What made me do a double take this morning was this completely ridiculous line in one of their articles:

Late last month, Millsteen urged Fools to throw the book at Barnes & Noble: “Analog business in a digital age. The way CDs went to ipod, books will go to ipad or any other digital reading device. There’s very little customer traffic [in those] high rent enormous superstores that was once a weekend destination.”

I don’t know who Millsteen is or where this person comes from, but they absolutely must be among the quasi-uber-elite urbanites. I’m sorry, but I’m in the local Barnes & Noble two to three times each month and my local store is constantly packed with people. I don’t live in an urban area nor do I live in a rural area, but rather I’m in your typical suburban location and I always see people buying stuff from the store when I’m in there. Plus, there is a gigantic “nook” display directly within the entrance footpath and I’ve seen people buying those things on the spot.

However, this type of really, really bad information coming out of the Motley Fool website is pretty much what we’ve come to expect from the out-of-touch elitists at that crappy website. They have no idea what’s happening on the ground at these retail locations and they are consistently off when it comes to predicting consumer trends. Let’s not forget that this is the same website that told everyone to sell out of Sirius XM stock back when it was trading below 0.20. Meanwhile, as of this writing the stock is trading at a buck. Another blown call by the urbanites at Motley Fool.

As an investor and a consumer, I recommend staying in Barnes & Noble and buying it NOW! I stress buying it now because the stock is sorely undervalued and is, I think, ready to pop at any moment. Plus, the stock gives off a quarter-per-share dividend each quarter. That ain’t bad in this market! Whatever you do, though, don’t listen to those losers at the Motley Fool – lest you make an unintelligent investment.

The Joe’s Journal & JerseySmarts.com Merger
Without getting into too many details, the merger of Joe’s Journal and JerseySmarts.com has been nothing short of a major success. On any given day, either of the two blogs averaged some 40 or so hits (JerseySmarts.com would get 5 or 10 hits each day and Joe’s Journal would range between 60 and 80 hits each day). With the new, merged site, there are some days where we’re over 300 hits, some days over 200 hits, and we’re now averaging between 100 and 150 hits each day. What’s exciting is that these hits aren’t really people reading the blog in the morning, afternoon, and night (though you should be checking in as often as possible). Rather, the hits are largely being generated by unique visitors. That’s awesome!

Also, the financial end of this blogging business has been great. Between the sponsors that you can find all over this blog and the program-specific advertisements that I’ve been setting up here and there, Joe’s Journal on JerseySmarts.com is making a healthy living for a small, personal blog!

The Stock Market
What a mess!? Many of you know that I started investing in earnest a few months ago and since that time I’ve taken a hit in the market just like everyone else. The difference, though, is that the hit that I’ve taken is small compared to those folks who have big time money in the markets. First, I don’t have big time money to invest at this point in my life! Second, I started investing after the market was already down.

When I began investing I knew a few of my stock picks for sure. I knew that I was going to invest in Sirius XM because – no matter what the biased internet media may say – this is a good long-term stock for the small time investor’s portfolio. I also knew that I was going to invest in the automobile industry and that I would probably go in to Ford heavier than GM…which turned out to be a good move!

I’m invested in a few other stocks, but what I didn’t know when I started investing (and I still don’t know now) was how I would diversify the industries represented in my portfolio. Right now I have all of my exposure in the retail sector. I’m thinking of investing in some smaller, solid banks to get into the financial sector. Just a thought at this point, though…

Usable Web Solutions, LLC Doing Well
My small business is doing very well in this rough economy. All of my clients have signed on to extend their business relationships with my company and I’ve actually begun to bring in a few new clients; only two clients at this point, but two very strong organizations. For the longest time I stopped taking on new clients because I was getting some of the weirdest requests from some shady characters. But it’s good to be back creating new websites again.

The other part of the website business that is doing well is the advertising revenue. Perhaps my suite of sites has been lucky, but we’re all doing very well with selling ads and getting some income from those ads.

Teaching at the Local College
Two quick points on my adjunct professor position at the local college. Number one – I suggested a new course for my department and it was accepted! Starting next spring I’ll be teaching Community Public Policy (i.e. Community Development)! This is pretty exciting because I designed the course from the bottom up. Very cool!

Number two – well, here we go. Remember a few months ago when I had a problem with a colleague of mine at the local college? Turns out that for the class I’ll be teaching next fall, not only will this person be teaching in the same classroom that I’m scheduled to be in on Monday, but on Wednesday, too. What joy (sarcasm)! I’ve already filed a request to have my room changed because no one should have to put up with racism, sexism, or ageism – especially not on a college campus of all places!

Update – April 13, 2009: My class reassignment request was granted. Thankfully, I won’t have to deal with this person again!

There you have it, folks. A quick, random update on some of the things going around in my head. I’ll be sure to put some more random ideas up soon!