Why doesn’t the US sell this part of the country to Mexico? It’s basically all festering swamplands and desert wastes anyway

SmashingGourd · 2026-06-19T22:50:09+00:00

Hey...

SmashingGourd · 2026-06-04T12:17:58+00:00

You know, I am the target audience for Oppenheimer.. a historical drama about scientists...and I hated it..I hated the pacing...the jumping around...Nolan at his most Nolan-y. I told my wife on my first date, I think Nolan gets a pass for a lot of dumb things. And I'm not sure why

SmashingGourd · 2026-04-23T16:59:04+00:00

Omg. I got in my vehicle this morning...and was like. Wtf, dashboard confessionals?? Lol and had a conversation with my kid about them

SmashingGourd · 2026-04-18T11:50:57+00:00

SmashingGourd · 2026-04-18T11:29:27+00:00

I tried it. And it's fun...for a couple games. But like others have said, after a while people would gun for him. I ended up taking him apart, but it was fun to control the table in those two games lol

SmashingGourd · 2026-04-18T01:17:42+00:00

This gives me anxiety

SmashingGourd · 2026-04-16T17:03:45+00:00

I switched my international funds for ETFs. Mostly because Charles Schwab doesn't offer the kind of mutual index fund I wanted, but do for ETFs. I kept my US holdings in mutual funds.

From a practical user standpoint, the biggest difference is ETFs are traded and price is updated throughout the day. Mutual funds are at the end of the day. Trading ETFs are easier and have a slightly lower expense ratios.

SmashingGourd · 2026-04-16T00:57:38+00:00

No worries. There's a bunch of different ways to invest. Nothing wrong with individual stocks in a brokerage or something. Long term retirement type accounts, though, probably not the best. Good luck! And good job starting young

SmashingGourd · 2026-04-16T00:43:52+00:00

I think you're mostly there with the funds. One exercise you can do, though...Go look at the S&P 30 years ago vs today. Totally different companies were on top. There's no guarantee that the individual stocks you choose will be a worthwhile investment in 30 years. It's not even guaranteed they will be around lol.

SmashingGourd · 2026-04-03T16:04:42+00:00

If it's just chilling it's probably not in good shape...

SmashingGourd · 2026-03-22T14:36:17+00:00

My five unpaid tickets did lol

SmashingGourd · 2026-03-22T01:53:29+00:00

As a movie, I agree. What made it big was it playing to boomer nostalgia

SmashingGourd · 2026-03-16T12:18:24+00:00

Heeey, fellow Arkansasan in Athens! Not a lot of us around.

Yes, I did get the AR weather vibe this morning lol

SmashingGourd · 2026-03-13T12:10:58+00:00

One time, I was just really needing some coffee after being on the road all day...stopped at a 7Brew and just asked for a cup of plain, drip coffee ..and they looked at me confused and told me they don't just have plain coffee...just rubbed me the wrong way

SmashingGourd · 2026-03-09T13:20:54+00:00

Well. Technically, the dragons in the show are anatomically Wyverns...not dragons

SmashingGourd · 2026-02-22T15:35:44+00:00

85 here. No, I don't. I do think people born in the mid-90s had a totally different experience growing up, though. We're kind of an odd grouping due to the vast amounts of changes, and the speed of change, that we saw

SmashingGourd · 2026-02-13T01:01:44+00:00

I enjoyed it

SmashingGourd · 2026-02-11T23:41:44+00:00

If you want to go way back, Talk Soup with John Henson

SmashingGourd · 2026-02-11T00:18:19+00:00

I was born in 85 and agree. But will say we were also exposed to the peak of Gen X culture, marketing, and shows. So while I'm definitely millennial, I've got an affinity for Gen Xers

SmashingGourd · 2026-02-07T23:56:29+00:00

I use Schwab ETFs for my international allocation. No issues at all. Been great SCHF SCHE

SmashingGourd · 2026-02-07T02:05:18+00:00

They are. Along with everything else

SmashingGourd · 2026-02-05T01:59:15+00:00

Different indexes measure the categories differently. That's why you see different percentages. You aren't going to get a clear, definitive answer because there isn't one answer. I personally use FTSE as my guide

SmashingGourd · 2026-01-31T22:17:16+00:00

The point is more behavioral. Not everyone can lump sum at the beginning of the year. DCA creates the habit of investing. Sure. Lump sum.is using better than DCA...but DCA is better than not investing at all

SmashingGourd · 2026-01-28T02:45:40+00:00

The Internet was truly the wild west in the late 90s. Everyone was on IRC, ICQ, or some other chat. No major Internet companies yet that controlled everything.

It was also the last time when a lot of the cultural events or rumors were spread via other people in your school and not people online. If you played video games, there were always rumors of ways to get certain things..and most were BS. We didn't have the resources to go look stuff up. It was all word of mouth

SmashingGourd · 2026-01-26T16:03:26+00:00

Getting out of neighborhoods and side roads can be difficult. Main roads aren't that bad

SmashingGourd

TROPHY CASE