If you’d like to get a rough estimate of your current credit score without all the hassles of ordering a formal credit report, you might want to try this free credit survey tool. It took me about a minute to complete and seems fairly accurate.

I’ve always thought of my dad as a simple man. He loves to hunt and fish, he loves his guns, and he loves a good fart joke. Sometimes I think heaven for him is a tree-stand overlooking a field of 16-point bucks on one side and a Nascar track on the other.

My dad always says he doesn’t live to work, he works to live. As a kid, I always thought this was sad. Then I grew up and realized that it’s very hard (if not impossible) for me to find a job I truly love. And it’s especially hard to be passionate about any job after its new job smell begins to fade. I was talking to my dad about this tonight, and he said, “Coming to terms with a mundane job is like teaching yourself not to be ticklish. It requires mental fortitude.”

I really love the idea that while we’re working at a mundane job, paying off our student loans, and trying to get our shit together, God is constantly poking us in the armpits, trying to distract us until we can’t take it any more. So we give in to our restlessness, give up the good thing we have, and go in search of a more glamorous calling that will probably pay less but be just as frustrating. My dad, on the other hand, has chosen to stick it out with the most lucrative job he could tolerate because it has allowed him to provide for his family and make the most of his free time. It still sounds a little depressing, but I’m starting to think there’s something to be said for mental fortitude, especially if non-ticklish people get to retire sooner.

Oh, the humanity! I love Madonna as much as the next gay guy, which is why someone should be shot for allowing these photos to be taken. Then, someone else should be shot for letting them leak without a even a hint of airbrushing. I really thought the arm/hand veins could be overcome with the right pair of opera gloves, but there is just no recovering from a granny thong pinched by a skin-flab roll.

At the moment, it’s tough to find a savings account that offers more than 3.5%, and long-term (as in two-to-three-year) CDs are only a point or so above that lately. However, there are a few banks eager to attract new customers with high promotional rates. One that caught my eye recently is Dollar Savings Direct, which has been offering 4% for the past few months. Dollar Savings Direct is a division of Emigrant Direct, one of the most popular online banks in the country. It makes sense that the company wouldn’t want to raise the rate all their current customers receive just to reel in new customers. So, the decision to create a separate division with an unusually high promo rate isn’t as strange as it might seem at first. I doubt the rate will remain at 4% for much longer, but even with a half-point rate cut, Dollar Savings Direct’s rate would still be very competitive.

If you’re in Chicago and you prefer a bank you can see and touch, you could try American Eagle Bank of Chicago. They’re currently offering a promotion that starts at 3% for the first year, then goes up to 4% for the second year. I’m pretty sure this is a savings account and not a CD, but you should definitely call a customer service rep for more info before taking the plunge. American Eagle is a very small bank, so don’t expect great things from their online banking system or their staff. They’re nice, but they’re not used to dealing with customers who can’t come to their local branch whenever they need something.

I left American Eagle because I found a bank in Ohio named CNB that was offering a higher rate. Once I finally got the account set up, things at CNB were fine. However, I can’t wholeheartedly recommend them since setting up the account required a lot of calling to check on the status of the paperwork and asking the service reps to resend emails that never made it to my inbox. CNB is currently offering 3.5%, which is quite good, so feel free to visit the CNB Bank Direct website if you’re feeling extra patient and would like to give them a try. They cut their rate from 4% to 3.5% after the last fed rate cut, so I’m hopeful that the current rate might be here to stay for a while, unlike Dollar Savings Direct, which is long overdue for a rate cut.

From now on, the word “vagina” will be replaced with “vuh-jean” in all my conversations.

Someone deserves a Pulitzer for coming up with this tabloid headline about Daniel Craig. Something about it just makes me crack up, especially if I read it aloud.

Also, how have I not heard of defamer.com? It’s like PerezHilton.com, but funny…plus I don’t feel all dirty after visiting. It’s well past midnight and I can’t stop reading the hard-hitting articles like this one about Lisa Rinna’s boobs. That article led me to this clip of her torrid lap dance with Richard Simmons, which was worth the wait. (You HAVE to read the first paragraph of the corresponding article.)

Something is seriously wrong when you’ve gone so far down the rabbit hole of random blog article cross-linking that you eventually find yourself on Amazon staring at a track listing for Sanjaya’s debut EP and all you have to show for it is a deep sense of shame and no memory of the events of the past 20 minutes. Something is also seriously wrong when a random, late-night search for shirtless photos of Daniel Craig leads me to my best blog find in ages. Go figure.

Like so many people, I learned a lot of investing lessons the hard way in 2008. Lesson number one: the vast majority of mutual funds don’t outperform the market. I’ve heard this a hundred times before, but it really didn’t sink in until I watched all of my funds lose over half of their value in 2008. Now I feel torn about what to do with any new money I save in 2009. On the one hand, I know I’m supposed to put more money into the market when it’s down. However, I feel like a fool for paying high fees to mutual fund managers who aren’t even adept enough to match the returns of the market.

John C. Bogle recognized this problem years ago when he began his career on Wall Street, which is why he founded The Vanguard Group. Today, Vanguard is known for the low fees it charges for the management of its mutual funds. Vanguard’s index funds match the performance of broad indexes like the S&P 500 at minimal cost to the investor.

If you believe the stock market will recover eventually and continue to offer returns consistent with its past performance, index funds are a great investment now. The only downside is that index funds aren’t very sexy. If you’re more of a do-it-yourselfer, you might want to buy a few individual stocks on your own. This can be a smart move if you stick to companies that feel you know well and you don’t invest any money you’ll need in the next few years. In addition, you should be willing to do a few hours of research, review the company’s recent financial statements, and compare its performance to its competitors’.

If that doesn’t sound too scary, you might want to open a trading account with a discount broker like Scottrade. At $7 per trade, they’re one of the cheapest online brokers and I’ve had a great experience using them in the past. If $7 still sounds pricey, you can try zecco.com, which offers 10 free trades per month for all their clients. Their site has advertisements and isn’t quite as user friendly as others I’ve tried, but the commission savings can really add up if you wind up making more than one or two trades a year.

For those of you looking for more reliable short-term options, I’ll post a follow up soon on banks offering savings accounts with the highest available rates of return.