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Looking for something special? Looking for something you won’t find at your local IKEA? In this day in age the harder something is to find, the more it’s coveted. The ascension of hipster chic, which doesn’t seem to be going anywhere any time soon, has made a vintage store in every arts district standard operating procedure. Need something perfectly distressed, shiny with the patina of man-made age? Either head for the nearest arts district or crack open the online classifieds.

Only those in the know, so to speak, are privy to the world of high finance. Though the triumphs and monumental failures of Wall Street are well documented every day — either by radio or scrolling ticker on any number of news or financial television programs. We have become de facto fans of the market. When it rises, we are supposed to be elated. When it crashes, we are supposed to be mortified — and perhaps for good reason.

Welcome to your life, as a walking, unscripted film. Yes, the convention of imagining one’s life as a movie is trite in this media-saturated culture. Any preening hipsters on Rodeo Drive can attest to the fatuous belief that we are all the star of our own movie. Perhaps this is true, after all we can only know consciousness from within, looking out. We can only presuppose the consciousness of others, much like presupposing the reality — how every briefly — of the actors on the screen.

The star the burns twice a bright, lasts half as long. The next great star will surely come from the humblest of origins. This is a truism that is particularly apt in the entertainment industry. The actor that comes from an MFA program or carries PhD credentials is the actor doomed to play the FBI section chief or the bumbling father in a Doritos commercial. No, the great stars are never academic, and are always a generation removed from the blue-collar toil their parents were burdened with.

Entering the vaunted realm of high finance doesn’t entail anything more than creating a user name and a password and possessing a valid bank account or credit card. The rest, as they say, is a piece of cake. To learn to trade does not necessarily require anything more than being able to interpret the market trends and making the right trade at the right time, with the right stock, of course.

Personally, I think glasses are hip. They’ve got an appeal that resists all attempts to laser away their need. They convey a crisp cloister kind of look that screams bookworm and intellectual. Maybe it’s not fair. Maybe it’s all cultural detritus, but the bottom line still holds firm. If you want to convey a sense of intelligence and superiority, a nice pair of glasses will do that for you.

No doubt about it — Portland reeks of cool. In fact, it’s so cool, it’s hip. Though it tends to be overshadowed by Seattle to the north and Vancouver, even farther north, Portland has remained a vibrant, thriving little city. It is the third most populous city in the area and happens to be Oregon’s largest city.

As the Yuletide season is set to kick into full gear, it means that you’ve got to maximize your time and prune down your shopping list. Now, if it so happens that you or someone you know works in the corporate sector, you may want to think about some corporate Christmas gifts. Yeah, they can be cheesy and yes, they tend to be gift baskets.

As a personal assistant to a “B” actress, life tends to have its ups and downs. The ups come right after I get off work and the downs come when I walk in her Hollywood Hills mansion. Sometimes the downs come ringing to life at 3 AM with a shopping list. What does a bag of Kettle chips, band aids, Windex, and detachable erasers have in common? It boggles the mind. Try punching in an address into your GPS tracking device at 3 AM and see if you can stay awake.

Ah, the’90s. What a decade. The Seattle scene crackled through the air waves while home computers took up an entire desk. PULP FICTION, Bill Clinton, and O.J. Simpson captured our imaginations and made us think twice about basements, cigar smoking, and leather gloves. As the Internet boom swelled and everything we had been taught in 8th grade computer science class went right out the window, one thing became abundantly clear: making money was easy in Dot Com World. Being the next Bill Gates or Mark Cuban was just a matter of time.