Another quarter has zipped by. That means it's time to check the credit score. It's 799 this time. I like that very much. However, it seems that FICO has borrowed something from the "Big Lebowski". They compare you to the folks known as FICO High Achievers. As in, "you have a 2% rate of actual debt to allotted credit, while most FICO High Achievers average 7%". That made me laugh when I saw it.

Meal of Links

"The Office" returns tonight with a super-sized episode. Of course, that means Creed is back!

David Gilmour pretty much ends any further discussion of a Pink Floyd reunion. "I suspect that our conjunction of people and musicality and taste and intelligence has run out of steam. Roger thought it had in 1975". Uh-oh.

Michigan busts a pop can smuggling ring. No one named Kramer or Newman in the indictment.

Newman: "What is this 'MI, Ten Cents'?"

Kramer: "That's Michigan. In Michigan, you get ten cents."

Newman: "Ten cents!?"

Kramer: "Yeah."

Newman: "Wait a minute. You mean you get five cents here, and ten cents there? You could round up bottles here and run 'em out to Michigan for the difference."

Kramer: "No, it doesn't work."

Newman: "Whaddaya mean it doesn't work? You get enough bottles together..."

Kramer: "Yeah, you overload your inventory and you blow your margins on gasoline. Trust me, it doesn't work."

Exercise Yard

I haven't mentioned the Women's World Cup at all. Part of it is sexism, the other part is it's being held in China and there is that thing called the International Dateline, so the matches are typically played at 5:00 and 8:00 a.m. Eastern. But the US coach, Greg Ryan, pulled a coaching move worthy of Grady Little or Wade Phillips. His mistake? He pulled the starting goalkeeper, Hope Solo, in order to recapture the past glory of Briana Scurry.

On paper, the move looked bad. Scurry will be remembered as one of the greatest keepers in the women's game. But she had not really played that much in the last three years. Coach Ryan thought it would be good to start her because of her history vs. Brazil. Solo, besides having a cool name, had not been beaten in 41 matches and had clean sheets in her last three.

The problem is you can't just pull a keeper on a whim. Of course, this match was a disaster and Brazil won, 4-0. And Hope Solo was none too happy about it.

Hope Floats...An Opinion or Two



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