So there's this dude, right . . .

. . . and he is my financial advisor. He advises me. Financially.

I often wondered about that, in the halcyon days before I had some dude who advised me financially. The question came darting into my brain from a strange place, "What exactly would he advise me about?" I mean, financial advice - let's break it down here into two essential points;

1) Spend less and
2) Earn more

That's kind of it. Before I met this dude, my limit of financial advice was dispensed - like some kind of robotic, Hajime Sorayama-esqe fortune cookie - via ATMs. Whenever I would withdraw money from them, it would ask me if I wanted an "Advice Slip". I wondered what this would be like - would it read;

YOUR BALANCE IS 34.25

YOU MAY WITHDRAW 34.25
DON'T RUN WITH SCISSORS

?

I'm not sure - perhaps it should have done.

Anyway, financial advice. My dude is called James Weeks and he works for Ameriprise Financial. These people are clearly awesome in every single respect, and James really knows what is going on. He also appears to be impressed by Sarah Palin, which shows that he is a man of taste and discretion.

Today I met with James and examined my investments. Yeah, I have investments. Don't ask me what they are - it's some kind of combined life insurance / savings account / retirement package. I don't understand this stuff. Apparently, it means I can retire before I die. And if I die before I retire, I still get the money. Or, someone does. My wife, I think.

(Memo to self : offer cat samples of food before eating.)

Anyway, I have this "portfolio" or whatever it is called. It is a breakdown of the places where my (at this stage meagre) investments are going. Rather than put all my eggs in one basket, as it were, my investments are divided up among about thirty different funds and companies and so forth. So each one has about $2.73 in it.

I was examining this list of investments, and one of them is called Wanger International! And another is called Wanger USA! I cannot begin to describe the awesomeness of this.

I have no idea what Wanger International and Wanger USA do - obviously, the world is not so cool and awesome that these are companies who wang. A wanger would obviously be "one who wangs". What that means, precisely, I don't know - but the tendency of the Americans to make verbs out of nouns would suggest that "to wang" would be "to do whatever one does with a wang". And the mere suggestion that I have funds invested in such a company is clearly awesome.

One can even track the progress of my wang, as it were. One can track it in real time, which I think is a scrutiny I am not sure I would want to subject it to under normal circumstances. But, this is the internet.

At this stage (9th Sept 2008 2229hrs EST) it appears that Wanger International has fallen by 3.96%. I have no idea what that means, other than it doesn't sound good. Perhaps the market for wanging has bottomed out? Has the wanger market softened? Has the flow from Wanger dwindled to a trickle?

Can I make more wang jokes? Perhaps - but it's getting late. 'Night, John-boy.