Research shows that raising the tax on Alcoholic beverages would mean less consumption of the product and therefore less death and problems. Source

Also government can use the money earned from this tax to create job by investing into various related projects such as green projects, law enforcement, and prevention programs.

I drink beer every once in a while and I totally don’t mind if I have to pay more for it as long as I know the money I am paying is being used to help the economy and save lives.

Economy - The auto industry seems to be taking all the news now and how they possibly will be going bankrupt and they need a bailout but there is a very little coverage on how this economy is failing as a whole. The banking and financial industry is still under alot of trouble despite that  big bailout. Citi Group is laying off close to 60,000 employees, AIG is still asking for money, Amex just became a bank meaning that they laid off so many employees. and so many smaller banks and credit unions are still going out of business or merging meaning more job loss which means a worse economy.

But the bad news doesn’t stop at the auto industry and the financial market. Retail industry is being hart the most. All these bad economy news means less consumer consumption and consumer confidence so many retail stores are either cutting back or going out of business all together.

Here is a list of retail stores closing or going out of business which means more jobloss. I believe it is really clear that the US economy is getting worse and it has not hit rock buttom yet. I believe it will take years, maybe decades for US economy to recover from this bad economy.

P.S. Which idiot(s) said this? “Fundamentals of the economy are strong…”

Soccer - Players of the Italian Serie A soccer club Catania have come up with a new dirty strategy to score goals. Basically on the free kicks, they drop their shorts down to their knees to block the opponent’s goalkeeper vision of the ball.(Source)

Basically in soccer whenever there is a free-kick and the penalty box gets crowded with players, goalkeepers try to get a view of the ball through the legs of the players. So when players are dropping theirs shorts that could block up to 50% of goalkeepers view and when the ball is shot, by the time goalkeeper see the ball it maybe too late and may lead to a goal.

This strategy is a really dirty trick that only Italians could come up with ;). I hope it does not catch on with rest of the soccer world I rather see less goals that seeing goals like this. Scoring goals should come from team’s and players technical and tactical superiority not their sneakiness.

My two cents.