My past few days have been marked by a series of miniature disasters. Last week I bought another 50 shares of Intel stock to go with the 50 shares I purchased a month or so ago.

Late last week, Warner Bros. announced they would discontinue their HD-DVD offerings this spring. Great news for Sony, whose crappy overpriced game console makes for a great, affordable Blu-Ray player. Bad news for… well, Intel, for one, but also for anybody annoyed with Sony’s storied history of seeing how many ways you can put “expensive” and “proprietary” in the same sentence.

And then the Buckeyes got smoked in the national championship game. Again. As it turns out, the analysts saying the Big Ten’s down and the SEC is up are still right. At least Brandon Saine got to see the ball sometime other than the last 2:00 of the 4th quarter, and Chris Wells threw about the most brutal stiff-arm in history.

Finally, I got a friendly email this morning from Chase cardmember services. “Your payment is due” is lender-ese for “Your payment was due three weeks ago, but this automated email doesn’t go out until you’ve incurred a late fee and some finance charges.” Thanks, guys. Sorry I’ve been trying to starve your children by always paying my statement in full.