Well, wouldn’t you know it? On my lunch break again, but don’t really have anything in particular I want to do. Usually I’ll read a book or walk around downtown, but it’s kinda cold today. Reading is good and fun when you’re not battling to keep your eyes open, so sadly that’s not gonna work either.<\/p>\n
I discovered today that there are actually several refrigerators on my floor, which is good since it keeps my yogurt\/lunch\/whatever nice and cold without having to scan my stupid RF ID badge just to enter the break room (and then scan again to get back in my office). I also still find it a bit strange how acceptable alcohol is in Japan. That’s not to say that people don’t drink (a lot) back in the states, but due to the social norms (and thus laws), drinking is an activity confined indoors and to certain places. It’s totally legal in Japan to drink alcohol anywhere that you could drink any ordinary beverage. Beware riding the late train. It doesn’t matter what day of the week it is; those guys are gonna be 3 sheets to the wind. And then there are company parties, where you and all your coworkers (and boss) go out to a bar and drink, then go to a second party for some more drinking. If you’re feeling lively enough, you may want to hit up a third place. Nice the karaoke starts, you best be prepared to stay out all night, ’cause you’re going home when the sun comes up.<\/p>\n
God help you if you sing your boss’s favorite song. That one is reserved for him.<\/em><\/p>\n Me? Eh, I work at am American company, so it actually has little to do with me. YAY!<\/p>\n I spent some time this weekend doing research on investment strategies and looking into the best way to sock money away for the future. The “Throw it under your bed” method is always a nice standby, but according to the Internet, there is absolutely zero interest or return on that method. Not so good. Since I’m looking at long term gains (and not short term, get-rich-quick methods), I compared everything on a 30 year time scale 1979-2009.. I wanted to shoot for AFTER the real estate market crashed to avoid inflated stats. 1979 is also good because of the Iran oil crisis, further limiting inflated numbers). Gold’s not too bad, and basically a sure thing on a long enough time line. Silver’s similar, but with far worse returns (and closer to the rate of inflation, which is bad). The stock market as a whole is obviously a good shot, but has a higher risk element (obviously). Precious metals can’t go bankrupt; companies can. Property is hit hard now, but in the long run is also a solid performer (assuming the ocean doesn’t overtake your seaside property). I think land is outside my budget right now, anyway.<\/p>\n So what’d we learn? There’s really no right answer. If there were, everyone would be rich. The good thing is that time is your best friend in games like this, as (unlike gambling) you will generally come out ahead if you just wait long enough. The only question is how far ahead, and how long does it take to get there.<\/p>\n And it’s right about now that I realize I’m a ridiculously boring person. I’m 25 years old and reading up on the DOW and mutual funds. Shouldn’t I be, I dunno, partying or something?<\/p>\n Well! Time for me to get back to work. Just gonna finish up a project and should be on my way home shortly. Later!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Well, wouldn’t you know it? On my lunch break again, but don’t really have anything in particular I want to do. Usually I’ll read a book or walk around downtown, but it’s kinda cold today. Reading is good and fun when you’re not battling to keep your eyes open, so sadly that’s not gonna work either.<\/p>\n I discovered today that there are actually several refrigerators on my floor, which is good since it keeps my yogurt\/lunch\/whatever nice and cold without having to scan my stupid RF ID badge just to enter the break room (and then scan again to . . . → Read More: I’d put my money on…<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6,8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jrem.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1030"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jrem.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jrem.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jrem.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jrem.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.jrem.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1030\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jrem.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jrem.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jrem.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}