We Don't Walk Slow

5 Best Product Investments

Kindle Fire

I bought the Kindle Fire for $199 about 6 months ago. At first I was apprehensive about switching from a paperback book to a digital way of reading. How would I feel without turning physical pages that I’ve grown so accustomed to? As it turns out, it didn’t matter at all and the switch was seamless. I also signed up for an Amazon credit card that syncs directly into the Fire so I purchase books with one click without leaving my seat. Most of the time the Fire price is cheaper than the bookstore price so not only am I saving money but I’m never leaving the comfort of my house. It doesn’t have 3 or 4G which I would say is the only downside but it connects to any Wi-Fi so it really doesn’t come into play much for me. Plus you can watch redtube videos that come in decently but there is still some buffering which can get annoying. I see the price is down to $159 and I would recommend this particular device at that price level. I don’t watch anything movie or TV wise on it so I can’t comment but I don’t think it would be my preferred method. Very good for nighttime reading as no light is required.

Jos. A Bank Jacket

This isn’t the exact jacket I bought but very similar. Mine is 65% wool, 35% rayon and is a pretty good winter jacket. I wouldn’t wear it in the most frigid of conditions but in terms of an acceptable jacket to wear to bars and such, it works fantastic. I can even wear a collared polo t-shirt out and just wear the jacket as an exterior. It essentially eliminates the need for any type of sweatshirt unless I want to wear it. Best part is, it cost under a hundred bucks. I can honestly wear it every day and no one would say I’m over-wearing it because it’s so common place of an article of clothing. Without a doubt this was my #1 best investment of the year. I don’t need variety in winter month outerwear, this is it! Plus it doesn’t get dirty.

Taylor Burner Plus Irons &
Ping Stand Bag

I know there aren’t a ton of golf nuts out there but these two items were my best purchases of last year golf wise. I think I spent $400+ on the iron set I bought (I’m not sure this picture is the exact set I have) and they are a significant upgrade from the Tommy Armour 845 I had for 10+ years. My distance is 200+ with a 5 iron which basically can allow me to drive using an iron on most holes. Hitting the sweet spot leads to nice distance and I’ve been playing a nice draw as well. Forgiveness is noticeable. The bag is awesome as well. We’ll give Bill Schmidt credit for the recommendation as he said “the only bags worth buying are Titleist and Ping.” It has an abundance of pockets, a Gatorade holder, a nice stand, a handle to move the bag without holding the strap, and is lightweight to make a fantastically designed bag. I left out my Cleveland sand wedge but I’ll save that for another entry. A huge key to golf is having the right equipment.

7 Habits of Highly Effective People

This is a book I read about a year ago that has so many good tools that I probably don’t use most of them. It goes into prioritizing life, listening, speaking, empathizing, decision making and all the other good things that you usually don’t think about on your day to day. This book makes you think about them and I remember after finishing the book having a positive outlook on life. As months pass and you forget what you read, you will revert back to the real you but it’s still effective to have these principals instilled from time to time. Here was an interesting post I wrote back in the day after reading the book. Reading this book once a year would be an exercise that no price could be put on it.

Spotify & Sirius Radio

Although it seems pretty insane, I pay 200+ dollars a year for Sirius and 5 bucks a month for Spotify. This equates to a roughly 300 dollar budget a year for music which is less than a dollar a day. For me this is completely worth it. I listen to music everyday of my life. As I’m sitting here right now I’m listening to OMD, If You Leave on Sirius First Wave. Listening to music makes me happy. If I have to choose between not listening or listening, I’d practically never choose not listening. Sirius in the car, Spotify at home. I like the randomness of Sirius and my ability to hear songs I never would hear and the variety of their stations. I like how I can customize playlists with Spotify and share music with friends. Both of these services hold high value in my mind. AM/FM what?!

By Tom Stortz|2013-03-15T03:01:14-04:00January 21st, 2013|My Brain, Sports|1 Comment

Ahead of the Music Curve

So you can see my tweet in the upper right which is the basis of this post. Here’s the validation of my opinion on the band A Silent Film. I’m saying that I have impeccable taste in music and deserve the credit for pointing out good songs before they become mainstream. Now this is a skill that virtually everyone thinks they have but mostly don’t. By the time the song hits the radio it is already mainstream. To really prove this skill you have to buy the CD (or spotify) the first day it comes out, listen to it all the way through, and then give an opinion of songs on the album. For this particular example, I technically said every song on the album was great which is cheating a bit but I’m still counting it. I’ve also listened to the Killers album, Battleborn, about 7 times or so and think that more than half the songs have potential of hitting the airwaves. Once again not saying much by pointing good songs out. To actually prove this talent, you should download spotify and follow my list “alt nation” to hear my recommended songs. If you aren’t using spotify to listen to music you are so far behind the curve that you don’t deserve to know my music. Use this post as your starting point. Find me, follow my music, and then share your taste in music with me. It can be a game. I can jam your playlist while Jeff and I play ping pong and you can jam mine while you are doing whatever it is you do.

I wrote a post about being the first of your friends to hear a song and then declaring this “your song” and anyone else who knows about it after you is listening to old music. After thinking about this I’ve taken the stance that you actually want everyone to hear your song. It’s better when top notch material is heard by everyone. You should feel happy when other people discover songs that you knew were worth listening to. Sharing is caring.

I’m going to make one last plea for you to listen to spotify which absolutely blows away Pandora. It has newer music and you can choose your music and share your music. This is a similar backing I’ve done with Sirius for all these years and can’t understand how so many people still put up with AM/FM. It can’t seriously be about monthly fee? You spend your life in your car listening to commercials. WAKE THE FUCK UP!!!!!! I can’t comment on their rap or Country stations but I know their rock music is far superior than any Philly bs you are listening to. Never listen to a commercial again. Download Spotify immediately and share your music with me. I’ll be sure to mention great new songs by great new people who share.

