Clark sometimes gives advice on air that he doesn't take -- and then he gets hit with the consequences. Here's an example of his self-proclaimed financial stupidity: Clark predicted that there would be a big push during the Christmas shopping season for hi-def DVD players, either Sony's Blu-ray or Toshiba's HD DVD. The two formats were in a war and he advised consumers to stay out on the sidelines until the marketplace sorted things out. But then he turned around and got a steal of a deal on a Toshiba HD DVD player. Clark jumped because the deal included the player and 5 free movies. He and his wife both loved the picture quality from their HD DVD player.

But now Blu-ray has won the format war, so Clark is stuck with a largely worthless piece of equipment. Now he'll have to wait until the studios put their remaining HD DVD titles on quadruple markdown clearance and snatch them up. As for you, this coming Christmas will be a good time to buy a Blu-ray player or a Sony PlayStation 3, which features built-in Blu-ray. If you're in the same boat as Clark with his dinosaur player, you can also get an HD up-convert DVD player that uses computer technology to simulate a hi-def picture from your existing standard-def DVDs. Clark and his family watched the third Indiana Jones flick on an up-convert and it looked great.