I have to admit, I got quite the chuckle out of the Americans in Paris video that’s going viral on the net. Seriously, what couple hasn’t experienced some kind of distraction in the midst of what should be a terribly passionate kiss?

On the other hand, the video revived my travel jones. It’s been over two decades since I last visited Paris, and just seeing it in the background was enough to ensure I’ll be renewing my passport this month. I’d always promised the Venomous Daughter that the two of us would take trip to Europe when she turned 18 (an age when, I hope, she’ll actually be a fun traveling companion). With that day just six months away, it’s now time to get serious. Not that I’m suddenly feeling cash-flush, mind you. It’s just that I figure if I start scrimping and saving now there’s a chance we’ll be able to afford that trip as promised.

The folks at LastMinuteTravel.com are making that easier, as they can make anyone’s travel plans easier, by offering last minute prices in advance. How do they do it? That’s not my business. But let’s just say their air travel and hotel package rates are so low that treating my daughter to a 2-week trip Paris in June to celebrate her high school graduation will actually cost less than the car she’s been pestering me for. And, unlike the car, I get to enjoy Paris with her!

Oooh, la la.

Pssst. I did something radical today: I bought stock. Quite a bit of it, for quite a low price.

Via Reddit:

If you bought $1000 of stock a year ago, you would now have:
$91.28 if you bought Washington Mutual
$37.50 if you bought Neomagic
$21.29 if you bought Freddie Mac
$20.79 if you bought Fannie Mae

But, if you had purchased $1,000 worth of beer one year ago, drank all the beer, then turned in the cans for the recycling REFUND… You would have $… 214.00 in cash.

So the best investment advice is to drink heavily and recycle.

It’s called the 401-Keg Plan.

As any woman who has gained weight can tell you, shopping for clothes is depressing. There are few things I dread more than needing a new outfit, except perhaps having a root canal or another child.

See, women’s clothing — and by that I mean females over 35 who aren’t still trying to dress as if they aren’t — comes in two flavors: attractive and fashionable clothes for the slender, and hideous baggy things in polyester for those who are not. (As if polyester for people prone to sweating a lot makes sense, right?)

As someone who loves fashion, I find myself staring at the awful stuff for larger-sized women and shuddering. Ergo, I usually plead a migraine rather than put myself through buying the kind of clothes most stores sell for women whose hips attest to too much time spent at a computer (and fridge).

Then again, until now I hadn’t seen the plus-size clothing at Bodacious Boutique. Founded in Dallas-Ft. Worth back in 2004 by Paula Guthrie, the boutique offers many of the same styles the skinny girls get to wear but cut to flatter a larger figure.

Take their plus-size swimsuits, for instance. Oh, sure, there are the standard bathing suits with a “who’re you trying to fool” skirt attached. But they also offer many attractive, flattering styles that come sans skirts (and some caftans for those of you who can’t stand being that bare).

There’s a surprisingly large assortment of designers, including Vikki Vi whose wrinkle-free clothes are indispensable for travel, and even selections of wearable art and flax clothing. Although prices aren’t always easy to locate when you click on an item (look in the right corner of the pink bar above the photo), you’ll find they’re surprisingly reasonable.

And you know what that means, don’t you? That’s right: skinny girls don’t get to have all of the fashion fun anymore!

Electric Venom (as well as I Think Therefore I Blog) will be participating in Blog Action Day 2008, a day on which participating bloggers, podcasters and videocasters collectively exercise their ability to focus global discussion on globally important topic.

In 2008, the Blog Action Day theme is Poverty. Bloggers are free to interpret this as they see fit. We invite bloggers to examine poverty from their own blog topics and perspectives, to look at it from the macro and micro, as a global condition and a local issue, and to bring their own ideas, views and opinions on the subject.

The site provides a list of post ideas for those wondering how to fit the topic into the context of their blog and resources for those interested in learning more (though some on the right may find the resources a bit too biased). Once written, you’ll be asked to insert a snippet of code into your post to help organizers locate and promote participating entries. And, of course, there are all sorts of pretty, shiny banners.

I’m in. Are you?

If the resurgence of hip-hugger jeans and platform shoes wasn’t enough to leave us all feeling that everything old is new again, now there’s another blast from the past about to return: stagflation. Those of us who survived the 70s remember all too well that peculiar combination of inflation combined with economic stagnation triggered by the oil price spike, and how smart investors fled the stock market, preferring to buy gold instead.

