The Ferrari In My Dreams
Why would I dream about a sleek, red Ferrari ? Is there such a thing as a "Ferrari 16E", and does it really only cost $16K? It was all through my dreams last night, zipping around tightly forested mountain curves, parking in well-guarded lots and taking me to a concert by The Church in Malta (now I *know* it's a dream!) where the band dressed all in black and engaged in strange choreography and sang songs more random than usual.

I'm not a car person; I drive a Saturn SL2 that is cheap, reliable and I'm told is quite dull as cars go. "But a car is just an air conditioner on wheels!" I reply, while my subconscious dreams of a better ride with the top down. I note that the dream did touch upon one real aspect of my waking life...it's cheap :) I've been on a money kick lately, saving money where I can, cooking for myself at home, watching the stock market and my 401K and investing at Prosper.com just to see if it works.

Prosper is a person-to-person lending site, where a borrower explains how much they need and tries to find people willing to loan to them. Lots of lenders each kick in at least $50 and the interest rate (measured as simple, not compound) is slowly bid down and down until a comfort level is reached that both sides are happy with. People with great credit scores usually get around 9-10%, high risk people around 29% *if* they get funded at all. My 10 loans should average around 17% compounded ROI, including the risk that some will default on the loan. I started a month ago and the two loans who's first payment was due today have both done so. It's all about finding people who's credit is bad because of past mistakes but who's life is now in an upswing. Good job, paying their bills and debts and they're using prosper to cut the size of those bills down. My brother is trying it too.

I'm resurrecting Mercury MailRoom, my shareware program, by dropping the price to $20 - maybe some interest will arise this time. And I've added advertising to my Church site - its on track to making about $5/mth at the moment.

BTW The image is a fractal I created with Ultrafractal - image source available on request.