By Tom Stortz|2012-09-27T22:24:20-04:00September 27th, 2012|Music|0 Comments

Get Sirius!

Sirius came out with their earnings this morning and they have continued to add subscribers and actually had a net income of 15 million compared with a loss of 159 million last year for the quarter. The stock was up 5% pre market. I’ve been touting this stock on my blog for a while now and I think it’s finally starting to see some light at the end of the tunnel. It’s not to late to buy the stock and obviously not to late to get away from that horrific AM/FM that the zombies of the nation listen to. It’s funny because I hear my mom and her reasons for not switching over and they include “I like the radio and I listen to CD’s and my Ipod”. AM/FM is a complete joke filled with the same music and commercials out the ass. CD’s are a thing of the past. An Ipod only plays the music you’ve downloaded so it’s never anything you haven’t heard before. Get Sirius! I’m not sure if this is the slogan they use but they certainly should. Once again more proof that I can make it in marketing.

Sam and I were reviewing his traffic to his blog last night and amazingly almost half of his traffic is derived from people coming from my website. Talk about helping a brother out. That’s a funny line by the way. Good to know that the loyal viewers of my blog keep it in the family. Adam always tells me that Sam’s blog is better, but until his traffic numbers surpass mine, I’m crowning myself. Sam and I get along pretty well and our blogs can feed off of each others. We said we’d look for more referring sites but it’s hard because I don’t want to just throw links up there to trash pages. I’m not really sure how but eventually something will come of this website.

I’m also starting to get this feeling of depression that Summer is coming to its end and people are getting ready for school again. When you don’t have school any longer there’s never a shocking shift to another type of lifestyle so I have to feel it through others. I really enjoy Summer weather and I dread the thought of the cold months that lie ahead so I think that has some bearing on me as well. I don’t miss treadmill running one bit but I’m not as strong in the Summer because of the lack of weight lifting I do in the Winter.

Last night I went home and was complaining to my mom how the customers at work were bothering me, people weren’t returning my phone calls, my feet hurt, and I had nothing in the pipeline. She starts singing…

I’m thinking, jesus, add nagging and baggage and we’re all set. She’s just looking for some effort on my part to find a mate (caveman terminology) and I just don’t feel the rush. Some people are so gung ho about getting married and having kids that it scares me to want to add responsibilities to my life. I like not having to wake up on the weekends until 1. I like the freedom of Rainbow Spa if I choose. I like money not flowing out of my wallet to feed extra mouths. Now, I can change any of these thoughts at a moments notice but I’m not going to pretend to like someone just to have the feeling of having someone by my side. I legitimately get along and like most people, however, there’s a difference between liking and getting along with them than really liking them. Plus I can be timid, goofy, awkward, and miss obvious signs, so that doesn’t help. I just figure, when it’s right, you know.

I close with a good song.

By Tom Stortz|2010-08-04T08:41:00-04:00August 4th, 2010|Music, My Brain, My Life|1 Comment

Good Morning

I’ve had these blisters on my feet since my last long run and I finally popped them yesterday. I bought this gold bond to help in the healing process and I put it on in the morning before I got dressed. So I applied the cream, got dressed and then went to the bathroom to put my contacts in. I washed my hands and then put the contact in my eye. There must have been residue left over from the cream on my hand because it burned my eyes so badly that I was practically crying. Worst eye pain I’ve had in a long time. So now I’m wearing my glasses because I’m scared to put the contacts back in. I’ve always felt like nerd wearing glasses throughout middle and high school (which is why I never wore them) but at this stage of my life, I have overcome that fear of looking like a nerd (I can hear the shee in the background saying I still am). As I’ve gotten older, things like being accepted and liked, which still mean something, are less and less of an influence. I still prefer to fit in compared to being the outcast but how someone views me with glasses or without is no longer on my radar. I guess you could say my self esteem has improved over the course of my life to the point that I go into most situations without much thought other than how to make the best of it. My basic outlook lately is people care more about themselves and how they come off, then what they think of you.

While I was driving into work today the radio was playing some awesome songs at one point. They rocked Hey, Hey, What Can I Do by Led Zeppelin, Kid Charlemagne by Steely Dan, Horse with No Name by America, and then Sugar Magnolia by the Grateful Dead. Wmgk isn’t playing that good of music and Sirius once again will one up FM. I’m going to go into another music playing rant. Two competitors to Sirius radio are Ipod’s and Pandora, neither of which in my mind are competitors. Ipods only play music that you download. So if you want to be legal about it, you are paying money for songs to upload which will obviously cost way more than any subscription to satellite radio and limit the amount of songs you listen to. The illegal method is probably more preferred but you are still listening to songs that you choose. When I listen to the radio I want someone else to do the selection for me. If I pick my own songs, most likely I’m going to pick songs that I know are good and never expand into other areas of music. With Sirius I have plenty of genres to choose from and many different artists with many different songs being played. To knock Pandora down is simple too because once you listen to an artist’s station for more than a couple hours they keep playing the same tracks. Not to mention some of their taste in music is awful. You can’t compare Sirius to FM either because FM has commercials and only peasants will put up listening to commercials. I’m invested in their stock and have been watching it rise and once they report earnings for this upcoming quarter and the stock jumps to $1.50, just know that I told you so. I’m actually going to re position myself in the market for what I consider to be tumultuous times in the future.

By Tom Stortz|2010-08-11T16:05:13-04:00April 28th, 2010|My Brain, My Life|2 Comments

5 Best Product Investments

Ahead of the Music Curve

Get Sirius!

Good Morning

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