Apparently one of the most highly-coveted “status symbols” among wealthy Americans isn’t a car, an airplane, a building, a gadget, a golf course, or some other kind of realty. Instead, it’s just a black credit card with an American Express logo emblazoned on it. It used to be “offered” on an individual basis, by invitation only. How “exclusive.” Now that the American economy is essentially tanking, the think tank at Amex has decided to throw open the gates to their most coveted of plastic trinkets to anyone who qualifies — I guess they’re hoping more wealthy folks will decide “yeah, I’ve totally gotta have that thing before I can really claim I’m wealthy.”

Accordingly, here are helpful guidelines to qualify for the American Express Black Card. The article itself is obviously astroturf or an ad (or at least it reads like one, with such copy as “enjoy the privilege that Black Card offers you”) and presents useful information if you really do care about getting your paws on one. In a nutshell — to “earn” a Black Card, you need to not actually need it. Minimum income of $250k per year, immaculate credit, and a $5k “initiation” fee. We can only assume there’s one hell of an annual fee to go along with it.

The “benefits” of possessing such a miraculous piece of plastic? American Express always claims that their cards have no preset limits (which is bullocks since the one I had a few years back had a very firm limit clearly printed on my monthly statements), but apparently the Black Card actually doesn’t have one, or if it does, it’s really, really high. Black Card holders are assigned a personal concierge, who seems to handle all account inquiries, issues, and billing (so you don’t call a phone bank, you call a single person). It’s claimed that your personal AmEx butler can get you in at all the trendy restaurants and shows (even the overbooked ones — I guess next time you try to watch a show and can’t get tickets, it’s because big companies like AmEx have bought all the tickets to resell to their Black Card holders) and even send someone to “help you shop” when you need it.

One of the more amusing tidbits from the article though is the one that prompted me to start this entry:

You might have won the lottery and landed with a lot of cash, but if you have a terrible credit history; you might want to rethink about dreaming of an American Express Black Card.

This makes me laugh my ass off. Nobody sane (with any kind of legitimate financial sense, anyway) actually “dreams” of credit cards (either at night or when they’re awake).

I can assure you if I ever win the lottery (or experience some other kind of windfall), I will retain (in advance, in cash) the services of an attorney, an accountant, and a financial planner, all at different firms, in that order. The absolute last thing on my mind will be “gosh, I wonder how much money I can borrow now?” Given that I don’t play the lottery, I’ll actually have to go work for my windfall (dammit ).

If you’ve won the lottery, you already have plenty of cash — you don’t need the assistance of a big corporation to get into the “good” shows, as you’ll have plenty of invitations from everyone who wants your cash already. Once your net worth hits the seven digit range, your credit rating becomes a smaller part of the “bigger” financial picture for you, and as the net worth grows, the importance of your individual credit score diminishes even more until it doesn’t matter at all anymore. Think about it — once you reach a point where you can quite literally pay cash for almost anything you can imagine, why bother borrowing money unless it can eventually make (or save) you money?

If you’re not at a point where you can actually qualify for a Black Card, being driven by an intense desire to have one falls squarely in the category of “you’re doing it wrong.”

Sadly, my Canon Powershot A570 IS camera kicked the bucket over the weekend. It’s now unwilling to reliably extend and retract the lens; since that’s sort of a vital function, it’s not strictly usable or reliable in its current state. The good news is Canon will repair it (it’s under warranty, after all), so all I had to do to kick start that process was ship it to them so they can check it out and fix the beast.

I have an account with DHL, a very good shipping company and courier, who are a decent amount cheaper than FedEx and UPS, and more reliable (and faster … heh, go figure). In many cases they’re even faster/cheaper than the United States Postal Service for similar service (in-state, DHL is cheaper by about fifty cents and faster, as in “it’s there the day after you send it,” than the USPS’ Priority Mail service, which can take up to a week despite the short distance). Since their offering met Canon’s requirements for the shipment (must include tracking and shipment must be insured for actual camera cost), they were my first choice to get this thing into Canon’s hands.

