Once in a while if you have good credit, you’ll get offered some money to open a financial account that not everyone else gets. I received a targeted offer from Capital One recently $100 to open up a savings account with 6 months of 1.1% APR. If you have a referral from a Capital one customer, you can get another $20 (they get $50).

I went in to speak with a banker, and they pulled my info to confirm my eligibility (I didn’t need to bring in the actual offer). Of course he tried to get me to open a Premier Rewards Checking account as well. I usually don’t fall for the upsell, but look at the Rewards-

These aren’t worth much- only half a cent per mile if redeemed for cash back. But that’s $50 just for opening the account and making 1 direct deposit, which isn’t hard to do. The other rewards are just nickels and dimes.

Capital One’s checking accounts are some of the best – they reimburse up to $15 for other banks ATM fees per month and have non-zero interest rates in addition to the rewards. My checking account at Charles Schwab has comparable rates at .4% and reimburses all ATM fees internationally but doesn’t give me any rewards. After further consideration, I’m switching over to Capital One for domestic checking.

Key Points:

VantageScore was created by the 3 major credit bureaus to compete against FICO, which is used by the vast majority of lenders. The main advantage of VantageScore is that it's free and easily obtained. It is in version 3.0, and like FICO, is scored out 850 points.

Since VantageScore is used by less than 10% of lenders (this is changing, although FICO isn't going anywhere this decade), but easily obtained through any number of free sources, you should adjust your VantageScore to reflect your FICO score. The biggest difference is that credit inquiries are weighted far less by FICO.

This is a masturbatory summary of how my credit / wealth situation has changed in the last few years.

CreditKarma Score: 760

This is up a few points from last year, which may be due to CK's change in algorithm to Vantagescore 3.0, or just the aging of my credit history. I have more / higher credit lines now, but I have never kept a balance, so I wouldn't expect it to change all that much.

I use my Barclay Arrival World most frequently, since the bulk of my spending is on restaurants, and I won't keep extra cards in my wallet just so I can get 1% more cash back on something every now and then. Many of these cards I only opened for the promotions, and just sit in my archives aging to better my credit score (The age and amount of credit are two major determinants of credit score). Transunion is still reporting about a dozen hard inquiries which really hurts my. Hopefully by the time I need a loan, these won't affect my score any more.

Shirt manufacturers don't make it easy for toned guys to find a shirt. By sizing shirts for the increasingly heavier American male, manufacturers capture a larger market, leaving us gentlemen with tapered torsos with fewer options. This is not a matter of style- if you are at all thin, a regular, or 'modern fit' shirt will not fit, and is analagous to JNCO jeans.

From much experimentation, I've found that most shirts labeled 'Slim Fit' will fit most fat men just fine. Body builders and fullbacks might fill out a typical 'slim fit' shirt but guys with swimmers' bodies will be swimming in it.

After much searching, I picked up a few of the more affordable slimmest cuts I could find. They are:

For reference, I am 5' 9" and 140 lbs. My shoulders are considerably wider than my waist.

If you are ever offered the chance to work from Sunday-Thursday, I highly recommend it. But on Fridays I have to get creative when my friends are busy. So I went to the Lower East Side to check out some new places to eat. One of them was Stage, a tiny Ukrainian diner right next to STOMP in the East Village. My friend insisted I check it out months ago, but I never had time since they are closed on Sundays. The fried pierogies and cream of turkey soup were good, but the homemade bread was amazing. Eastern Europe food is very starchy, fatty, and sparsely spiced, but I've had it many times in my life and I still get cravings for it when I've been eating too much Malaysian food. Stage is a cash-only budget diner, and lives up to its Yelp reputation. I will come back and for the blintzes and turkey dinner. 5 out of 5.

I've been to a lot of places around the world and eaten a lot of things. I'm far from a picky eater (i.e. whiny pain in the fucking ass), I know this because I have a friend who is, and everything he orders is served with a side of misery and neurosis. But I am somewhat jaded, having eaten things that have set new gastronomic standards for me countless times. This adds a layer of difficulty in the already complicated process of finding a restaurant in New York that can really impress.

I say that NYC makes this difficult because word-of-mouth spreads so fast that when a hot restaurant gets 'discovered', it blows up overnight as local foodies flock to see for themselves. Long waits form, and assuming the staff can keep up, their reputation builds upon itself, attracting even more visitors. It doesn't take long for expectations to increase, as well as prices, until the more finicky patrons start labeling it 'overrated', 'overpriced', or 'not what it used to be'.

Notable examples of this would be the David Chang restaurants (Momofuku Ssam, Noodle Bar, etc.) and Katz's Deli.

I think the blame lies somewhere in the middle between the restaurants and the notorious reputation of New Yorkers for having unrealistic expectations.