Busy, busy, busy.

To start things off, the SEC filing for my purchase of shares in Mamma.com hit the tape. Everyone wanted to know why. Why this stock. Particularly when I usually am opposed to investing in any non dividend paying stocks at all. At some point I will write a book, ok maybe not a book, but definitely a couple blogagraphs on why I think the stock market is closer to a Ponzi Scheme or chain letter than it is an efficient market. But not today.

I invested in mamma.com for the same reason I invested in Netidentity.com back when it was known as mailbank.com. I love businesses with low overhead, that don’t need to be technology leaders to succeed, that generate cash that they can put in the bank, and at some point, hopefully payout to shareholders. I think mamma.com has that potential.

It’s not Google or Yahoo, nor will it be a top 5 search engine anytime soon. But it is a good metasearch tool that I use and have used. Google and Yahoo have become carbon copies of each other, and for me, other than usenet and news searches, it’s too big. I like the way Mamma.com organizes websearches, and I use it for picture searches.

I’m not going to make a big investment in a company just becauseI use its product. I invested in the company because it generates cash. I’m not into PE ratios, Price to Sales, etc., etc. I’m into good ole fashioned cash.

The company has a simple business proposition: sell its web traffic and keep expenses very low. As long as it can continue to grow its traffic and keep costs down, it will do what I expect of it put money in the bank at a rate of 15 pct or more of sales.

Hopefully, I will be able to help it along by cross-promoting it with other businesses I have, and providing technical and marketing support for their management team. Nothing in the business world is a sure thing, and please don’t invest in this company because I did, but I obviously like the company’s prospects.

Now that we are no longer talking about my Mamma.com, we can get to the follow up to my NBA business at hand. I’m not sure which will happen first, that you will read this blog entry, or see a Press Release from the NBA, but they fined me 10k dollars. Why? That’s where the fun starts.

In my conversation with the NBA’sRick Buchanan, who really is a good guy in a thankless job, he told me I was being fined becauseI told the media whatI had told Josh Howard. (You can seemyprevious entry for details).I wasn’t being fined because of what I said to Josh. Merely because I had told the media what I had told Josh.

In true NBA fashion, it doesn’t deal with the issues that necessitated my talking to Josh. The NBA feels that if they fine you, the reason you were upset and spoke out will go away and and everyone will forget that it’s a problem. Unfortunately, they are right. The NBA is a haven for short attention span theater fans.

Back to my fine…The league felt thatgiven the coverage of the discussion (they were quick to point out how many articles had been written about it) and the climate in the media following the craziness surrounding the Todd Bertuzzi-Steve Moore incident, that they needed to send a message. I can understand that. No problem.

What will once again be fun is to watch how the media covers the fine. They of course will write and report that I am being fined for “putting out a bounty on Bruce Bowen,” which of course I never did, but works a whole lot better in a story. Or some of the more responsible reporters will write thatI was fined for my “comments to Josh Howard in reponse tothe Bowen/Finley altercation,” which of course is incorrect as well. Think anyone will report that I was fined because I commented to the media? Me neither.

One last note, as is my habit, I will match the fine with a donation to charity. In this case it will be to Sickle Cell Anemia Research in the name of Taylor Delk, Tony’s daughter who has the disease.

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