If you regularly follow this site, you’ll probably recall a post I wrote last week critiquing a company called Lamont Trading Advisors, the content of which has since been taken down at the company’s request. I’d like to offer an explanation for what transpired.

I originally received a comment in one of my posts on T-bills last week that I assumed was a spam (a.k.a nuisance) comment. The comment contained no contact or other information, other than a URL link to the company. After visiting the site and considering both its content and the nature of the comment, I came to the conclusion that the company was trying to use a post that I had put time and effort into writing to attract unwary clients to a bad deal. I felt that the fees they charged were unreasonable given the other available options out there for purchasing T-bills and decided to boldly state so in a post.

Yesterday, Paul Lamont, the investment advisor and principal of the firm, contacted me and explained his side of the story. He said that the comment that was left was meant as an answer to another commenter’s question about whether someone could use Treasury Direct to purchase T-bills for an IRA account.

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Just a couple administrative things today: first, Experiments in Finance (this site) is hosting next Tuesday’s Festival of Frugality, so get those juices flowing for submissions! I’ll be trying my best too to come up with a fun or creative layout for it as host. That particular Tuesday will be a busy one for me, so I’m going to stick to the cutoff time — er, hmm, the official site doesn’t seem to list one — but let’s make it 5PM Pacific Time (8PM Eastern) on Monday the 13th.

Second, I wanted to follow up on last week’s drawing of a Christmas blog cartoon. I’m flattered to have been named an honorable mention by Darren at Problogger (who judged the selections), though I really don’t feel like my entry can compare. The winning cartoon shown here with permission was by Ming at Artmaker, and the runner-up was a takeoff of six-figure blogging at Success From The Nest. You can see the full list of cartoons below and the post on the winning entry at Chewing Pencils too. It was fun to see everyone’s take on the challenge of creating a Christmas cartoon with the word “blog” somewhere in it. If Matt holds another group drawing project, I’m sure there will be 10x the number of entries next time. Congrats to Ming, Tony, and everyone, and thanks again Matt!

Full list of entries:

Ming from Artmaker submitted Santa on a laptop
Tony from Success from the Nest submitted a Christmas blob
Adrian from Antrageous Antics submitted one of Santa’s ant elves
William from Artist Hideout submitted Santa as a ProBlogger
Greg from Eeight submitted two cartoons – a long line and a cool sled
Greg from Fauxplay submitted a Desert Kiosk and a Snow Blogger
The two dudes from Mob Motion submitted Santa Strike Squad (The original is worth a mention too – Location, Location and Location)
Chris from Qwertyrash submitted Naughty and Nice and Is Santa Real?
Russ from Toon Blog submitted a Frozen Santa
Bee from Art to Make You Laugh submitted this Christmas Decoration
Dave from The Cartoon Blog submitted a Blog Present
Laura from Out of Context submitted some Blog Reading Reindeer

And Matt from Chewing Pencils kicked the whole thing off with the Changing Face of Christmas

Enjoy!

I found the following, taken from a news article about how Big Brother will be using Second Life to create a virtual version of their reality show, pretty noteworthy:

A number of real-world companies have entered Second Life in recent months, drawn by its rapid growth and large pool of tech-savvy consumers, including Toyota Motor Corp., Adidas AG and Sony BMG. Reuters Group Plc also recently launched its own news bureau in Second Life.

For those unfamiliar with Second Life, it’s an online world where people can go and, well, live second lives. The concept is somewhat similar to Entropia, where people make real money by growing and selling virtual assets in an online game (or MMORPG to be more exact). Only it blurs the distinction between “real” and “virtual” worlds even further.

Advertisers are always looking for new ways to catch your attention, and if companies can manage to give their brands cachet in a virtual reality world, that just might translate into real dollars in real life for them, too. Imagine your character in Second Life buying his first car, say a Yaris, and then upgrading to a snazzy FJ Cruiser after he came into some dough.

Would you then be inclined to buy a Toyota the next time you were in the market for a car in real life? Because that’s exactly how companies are hoping you’ll react.

I can’t say that I didn’t initially find this trend a tad insidious, though after I thought about it, I realized that there’s really not much difference between this and product placements in TV shows or movies.

If you want to learn more, The Economist had a very interesting article on internet advertising and marketing trends this past summer that’s really worth a read.

Never use up your frequent flier miles? Are they too annoying to redeem? You might be able to put them to good use by subscribing to some leading financial publications. Not all of these are available all the time so now might be a good time to subscribe, especially since annual subscriptions to many of these can easily cost over $100 a year. I’m not sure if gift subscriptions are an option, but if so, they might make nice purchases for Christmas gifts, too.

Here are some links:

Northwest Airlines: Barron’s @ 1,700 miles; The Economist @ 3,200; Financial Times @ 2,000; WSJ @ 1,800.
Delta Airlines: Same mileage costs as above.
Continental Airlines: Same mileage costs as above.
American Airlines: Barron’s @ 2,600; WSJ @ 2,700.

(Found via Fatwallet.)

These days it seems every few months or so, I hear about another friend of mine who’s getting divorced. Which brings me to my question of the week:

Respond even if you’re already married. Just change the question to “Did you” or answer based on your experiences so far. You can also add an answer, but I reserve the right to remove anything I consider inappropriate for this site. Feel free to leave a comment below, too.

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