The bummer was I didn’t have the right size box or the packing materials to adequately protect the camera on its way in for repairs. I figured I could swing by the drop-off spot I use for normal DHL shipments, buy a box and some bubble wrap from them, and have them ship it themselves. I’ll never do that again.

While the shop’s packaging materials were fairly cheap (two bucks for a box and some bubble wrap isn’t a colossal ripoff), they really bent me over on the shipping. Had I just sent it myself with my own DHL account, the shipment would have cost a whopping $6.50. This place charged $12.04 for the same exact shipment (I just punched in all the info from their own receipt/copy of the waybill and got my own quote to confirm). Spending $14.15 to have a camera less than six months old serviced under warranty annoys me, but if it comes back in working order, I’ll accept it and move on. And I probably won’t be buying any of Canon’s smaller cameras anymore — they’re just too fragile. Since eventually I want to move up to a digital SLR anyway, I’ll be in a different market by the time I’m ready for a new camera in a few years.

The lesson learned here is it’s ultimately worth it to always keep a few of the boxes that random stuff you order online shows up in, because it can be reused to send to someone else if you need to. It also pays to deal with the shipping companies yourself, and skip these stupid shipping shops. They can’t resist skimming some pure profit off the part of the business they have the least direct involvement in.

About a year and a half ago, a client of mine sent me an unexpected gift in the form of five books: Ender’s Game and Ender’s Shadow by Orson Scott Card, and Titan, Wizard, and Demon by John Varley. The three Varley books were a trilogy, and I actually really enjoyed it. The two books by Card are the first in their respective series of books set in the Ender’s Game universe … I’ll let you guess which one started the whole thing

It’s important to note I didn’t pay for the books. They were shipped to me straight from Amazon, so it’s clear they were brand new, but money didn’t leave my pockets to cause those books to land in my possession.

I actually read the Titan trilogy first — when I realized how big the Ender’s Game series was, I decided to tackle a smaller pile of books first. When I finally got to Ender’s Game, I absolutely loved it, and immediately set about acquiring the rest of the books in both Ender’s Game series and the Ender’s Shadow series. To do this, I went to half.com … no point in paying retail for six books when I could snag them all for under $20 (including shipping).

All the Wal-mart haters out there, rejoice; I probably just cost them a few cents more than normal on this gas transaction. Hehehe! (You should probably view the full-size version of this one. It’s worth it.)

In redeeming some points I’ve earned on an unrelated site over the past couple of months, I turned in four sets of 1,500 “points” for four $10 gift cards at Wal-mart (yup, I shop there; feel free to hate me for it ). In true bureaucratic style, instead of just mailing me a single card worth $40, they really did just send me four cards worth $10 each.

Nothing says “pain in the ass” like busting out four gift cards just to buy $40 in groceries, so I decided to save a cashier having to waste time with it, and have some fun at a self-service gas pump at the gas station in Wal-mart’s parking lot.

It’s run by “Murphy USA,” and offer remarkably competitive prices on gas, and they also accept Wal-mart gift cards. As an added bonus, they yank $0.03 off the per-gallon price for using a gift card, and, in what must be an absolute gaming of the “system,” you can buy gift cards in the store with a credit card (which means you can use a PayPal card, which isn’t actually credit, but debit, and get an extra 1.5% cash back on the purchase).

At a quick stop at a store with a friend of mine this afternoon I happened to glance at a Consumer Reports magazine sitting on a magazine rack; one of the smaller little blurbs on the cover read “It Pays to Bundle Web, TV, and Phone!” I started thinking — is it really worth it?

It seemed like a good time to sit down and actually figure out what I spend every month on those separate “utilities” to see if I’m getting fleeced or if I’m getting a bargain.

At the risk of sounding like I’m just gunning to prove Consumer Reports wrong, let me point out, right up front, that I’m not: I used to subscribe to the magazine, and though I let my subscription lapse because I found some of their reporting biased, I do generally respect their opinions and research.

Also, I should point out that in doing my little bit of digging here, I only researched pricing for my area (Central Florida), not national averages. I don’t have any legitimate reason to believe pricing is significantly different anywhere else in the country; anywhere you can get broadband, it’s priced about the same.