A sad week with the passing of a childhood villain/hero Maurice “the Mad Dog” Vachon. Mad Dog battled all comers, good guys, bad guys he didn’t care, he was a wild man and a true show man. Today’s wrestlers owe a large debt of gratitude to Maurice, who worked well into his 60’s and always “did his duty” in terms of putting over other wrestlers and such too. For me, he will always be the model for the “Tough Son of a Gun“, and I am saddened that he has left us. Hopefully he is biting Tarzan Tyler’s head, and stomping on Andre the Giants hand in a giant Battle Royale wherever they have gone.

Maurice “Mad Dog” Vachon

As for the English Men, I was delighted to hear that the remaining Monty Python lads will be getting together to do a stage show some time in the future. It should be interesting to see what they brew up for our entertainment, as it has been a while since they last worked together in a Python fashion.

For those who don’t understand my title, it is a reference to a song written (and sung) by Noel Coward about how only “Mad Dogs and Englishmen“, go out in the noon day’s sun. It is also a very interesting album (and movie) by Joe Cocker.

As for Mad Dogs, no, I won’t make a reference to Mayor Ford, but you could fill in the blanks on that one any how.

I have just finished the 6th “management seminar” of my long career, and I am glad to see that the “I’m OK, You’re OK Corral” management science world continues to churn out new (and interesting) ideas of how to be a better manager. If you catch me using the expression “Mental Model” that is me using one of the new and exciting buzz words from this seminar (and you know my love for buzzwords).

My Weekly Recap

Choice Picks for the Week

An interesting week in the world of personal finance writing, shall we wander around and see what’s what? OK, let’s do that:

• Michael James wants to help clear up Two Common Misconceptions about TFSAs , and they do seem to be common mistakes ( I have heard folks mention these).
• Rob Carrick wrote in the Globe about the Rise of the miserable Canadian Home Owner, I am a home owner, and not overly happy, but my house doesn’t have much to do with it.
• Mark at Blunt Bean Counter gives us Wealth & Estate Planning Missteps seems to be a bad week for folks making mistakes with their moneys.
• Marie from Boomer and Echo talks about a topic I have wanted to write about, but don’t know enough about The Scoop on Preferred Shares . I remember a little from my Bus 111 course about these shares, but not enough to make me write about it (stop chuckling, I do actually worry about the content on my site).
• Kerry at Squawkfox gives us the oddest titled post Sometimes you have to Shave the Yak, read it and figure it out.
• Larry MacDonald points out The questionable benefits of tax-loss harvesting, again, Larry points out a mistake we are making, seems like a scolding week on the web.
• Glenn from Life Insurance Canada joins in with the Toronto discussions with Why Rob Ford can’t get life insurance , somehow I don’t think that is his biggest problem right now, but it will be later on.
• Mark from My Own Advisor brings us Tax Free Investing – TFSAs 101 which helps explain what a TFSA can be used for (and what it is).
• Frequest commenter Bet Crooks joins in my 4% pull down discussions with Retirement Planning: What Rate of Inflation Should I Use?
• The Physics of Finance gives us Cleaning up finance? That WOULD be a surprise , unfortunately, yes it would be.
• Preet ressurects his Zombie Blog with  The biggest, weirdest hedge fund in the world is a cult? a very entertaining post, wonder if this means there might be more posts soon? He also has a new Podcast post with Som Seif @SomSeif explains his new ETF and mutual fund offerings for Canadians

Mad Dog Tribute

The CBC covered his final bout here:

Non-Financial Magic Video

Will Houdini escape the straight-jacket?

Other Bookkeeping

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