For the first time ever, you can send your new years wishes to time square… via confetti.

Go to the Wishing Wall Online and enter your new years message. Click on submit and your message will be printed on a piece of multicolored confetti and dumped on visitors to Times Square on New Years eve. The message-carrying pieces will be mixed among the more than one ton of confetti.

Also, there will be a new look for this years New Years Ball.

The new Times Square New Year’s Eve Ball is more than twice as bright as the old one, with enhanced color capabilities and state-of-the-art LED lighting effects. …

Read more…

While I was out of town visiting relatives for Christmas, President Bush signed a bill freezing the alternative minimum tax (AMT) for one year.

This will provide relief to more than 20 million taxpayers that would have faced the AMT this year alone! Last year 4 million paid the AMT, and this year it was projected that 25 million people would be held to the fire. To put it in the most basic terms, the AMT would cost you an extra $2,000 if you were subjected to it. Yeah, that would’ve stung a bit.

Evidently, the bill was passed by Congress just before the holiday recess, and …

I got a letter in the mail from the small-town accounting firm I used last year to do my taxes. I decided to use this firm after a local CPA raked me over the coals for $1300 to prepare my taxes. The small-town firm only charged half as much.

According to the letter, my CPA, who was fluent in oil and gas taxes, unexpectedly had a massive heart attack and died. It could not have happened to a nicer guy. He was a very laid back, no frills, get it done efficiently, and oh, by the way, how is …

I bought more Provident Energy (PVX: chart, web, Y!) today, adding another 50 shares to my holdings. Crude oil ($wtic: chart) spiked on the news that Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in Pakistan, and natural gas ($natgas: chart) is holding its own above $7 going into the cold weather season.

I’m playing the trend. I’m in the stock for the dividend, but if the price rises to $13 I’ll definitely take some off the table. 30% price appreciation is too much to pass up, especially when you see it coming. …

From the Corner Office to you and yours, a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Trans-Siberian Orchestra
Christmas Canon Rock

A quick note, comments posted to The Corner Office Blog will be reviewed and approved for posting after the Christmas Holiday.  Merry Christmas!

-Grant

My good buddy MJ over at Dyslexic Research forwarded me an article on how President Bush signed a bill to increase fuel efficiency standards to 35 MPG by the year 2020. Also lumped into the bill was a required ramp-up of the use of ethanol at refineries from about 6 billion gallons a year this year to 36 billion gallons by 2022 and additional mandates that by then at least 21 billion gallons are to come from feedstocks other than corn.

I like the fact that we’re raising fuel efficiency standards, finally. However I don’t think we’re exactly pushing …

It seems that not everyone in the scientific community is so hip to the Global Warming movement. Yesterday a detailed report was released by the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee revealing that over 400 prominent scientists disputed man-made global warming claims in 2007, as embellished by former Vice President Al Gore in his movie “An Inconvenient Truth’.

It’s about time!

The scientists named in this report, who are from more than two dozen countries, recently voiced objections to major aspects of the so-called “consensus” on man-made global warming. These scientists, many of whom participated in the UN IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), spoke critically about …

My Provident Energy Trust (PVX: chart, web, Y!) has been on the slide since the beginning of November. I can’t figure out why.

The only conclusion I can come to is that it’s attributed to end of year tax selling, but that theory only makes marginal sense. After all, PVX is continuing its CDN$0.12 monthly dividend, and fundamentally, I don’t see why they’d drop the distribution any time soon. Crude oil ($wtic: chart) is still North of $90 per barrel, and natural gas ($natgas: chart) is holding above $7 per MCF….

If you’d like to send a Christmas card to a wounded soldier, an organization called Soldiers’ Angels is teaming up with the Red Cross to deliver holiday mail to service members recovering at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
Send your holiday cards to either of the following addresses:

Soldiers’ Angels
1792 E. Washington Blvd.
Pasadena, Calif. 91104

Or

We Support You During Your Recovery!
c/o American Red Cross
P.O. Box 419
Savage, MD 20763-0419

You can find more information at www.AmericaSupportsYou.mil

An additional note:

Be sure to affix adequate postage. Multiple cards without envelopes may be placed in one mailing envelope or a …