Friday, September 23, 2005
Quatloos!
Note on importing the old blog to this address. I have no idea what this was or why I posted it. I think it's a Star Trek reference, but not going to go to Google to confirm. You can do that on your own time. Anyway, preserved here for eternity.
My New Project, the Mandelbrot Story
On my birthday this year, I ended up killing some time at Platinum II "while traffic died down". As it was the day shift, I was not interested in spending any money or time with any of the "dancers". For those not in the know, there is a bit of difference between the day and night shifts at "gentlemen's clubs". The night shift is the "A" team and the day shift is the "B" team.
As such, I contented myself with a couple of Coronas and watching the sports highlights of the day on the big screens. After about 45 minutes and two bottles of Corona, I was getting bored and antsy. Unfortunately, at this point (4:45 pm on a work day), traffic really did suck. It would easily take me an hour to get home. Between the coffee I had that morning, tea at lunch a couple of glasses of beer my ace #1 client Jen had bought me at lunch ,(all before the Corona), I knew that even if I visited the bathroom immediately before leaving the club, I would be on a constant search for facilities all the way home. Since a friend of mine was going to meet me at the Metro at 6:30, it might make more sense to just stay put.
So, I had a choice. I could drive home, and take the risk of not being able to find quick facilities. Or, I could ride it out at Platinum, and go directly to Metro from there. Now, the road from Platinum to my house is almost entirely commercial, so it's not like it would be a crisis, but the prospect of spending an hour in traffic while constantly looking for a john did not sound like a good birthday. I would ride it out.
At this point I'm really getting bored and considering just going over to Humperdinks to play NTN trivia when I get a tap on the shoulder. She's tall and nicely built, so what the hell. As we chat, I find out that her boyfriend wants her to "dance" until she can pull her own weight financially some other way. It is a special type of man that dates "dancers".
I ask her what she is doing to accomplish that end and she tells me that she is helping people save money on their electric bills. Her explanation of the history of Texas electricity deregulation, TXU's rates and marketing budgets are a bit confused, but I am kind of able to follow it.
And yes, I am aware that I was talking about energy deregulation with a half naked stripper in a club, shouting over the ear shattering music. And, I was trying to make heads or tails out of what she was saying. I am a dork, you don't have to rub it in.
So finally she gets frustrated with my questions and her inability to explain and tells me to go to her website. I ask for the URL and she blabs off something followed by "dot com". I tell her I'll never remember that and just give me her card. She says she doesn't have a card because she has to make enough money from selling electricity to buy cards and that it's like a "chicken and egg" problem. I tell her that business cards are cheap and that she should be able to buy in quantity with just a few private dances. The look on her face was akin to that of a dog being shown a card trick.
I told her to write it on a napkin.
Off to Metro to meet my friend for drinks and dinner. My favorite bartender was there and upon being told it was my birthday, the rum & cokes started. At some point I took to bed.
The next day, as I am confusedly pulling various things out of my pockets, I find the napkin. I go to the URL and look into the deal. There are a couple of flash presentations on there, one describing how electricity deregulation in Texas works and the other describing how the company, Ignite, was marketing electricity from a Retail Electricity Provider (REP) called Stream.
It was interesting enough that I read some articles on the thing, but did not pursue it any further. After all, I had learned about it from a stripper that could not figure out how to get business cards. I mean, I like a get rich quick scheme as much as the next guy, but I'm not stupid.
However, I did tell my friends about it in the context of trying to kill some time at a strip club on my birthday I received a lesson in Texas electricty deregulation. Two of the folks I told were Baby Doc and Lerxst.
About a month ago, Baby Doc said that she had been approached by four people in one week about joining Ignite. She asked if I knew anything about it. I recounted my story of the stripper and the general research I'd done on the topic, but that was it. She said that the people that approached her were legitimate folks and not members of the "entertainment" industry. Further, the guy behind Stream is an acquaintance of hers and he has serious money.
