USA TODAY SNUBS MR. SERIN IN FAVOR OF MR. SWABY AND FLIPPER NATION!

GENTLEMEN,

USA Today printed an article in today's "Money" section entitled "Many investors feel like running away from homes." Mr. SERIN, who did not run away from his homes but is currently running from his unsecured creditors, was amazingly not featured in this piece. In fact, the usual references to IAFF that would be made in the past were replaced with those to the "Web mockumentary" Flipper Nation. Even more unusual, Mr. SWABY was called on to give a detailed accounting of his finances -- even mentioning his stock picks! Unfortunately, the article's author, Matt KRANTZ, did omit certain details. From their conversation:

KRANTZ: You sold two of your homes in 2005. Where are you investing that money now?

SWABY: I have a high-yield savings account, a diversified stock mutual fund and four stocks: Procter & Gamble, Nortel Networks, Revlon and United Airlines. I also have a pond, filled with koi.

KRANTZ: Are those fish?

SWABY: They can skeletonize a cow in two minutes!

KRANTZ: ...

I read this article over my breakfast, and even spilled my coffee as the words "Nigel SWABY" jumped out at me from the page. Luckily I had my camera handy:

"You're not going to eat that," thinks Lou MINATTI after seeing this picture. "You just staged the photograph. Look at where the plate, coffee, and ashtray are. On the top of the paper?" Guess what, Mr. MINATTI? You are absolutely correct!

Mr. SERIN was informed, on two different occasions in the past seven days, that his fifteen minutes of fame were over. The fact that he wasn't included in the final section, entitled "Flippers deal with their fates," should be a reminder to him that the public is not altogether eager to hear his fate.

I am afraid they already know how the story will end.

I remain,

M. SINGH

GENTLEMEN,

Thank you for your positive comments concerning my admonishment of Mr. SERIN. I am glad it was well received.

I did not expect him to take my call. The reason I called in was that the TalkShoe Live client kept giving me a choppy audio feed, and I noticed from last night that one does not have this problem over the telephone.

Now, concerning my accent:

I listed to my voice on both talkcasts, and even I have trouble recognizing it. This is probably because I called TalkShoe using Vonage on its "lowest quality setting," and it also appears that TalkShoe further compresses the audio stream. (To give a reference point, you may wish to compare Mr. SERIN's voice on the Suze Orman show with his voice on the talkcast. They are barely similar.)

You might also have guessed that TalkShoe normalizes the sound volume, as evidenced by my final statements to Mr. SERIN. The end result in the TalkShoe download was much, much quieter.

In closing, I am glad you enjoyed it -- and I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to my neighbors. Not only does Mr. SERIN make home ownership more difficult for them, but they also had to listen to me berate him.

I remain,

M. SINGH