Fed Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is hoping to keep the surge in oil prices from sparking stagflation which could cripple the economy for years.

“Maintaining confidence in the Fed’s commitment to price stability remains a top priority as the central bank navigates the current complex situation,” he said in a speech earlier this month.

But few Fed watchers count on him to back up that talk with action anytime soon.

Most expect the Fed to sustain its overnight ultra-low borrowing rate of 2 percent at its policy meeting this week.

Despite what the woman with the annoying fake-British accent assures us in commercials, those who buy gold don’t always turn into overnight millionaires (and they don’t always listen to Beethoven, either). When it comes to gold as an investment the trick is to understand that gold moves in the opposite direction of currency: you buy it when the dollar’s low and sell it when the dollar’s high.

What’s curious, however, is that even as the dollar has steadied in anticipation of the Fed’s meeting, Fidelity International announced today that we’ve entered a period of global stagflation. Their recommendation? Ditch equities and buy gold and government bonds.

Or so an “urgent” email alert from our investment company urged me this morning.

My response: buy it with what? Between losing half of our home’s equity in the past six months and the price of everything else going up, the only way we can possibly afford gold is if one of us gets a cavity that needs to be filled. Which reminds me… VH is due for a dental appointment.

I just saved even more money than I planned.

See, a while back we switched from Southwestern Bell to Time Warner digital phone service. We were sick of picking up our land line phone and receiving an earful of static, or dialing a number only to have it somehow misrouted by Ma Bell. (Yes, that actually happened on a number of occasions.) That wasn’t too big a deal: we both have cell phones and pretty much use them exclusively.

What finally led us to make the change, though, was the realization we were paying over $30 per month just to have the land line that our home security system requires. Meanwhile, as TWC cable customers we were eligible to add Time Warner digital phone to our service plan for just $5 more per month. Hey, we like saving money as much as anyone, and we’ve heard some pretty good reports about their service. So making the switch was a no-brainer.

Or so we thought.

A few days after changing over — while keeping the same number — our home security provider sent out a notice to all of its customers saying they couldn’t guarantee their system would work on digital phone lines. Therefore, their notice read, they can’t be held responsible if the alarm system malfunctions.

Bull.

What the notice failed to explain is that it’s the security company’s choice to keep their system from working reliably for customers with VoIP or digital phone. They just need to install a cellular unit to transmit signal regardless of power-outages. And unlike a landline, which is easily cut by a determined thief, those cell units can’t be easily disabled.

Naturally, I called to ask why they hadn’t explained this to customers, many of whom would be happy to pay a small additional amount because they’d still save more after switching. Their response? They didn’t want to be liable in the event the cellular unit goes out, too. What, like they’d be liable if SW Bell went out?

As it turns out, we made two switches this month: first to Time Warner digital phone and then to another (bigger) security provider who offered the cell unit as part of its package, which costs less per month than our old company charged.

So, thank you, to my old security company. Your resistance to change didn’t just save me the $25 when I switched phone providers, but another $30 when I switched security providers, too. That, sad to say, is the best service you’ve ever done us.

In an effort to rapidly boost our flagging economy, the federal government will be sending out the first stimulus checks four days early. So, for those of you who kited your tax payments, this is probably good news.

For some, well, it’s still a waiting game for those who view such things as “rebates” rather than ploys. If you’re in that group, well, you’re probably praying your check will be here in time to take advantage of the discounts retailers are offering.

And you are the precise reason why the government thinks this is such a good idea.

For others — and this includes the Venomous Household — it feels like a shady back-room deal. We wrote a hefty check to the IRS and now they’re writing one to us a bit later. Oddly enough, the amounts aren’t that different.

That makes our decision about how to spend our stimulus check pretty simple: it’s already spent. We paid it once toward a debt with the IRS and when we get that money back, well, we’ll pay it toward another debt… most likely our highest-interest credit card.

Yes, we’re aware that’s not what the idea was behind the whole thing. But then again, we don’t actually understand the fine economic distinction between receiving money from the IRS after having paid them nearly the same amount and, say, “robbing Peter to pay Paul”.

Sure, we’d like to spend that money on a nice big HDTV or a family vacation or even a new tile floor for our kitchen. But, really, isn’t that kind of “screw the budget, I want stuff!” thinking what led to the supposed “mortgage crisis” in the first place?

How about you? What will you be spending your money they shouldn’t have made you pay “stimulus check” on?