She had been invited to one of the meetings and asked me to attend with her and tell her what I thought of the whole deal. After an embarrassing exchange of emails with one of the coordinators (I mused in an email to Baby Doc whether the coordinator was insane. I screwed up and sent to the coordinator, not Baby Doc). We attended the meeting and it was pretty interesting. It was not a high pressure proposition. Further, as the meeting progressed we kept whispering to each other that this thing was right up Lerxst's alley. To maximize the return on this deal, one must use one's network and Lerxst is a networking machine.
Basically, to make money in the deal, one has to get ten residential customers to switch their eletricity accounts to Stream and to recruit three additional associates to each sell ten energy accounts. Then each of the associates you recruit do the same and so on and so on. Once the accounts are switched, the associate is paid a monthly residual on that account. There is more to it and, if interested, check out the flash presentation here.
The switching part is a no brainer because Stream's rates are cheaper than the major providers. Further, the end use service is the same. When power lines go down, the same number is called, no matter who the provider is and service is the same. The only difference between REPs is who bills you and their rates. How hard could it be to get people to switch?
We decided to try it out for a number of reasons. The first is that with three of us, the goals would be easier and quicker to achieve and secondly that if we failed, then we were only out a third of what we would have been otherwise. None of us would have done it without the others being involved. I organized a limited liability company to lay out how we would share expenses and revenues.
As an experiment, I'm going to keep track of our expenses, efforts and revenues to see if this deal works.
To date, we have incurred the following expenses:
$205.40 - Filing fee for limited liability company;
$329.00 - Fee to buy into Ignite; and
$ 19.95 - Fee for first month of the website.
$544.35 - total
To receive our first bonus of $100, we have to sign up four energy accounts. Subscribing to the website counts as two, so we did that. I have switched my service to Stream. Once Baby Doc gets around to changing, we will have our first payday (Lerxst does not live in Texas). I will be describing each goal we must achieve as we go along, but if you'd like to look ahead, go here.
I'm very interested in how this turns out.
As such, I contented myself with a couple of Coronas and watching the sports highlights of the day on the big screens. After about 45 minutes and two bottles of Corona, I was getting bored and antsy. Unfortunately, at this point (4:45 pm on a work day), traffic really did suck. It would easily take me an hour to get home. Between the coffee I had that morning, tea at lunch a couple of glasses of beer my ace #1 client Jen had bought me at lunch ,(all before the Corona), I knew that even if I visited the bathroom immediately before leaving the club, I would be on a constant search for facilities all the way home. Since a friend of mine was going to meet me at the Metro at 6:30, it might make more sense to just stay put.
So, I had a choice. I could drive home, and take the risk of not being able to find quick facilities. Or, I could ride it out at Platinum, and go directly to Metro from there. Now, the road from Platinum to my house is almost entirely commercial, so it's not like it would be a crisis, but the prospect of spending an hour in traffic while constantly looking for a john did not sound like a good birthday. I would ride it out.
At this point I'm really getting bored and considering just going over to Humperdinks to play NTN trivia when I get a tap on the shoulder. She's tall and nicely built, so what the hell. As we chat, I find out that her boyfriend wants her to "dance" until she can pull her own weight financially some other way. It is a special type of man that dates "dancers".
I ask her what she is doing to accomplish that end and she tells me that she is helping people save money on their electric bills. Her explanation of the history of Texas electricity deregulation, TXU's rates and marketing budgets are a bit confused, but I am kind of able to follow it.
And yes, I am aware that I was talking about energy deregulation with a half naked stripper in a club, shouting over the ear shattering music. And, I was trying to make heads or tails out of what she was saying. I am a dork, you don't have to rub it in.
So finally she gets frustrated with my questions and her inability to explain and tells me to go to her website. I ask for the URL and she blabs off something followed by "dot com". I tell her I'll never remember that and just give me her card. She says she doesn't have a card because she has to make enough money from selling electricity to buy cards and that it's like a "chicken and egg" problem. I tell her that business cards are cheap and that she should be able to buy in quantity with just a few private dances. The look on her face was akin to that of a dog being shown a card trick.
