Month: January 2007

Categories
Saint Louis

Patience More Patience

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Last Updated on January 16, 2007 by stlplace

This is what I got from Ameren UE web site. Note the number 1299 only reflects the outage of my neighborhood. From what I heard from radio Ameren tries to restore majority of customers by this evening.  

Current Outage
Outage start date/time:        Saturday Jan 13, 2007 7:01 AM
Outage status:                    Order assigned to servicemen or crew
Cause of outage:                 Tree contact
Estimated restoration time:   Tuesday Jan 16, 2007 3:15 PM
Number of customers out:    1299

Categories
China Stocks

Michael Yu Minghong’s New Report Card

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Last Updated on January 15, 2007 by stlplace

All right, New Oriental announced the fiscal 2007 Q2 report today. Here is the report. It seems they are doing well. Some highlights include 33% YoY reveneue growth (beat est. 20%). “The growth was mainly driven by the increase in the number of student enrollments in language training and test preparation courses.” 

I imagine people just can not get enough English classes (spoken English, business English, kids English), and all kind of testings (IT, law, graduate school admission, in addition to traditional TOEFL/GRE/ACT/SAT).   

Categories
Technology

Phishing Mail from Paypal

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Last Updated on January 17, 2007 by stlplace

I got this one from Paypal, it’s faked but it looks very much like real. I mean the words (as you can see below), graphics and return address etc. Obviously the phishers are gettting smarter. So we need to get smarter too. I would not click on a link in an email unless I know it’s safe. I will open a new window and type the web address myself.

==========================

Your account has been flagged!
PayPal Security Measures.

Dear PayPal Member,

Your account has been randomly flagged in our system as a part of our routine security measures. This is a must to ensure that only you have access and use of your Paypal account and to ensure a safe PayPal experience. We require all flagged accounts to verify their information on file with us. To verify your information at this time, please visit our secure server webform by clicking the hyperlink below:

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Categories
Saint Louis

Can Not Get Enough Crocs

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Last Updated on January 19, 2007 by stlplace

It seems like it. I noticed the Crocs Kiosk (pavilion) in the malls before Xmas. Now it looks they are going to open stores. The following is what I saw from Chesterfield Mall today.

crocs_kiosk crocs_store

Update (19Jan07) I went to the mall again tonight, and found out they changed the display of the “store”. Obviously they are not going to open a Crocs store. This is just a place for display. Sorry for “pull the trigger too early”.

Categories
Saint Louis

We Lost Power Again

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Last Updated on January 14, 2007 by stlplace

Because of the weather. Just when I felt I was lucky last night (this morning) my condo did not lose power this time, oops, the storm hit us. So next time I should not feel too good about it. Some of the Panera Bread stores also lost power, e.g., the one at Old Olive (where I usually go) and the New Ballas store, finally I set down at the Olive and Woodsmill store. You can imagine this is a very crowd place. Because I am not the only unlucky person.

Interestingly, at Panera I noticed there are three young kids wearing Crocs. I remember the article at fool.com in which the author tried to count the Crocs and Heelys at Disney World in Orlando: an informal way to gauge the popularity of those products.

While power outage bring inconveniene to ordinary people, how will it affect the business? Obviously not good for retailers, restaurants and hotels, because they lose business on this. Some grocery store has backup generator (Schnucks) but they can not generate enough power for the freezers. I can only think of one business currently benefit from this: the tree and limb services companies. They are probablly the busiest people besisdes Ameren UE people.

Categories
Saint Louis

Lucky Brand Jeans

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Last Updated on January 13, 2007 by stlplace

Are on sale, online or in the store. I bought one pair last weekend at Nordstrom West County store. Drive carefully if you go there today amid all the freezing rains.  

Note the MSRP of Lucky Brand is usually more than $100, now you can get it about 50% off. I know it’s a bit expensive, but hey I would rather “being lucky” than “being good” 🙂

lucky brand jeans label

Categories
Technology

A Little Yahoo Mail and Map Tip

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Last Updated on January 12, 2007 by stlplace

I noticed this a short while ago. Basically, if there is a valid US address in the Yahoo Mail, it will be shown underlined (dotted line). And if you move cursor to it, it will be highlighted. Then if you click on it, it will pop up the menu asking you if you want to see the Yahoo Map of that address. From there you can get the driving direction and alll the good stuff. Suddenly, Yahoo is cooler than Google 🙂 

Categories
Business

Don’t Take Experts Too Seriously

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Last Updated on January 12, 2007 by stlplace

Because I found those so-called experts are not real “experts”, I am talking about many “experts” appeared on CNBC, the business cable channel. Actually one of my friend who studied in Finance had a worse comment on CNBC (he heard it from his professor). But lately I started to appreciate what he meant. For instance, the wild popular “Mad Money” show done by Jim Cramer, a statistics shows if you act according to his recommending, basically you are stand still because 50% of his recommends turn out to be true. Considering there are people actually act after watching his show, his actual performance is not even 49%. But I do like his straight talk style and some of his analysis though.

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Categories
Business

Cingular Back to AT&T

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Last Updated on January 12, 2007 by stlplace

I don’t know the rationale behind this, but Cingular wireless is going to change back to AT&T name. I am not brand expert, nor marketing major, but this is a dumb move. A little background: when Southwest Bell (SBC) and Bellsouth created this wireless joint venture, they created this cool name “Cingular”, I remember my first wireless carrier was SBC Wireless, which is the ancester of Cingular. For a while I was puzzuled when my cell phone screen changed from “SBC wireless” to “Cingular”, wondering whether my phone is being hacked.

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Categories
Fun Stocks

Don’t Laugh at My Heelys

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Last Updated on January 12, 2007 by stlplace

I mean not just my Heelys shoes, but also the HLYS stocks I bought at the its IPO. I borrowed this title from Rick Munarriz at fool.com, here is his article. In summary, here are what he said:

1) Heelys is going to have a blow out fourth quarter.

2) They may guide a little higher for Q1 2007, and beat it eventually. From my observation some Sports Authority stores are low on inventory. Note Q1 is usually the slowest season for Heelys.

3) Expand into other products, helmet, T-shirts, caps, etc.

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