Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger just signed a major contract extension with the team today. It’s a record-setting deal for the franchise that will pay Big Ben $102 million over the course of the next 8 years. A full $36 million is guaranteed, while the rest can be earned through various escalators and bonuses.

Wow, $102 million is a LOT of money! At that point, why not just give Roethlisberger fractional ownership of the team and leave it at that??

Actually, this is one signing that I’m completely in favor of. I’m not a Steelers fan or anything, but this decision was a no-brainer for the organization. Roethlisberger is just 26 years old, has already led the team to a Super Bowl title, and has a tremendous amount of upside ahead of him. Plus, he seems like a pretty good guy who doesn’t get into much trouble off the field (when he’s not riding motorcycles, that is).

I can only sit here and imagine what it would be like to have a franchise quarterback locked up for that long. Here in Chicago, the Bears have gone through, what, 22 starting quarterbacks in the last 15 years or so? Ugh.

I received my dividend from the PayPal Money Market Fund over the weekend. It was a disappointing $15.08, which is actually less than what I earned last month — despite the fact that I had a higher balance all month long.

The reason for the decline, of course, is the fact that the stated 7-day average yield has dipped to 3.35%, the lowest it has been during my membership period (14 months). Last month on dividend day, the yield was 3.76%, so things are continuing to go downhill.

I already know that my next payout will be very small. I’ve got to move a lot of money out of my account to pay for my credit card bill and taxes, so I won’t have much left in the fund. I predict that my next dividend will be less than $10.