I told her to write it on a napkin.
Off to Metro to meet my friend for drinks and dinner. My favorite bartender was there and upon being told it was my birthday, the rum & cokes started. At some point I took to bed.
The next day, as I am confusedly pulling various things out of my pockets, I find the napkin. I go to the URL and look into the deal. There are a couple of flash presentations on there, one describing how electricity deregulation in Texas works and the other describing how the company, Ignite, was marketing electricity from a Retail Electricity Provider (REP) called Stream.
It was interesting enough that I read some articles on the thing, but did not pursue it any further. After all, I had learned about it from a stripper that could not figure out how to get business cards. I mean, I like a get rich quick scheme as much as the next guy, but I'm not stupid.
However, I did tell my friends about it in the context of trying to kill some time at a strip club on my birthday I received a lesson in Texas electricty deregulation. Two of the folks I told were Baby Doc and Lerxst.
About a month ago, Baby Doc said that she had been approached by four people in one week about joining Ignite. She asked if I knew anything about it. I recounted my story of the stripper and the general research I'd done on the topic, but that was it. She said that the people that approached her were legitimate folks and not members of the "entertainment" industry. Further, the guy behind Stream is an acquaintance of hers and he has serious money.
She had been invited to one of the meetings and asked me to attend with her and tell her what I thought of the whole deal. After an embarrassing exchange of emails with one of the coordinators (I mused in an email to Baby Doc whether the coordinator was insane. I screwed up and sent to the coordinator, not Baby Doc). We attended the meeting and it was pretty interesting. It was not a high pressure proposition. Further, as the meeting progressed we kept whispering to each other that this thing was right up Lerxst's alley. To maximize the return on this deal, one must use one's network and Lerxst is a networking machine.
Basically, to make money in the deal, one has to get ten residential customers to switch their eletricity accounts to Stream and to recruit three additional associates to each sell ten energy accounts. Then each of the associates you recruit do the same and so on and so on. Once the accounts are switched, the associate is paid a monthly residual on that account. There is more to it and, if interested, check out the flash presentation here.
The switching part is a no brainer because Stream's rates are cheaper than the major providers. Further, the end use service is the same. When power lines go down, the same number is called, no matter who the provider is and service is the same. The only difference between REPs is who bills you and their rates. How hard could it be to get people to switch?
We decided to try it out for a number of reasons. The first is that with three of us, the goals would be easier and quicker to achieve and secondly that if we failed, then we were only out a third of what we would have been otherwise. None of us would have done it without the others being involved. I organized a limited liability company to lay out how we would share expenses and revenues.
As an experiment, I'm going to keep track of our expenses, efforts and revenues to see if this deal works.
To date, we have incurred the following expenses:
$205.40 - Filing fee for limited liability company;
$329.00 - Fee to buy into Ignite; and
$ 19.95 - Fee for first month of the website.
$544.35 - total
To receive our first bonus of $100, we have to sign up four energy accounts. Subscribing to the website counts as two, so we did that. I have switched my service to Stream. Once Baby Doc gets around to changing, we will have our first payday (Lerxst does not live in Texas). I will be describing each goal we must achieve as we go along, but if you'd like to look ahead, go here.
I'm very interested in how this turns out.
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
To My Blogging Friends
Have you found that within minutes of a new post, you receive a comment from "Anonymous" touting a diet aid, or insurance, or something that will make your pecker bigger?
What is going on, blogger.com?
Do you typepad people have the same problem?
What is going on, blogger.com?
Do you typepad people have the same problem?
F YOU KATRINA!
Ok, I stole the headline from the Tucker Max Message Board. However, I filled up my car today (the original Katrina) for the first time since the hurricane hit. 18.2 gallons for $54.91.
$54.91!!!!!
FUCK!
$54.91!!!!!
FUCK!
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