I don't mean to channel Frank Caliendo channeling John Madden when I say "The great thing about good music is that when you've got good music it's great!". When looking back at my music collection I have a laundry list of one hit wonders, trendy bands and even a few no-names that I was conned into buying after the show (i.e. drunk). Drunken purchases and music store bargain bins aside, I'm still proud of the few jems that have transcended their moment and become "classic", at least in my eyes.

Just like an episode of Cold Case, my latest rediscovery takes me back to the year 2003. I was a young, ambitious programmer at a Fortune 500 company somewhere in the expanse of Research Triangle Park. My co-workers were obsessed with foosball and FARK, my new wife was obsessed with moving us out of the ole bachelor pad. Since I was a cheapass I had no cable nor MTV. But it's not as if music television would have featured any music worth listening too and besides it was almost four years after I'd declared The Rolling Stone off the mark and turned my back on mainstream music reviews.

Instead I turned to the Internet and gravitated toward a station called Radio Wazee. Here I first heard Fountains of Wayne's single Stacy's Mom well before the local stations picked it up. By the time that track ranked on the Billboard Hot 100 Wazee was already playing several other tracks from the album. Not long after I made Welcome Interstate Managers my own. I don't know what it was about this album but something spoke to me at the time. It could have been the Dilbert-esque view of corporate life or catchy power pop rhythms. Regardless, the album enjoyed a lengthy stint in my car's CD player.

Last night I broke Welcome Interstate Managers out and once again enjoyed the jade view of the working world and the heartbreak of life in Hackensack. Granted I've changed over the past five years but none the less the music still speaks to me, albeit in a different way. But after all it's that the mark of an enduring classic?

My father-in-law gave me a copy of Jim Cramer's Stay Mad for Life: Get Rich, Stay Rich (Make Your Kids Even Richer) and at first glance I had to groan with anticipation. Jim Cramer isn't the calming voice of reason that I usually listen to, in fact I can't stand to watch his TV show Mad Money for more than a few minutes. However I was assured that the tone of the book wasn't the same as the TV show and that the book contained many gems of personal finance wisdom. This past Sunday I started the first chapter and was immediately under whelmed by the drawn out introduction and paragraph sized lists of things Cramer was "going to tell me".

However, after stumbling through the first two chapters I entered familiar waters. Jim Cramer is better known for his stock trading advice and likewise he previous two books have focused primarily on the subject. Stay Mad is a departure in that it focuses more on the personal finance side of money matters and tiptoes around actual investment advice until much later chapters. Even with a fair degree of experience in personal finance I was able to pick up a few important lessons not so much because I'd never heard of it but because I never attempted to justify the advice. One in particular was that you should only put cash into your 401(k) so that you can maximize your company match. Any contributions beyond that are better served in an IRA where the fees and fund selection are better.

So far I've taken my time with this one and I should finish the last few chapters in a few days. Aside from the practical advice and ideas for teaching kids fiscal responsibility, the book has also re-ignited my interest in equities and motivated me to tackle some long pending research I've put off. The conversational tone and down to earth explanation of industry terms and techniques make this a great read for novice "home gamers" as Cramer puts it. At any rate I'd recommend this book to anyone who's interesting in taking command of their finances regardless of your background or knowledge.

Listen, it's one thing to defend your kids when they are preteens and your philandering husband can't keep his hands off the interns. But geez, give us a break Hillary! Chelsea is 27 years old and completely capable of pimping her self out on her own terms. If someone in the media wants to call it like they see it then fair on 'em. Truth be told any twenty something person should be well aware of the risks involved with going public either in favor of something or against it. It doesn't take a degree from Stanford to know that exposing one's self in the public eye tends to draw harsh criticisms. It doesn't matter if your on the campaign trail for mom or posting your half naked photos on MySpace, in all honesty someone is either going to be offended, pissed off or just have grudge to bear when they call you out.

But don't for a minute think that I'm defending the swollen faced, insensitive, loud mouth jerks (and jerkettes) who haunt cable news channels from the wee hours of the morning until all of the bars close at night. You people have long bothered me with your psudeo news and op-ed pieces on how America is going down the toilet. Yes it's true that the United States is the greatest place on earth and the fact that millions of immigrants want to come here to share a piece of that dream while scrubbing our toilets, mowing our yards and picking up the roadside trash that you carelessly let drift from your oversized vehicle only solidifies the fact.

The strangest thing though is that in spite of their differences politicans and loud mouth cable news personalities have one thing in common: they are both worried about our children. Whether it's the threat of crystal meth, unsafe toys from China, or a grand conspiracy by the South American populace to kidnap people from cruise ships no one is more concerned than the folks on TV. And after all why shouldn't they be? If they stopped scaring us why would we continue to listen to them.

If you asked me politicians and TV personalities alike should stop worrying about my kids and start worrying about the real threat: Uninformed sales persons everywhere. Why you ask? Because right now there are hundreds of one semester of college dropouts working at places like Circuit City who have no idea of the difference between component and composite video. They'll just sell you the most expensive TV imaginable and the "ultra gold plated" cables to go with fully expecting that you'll intuitively know how to work the thirteen different remotes that are requires to watch TV. Given the current advances in computer operating systems and user friendly interfaces which allow intoxicated monkeys to play Stairway to Heaven flawlessly on Guitar Hero I fully expect that within a few short years every man woman and child will regard TV as that "old thing" that grandma and grandpa watch because they don't know how to use a WII controller.

It's hell getting old, especially when your the face on the idiot box that seniors scream obscenities at while waiting for Social Security checks that will never arrive. In all honesty it won't surprise me if the 44th President of the United States is a 47th level Draenei Priest with a Cisco CCNA certification and a blackbelt in Chuck Norris jokes.